THE MILITANT March 15, 1929.
March 15, 1929.
THE MILITANT Page Page The Draft Program of the Comintern compelled Call for a National Conference of the Opposition us that will not take more with This true the proletariat, with It is ish poor and usurers.
decisive stage peasants would haw peasants will of the Stalin versus Bucharin. NEW MATERIAL FROM COMRADE TROTSKY The New Struggle in the Russian Communist Party As we go to press with this issue, we have just received from Constantinople, via Berlin, drawing Kaganovitch a number of highly important documents writTHelle tre chien Comintern to the American par. Kalming vacilated at the last momentos. This was ten by comrade Trotsky in Alma Ata as soon as he was informed of the ultimatum to cease ty containing the proposal that Foster be made during the July Plenum of the Central Committee all political activity or suffer banishment from secretary, had as one of its main objects the sep last year.
the Soviet Union. This material will be pubaration of Lovestone and his group from the face Bucharin further reported a shameful incident. lished in the next issue of The Militant. It contains a brilliant analysis of the motives betion in the Russian Communist Party and the In Stalin demanded that he and not Bucharin should hind this reactionary act and a revolutionary ternational led by Bucharin, Tomsky, Rykov and report on the Program of the Comintern to the defiance of the opportunists.
other leaders of the Right Wing. The threat in Plenum, so that he (Stalin) could appear on the Stalin instructions to replace Lovestone with stage as the great theoretician of the Comin.
Foster was successful. The last day of the Party tern! Bucharin denounced Stalin and Molotovconvention here saw the passage of a resolution in the telephone conversation as ignoramuses and submitted by Lovestone and Gitlow giving un illiterates in Marxism.
qualified endorsement to the Stalin faction and In other words: Bucharin, one of the leaders of raising the demand that Bucharin be removed from the United, Leninist, Old Bolshevist Guard polithis post as chairman of the Communist Interna ical Bureau, urged Kamenev to join in a bloc to tional. The American Party is thus the first in overthrow Stalin, the other leader of the United, the International to speak openly on the bitter Leninist, Old Bolshevist Guard Political Bureau!
Political Bureau of the Communist Party of the Conference at the end of March are going ahead Soviet Union between the Center (Stalin) and the full blast with both factions working feverishly New York, March 3, 1929.
Right (Bucharin Rykov Tomsky. To All Groups of the Communist Opposition.
Trotsky spoke about this more than a year ago, for a majority: In Moscow, since Stalin had suc ceeded Dear Comrades: in removing all the supporters of but the existence of this fight was violently denied the Right from official positions, The National Action Committee, at its meeting by the entire international Communist bureaucracy gained a majority, and the Stalinite press is beating on March 10th, decided to issue a call for a Na and press. The Opposition was labelled counter the drum for the healthy, Bolshevist Moscow tional Conference of the Opposition to be held revolutionary scandal mongers for warning the organization. In Leningrad and other sections, revolutionary workers a year ago of the events the Right is in a much stronger position.
estimated that the Conference will be able to finthat are taking place now. Indeed, up until a week The significance of the whole course of affairs its work in three days. All groups standing ago, we were denounced as repeating the slanders lies in the constantly narrowing basis of the leader on the Platform of the Opposition will be entitled of the bourgeois and yellow socialist press when ship of the Russian Party and the Soviet Union. to send delegates. Each group will be entitled to we warned about the continued splitting course First Trotsky, Radek, Rakovsky, Smilga, Preobraz elect from two to five delegates with voting rights.
being followed in the Russian Party.
hensky, Serebriakov and other Opposi Additional delegates with consultative yotes may Naturally. the Stalinist press maintains a pro tion fighters were cut off from the Party. Then also be elected. The voting strength of the various found silence as to what is really happening. As was done in the fight against Trotsky and the OpZinoviev, Kamcnev, Lashevitch, and hundreds of delegations will be determined by the Conference.
Each group must finance its own delegation.
position, the Stalın clique is lining up the bureau Party and returned only to become the running The Chicago Group will provide lodging for the crats throughout the International for its factional dogs of Stalin. Now the axe is being whetted delegates.
course without the membership of the Parties by Stalin for Bucharin, Rykov, Tomsky and their knowing what in the world it is all about. Only friends. Where is Stalin going?
All groups are recommended to make provisions when the cieed is accomplished are the Party mem for the transportation of their delegates by autobers told to raise their hands to endorse it or be strength of the October Revolution against which mobile, hiking or similar means involving a minTrotsky warned in time!
readers authentic details about the fierce struggle Let worker, every Communist worker, complete Agenda for the Conference will be e to think the path of Stalin is the path lead now going on in the Communist Party of the worked out in advance in consultation with local stop to Soviet Union.
ing to degeneration! Stalin is leading the Com groups. Proposals for the Agenda should be forSince Zinoviev was removed as chairman of the munist workers blindfolded into a deeper and deep following is suggested tentatively: warded to the National Office immediately. The Comintern for supporting Trotsky and the Oppo er swamp.
sition, the entire International has been taught to Let every worker read and study the warnings of The Situation in Russia.
sing the praises of his substitute, Bucharin. Now, the Opposition led by the exiled leader of Bol The Crisis in the Communist International.
Stalin has forced Bucharin out of the Comintern shevism, Trotsky. The Communists will not be The American Situation and the Tasks of and replaced him with a tenth rate Stalinist faction led into continued blind, unquestioning support the Opposition.
agent, Molotov. Bucharin has also been kicked out of Stalin reckless opportunism. Only the Lenof the editorship of Pravda and his place taken by inist Opposition can unite the Communist move The Trade Union Question, the spineless Zinoviev who quit the Opposition to The Organization of the Communist Op.
ment on the basis of Lenin teachings!
gain the favor of Stalin.
position.
The struggle in the Political Bureau is reaching Where to Buy THE MILITANT Youth Questions.
an unheard of sharpness. Bucharin is circulating The following is a partial list of newstands, bookstores, Discussions of the Agenda should begin in the a letter sent him by Stalin in which the latter says and Agents from whom The Militant can be purchased groups at once and should center primarily on the that they (i. e.
Stalin) are the only The Militant is also obtainable from our Opposition Draft of our Platform printed in the Militant. All ones in the Pol Bureau worth anything, the rest Group Secretaries: suggestions and proposals of the local groups in of the members are nonentities.
Boston, Mass. Shapiro Bookstore, Leverett St. regard to the Conference should be sent in at once.
Stalin, on the other hand, is circulating a report Malden, Mass. Comrade Dublin, 15 Semmett St.
of a conversation between Bucharin and Kamenev Roxbury, Mass. Charles Goldberg Store, 536 Warren St. It is proposed to discuss the specific problems of the Canadian movement and of the Communist in which Bucharin refers to Stalin in very unflatChelsea, Mass. Charles Kleinfield, at Labor Lyceum.
Youth at the General Conference; but provision tering terms. In the conversation, Bucharin (and New York City and Brooklyn: will be made also for separate meetings of these also Sokolnikov) urged Kameney to beware of the At various newstands around Union Square 14th St.
delegations. Broadway, Second Third Aves. on 14th St. news attempt of Stalin to buy off Kamenev and Zinostands in the Bronx, and other stands in New York City This historic Conference will turn a new page viev with some post in the Party. Kamenev was and various stands in Brooklyn. Also, at The Militant, in the History of American Communism. It will told that the struggle in the Pol Bureau has reached 340 East 19th St. New York City, signify the firm consolidation of the vanguard of an alarming point, that the meetings reek with Troy, Allen Bookstore, Hendrick Hudson Hotel.
mutual accusations like You are a liar! and so the movement on a national scale and its ideolog.
New Haven, Conn. Gendelman, 393 Sherman Ave.
ical and on, Stalin, according to Bucharin, is following a Philadelphia, Pa. Leon Goodman, 327 So. 11th St.
organizational preparation for the struggles ahead. Delegates should be carefully selected from line that will destroy the whole revolution. He is Cleveland, Ohio, Joseph Keller, 304 Vega Ave. Bryar, the standpoint of their qualifications, their records attempting to kick us (the Bucharinites) out of 2211 East 55th St.
in the movement and their firm adherence to the the Moscow and Leningrad Pravda and to remove Youngstown, Ohio, Denis Platinos, 387 East Federal St.
Uglanov. This has already been accomplished by Detroit, Mich. Barney Mass. 8720 12th St. Apt. 2: Opposition cause.
Stalin. Stalin self criticism is a joke, and it Aidas Book Shop, 1713 24th St.
Further material on the Conference will appear is directed only against Tomsky and Uglanov. Chicago, III. Cheshinsky Community Store, 2720 in The Militant and in subsequent bulletins.
Stalin has set the secret police to shadow the BuYours fraternally, charinites and even the telephone wires are tapped! Ave. Albert Glotzer. 2610 Thomas, Ave, Horsley The National Action Committee At the same time, Stalin is following an extreme By CANNON.
Springfield, Ill, Joe Angeló, 431 No. Wesley St.
Right policy outside the Soviet Union: The CominSan Francisco, Calif. McDonald Bookstore, 76 Sixth tern has been kicked out of the Kremlin. In the Street. NEW PAMPHLET SOON Schachty trial not one of the conspirators was shot Los Angeles, Calif. Western News Stand. against the vote of Bucharin and others. Tomsky new pamphlet by comrade Trotsky is now being Richmond, Calif. Rosa Powell 704 McDonald Ave.
has said: I, Tomsky, am 30 kilometers more to the printed and will soon be ready for distribution. The Kansas City, Mo. Buehler Book Store, 220 12th St.
title of the pamphlet is The Falsification of HisRight in international questions than you, Bucharin, but I, Tomsky, am 100 kilometers more to the St. Louis, Mo. Foster Book Store, 410 Washington tory. It is a detailed exposure of the monstrous fabrications and misrepresentations of the History Seattle, Wash. Raymer Bookstore, 1616 Fourth Ave. of the Russian Revolution and the Russian Comcan Kamenev cautiously asked Bucharin how strong Toronto, Ont. Maurice Spector, 231 Palmerston St. munist Party which have been disseminated since the death of Lenin by the official Stalin machine.
he was.
Buchanin, replied that Tomsky, Rykov and Goodman, News Ver. dor, Queen St.
It quotes the testimony of Lenin his rela Uglanov could be relied upon absolutely. An Edmonton, Alta. Labor News Stand, 9796 Jasper Ave.
with Trotsky and proves unmistakeably the close dreiev is for them, and has been removed from the Hamilton, Ont. Altman, 109 So. Catharine St.
solidarity of Lenin and Trotsky on all the most Urals. Stalin has bought off the Ukraine by with Winnipeg, Man. National Book Store, Selkirk Ave. important questions of the Revolution.
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS ISSUE CRITICISM OF is even less capable than the Russian of playing a DOMINANT role. It is no longer a theoretical STAGES OF THE CHINESE REVOLU.
FUNDAMENTALS forecast but a fact tested through and through TION.
and from all sides.
The first stage of the Kuomintang was the By TROTSKY These main, and, at the same time, incontro vertible social and political prerequisites of the under the apologetic banner of an Alliance of third Chinese revolution show not only that the Four Classes. The second period, after the standing the fact that the instructions of the formula of a democratie dictatorship has hopeless said nothing about the proletarian ly outlived its usefulness, but also that the third parallel and independent domination of the dictatorship and Socialist measures, nothwithto obtaines reproduktion, or spite of the revolutionin of together with the Mensheviks, lent to their short with Shanghai, Hankow and other industrial cen this great backwardness, as compared with Russia, ters of the country, has more of a petty bour will not have even its half year democratic power, the Chinese revolutionary democracy did geois character, the revolutionary upheaval effect period such as the October revolution had (Nov.
the ember 1917 to July 1918. but will be general does not work to order, there is nothing proletarian dictatorship which, at its very first from the very beginning, to effect the most decileft for but to understand that there is sive shake up and abolition of bourgeois property there be any other democratic diction to more radical measures than those in town and country tatorship except the Kuomintang dictatorship of which the October Revolution began. And this 1925. remains equally regardless of the True, this perspective does not harmonize with fact as to whether the semi unification of China character is quite a normal outcome of the social the pedantic and schematic conceptions concerning accomplished by the Kuomintang will be maintain relations of China as as well as of the whole develop. But the responsibility for this disharmony which ed in the coming period or whether the country ment of the revolution.
will again be broken to pieces. But precisely when and middle scale land ownership is most disturbs the newly adopted prejudice must not be the class dialectics of the revolution, having spent closely intertwined with urban, including foreign EVEN DEVELOPMENT. In the given case it all its resources, put on the order of the day the capital. There is no land owning caste in China is exactly in place.
question of the dictatorship of in opposition bourgeoisie. The most widethe numberless millions of oppressed and down spread, generally bated exploiter in the village is It would be unwise pedantry to maintain that of town and country on its side, the the wealthy peasant, the usurer, the agent of urban Bolshevik policy in the revolution of 1925 1927 the Chinese Communist Party, had it pursued a advanced the slogan of a democratic dictator bank capital. The agrarian revolution has therefore ship (that is, bourgeois democracy) of the workwould surely have come to power: bostrgeois character in China. The first stage of ful Philistinism to maintain that this possibility was ton insurrection which, with all its with all the adventurism of its leaders, lifted the. our October revolution in which the wealthy peas ant marched hand in hand with the middle and of workers and peasants was absolutely sufficient curtain over a new stage, or, more correctly, over inst for it, as was also the collapse of the ruling classes.
the coming THIRD Chinese revolution.
peasant and frequently in the lead against the landlord will not, or as much as will not, take The national bourgeoisie sent its Chiang Kai sheks Trying to insure themselves against the sins of place in China. The agrarian revolution there will and Wang Chin weis to Moscow, and through its the past, the leaders terrifically forced the trend of be from the very beginning, and also later on, an Hu Han mins was knocking at the door of the events at the end of last year and brought about uprising not only against the few landlords and Comintern; precisely because it was hopelessly bureaucrats, but also against the wealthy peasants weak in face of the revolutions are itself somehow.
riage can teach us a good deal concerning the or If in Russia the poor peasant com the second Neither the workers nor ganism of the mother and the process of birth. mittees acted only in of the Octothe The tremendous theoretical and even sig ber revolution, in the middle of 1918, in China followed the national bourgeoisie if we ourselves nificance of the Canton events for the fundamental they will, in one form or another, appear on the had not urged them to do so. Had the Comintern problems of the Chinese Revolution is precisely scene as soon as the agrarian movement will re: pursued a more or less correct policy, the outcome due vive. The breaking up of the rich to the fact that we have received here, which of the Communist Party for the happens so rarely masses was pre determined the Chinese prolein history be the first and not the second stage in the Chinese and politics, an EX PERIMENT ON GIGANTIC SCALE, AL October.
tariat would have supported the Communists, while the peasants would have supported the re The agrarian revolution, however, is not the MOST AS MADE IN LABORATORY. We only meaning of the present historical struggle in volutionary proletariat.
paid for it dearly, but that makes it the more imperative for us to digest the lessons.
China. The most extreme agrarian revolution, the If, at the beginning of the northern campaign we One of the fighting slogans of the Canton in general division of land, will naturally be sup had begun to organize Soviets in the liberated ported by the Communist Party to the very end.
surrection, as Pravda No. 31 relates, was the watchdistricts and the masses were instinctively fight.
But in itself this will not be a way out of the econ.
The Kuomin ing for that we would have secured the necessary tang banners and signs were torn and trampled have national unity and economic independence, rallied to our side the agrarian uprisings, we would is now essential for China to basis and revolutionary sentiment, upon. But it was already after Kai shek and after the betrayal Chin wei that the I, pompously declared monopody pof foreign trade. And this means the dermined the opposing armes we would have un.
ing the youthfulness of the Communist The workers of Canton forbade the Kuomintang Ism, for which China remains in perspective the China. it would have been able with proper Com to mature in these stressful years Party, DECLARING ALL OF ITS TENDENCIES MOST IMPORTANT SOURCE OF WEALTH, ILLEGAL. This a means of livelihood and as a safety valve against and come to power, if not in the whole of China means that to solve the basic national tasks, not only the big bourgeoisie but also internal explosions of capitalism in Europe today at once, then at least in a considerable part of the small bourgeoisie failed to advance a political and America tomorrow. This is what determines China. And chiefly, we would have had a party.
which the the proletariahir patiey might be able to suite struggle which faces the masses of China, the thing a belutely méhse repulseras fleadership somer the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution.
more so now when the depth of the stream of the historical catastrophe. The authority of the Soviet Union, the Bolshevik Party and the Comintern came The key to the position lies in the fact that the struggle has already been measured and felt by task of leading the all of its participants.
movement of the poor peasants to the support at first of Chiang Kai shek against fell already entirely on the shoulders of the pro The enormous role of foreign capitalism in Chin an independent policy of the Communist letariat and the Communist Party directly and the ese industry and its custom to rely directly on its then to the support of Wang Chin wei as the proach to a real solution of the revolutionary leader of the agrarian revolution. Having tram own national bayonets, makes the program of workers control in China even less real than it tasks necessitated the concentration of all forces pled upon the very basis of Lenin policy and parawas in Russia. The direct expropriation of the for lysed the young Communist Party of China, the As to the short lived Canton Soviet Govern eign capitalist and later also the Chinese capitalist led to a victory of the Chinese Kerenskys ment, the Pravda reports: enterprises, will most likely be made imperative over Bolshevism, the Chinese Miliukovs over the In the interests of the workers, the decrees of the by the struggle, on the morrow after the victor Kerenskys and of Japanese and British imperialism Canton Soviet proclaimed. workers control of in ious insurrection over the Chinese Miliukovs.
dustry through the factory committees, the national This objective socio historical causes of the In this and only in this lies the meaning of what ization of big industry, transport and the banks. October outcome of the Russian revolution rise has happened in China in the course of 1925 1927.
Then, measures are mentioned such as the conbefore us in China in a still more accentuated form.
fiscation of all dwellings of the big bourgeoisie The bourgeois and proletarian sections of the TO BE CONTINUED for the benefit of the laborers.
Chinese people stand up against each other even Thus the Canton workers were in power and more distinctly, if this is at all possible, than they Ready Nowthe government was actually in the hands of the did in Russia inasmuch as, on the one Communist Party. The program of the new gov. Chinese bourgeoisie is directly connected with for: THE DRAFT PROGRAM OF THE ernment was not only to confiscate the feudal lands eign imperialism and its COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL By TROTSKY inasmuch as such exist in Kwantung in general; the other hand, the Chinese proletariat has from With an Introduction by James Canno but also to nationalize big industry, the banks and Comintern and the Soviet Union. Numerically the THIRTY FIVE CENTS PER COPY In lots of or more 25 cents per Copy transport, and to confiscate bourgeois dwel. Chinese peasantry constitutes an even Order now from But lings and all property for the benefit of the la whelming mass than the Russian peasants.
THE MILITANT borers. The question arose, if such are the methods being crushed in the fight between world contra Box 120, Madison Square Station of a bourgeois revolution what should the prole dictions, upon the solution of which in one way New York, tarian revolution in China look like? Notwith or another its fate depends, the Chinese peasantry, would have of Bucharin and Avenue.
Left than Stalin.
more over