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Paee THE MILITANT May 13, 1929 May 95. 1929 Τ THE MILITANT Page May Day and After Our Conference and the Trade Unions oppressed net of ot Lewises, the They with expose reenemy en the workers. Our answer must be to maintain the banner of UNITY of all the workers against the capitalists and their servants in the labor movement. The slogan of unity in the May Day. hangs like a sword over their heads. They are a powerful slogan particThe militant working class of the entire beginning to resist the wage cuts and speed ularly in times of struggle. It represents the world downs tools today to demonstrate its aspirations of the solidarity. It marches before the capitalists. They are being aroused at the government workers. It its class enemy with a challenge to the rule which is the official agent of the capitalist meeting which she best port forth not only by the class. new mood of struggle is developing, in the of unions. It must also be indens the columns of our troops is the symbol of and one of the best signs of it is the uprising scribed on the banner of of the backward, oppressed textile slaves of National Miners Union, the Needle Trades the South May Day is a day of celebration of this comunion, the National Tevtile Workers Union, The American Labor Leaders ing victory. It is also a day of preparation for They must seize every opportunity to it. To prepare for its historic victor, the work The main instrument of the capitalists in the unity of their ranks with the Rivernand the workers who ing class, and especially its most advanced sec strangling this spirit resistance in the ranks of remain in the old of tion, must review its struggles fit there past the working class are the present labor leadunions. They must be foremost in demanding that the separate, isolated, weak struggles be condition. It must gird itself, and armed with struggle, for the delense and improvement of though we know that the labor misleaders greater confidence and the lessons of its ex their standard of living, instead of strengthen will reject this demand as enthusiastically as periences, proceed with increased conscious ing their ranks and pointing their weapon is the rank and file will welcome it.
ness to the battles of the future.
The period of new struggles that has algovernment the Greens, the Wolls, the These are important tasks for the labor meady begun in Europe for the working class Freys: the Schlesingers and the Hill movement. They must be persistently adalready includes the United States. Despite the mans divide the ranks of workers.
vanced especially by the Communists, the revtremendous backwardness of American labor deliberately limit the strength of the organized olutionary and most conscious section of the the past two years have witnessed a number of workers by refusing to organize the unorgan working class. The Communists have a tres bitterly and heroically fought strikes in which ized. They sap the policy of expelling every struggle. But the pre condition for this role is force of the unions by their established the American workers have demonstrated that mendous role to play the coming period of they have a spirit of militancy, of self sacrifice militant fighter who opens his mou. th drug the workers to Pith treach they the unification of the entire Communist more mfent on a Leninist basis. Such a unification the textile mills and in the clothing shops of words and deeds of peace with the bosses is impossible in this country without the reAmerican workers are worthy brothers in arms when there is not and cannot be peace. They establishment of the unity of the Leninist enter into struggles under the pressure of the Party in the Soviet Union, which is the founof their more revolutionary European com workers only to betray them to the capitalist tain head of the world revolutionary movement rades.
But the American workers as a whole, be They reject the polic of class struggle and they are working in reality, today.
The Tasks of the Communists cause of their privileged position and other his. replace it with the policy of surrender to the torical causes, still remain relatively backward, capitalists.
They are the agents of the The twelfth May Day demonstration after idarity and unity, still suffer under the stifling are the bulwarks of capitalism and they must finds Trotsky, the living leader of world BolI they must be driven out. They the victory of Bolshevism in Russia in 1917 control of the labor agents of capitalism, still be broken. Without a stubborn, dally struggle eshevism exiled in Turkey, a prisoner of Stalin grope blindly in the darkness of capitaist illu. against these traitors the American workers and Turkish fascism, surrounded by thousands sions. Should such a situation continue, it can cannot move forward.
of Russian White Guards who hate him above only mean greater and heavier defeats and The Fight for a Class Movement burdens for the working class in the fights all others as the symbol of the Revolution. It they will conduct against the capitalist class The task that stands out above all others finds the best leaders of Lenin Party exiled in the next period.
for American labor today is the creation and or imprisoned in the most desolate parts of the strengthening of a class movement of the work Siberia and Central Asia. These are signs of American Imperialism ers on the economic field and the political times. The course of the official leadership of field. Towards this end the trade unions must the Communist International for the past few The problems of the American workers are become instruments for struggle, for obtain years has been a steady departure from the enormous. Nowhere and at no time has the ing better conditions from the bosses instead fundamental teachings of Lenin, and a inur proletariat ever been confronted by such a for of being instruments to increase producion and derous campaign against those who stubbornly. aces come schools for the workers cause The Communist movement will be totally imperialism today, is master in its own home and not schools for capitalist propaganda incapable of achieving its practicale aimeses and has proceeded to master the rest of the taught by the reactionary labor leaders.
every part of the world feel the heavy weight by organizing the unorganized millions especThe workers must strengthen their unionsolutionary path, unless it rejects the revisionist of its iron fist. In China as in New York, in ially the Negro workers, for without them a theories now prevalent in the Comintern. Thus Mexico as were the Communist Parties built and strenin Europe as in Illinois, in South Amer successful struggle against trustified American gthened in the post war years and the first to the jurGang. treidbiors of toilers pay tribute mobilizen is impossible. The workers must be period of the Russian Revolution.
Today the ment the main theories developed in the last the Rockefeliets the Schwabs. the Mellons and be indersctions against binions and strikes.
The few the rest of the American money kings. You fight for the seven hour day. The workers must Winger (Bucharin. The anti Bolshevik by the Center (Stalin) and the Thermidorian Right in the bayonet or the dollar hand of reaction in almost every coun trial unions try where it is in power. Wherever the rule right to picket. The right of free speech and catastrophic policy practised in the Angloto fight for the right to strike, the theory of socialism in one country. The of American imperialism has not yet triumphed, you will find and Russian Cominittee and the British General free assemblage. Such elementary conditions its mastery by military and financial force.
preparing to establish which are not yet enjoyed by American works Strike: The Menshevik betrayal of the ChiIts world domination, however, cannot be millions of unemployed, care of women work capitulation to capitalism in Russia today, thiners, like social insurance, maintenance of the Stalin Bucharin and Co. The course toward and peasantry by the policy of servile, quiet, satisfied working class at ers and of child labor, must be made an imme ly disguised by the Centrist zig zag policy, home.
But the American workers are being diate aim on the order of the day.
which conceals the open Right danger of Busteadily driven to struggle. They are awaking For Unity and Solidarity charin Tomsky Rykov, which erects a Left to the danger of new imperialist war that To achieve these and many other aims the blind in order the better to move towards the workers of America must have solidarity and Right unity. The prejudices of the white workers Leninist line without the leadership of THE MILITANT against the Negroes, cunningly injected into the Leninists who re imprisoned, exiled and Published twice a month by the Opposition Group in our ranks by the capitalists, must be burned persecuted is a hypocritical farce. The entire out and our fight conducted side by side. The Communist movemer must renew the demand Address all mail to: Box 120, Madison Square Station, uno return of the expelled Opposition to unorganized workers must be narrowed down their rightful leadership of th Comintern and Telephone: Gramercy 3411.
into tqisappears by drawing a militants in of the Sovet Union and the dangerous splitALL workers Russian Party. The increasing difficulties Subscription rate: 00 per year. Foreign, 50 into trades unions.
the unions Communists and left wing must this return a burning need of the moment. The Bundle rates, 3c per copy.
ting up course in the Communist Parties make be immediately brought back, for they are the best fighters in the labor movement.
huge tasks before us make this return mandaIt is the agents of the capitalists fromtory.
Green to Schlesinger, from Woll to Hillquit Let this May Day open up a new period of who disrupt the labor movement. It is the struggles and victories. Onward to the final who thrive on expulsions and splits that weak class battle for the world Soviet!
movement.
On May 17th the most active militants of By James Cannon cases. Personal relations at the top instead of the Communist Opposition from all parts of the utilization of relations with progressive the country will meet in National Conference ranks today means to swim against the stream, leaders for the promotion of a common movein Chicago, the proletarain center of the real ment of the workers below. But these distorAmerica rich in glorious traditions of working Only those who are able to do this can remain tions should not lead us to react to the present class struggle and aspiration. Many a noble and do not promise it now. We hold out only policy of rejecting all relations with the new enterprise of the labor vanguard had its inception there; many a stirring battle, many a the prospect of a long, stubborn struggle for progressive movement. To do so is to turn a.
side from one of the most important avenues defeat and many a brave start again. It is not principle against difficulties, persecution and It is quite true that the revisionist for the development of the class movement of unlikely that our modest conference will find bureaucratic regime has the workers and the building of the Communist a place of honor among them in the history of influence and organization within it.
the American revolutionary movement. This cilable internal contradictions and is bound to Our Conference and the Progressives will be the case if our conference ap collapse under the impact of the class struggle Our conference should take a firm and definshich lates crowd upon it, if it does not shrink be ipulation. But an indispensable factor for the ite stand on this question. In our opinion the fore their magnitude and gives a clear answer hastening of this collapse, and for saving the American revolutionary movement. We shali is the firm consolidation of the Opposition should support the idea of entering every Communists for a drawn out struggle. It will endeavor to do this to the best of our ability.
trade unions; they should work loyally to adbe the task of the National conference to hardvance it; they should for combinations with The Importance of our Conference en our forces for a siege.
all elements willing to cooperate with us in The importance of our gathering for the The Trade Union Question the fight for a concrete program in the interfuture of the Opposition is fully understood, It is becoming clearer every day that plain ests of the workers and their economic organwe believe, by all the comrades who have stood speech is necessary on the trade union ques. izations. At the same time, and in order to do us in the struggle up till now. And many who have not yet identi identified themselves tions. Without a sound policy in this sphere it this effectively, they should fight and with us wait the result of our deliberar. ctly with the greatest interest. There is wisdom in nist Party as the guiding influence among the formist tendencies and build the independent collective counsel. The fact that we are finally differences with the Party regarding trade policy applies with equal force in the work of forcing a way, despite our great poverty, to union tactics are increasing. This becomes all organizing new unions and in the work inside districts together for the comparison of experi convention of the Trade Union Educational Labor and the Independent unions of a similar settlement of our problems is testimony to the League, where, from all indications, the false character: vitality of our movement. We must make the ation forms which will inevitably develop to convince the Party of the necessity for this We must not for a moment cease our efforts most of the opportunity which has not been further implications along the wrong track. line, the Party is a factor of the greatest given to us, but which we have wrested from The Party is wrong in bringing out a pro dynamic importance and a false policy on its adversity all In the first place we ought to give a thought along the line. It is wrong in undertaking part will have the gravest consequences in the to to the general character of the conference. We monopolize the control of the new unions in a such unbounded possibilities are now unfoldmeet to face things as they and to deal narow Party sense. It is wrong in exercising ing. But in any case our cannot be with them soberly and confidently, Exaggera Party leadership mechanically and stifling de confined to mere criticism. Hand in hand with it must go the development of systematic will be out of place; it will be for us now to And it is wrong in its attitude toward the activity of the Opposition Communists in the put all the questions concretely and quietly new trade union movement along the lines of our discuss the ways and means of answering The total result of these and similar associthem. There should be nothing to prevent our ated errors be a program and practice of meeting having a business like character from organizing Communist sects rather than mass correctness will exertaa demonstrations of its the Party ranks and, simultaneously, will be the means of consolidating a intrigue which corrodes the party and renders this clearer. Now the consequences of these nucleus within the new progressive movements a revolutionary its conventions futile should not trouble us at errors are immeasurable. They spell isolation which will become the center and rallying all. We have a common principle line. That for the Party and the crippling of the new point for all the militants in the future. The is the foundation, and the only foundation, for union movement. The policies which are now more firmly we insist on this policy and the united and harmonious collective work. Differ being enunciated in preparation for the nationences of opinion on secondary questions which al conference of the appear to us to more energetically we apply it in practice the less will be the harm done by the present may exist can be discussed honestly and openphrase hysteria.
ly. Those who are united on fundamental lines many respects like feeble echoes of old do not fear discussion.
Proceeding along this line, facing all obstaThe conference can bring fruitful results for wishes for facts. Moreover the present policy and propaganda which substituted cles and fearing none of them, tackling all the concrete questions in a serious and workmanthe movement only on the condition that we do not deceive ourselves as to the state of tice of the Party over a period of years, since Conference will render services of historic like maner and giving an answer to them, our affairs. What we think of the position of the value to the American working class movelabor and revolutionary movement in America main correct. And the Party leaders do not ment and will perform a duty to the Interand its perspectives has been clearly stated in even bother to to explain the reasons for this comwe plete reversal. It is like a new revelation which have written there about the class immaturity has to be taken for granted. workers polit OUR MAY DAY MEETINGS elementary nature of the fundamental tasks of built by such irresponsible methods and leader number of mass meetings were held in various cities on the revolutionary elements are not new; ship.
International May Day by the Communist Opposition, in some. Consider, for example, the attitude toward cities together with other labor and revolutionary groups. As this issue goes to press we have not yet received complete deThe evils we fight against within the com the Progressives. We will have nothing to do tails. Below we give brief resumes of the meetings.
munist movement are not a new phenomenon with them, say the modern phrase mongers Comrades Arne Swabeck, leader of the Chicago Opposition day. who see only persons and have no Marxian Communists, spoke at the May Day meeting of the Karl Marx Our struggle, as a detachment of the Inter understanding of movements. Compare this Scandinavian Workers Club. The same organization had been national Leninist Opposition, is a revolt with what Lovestone wrote in The Communist prevented from hearing comrade Swabeck on the Truth about Trotsky a few weeks ago by the the gangster splitting tactics against revisionist and bureaucratic corruption last May, page 277. The progressives are of vital importance in the In Philadelphia the May Day meeting was held under the since Lenin left its leadership six years ago.
development of a left wing movement of a mass charjoint auspices of the Opposition Group, the Philadelphia Negro perceptibly, great cheradually and almost imDuring that time, acter. They serve under certain conditions as one of the Labor Alliance and the Workers Defense Committee, with levers for the development of a clear cut, broad, leftcomrades Whitten, Leo Goodman for the youth, and wing movement. Warreno for the Negro workers as the speakers.
about in Lenin International and all in his All of today pronunciamentos say the exact In Minneapolis the May Day meeting was held under the joiot auspices of the Minneapolis Lenin Trotsky League (Opcourse and of the leadership. All this is bullreise pposite, without the slightest explanation of position) the Scandinavian Workers Club and the Workers the reasons for the complete change of view a bureaucratized apparatus and a monClub of Minneapolis with speakers in English and Swedish.
and without attempting to show wherein last oply of the material In Cleveland, the Militant Club (Opposition. the Industrial resources and press which year estimate of the role of the progressives Workers of the World, and the American Workers Education. has attracted a veritable horde of parasites and mercenaries into its service, thrusting out the has wrong. This is playing with leadership in speakers in various languages. The Lithuanian Mirtos Chois tried and reliable revolutionary fighters.
participated.
It would be foolish to think that these monThe statement quoted above, which in our opinion is a correct was formulated in In St. Louis, the Commnist Opposition and the Militant Workers Club held a May Day meeting, after the Stalinites had strous perversions, which have been accumulating over a period of six years, could be the actual opinions of the writer guarded way so as to appear more left than prevented a united front May Day meeting of all working class To learn organizations.
changed in a day. We had no such illusions and that it is only necessary to recall the practices In New York City, the May Day meeting could not be have none now. To fight for the fundamental of united front. without criticism, under the held because of the last minute cancellation of the hall by the line of Marx and Lenin within the communist hegemony of the progressives in so many management. The reason given bama, joinly national.
it of the Stalinites.
Communist Party of America have been brought New York, Publishers address at 340 East 19th Street, New York, name. The Sc per copy Associate Editors Editor Martin Abera James Cannon Max Shachtman Maurice Spector VOL. 11.
MAY 15, 1929 NO. 10 Entered as second class matter november 28, 1928, at the post office at New York, under the act of March 3, 1870.
one, a. the fear that arist would occur due to the tactics of the Stalinites.