MILITANI Page The wish Labor Government Revolutionary Perspectives in India 57 The results of the British general election could ocBy Maurice Spector side of the reformist trade union bureaucracy thru casion little surprise. The series of preceding byethe agency of the Anglo Russian Committee. This elections had clearly indicated the fate of the BaldCommittee was held up by Stalin and Bucharin as the win Government. Its record had been so obviously re the methods of analysis of the Stalinized Executives, real center for the organization of resistance to the actionary, its treatment of the working class so pro Agit Props ard Press, of the Comintern have become war danger. To the exigencies of maintaining this vocatory. the suppression of the miners and the very simple, that is, when the Communist Party suf. bloc was sacrificed the independence of the Commungeneral strikes, the rupture with the USSR, the impe fers a defeat all you need do is to lie about it and ist Party, which was utterly submerged in the General rialist expedition to suppress the Chinese revolutionary shout that it was really a victory, but this was not the strike, and which at first even refused to criticise the movement, the repressive anti trade union act, and method of the Lenin Comintern. Thus latterly the betrayers of the strike. In the interests of this Anglothe naval parity conflict with the United States. that Thaelmann led German Communist Party was isolated Russian Committee, Tomsky agreed to recognize the a second Labor Government or Liberal Labor coali in connection with the May Day events, the red shop fakers of the British General Council as the sole tion was logically to be expected.
stewards that had been elected proved broken reeds, spokesmen of the British trade union movement, and The British working class has been moving steadily the Red Front was proscribed, the general strike. the Minority Movement was a parade of windy speech leftward since the end of the war under the circum the party officialdom called, to which 50, 000 in the making and inocuous resolutions. It is ridiculous to stance of the loss of British economic supremacy to whole country responded, was a terrible fiasco, the sub assert that Purcell, Hicks and their fellows were unthe United States and powerful challenge of in sequent Saxony elections registered Communist losses, masked by the communists even after the event, dustrial competition on all sides in a consistently but the Stalinites. everywhere hail all this as a series when the Stalin Tomsky Bucharin bloc sought at all shrinking world market. The lords of British finance of phenomenal successes that elevate the struggle to costs, including the surrender of principle, to mainand industry have abandoned their pre war concilia a higher plane. But even downright falsification is tain their relations with the British labor bureaucracy.
tory attitude to the trade union movement and have unable to serve the Daily Worker and Freiheit for When you have followed such a consistent opportusought to intain their pace in a world of increasing concealing the extent of the defeat of the tish par nist line for years you cannot suddenly turn around competition and rationalization, by applying the screws ty.
and repair the damage with dramatic ultra left geto the working class. In recent years and particularly How does it come about that at a time when the stures. There was nothing in the preceding conduct of under the Baldwin regime, the capitalist attacks on British masses are admittedly moving leftwards and the Communist Party to prepare the workers to tolthe workers Frave grown in scope arte provocation, and being radicalized and subjected to rationalization, the low its latest new line with conviction The workers the masses have reacted in turn by a more rapid pace Communists are unable to elect a single representa saw the spectacle of the Central Committee of the Parof radicalization.
tive? It is not enough to use another frequent Stali ty itself at one time wide open on the question of an The Labor Party has reaped the harvest of this nite alibi and say the social democrats and the bour independent electoral policy. The Stalin policy is prigrowing working class rebelliousness. The experiment geoisie were against us. That, we believe, is the reason marily responsible for the disastrous showing of the of the first labor government may have unmasked for the existence of a Communist Party. The reason is British Communists in the election. The slogan of MacDonaldism to the officials of the British Commu to be found in the fact that the enormous prestige and Class against Class which they parroted with the nist Party, but certainly not to the workers as a whole. resources of the Soviet Government, the Soviet Trade French Stalinites, fell on deaf ears. Had the commuCapitalist public. opinion has extended the MacDonald Union Movement, the CPSU and the Comintern have nists carried out the line indicated for them in TrotCabinet a very cordial welcome. It realizes that there since the Fifth Congress, four years ago, been thrown sky Whither England written before the General is little to fear of socialist experiments from this not on the side of developing and consolidating a revo Strike, the leftward movement of the British working Labor Government of extreme Right Wing Trade lutionary Communist Party to take advantage of the class would not have been directed as it has been, Union Bureaucrats and Liberals still reeking of their sharpening clas struggle: these were thrown on the chiefly into the channels of parlamentary reformism. apostacy to Lloyd George. MacDonald did not even think it necessary to make concessions to the pseudolefts of the Maxton school, who pass so many resolutions for socialism in our time. Shaw, Clynes, Henderson, Sankey, Jowett, and their like will prove the same sturdy defenders of British Imperialism in LETTER TO TROTSKY Plantation Workers. 29 Egypt and India they always have been. The maintenance of the Empire is a point of cardinal policy in 57 the platform of MacDonald. That means continuity By Dingelstaedt. 57 in the repression of the subject nationalities of the Servants Empire by coercive means if necessary.
Kansk, July 8, 1928. Unskilled Workers (navvies, stevedores, etc. Dear Comrade Leo Davidovitch: 58 The MacDonald Program.
At the suggestion of decided to communi Land Workers and Day Laborers. 37. 92 The program of the MacDonald government is the cate to you in writing some of my thoughts on the program of liberalism. dressed up in the shreds and perspectives of the proletarian revolution in India.
Total. 60. 84 tatters of socialist phraseology. The recognition of Unfortunately, the scarceness of reliable documents II. INDEPENDENT SMALL PRODUCERS.
Russia would eventually have been carried out by the and their very poor quality do not permit the estaHusbandmen (petty proprietors and farConservatives under pressure of their own industria blishment of sufficiently decisive conclusions.
It mers: middle peasants and above all the list delegations to Moscow, and is equally a demand poor peasants. 173. 00 goes without saying that the official English statistof the Lloyd George Party. The hand that MacDonald ies have not set themselves the task of facilitating a Breeders, Fishermen, Market gardners, extends to the USSR will not be to cement such a class Marxist analysis in the study of the social and ecogardners hunters. 11 accord as there would exist between two Workers Go nomic situation in India. So far as the works that have Artisans 30. 291 vernments, because MacDonald is not the head of a appeared up to now are concerned, they suffer from Workers Government. The capital levy the only de so many faults from the methodological point of Total 210. 52 mand in the former Labor Party election platforms view, or else they are so tendencious, that they are III. GROUPS OUTSIDE THE CLASSES.
that threatened a serious clash with capital, has been of very little use to our purpose. An exception Army and Police. 18 dropped. Instead of nationalization of the mines and among all the works dealing with India can perhaps Beggars and Prostitudes 25 other industries, by the promise of which the masses be made of some books by Professor Schack, who were rallied to the Labor Party, what will be fostered calls himself a Marxist, and of Professor Narain, who Total 43 is the Melchett Turner scheme of rationalization on keeps clear of anything approaching Marxism. Of IV. BOURGEOISIE.
the basis of private property. It remains to be seen further account as very interesting sources of factual Large and Middle Landowners, Kulaks 10. 72 if there will be any repeal of the Trade Union Act of material are the conscientious studies of Dr. Mann, Merchants (including the small ones) 18. 12 the Baldwin Government which outlawed the general Glater and Das.
Industrialists 83 strike and made mass picketing a crime. MacDonald Liberal Professions 02 Upon my request, some comrades selected a part and the whole labor bureaucracy are as much opposed of the books that collected and sent them to you.
Officials 69 to the General Strike as Baldwin or Churchill, and if it is only unfortunate that after the house searchings Rentiers (coupon clippers. 48 this reactionary legislation hamstringing trade union such a disorder was brought into my books that ism is repealed, it will only be under the most threaten certain things were lost.
Total As for me, they categori39, 26 ing pressure of the masses.
cally refused to let me go through the house to put The social reformists in the United States bubbled my personal affairs in order (as requested. Grand Total As. 310 over with delight at this latest vietory for socialism. a result cannot at all guarantee that the selection its vital social content is penetrated.
This table acquires its significance only wh The Magdeburg Congress of the German social demo of books on India sent to you corresponds with your ond group (the independen It is the seccratic party sent a telegram of greetings to MacDo desires. My brother has forwarded to me certain small producers) that nald. But so far as the working class is concerned the works, among them many interesting official Reports: are concerned, they constitute for the most part an is specially important. So far as the husbandmen victory of the laborites in England means as much so. if you want them will send them to you by mail.
cialism as the presence of the social democrats in the economically weak section of the peasantry that is German coalition Government. That is, it means no THE NATURE OF INDIAN INDUSTRY.
being gradually ruined from year to year by the thing for socialism and everything for the support of To grasp the kernel of the question, it must first the artisans is no better: they are the half famished large landowners and the officials. The position of a democracy which is the camouflage for capita of all be pointed out that despite its incredible back descendants of a class that was once lism. The peace loving German social democracy in much convention assembled has just endorsed the action of between agriculture and industry, India is a country numerous and flourishing in ancient India.
its cabinet ministers in voting for a cruiser program. of concentrated, advanced and in part highly deveMacDonald is busy embracing the notorious Dawes loped capitalism (despite certain negative sides. PROLETARIA MUST LEAD THE STRUGGLE.
and there is a great hue and cry about the impending Indian industry developed onesidedly The desperate situation of the main mass of the settlement of the difficult problems arising from na field of textiles; its proletariat is still strongly bound ence of relatively large numbers of workers. who are agrarian population of the country, with the existempires. But it is in the nature of the whole position narily hampered by tribal differences, by religious the urgent necessity of the revolutionary alliance of MacDonald and the liberalized Labor Party take to and caste prejudices; nevertheless, as the experience the workers and the peasants, but under the condition the Empire, that his pacifism cannot be more than of the last ten years has shown, the industrial prole that the proletariat, organized in a class party, ina vain gesture. The danger of war arises not from the tariat constitutes an ever growing class force.
naval race but from the necessities of the capitalist this day it is passing through a period of spontaneous has the hegemony.
To dependent, having its own existence and program, imperialist struggle for markets. Even if an accord movement, insufficiently conscious, No one can prove now that of absolute naval parity could be reached, this does somewhat to our period before 1905.
corresponding cetrain special conditions exist in India, that not It is still the proletariat, but some other class, can lead the not settle the problem of military supremacy. How difficult to say with what speed it will be able to work does MacDonaldism propose to disarm the American out the necessary subjective factors for revolutiona eoisie in the struggle against imperialism.
great masses of the peasantry and the petty bourgmonopolies, their appetites just getting whetted for ry action: its class vanguard, the Party, its traditions export trade, and basing themselves on the greatest and its class program. But the circumstances Thence the clear conclusion that to dilute the system of mass production in the world, from captur which the Indian proletariat is developing are such as program and its slogans of the purity of class prinin revolutionary proletarian vanguard, to deprive its ing markets from the British?
to justify the hope for an unusually rapid rise class maturity to ciples, is simply to injure the work of the proletarian The Defeat of the Communists.
revolution in India.
By comparing the various figures of the offiHow did the Communists fare in the election? The cial census of 1921, have arrived at approximately who defend the necessity of organizing a workers That is just why one cannot agree with those opportunity for appealing to the masses on a revolu the following schema of the class composition of the and peasants party in India (Stalin. and not tionary program were never before in British history Indian population: workers party. In my 80 favorable yet it must be recorded that the vote of recently published book 50, 000 the Communists drew, constitutes a resounding PROLETARIAT. The Agrarian Question in India. lay stress in great detail on the problem of the Indian revolution defeat for our party. There is no sense in sweetening In Millions from the viewpoint of the solution to give to the the pill. We are under no political or financial obliga Industrial workers 65 ticklish questions of the agriculture of this cuntry.
tions to Stalin that necessitai softvedaling on the 54 lessons of the election. It is tri more in the Miners recent years Transport