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August 1st, 1929, THE MILITANT Page 5 mintern with the methods proclaimed by the last for which they are visualized. Lenin compared the first time, as if we had not carried on a corresponPlenum of the You can hardly believe Brest Litovsk peace with the peace of Tiļsit. Maretskidence with Preobrazhensky: the theses have not a word your eyes when you read it.
could have explained to Lenin that the class condi to say in reply to a single one of my considerations.
The methods of the February Plenum of the tions of the Tilsit peace were entirely different, as But that is not yet the worst. What is worse is that consist first of all of the approval of Article he explained to us the difference between th class Radek theses are written as if here had never been 58 and of the assertion that the Bolshevik Leninists nature of the French and our own Revolution. We a Chinese revolution in 1926 27. All of comrade Ra are banking on the fall of the Soviet power. Can then called Maretzki by the name he deserved. We dek considerations might have been successfully it be that the resolution on the Opposition is of less took the Thermidor as a classic example of a partial formulated at the begining of 1924; the bourgeoishistorical significance than the resolution on the sec counter revolutionary coup Etat accomplished democratic revolution is not completed, it still has ond ballot in France, or the dubious hodge podge as yet completely under the revolutionary banner, democratic stages before it, and then there will be on whether or not the British Communist Party should but already having at bottom a decisive character. a change by growth again. But the Right and Left take part in the Labor Party? How can that be for. No one has ever named or offered a clearer, more Kuo Min Tang, the Canton period, the northern ex.
gotten? Can be admitted to the Comintern if am striking and more richly instructive historical analo pedition, the Shanghai coup Etat, the Wuhan pe.
deeply convinced that in voting for the Chinese re sy for explaining the dangers of degeneration. riod. what are all those if not democratic stages?
solution the February Plenum dealt another mortal tremendous international polemic has developed and Or, since Martinov has made a mess of it, can we blow to the Chinese proletariat, and that in voting continues around the question of the Thermidor. simply leave it out of consideration? The theses see for the resolation on the Opposition gives the worst, What political sense, then, has the above mentioned in the future what has in reality already been left most reactionary and self debasing expression of unexpected doubt about knowing to what point ana behind. Or, perhaps the theses hope to get real the treacherous, bureaucratic methods of leading logies between the French and Russian reolutions democracy? Let them give us her address. The esthe Party?
can be established? Are we sitting in a society of sence of the matter is that all those conditions which 14. The theses of the February Plenum put the Marxist historians and discussing historical analogies with us united the agrarian revolution with the proquestion of temporary agreements with liberals in in general? No, we are carrying on a political fight letarian revolution are expressed still more clearly of the program puts it; but the draft of the pro Thermidor a hundred times, within definite limits we wait until the democratic revolution has grown into a socialist revolution. Two questions are comgram, under a radical form, sanctifies the Kuo Min indicated by us.
Tangiade.
19. If history will prove, Radek theses say, lution grew into a socialist revolution only towards bined here. In a certain sense our democratic revo15. On the theory of stages, the theory of that a number of Party leaders with whom we crossed the middle of 1918. Yet power had been in the hands dually composed Parties, on the theory of socialism swords yesterday are better than the theories which of the proletariat since November 1917. The arguitalls rehat should be removed. It is as if the Marx than we. That sounds awfully chivalrous: Noble rade Radek who so resolutely tried to prove that ist man has already emerged full grown out of the leaders first cross swords and then they weep tears there is no feudalism in China, no class of landCentrist monkey, but with one superfluous organ: of reconciliation on each other bosom. But here owners and that therefore the agrarian revolution the tail. The good teacher and preceptor hints: is the rub: How can leaders of the proletariat be would not be directed against the landlord but a Please hide your tail and all will be well. But that better than their theories? We Marxists have been gainst the bourgoisie, Survivals of feudalism are very accustomed to appraise leaders by their theory, strong in China, but they are indissolubly bound up is to embellish the reality in a flagrant manner.
through their theory, by the ability of leaders te un with bourgeois property. How then can comrade RaTHE VALUE OF THE PROGRAM derstand and apply it. Now it would that dek now pass over this difficulty by saying that the 16. The general appraisal of the draft of the there may be excellent leaders who are accidentally bourgeois democratic revolution is not completed, program by the theses is incorrect, that is, it is ex. armed with reactionary theories on almost all the repeating here the mistake of Bucharin, who in turn ceedingly good. natured. Contradictory, eclectic basic questions, repeats Kamenev mistake in 1917? cannot do scholastic, full of patches, the draft of the progranı 20. The support we give to the move that has better than to quote here again Lenin word against is no good at all.
begun, Radek theses declared, should consist of Kamenev to which Beloborodov recently called my 17. The general principle indications of Radek fighting ruthlessly. against all the evils against attention: theses on the question of partial or transitional de which the Party is now mobilized. Not that alone. He who is guided in his activity by the simple mands are quite correct. It is high time that these The pitiless unmasking in each practical matter or formula the bourgeois democratic revolution is not general considerations were translated into a more theoretical question of the half measures and con finished takes it on himself to guarantee in some concrete language, that is, for us to attempt to out fusion of Centrism there is the most important way that the petty bourgeoisie is really capable of line a plan for transitional demands which would ap part of support of any progressive steps of Cen being independent of the bourgeoisie, He thereby caply to countries of lifferent types.
trism.
pitulates weakly at the moment, hoping for the 18. On the question of the Thermidor, Radek THE CHINESE REVOLUTION grace of the petty bourgeoise. Lenin. Vol. 14, Parti 1, page 35. theses quite unexpectedly say: shall not discuss here the question of knowing to what extent analo 21. do not stop to consider a whole number of That is all can say on comrade Radek theses, gies of the French and Russian revolutions can be less weighty and specific observations. confine think it is necessary to say it for the sake of clamade. What does that mean? The question of the myself only to pointing out the supplement to the rity, without fearing the attempts of our monolithThermidor we formulated together with the author theses which is devoted to the Chinese revolution. iç opponents to exploit our differences of opinion.
of the theses and with his participation. Analogies This supplement is ritte such a way as if we LEO TROTSKY.
should be made within the strict limits of those aims were approaching the question privately for the Alma Ata, July 17, 1928.
seem The Draft Program of the the Comintern Galicia or 1923. party. THE BENEFITS OBTAINED FROM THE FARMERS AND PEASANTS INTER.
NATIONAL MUST BE PROBED.
One of the main, if not the main accusations hurled against the Opposition, was that of its under estimation of the peasantry. Also on this point life has given the test proot both along the internal and the international lines. The official leaders proved guilty of UNDER ESTIMATING the role and significance of the proletariat in relation to the peasantry all along the line.
can be mentioned the greatest blunders and errors along the economic, political and international lines.
At the bottom of the internal errors, since there lies an under estimation of the significance of State industry under the management of the proletariat for the whole of national economy and for the alliance with the peasantry. In China the revolution was lost by the failure to understand the leading and decisive role of the proletariat in relation to the agrarian revolution.
From the same viewpoint it is necessary to examine and estimate the role of the work of the Krestintern which from the beginning was not more than an experiment an experiment which required the utmost vigilance, and integrity of principle, to boot. It is not difficult to understand the reason why.
The peasantry, by the history and conditions of its life, is the least international of all classes.
What is called national traits has its chief source precisely in the peasantry. The peasantry and only its semi proletarian sections at that can be interested in the international cause, only under the guidance of the proletariat. All roundabout ways are a mere play with classes, and such playing is always detrimental to the interests of the proletariat. Only to the extent that the national peas.
antry is severed by the national proletariat from the influence of the national bourgeoisie and is trained to see in the proletariat not only its ally, but also its leader, can it be attracted to the path of in ternational politics. Attempts, however, to organ ize the peasants of the various countries into an independent international organization over the head of the proletariat and regardless of the national Communist Parties, are doomed beforehand ilure and, in sis, hamper the struggle of the national proletariat for influence on the agricultural laborers and poor peasants.
In bourgeois revolutions as well as counter re volutions, beginning with the peasant wars of the sixteenth century, the various strata of the peasantry played an enormous and, at times, even deci sive role. But this role was never an independent role. Directly or indirectly the peasantry always supported one political force against another. By itself it never constituted an independent force, having its own common national political tasks.
In the epoch of finance capital the polarization of capitalist society has constantly progressed as com pared with the phase of capitalist development.
This means that the relative strength of the peasantry has diminished and not increased. At any rate, in the imperialist epoch the peasants of the capitalist countries are less capable of INDEPEND EÑT political action on a national scale than in the epoch of industrial capitalism. The farmers of the United States today are incomparably less cap able of playing an independent political role than forty or fifty years ago when, as the experience of the Populist movement shows, they could not or an independent national temporary but sharp agrarianization of Europe as a result of the economic decline caused by the war has given rise to illusions concerning the possible role of peasant. that is, bourgeois pseudo peasant Parties. If in the period of grave peasant unrest after the war one could still risk the experiment of organizing farmers and peas.
ants international so as to test by experience the new relations between the proletariat and the peas antry, the peasantry and the bourgeoisie, the time has at last come when the five years experience of the Farmers and Peasants International must be theoretically and politically summarized, its great shortcomings revealed and an effort made to show what are its advantages. One conclusion at any rate cannot be denied. The experience of the peasant parties of Bulgaria, Poland, Roumania and Jugo Slavia, that is, of the backward countries, the old experience of our Social Revolutionaries, and the fresh (the blood is not yet dried) experience with the Kuomintang, the sporadic experience in the advanced capitalist countries, particularly that of La Follette and Pepper in the United States, have invariably shown that in the epoch of capitalist decline there is even less reason to look for INDEPENDENT revolutionary anti bourgeois peasant parties than in the epoch of rising capi.
talism. The town cannot be equalled to the village; the village cannot be equalled to the town in the his torical conditions of that epoch. The town inevitably LEADS THE VILLAGE, the village inevitably TOWN. still play a decisive role but this role, again, will be neither leading nor independent. The poor peasants of Hupeh, Kwantung, or Bengal can play.
a role not only on a national but also on an inter national scale. However, only on condition that they will support the workers of Shanghai, Han kow, Canton and Calcutta. This is the only way out for the revolutionary peasant ON AN INTER NATIONAL road. The effort immediately to unite the peabrudja, the Egyptian fellah with the of Hupeh with the peasants of American farmer, is hopeless.
But the nature of politics is such that everything which does not directly serve its object inevitably becomes an instrument for other objects, frequent ly for the very opposite ones.
Have we not seen examples when a bourgeois party, which relied on interested in the Farmers and Peasants Interna tional for a longer or shorter period if it could not do so in the Comintern, only in order to find pro tection from the blows of its own Communist Party, as Purcell, in the trade union domain, pro tected himself through the Anglo Russian Com mittee? If La Follette did not try to register in the Farmers and Peasants International that was due to the extreme weakness of the American Communist Party, the more so considering that at that time its leader Pepper, without an invitation, embraced La Follette, even without that. But Raditch, the bankers leader of the rich peasants, found it necessary to leave his visiting card in the Farmers and Peasants International on his road to the Cabinet The Kuomintang went much further than that and secured protection for itself, not only in the Farmers International and the AntiLeague, but even knocked at the doors of the Politbureau of the against only one vote.
It is very significant for the leading political tendencies of recent years that whereas tendencies in favor of the liquidation of the PROFINTERN (the Red International of Labor Unions) were very strong (its very name was deleted from the statutes of Soviet trade unions. we find that, so far as we remember, the question has never been raised in the official press as to what exactly are the conquests of the FARMERS AND PÉAS.
ANTS INTERNATIONAL.
The Sixth Congress must seriously probe the work of the farmers and Peasants Interna tional from the viewpoint of Croatian Imperialist to tim Krestinterno