August let, ode.
THE MILITANT Page FIRST OF AUGUST! a situation is, the more necessary it is for the proletarian vanguard to have a clear and definite plar.
of action. The leadership of the Party ought to stand firmly at the helm with its eyes forward. One of the CONTINUED 7RON PAGE ONE all processes are rapidly carried through, this school. fundamental moments of leadership in such cir most favorable to it, the Communist Party gained in ing will not last for decades like the pre war school cumstances is the practical preparation, of an insur all only fifty thousand votes. This terrible debacle of the social democracy, but most likely only a few rection. And since an insurrection, like all human af is a direct and immediate payment for the ruinous years. But it is just this period that the German, fairs, develops in time, the leadership must designate policy of the Comintern upon the question of the yes, and the whole European working class is going in good season the date of an insurrection. It stand Anglo Russian Committee. the central question of through. The appearance of an independent Brand to reason that with a change in the circumstance: the policy of the Comintern in England for the past ler faction is a small incidental sympton of this same the date may be changed. as it was changed in few years process. The passing of the workers from the bour Petrograd in 1917. But that leadership which cannot The recent elections in England revealed an un geoisie to the social democraey testifies to a left understand the significance of the time factor, which questionable leftward movement of the mass of the ward movement of the masses. But this leftward merely swims with the current, gurgling and blowworkers. But this leftward movement, e. a break movement has still a purely pacifist, reformist and ing bubbles is condemned to ruin. revolutionary ing away of millions of workers from the bourgeoisie, nationalist character. The further fate of this pro situation demands a revolutionary calender.
has at the given stage a clearly reformist pacifist cess depends upon a whole series of domestic and in But this certainly does not mean that it is sufcharacter. and that sharply emphasized, moreover, ternational causes, and to a considerable degree upon ficient for Thaelmann, Stalin, Manuilsky or Semar.
by the defeat of the British Communist Party. It our own policy, upon our ability to understand the to pick up the calender and put a red blot on the is hard to imagine a more cruel joke than that per essence of the process, upon our skill in distinguish First of August in order to turn that day into a re volutionary event. Such an approach combines the petrated by the Comintern upon British Communiem. ing its successive stages.
For several years they have compelled the British The reformist leftward movement will begin to most ruinous features of bureaucratism and advent urism. In those countries and those parties, where Communist Party to ride on Purcell running board, be replaced by a revolutionary one from that moand hold a revolutionary wreath on the head of ment when the masses begin in a continually in pure bureaucratism is uppermost. and these an Cook. The Moscow leadership remained for a whole creasing flood to pass from the social democracy to the majority. the First of August will in all probyear in union with the unqualified strike breakers of the Communist Parties. But that has not yet hap. ability end in a comical fiasco like the Vincennes de the General Council. Politically the Communist Par. pened. Individual, episodical manifestations do not monstration of Semard Monrousseau. In those couni of adventurism are uper ty in these circumstances did not exist. The revolu matter. It is necessary to take the procese as a whole. ries where the elements tionary, minority of the trade unions remained intel. When Thaelmann, following Stalin and other leaders moet the First of August may end in a tragedy lectually helpless, and the Comintern with its entire of the Comintern, said in July 1928 that the situ which this time. in cantrast to May Day. will policy helped Thomas and Purcell shatter, discourage ation is becoming more revolutionary every day, he wholly, absolutely and irremediably to the advantago and absorb this minority. After all this, the British only revealed a complete incapacity to understand of the enemy.
Party received an order to accomplish an immediate the dialectic of the process which is taking place in IRRESPONSIBLE SLOGANS turn about of 1802 degrees. As a result it could only the working class.
find out that the working class simply does not know The German Communist Party received at last The summons of the Western European Bureat 8th o it as an independent revolutionary party, year elections 200. 000 votes. After the defeat of of the Comintern issued in Berlin on the 1923, that is, after the collapse of Brandlerism, and May, although we are accustomed to much, shock GERMANY AND CHINA after the monstrous The German Communist Party, incomparably 1924 and 1925, such a result was in the highest de streets, proletarians! Down with Imperialist war!
mistakes of the ultra lefts of us with its light mindedness, garrulousness, bragg Into th stronger than the other parties, has also a more serious tradition and more militant cadres. But in 1928 free significant and promising. But it was not by any Appropriate the political and military technical e means a symptum of a revolutionary situation. Nine perience of the struggle of the Berlin proletariat!
the German working class had only begun to emerge million are weighing upon these 3, 200, 000. This was Learn the fighting methods of the police! Mak from the paralysis with which its vast majority was made clear at the time of the Armored Cruiser Cain secure your ability to manoeuvre! Unite your su million votes to the social democracy, the German talk about the situation becoming more revolu port of the Berlin proletariat with the daily demand workers explicitly declared that they wish again to Down wit tionary every day.
try their luck on the paceful road of reform.
imperialistic war. Into the streets, proletarians!
In China the Communist Party now numbers NEW GROWTH OF REFORMISM In other words the European Communist Pai three or four thousand members, and not that hun. The working masses, and above all the new ge ties are given a strictly dated task: In the course dred thousand which was so light mindedly claimed neration, are now passing through an accelerated rethree months (May to August) to unite themselve at the Sixth Congress by the bureaucrats of the petition of the course of reformism. That is the with the broadest masses of the workers (no mor Comintern. But this little Party is in a state of stil fundamental fact. From this it by no means follows and no less. learn the art of manoeuvering, aquil further disintegration. The leadership of Stalin, of course, that we must soften our attitude toward the fighting methods of the police, appropriate th military technical experience of combining Opportunism with adventurism, has the social democracy, or the right opposition. Buch political and wrecked the Chinese revolution for years, and with arin, Brandler and Co. But our own tactical tasks struggle and go into the streets against. the in it the young Chinese Communist Party. When the ought to flow first of all from a correct understand. perialist war. It is really dificult to imagine a mor to the fact that th Central Committee of the French Party promises ing of what is taking place. The May Day celebration pitiful document, testifying that on the First of August the proletarian batallions of 1929 could not jump out of its political setting. It consecutve blows of the governmental apparatus will march in Shanghai as in Paris, this prophesy could not help the Communist Party become stronger the skull of the Comintern have succeeded in produ can only be classed as cheap rhetoric. Alas, every in the course of 24 hours than it actually was. May Day ing an ominous stupidity. And now this headles thing goes to show that batallions will not march could be only an episode in the process of an as leadership, armed with the above cited ideas and slo eitther in Shanghai or in Paris. The French Com yet pacifist and reformist leftward movement of gans, warns the bourgeoisie of all Europe that it in munist Party, like its pale shadow the Unity Confed the masses. The attempt to jump over the sky in 24 tends on the First of August to lead the workel eration of Labor, has by no means increased its in hours strictly according to the calender, flowed from into the streets fully armed with military technica fluence of late years. There is not the slightest hope a false estimate of the processes taking place in the methods Could it be possible to play more shame that the First of August will prove any more revolu mass, and inevitably led to a defeat, in which there lessly with the lives of the proletarian vanguard an tionary in France than the First of May. Semard was an indubitable element of adventurism. The op: the honor of the Comintern than these contemptibl and Monmousseau undertake everything and promise portunists always make gains on the miscalculations epigones are playing with Stalin at their head.
everything in order to do nothing.
of revolutionary adventurism, in this case the social The tasks and duties of the Bolshevik Leninist Or perhaps the outcome of the Belgian elections democrats made these gains and in part also the give grounds to hope for a demonstration of the Brandlerites who represent the tidiest, most honest flow very clearly from the whole situation. We re workers of Brussels and Antwerp at the sum and freshest edition of revolutionary social demo present at present in the workers movement a smal mons of the Jacuemotte?
cracy. They are using the debacle of revolutionary minority. and this for the same reasons that th We will not stop to mention the other parties adventurism in order to discredit revolutionary bourgeoisie are strong, the social democracy ha grown, the right wing of the Comintern is consol.
of the Comintern. They all reveal exactly the same methode in general.
features: decline of influence, weakening of organiz.
There cannot be any doubt that the May Day dating, and Centrism holds the apparatus in its hand ation, ideological splitting up, a decrease of confidence This does not mean of course that it set the Party mate, foresee, warn against dangers and indicate th celebration set back the German Communist Party.
The task of the Marxian minority is to analize, est.
of the masses in the appeals of the Party, The Czecho Slovak Party was considered one of back forever, or even for a long time. The unex. road.
the most powerful sections of the Comintern. But its ampled crime perpetrated by the Social Democracy WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
first attempt last year to designate a Red Day un will be gradually assimilated into the consciousness What is to be done immediately? The first thing covered an alarming stagnant reformism in the Par of the working mass and will help them make the is to correct what is already done. It is necessary t: ty, poisoned with the spirit of Smeral and those like transition to communism. There can be no doubt of call off the August First Demonstration.
him. As a result of the sheer command from the top that. upon one single condition: a fairly correct But this will do injury to the prestige of the to become revolutionary in 24 hours, the Czecho. policy of the Communist Party itself.
Comintern and its national seccions! Indubitably. Slovak Party simply began to crumble away.
If you approach the situation point crude political mistake cannot pass without affecting of view is necessary first of all to ask the question: the authority of the Comintern. But the injury wil FALSE ESTIMATE OF THE SITUATION What is now needed by the Berlin workers and the be less if you call off the demonstration in time, tha.
They told us during the period of the Sixth Con German workers and all other workers? repeti. if you stubborniy persist in th inistake, converting gress that the situation in Germany is placing revotion of May Day or a learning of the lesson of May the demonstration in the one case into an unworthy lution on the order of the day. Thalmann clearly an. Dey? The answer is already contained in the quest comedy, and in the other into a guerilla battle be nounced: The situation is becoming more revolu ion. repetition is unthinkable and not to be per. tween small revolutionary troops and the police.
tionary every day. But that judgment was false to mitted. repetition would be a bare, senseless ad The recent Congress of the German Communis the roots. In a letter sent by comrade Trotsky to the venture. What we want is a learning of the lessons, Party seems to attempt to dissent from the summons Sixth Congress in the name of the Opposition. And a correct estimation of what happened. What we of the Western European Burear in the direction o What next. the official estimate of the situation want is a correct political line.
common sense. But instead of clearly and firmly re was analyzed in complete detail, and an accurate warn RED DAY CONDEMNED TO FAILURE. Jeeting it, the manifesto of the Congress is conten ing was issued a year ago against the ruinous adVenturiatic conclusions which that estimate would raise itself above the political We have said that May Day cannot artifically to smear over and dissolve in water the military level of the move technical slogans of the Comintern. That is the wors entail. The Opposition does not deny the symtoms ment. Still less can an artifical piling up of red course to take, for combines all the disadvantage of a leftward movement of the German working mas days burcaycratically designated in advance accord of a retreat with all the dangers of adventurism.
ses. On the contrary for us also this leftward move ing to the calender, do this. Moreover the Comintern ment found an unqualified expression at the time is making an attempt to take a First of August re The Opposition ought to use all its strength to ac of the recent elections to the Reichstag. But the venge for the First of May. It is possible to say even complish that. We should be able to knock on th whole question is as to the present stage of this left now, and it is necessary to say it in the hearing of doors of all the organizations of the party, behin ward movement. We have had in Germany a simul all: The First of August Red Day is condemned whose back the demonstration was announced. taneous growth of the Social Democracy and the in advance to failure. In addition to that: What was must appeal to the advanced elements of the trad Communist Party. That has undoubtedly meant an valuable in the First of May (the self sacrifice of a unions. We must spare no effort to explain the er ebbing of broad circles of the workers away from part the proletarian vargard) will be reduced to a ror and the danger of this new invention. We mus the bourgeois parties. But the principle current still minimum on the First of August. And what was bad explain to Communist and revolutionary workers ir flows in the channel of the Social Democracy. In on the First of May (the elements of adventurism) general that the first requisite for a militant mas these circumstances it it intolerably light minded to will be raised to a higher power.
demonstration at the summons of the Party is an insay that the situation is becoming more revoluti In the Autumn of 1923, when mental life in the fluence of the Party on the masses, gained from onary. The social democracy is not a part of revo Comintern was not yet entirely choked, there was an day to day by a clear, farsighted and correct policy.
lution, Hermann Mueller and Zoergiebel reminded international polemic in the leading Communist or The present policy of the Comintern is undermining the whole world of that on the First of May. gans as to whether or not it is possible to set the and destroying the influence won by the October We have to understand correctly what a growth date for an insurrection in advance. Basing them Revolution, and in the period of the first four Conof the social democracy means in the present circ selves upon the whole experience of revolutions the gresses of the Comintern. We must change the poliumstances. After the experience of the war and the Marxists demonstrated that it is not only possible cy at bottom. We must begin by calling, off the Au defeat of German militarism, after the revolutionary but negessary. Following Stalin and Zinoviev, Brand gust First Demonstration.
uprising and lefeats of the proletariat, ler and Masloy laughed at the idea of setting the The Opposition will under no conditions permi hroed masses TAS nananatinn of data for an ipsumpction, thereb shewing that won itself to be cut off from the masses and above al ਸਮg.