Page THE MILITANT Hugust 15, 1929 Is the Left Wing Going?
lows: replying mightiest Where Answer to William Foster with a Footnote on his Political Biography William Foster, who has succeeded Lovestone as By James Campon Who? Where? When? This is a very strong accuthe chief of American Stalinism, makes his debut as sation which ought to be supported by some facts and an unterrified warrior against counter revolutionary that the policy is understood to mean that we are to proofs. Sinee Foster fails to supply them, we will make Trotskyism. after a long and discreet silence on the join the new unions and leave the of One quo up the deficiency. The only time and place this was subject, in the July nuinber of The Communist. The tation from the pen. the eminent Patrick Toohey, a serious issue dividing the Central Committee was in publication of Foster article. Right Tendencies at Secretary Treasurer of the National Miners Union, the Necole Trades and particularly in the the Trade Union Unity Conference. opens a debate in the Daily Worker of May 24, illustrates the drift: In 1925 when Sigman was in a conflict with other on the trade union question which the Stalinists avoid The many thousands of honest workers who are sections the bureaucracy, over questions of patroned as long as possible.
still in the of will quickly learn that they age, after he had expelled the Left wing, the Foster In his first attack on the Opposition Communists are being betrayed and will leave it to join with the unorganized workers of the entire country. our emfaction proposed to make a combination with the Foster justifies his appointment to the leadership of phasis. Sigman forces to secure a majority at the 1925 con American Stalinism by an exhibition of those talents Foster, the most careful writer, expert in the use vention in Philadelphia. We fought this utterly unand methods which he perfected in the school of Gomprincipled combination which threatened to undermine of the qualifying clause, past master in the art of pers and which have contributed not a little to the cor leaving the door open so that his words can be inthe moral and ideological foundations of the Left ruption of the Communist movement in America since wing and combined with Ruthenberg to defeat it. The terpreted to mean one thing or the direct oppositehis belated adhesion to it. The Communist movement depending on the way the cat jumps furnishes the whole story is told in the minutes of the Political will be the gainer by this forced discussion of ecific inspiration for the conclusions of the cruder Tooheys.
Committee for that period. There it appears on the questions at issue and by the occasion it offers to exIn the Daily Worker of May 13 Foster wrote as folagenda a half a dozen times with a half a dozen moamine the personal qualities and the history of Foster tions from us prohibiting it. We challenge Foster to which have made him the logical successor to Love By the same token that it would be wrong to draw make these minutes public. This will be far more constone as the warden of the Stalin barracks.
these individual workers into the corrupt of vincing than general accusations which cannot be supThe first task in him is to clear away unions, so it would be incorrect to try to affiliate them ported.
the fog and put the questions as they are. Foster tries collectively through the new unions to the of But, while we fought against the abominable horseto represent matters as though we are opposed to or The of leadership does not want such revotrade with Sigman and others of the same stripe which ganizing the unorganized. That seems absolutely in lutionary unions and even if it should in any case acFoster also proposed, we declined to join in the orgy credible to anyone familiar with the facts. But Foster, cept them it would only be to destroy them.
of purity and repentance which came afterward and evidently proceeding on the theory that nobody reads These two quotations are the same in essence and which wanted to do away with all dealings with all or remembers what he reads, puts it down in type they are both wrong because they set up a dogma fakers under all circumstances. We were, and are, as the keystone of his argument against us. And to which cannot always be followed. If we are in prin against this theory because it condemns the Left wing make the case stronger he links our position with ciple opposed to drawing individual workers into the to sterility and destroys its maneuvering capacity. It is that of Lovestone whom yesterday he helped to exA. of if we consider it incorrect to try to af in reality only the reverse side of the Sigman proposal pel us.
filiate them collectively, and if this attitude is moti and is almost equally harmful. few facts will suffice to dispose of this falsi vated, as Foster motivates it, by the fact that the THE SLOGAN OF UNITY fication. The Communist for July, 1928 contained of leadership does not want such revolu One of the greatest weaknesses in the current trade an article by me, which was a digest of my speech tionary unions. then Toohey is correct also about union policy of the Party is the withdrawal of the sloat the May, 1928 Plenum of the In this ar the necessity of the honest workers, leaving the gan of unity. This was a central slogan of the Party ticle, which outlines views consistently maintained of Green and Company do not want them either. and one of its weapons in the fight against since that time, insisted on a course to put the With such views how can a left wing be consolidated the reactionaries. The slogan of unity was one of the main emphasis and center of gravity in its trade for a stubborn fight in the old unions? It cannot be most effective means of mobilizing the masses in the union work on the organization of the unorganized done, and because of such views which now dominate needle trades under the left wing banner. And conand the preparation for strikes. This was the main the Party policy it is not being done.
versely, although there are other factors, the decline theme of my article, although the necessity of com These tactics are false. They spell isolation and of left wing power and influence and the revival of the batting any tendency to leave the old unions was also defeat for the left wing, the strengthening of the rerights in this field are closely related to the dropunderscored. Foster attempt to represent us as opactionary strangle hold on the unions and the eventual ping of this slogan.
posed to this line and to connect us with Lovestone defeat of the program for organizing the unorganized. These light hearted reversals of basic policy are who really opposed it, is quite amazing when it is And of all those responsible for the damage these false made all the more reprehensible by the failure to ofrecalled that the same issue of The Communist in tactics are doing to the future of the Party, Foster is fer any explanations. They are carried out in a purewhich my article appeared also contains an article by the most culpable. He is not one of those brainless ly administrative way by decision of committees as Foster, as a sort of reply to me, written, as the inwind bags who are able to talk themselves into the be though the masses did not exist. The education of the troduction states, at the instruction of of Lovestone lief, that the new Revolutionary Trade Union Cen. Party is stifled by these methods and the masses canE. and expressing the ter is just what the workers are waiting for. He not understand what the Communists want. In these Our trade union position does not change from day knows better, and supports a false policy out of fac conditions the reactionaries and the socialists grow to day and we maintain now, as before, despite the tional expediency and personal opportunism. This is and consolidate at the expense of the Communists, and incalculable damage being done by the adventurist a crime against the working class.
the Right Wing in the Party is nurtured.
and irresponsible policy of the Party, that the organiTHE PROGRESSIVES zation of the unorganized must be the first point on This process, now clearly visible, is part of the In his article in The Communist Foster gingerly fruit of the new line of counterfeit. Leftism. The the left wing program in the present situation. This touches on the question of the united front with the National Conference of the can really idea is brought out in our platform and it runs through progressive elements in the unions against the reac serve the cause of the workers if it calls a halt to a dozen or more articles in The Militant dealing with tionaries which was the main strategy of the Party this course and steers the trade union work of the various phases of trade union work.
in the trade unions since 1921 and which Foster advo Left wing back onto the main line of revolutionary THE REAL DIFFERENCES cated in his book Misleaders of Labor as the key policy. formal ratification of the adventurist tacBut this matter does not end with Foster falsifi to the conquest of the unions.
tics which Foster and others are now propagating cation and our exposure of it. The differences be Now Foster dismisses the whole strategy with a will weaken the position of the Left wing still more tween us on this point are real enough and they con few words, repudiates seven years of Party trade union and make its recovery more painful and difficult.
sist in this: work under his direction and dumps overboard the For us the organization of the unorganized and the book which embodied his settled conclusions on the Stalin Centrism selects the instruments which are formation of new unions is only one phase although trade union movement all in a few sentences which qualified to serve its mission which is to befoul the at present the most important phase of our program make no attempt to explain the error of the old pol banner of Communism and destroy the Communist Inand is indissolubly connected with the work in the old. icy or the reasons for the new one. Everything is cov ternational. It attracts to its service those who adapt unions and the slogan of trade union unity. For the ered with the soul saving formula: we made a mistake themselves easily and swim with the current. It Stalinists the formation of new unions and the empty and the corrected us. It would be more creates a happy hunting ground for the bureaucrat chatter about a new revolutionary trade union center merciful and humane to educate the left wing work and careerist. It bestows the marshal baton on those have become a trade union program in themselves. ers with a club than to slug them with such methods. who can reconcile contradictions and change posiFor fear of facing the whole issue this has not yet The new progressive movement in the trade unions tions in the shortest time. The consecration of Foster been stated in clear and definite programmatic form. is a symptom of rank and file pressure which will as the new American chief of Stalinism is not without But it is the plain implication of all the talk nowa very probably show greater vitality in the future. The logic and a reason. His past has prepared him for days, and it is the practice. The as a Communists should regard it fundamentally from this the present, as an outline of his career will show. His left wing in the old unions does not exist any more. standpoint and steer a course toward contact with it, record is a record of zig zags and changes from right The nature of the current propaganda precludes any of the shady character of some of those rep to left according the mutations of the working class serious work in the of One could easily com resented in its present leadership. Since when did movement.
Above all others he has shown that he pile a page of quotations from the Party press to show. this become wrong and why?
knows how to adapt himself. And this is the first rea year ago, in his article in the July 1928 quirement of a Stalinist overseer.
THE MILITANT Communist. referred to above, Foster wrote: FOSTER ZIG ZAG RECORD The middle group will tend to organize and coPublished twice a month by the Communist League Foster began his career as a revolutionist, first in operate with the left wing. The so called Muste Group, the Socialist Party and later in the This is of America (Opposition)
while not in itself large, is an evidence of this tendAddress all mail to: Box 120, Madison Square ency. To consolidate the real opposition forces in the an important fact to remember in connection with his Station, New York, old unions, is the task of the later activities and allegiances. He left the Publisher address at 332 18th Street, New York, The explanation of the error in these conceptions in 1911 at a time of low ebb in the fortunes of that Subscription rate: 00 per year. Foreign 50 is Foster task, not ours. We still maintain them. But organization of militants ants and went to the of 5c per copy Bundle rates, 3c per copy.
he tries to avoid that duty by ascribing the policy of There, according to his own testimony and that of Associate Editors. the past exclusively to us and, with characteristic Gompers and Fitzpatrick before the Senate Committee Editor Martin Abern generosity, by giving us credit for some particularly investigating the Steel Strike, some extracts of which James Cannon are printed on another page, he adapted himself to the Max Shachtman gross mistake of his own.
Maurice Spector Cannon. was one of the very worst defenders of philosophy of Gompers, so much that he found no the erroneous united front policy of the obstacle in rising to high positions by official pppointVOL. II.
AUGUST 15, 1929 No. 13. He understood it and fought for it to mean that we ment.
should inake alliances with every crook and faker in the During the war the tide ran strongly against the Entered as second class mail matter November 28, labor movement who made even a pretense of being in Reds and Foster, by his own testimony, went with 1928, at the Post Office at New York, under the opposition to the ruliny lahor vreaucracy. This was it. for the war. He who had been a revolutionist act of March 3, 1879.
the substance of his conception of trade union work. fought on the other side of the barricades in those fateregardless Only