Page THB MILITANT October 1, 1929.
Once Again: Again: On Brandler and Thalheimer this in greater detail in a pamphlet that hope to pub! Malkin Statement Dear Comrade: By TROTSKY direct betrayal. That is in the nature of the present am very grateful to you for your detailed letter of period. So much the surer will be those selected. To June 3, 1929: it contains a lot of very important news ternational) aims? If we take as a point of departure be at present a sectarian of revolutionary Marxism for me which hope to utilize in the future. Here, the mere contact with the masses, we must turn our in the eyes of philistines, of snivellers, of shallow wish to confine myself to examining the question of eyes toward the Second International and Amsterdam. minds, is the greatest honor for a real revolutionary.
our attitude towards the German Right Opposition. The German social democracy is uch more imposing repeat: we are today again nothing but an interna1. You admit that Brandler and Thalheimer did on this point that Brandler Thalhe mer.
tional propaganda society. do not see in this any reanot understand the revolutionary situation in Gerraany Of course it can be said that this is an exaggera son for pessimism, despite the fact that we have bein 1923, in China in 1925 1927, in England in 1926, tion: Brandler and Thalheimer are not the social hind us the huge historic mountain of the October and finally the Thermidorian character of the struggle democracy. Of course, they are not yet the social de revolution, or, to speak more exactly, precisely because against Trotskyisn from 1923 to 1927. You adinit mocracy, and naturally not the social democracy of of that. have no doubt that the new chapter of the all this. But thereby you recognize that Brandler today. But we must know how to look at facts in their proletarian revolution will begin its genealogy with our Thalheimer are not revolutionaries, for revolutionaries development. The German socis democracy did not sectarian group.
are determined and characterized by their attitude to begin with Herman Mueller. On the other hand, so 11. In conclusion, a few words on the Brandler facwards the fundamental problems of the world revolu far Brandler only desires to ve the masses with tion as a whole. You agree with me that Brandler tion. What can we Bolsheviks have in common, in roli him, but he has not got them. You yourself speak and Thalheimer themselves are incorrigible. am tics, with non revolutionaries, especially with individ indignantly of the Brandlerist. turning their backs ready to admit with you that in any case their faction uals who, for the last 7 years, have been fighting to the international proletariat They don give a is better than its leaders. Many workers go to this our revolutionary decisions and slogans in the most flag for the Russian revolution, or the Chinese revo faction, despairing of the policy of the official Party trying moments?
lution, or the rest of humanity.
and unable at the same time to forget the luckless Still you resent the fact that Brandler and They want to carry out their policies in Germany leadership of the ultra Leftists after 1923: All that is CerThalheimer are called Menshevik liquidators.
true like Stalin wants to build socialism in Russia. Live part of these workers, like a part of the tainly, if this is taken literally, it is false. But the and let live. But we know where that led to: to the ultra Left workers, will pass over to the social de4th of August, 1914.
tendency that put them in opposition to us is without Allow me to remind you once mocracy. Another part will come to us, if we do doubt a tendency of liquidators and Mensheviks. The more that the young factions, particularly the oppor not spare the Right. Our task consists of explaining Vienna Arbeiter Zeitung criticizes me exactly like tunist Opposition factions, are more congenial than that the faction of Brandler is only a new door leadThalheimer does. Like him, it sympathizes with Stolin the old social chauvinist Parties in the same way as ing to the social democracy.
against me, with Rykov and Bucharin against Stalin. a young pig is more congenial than an old hog.
12. Do we need a platform of immediate demands?
But the Arbeiter Zeitung does it openly, while Brand However, those who imagine that Brandler can Yes. Do we need of a correct tactic in the trade unions?
ler and Thalheimer play a most pitiful game of hide really lead the masses on to the soil of reality (that Certainly. But we cannot speak of these questions exand seek. In such a case, prefer the Arleiter is, of national reformism. are seriously mistaken. No, cept with those who have clearly and firmly decided Zeitung. that is, the enemy who shows himself openly. on that soil Brandler has an invincible competitor. So for themselves why all this is needed. Just as will Your letter contains deadly arguments against long as the masses of the workers choose between not discuss the various tendencies in materialism with a the Rights. In spite that, you thought it necessary Brandler and Wels, they will prefer the latter, and man who makes the sign of the cross whenever he to add that the situation in the German Communist in their fashion they will be right: It is useless to passes by a church, so will not work out slogans Party would be better if they applied the socalled Right recommence from the beginning what has already and a tactic with Brandler who, in principle, calls the policy instead of the one practised at present. been done once.
rear of the revolution its face (and vice versa. Well, we have already seen to what a pass the Ger It seems that you present as a merit of Brand We must begin by intrenching ourselves in positions men Party was brought under the leadership of ler and Thalheimer their criticism of Thaelmann of principle, by occupying a correct position of departBrandler. It brought the huge catastrophe at the end First of May policy. At the same time you express the ure, and afterwards expand our tactical lines. We are of 1923. This catastrophe forms the basis of all the certitude that cannot approve of this policy do now in a period of the clarification of principles for subsequent jumps of German Communism towards the not know if you have read my letter to the Sixth Conourselves and of pitiless delimitation from the opporRight and towards the Left. It constitutes the politi gress entitled What Now? This letter contains a tunists and confusionists. It is only in this direction ca! premise for the period of stabilization of Euro special chapter devoted to the perspectives of the that the way to the great road of the revolution will be found.
pean capitalism that followed. How then can we fail Leftward march of the German working class, and to see that as a political person Brandler finds him also a direct and categorical warning against ThaelStrong and intransigeant greetings, self on the other side of the barricades?
mann hare brained over estimation of the movement Constantinople, June 12, 1929.
You know that did not to this annihilat towards the Left and against the danger of ultra Lefting conclusion at stroke. had rather hoped that Brandler would learn. In the Fall of 1923, he understood his lack of capacity. He himself told me repeatedly that he was unable to find himself again in reaucratic adventurism, will draw a line of demarca The Daily Worker of September 14th prints what a revolutionary situation. Yet, after he had missed tion all the more clearly between my criticism and purports to be a letter from comrade Maurice Malkin, the situation, he became exceedingly haughty. He be Brandler Opportunists always have a triumphant at present a State prisoner in Comstock, New York, gan to accuse me of pessimism. He looked upon air when they criticize the spirit of revolutionary ad to the Party Secretariat. In this letter, comrade Mal1924 with lots of optimism. Then understood that venturism. But it is precisely they who prepare the kin is alleged to sever his connection with the Opposithis man did not know how to distinguish the face ground for it: Brandler prepared the ground for tion and appeal for reinstatement into the Party from of the revolution from its rear.
Maslov like Maslov prepared the ground for Thael which he was expelled.
Had it been only a matter of an individual peculiarity mann, who combines all the errors of Brandler and Comrade Malkin was one of our first supporters in the misfortune would have been only half as great. Maslov and adds to them his own faults that result the Party. While under sentence in the Mineola furBut now it has been raised to a system on which from bureaucratic stupidity and blustering ignorance. rier trial for his activity on the picket line, he joined a faction is being built. What can we have in common 10. You point to various groups of the Left Oppo with the Russian and American Opposition and was with a faction of this kind?
sition and call them sectarian. We must come to forthwith expelled by the Party bureaucrats. The smug By that do not assume to any degree the de an understanding of the meaning of this term. There apparatus men who now hail him again as a stalwart fense of the policy of Maslov and others. In 1923, the ver are among us elements who content themselves with fighter, are the same ones who slanderously denounced boss radicalism of Maslov was imbued with the same criticizing the mistakes of the official party, with him as a counter revolutionist, a Trotskyist gangspassivity as was Brandler Without understanding out setting themselves any other tasks in a broader ter, and tried to organize mobs of hoodlums to beat the ABC of the question, Maslov tried to ridicule sense, without taking upon themselves pratical revolu him up in front of the New York Worker Center.
my demand for the fixing of the date of the insur tionary obligations, and make a distinction of the re Because he was supporter of the Opposition, his de rection. At the Fifth Congress, he still regarded the volutionary Opposition, something like the Order of fense was criminally neglected and even sabotaged by revolution as progressing. In other words, in the es the Legion Honneur. There are also sectarian ten the Party leaders in control of the Even a sential questions he shared the errors of Brandler, dencies expressed in splitting every hair in four. This protest meeting was called off by them at the last serving them up with ultra Leftist sauce. But Mas must be combatted. And am personally ready to fight minute because Malkin insisted on his right to speak lov at least made an effort to learn until he slid down against this until the last, if needs be against old there.
into the morass of the capitulators. Others of the friendships, personal relations, etc. etc.
The real reasons that animated the appearance of old ultra Lefts learned certain things. by no means However we must not have any illusions. The revo the letter are not contained in it. We know that they assume the responsibility for the line of Volkswille lutionary Marxists are now again reduced (not for the are not the ones written there. Comrade Malkin does as a whole. Even now there are not a few remnants first time and probably not for the last) to being an not believe the infamous slander that we are counterof the past, that is, of combinations of opportunist international propaganda society. Such a position, by revolutionists. He was not and cannot now be taken and ultra Left tendencies. Nevertheless, these com its very essence, contains certain clements of sectarian in by the hypocritical barrage laid down against comrades have learned a great deal and a great number ism that can be overcome only by degrees. It seeins rade Trotsky for breaking through the Thermidorian of them have proved that they are capable of learning that the fact that we are very few frightens you. Of conspiracy of silence on the viewpoint of the Oppostill more. Brandler and Thalheimer, on the contrary, course, it is unpleasant. Naturally, it would be bet sition with his articles in the bourgeois press. Comhave taken a gigantic step backwards by raising their ter to have behind us organizations numbering millions. rade Malkin was never a pupil of the school of Zinorevolutionary blindness to a platform.
But how are we, the vanguard of the vanguard, to viev, Kamenev, Safarov, Radek and Co. You see one of their merits in their struggle have such organizations the day after the world revo How many times did comrade Malkin write us ridifor democracy in the Party. do not see this merit. lution has suffered catastrophic defeats brought on by culing the spurious arguments of the weak kneed Brandler and Thalheimer never raised their voices the Menshevik leadership hiding under the false mask capitulators! How enthusiastically did he endorse the against the annihilation of the Left Opposition. They of Bolshevism? How? Yes, how?
formation of our Communist League! Wh what scorn not only tolerated the Stalinist regime but they sup We are passing through a period of tremendous re and contempt did he write about the cheap Stalinist ported it. They swallowed the Thermidorian bait of action following upon the revolutionary years (1917 maneuver which grafted the Foster branch on to the Trotskyism. When did they feel called upon to 1923. We revolutionary Marxists find ourselves rotting Lovestone tree! No, the Malkin we know, who take up the struggle for Party democracy? Only when thrown back, at a new and higher stage of history, fought side by side with us from the beginning will the apparatus began to crush them, when they became into the position of a small minority, persecuted al never be at one with the Weinstones, Stachels, Fosters, convinced that they would never get to power simply most like at the beginning of the imperialist war. As Bedachts, Trachtenbergs, Minors and Engdahls. He by serving the Stalinists. Can one really find it meri is shown by all history, beginning with the example knows the stifling atmosphere of the Centrist swamp.
torious that the opportunists begin to cry out when of the First International, similar relapses are inevit Comrade Malkin was, and will be in the future, a the Centriscs, dreading the criticism of the Left, de able. Our advantage over our predecessors consists stalwart fighter in the camp of the Opposition. The molish them? No one likes to be clubbed. There isn in the fact that the environment is now much more Stalinist ghouls, who have exerted their utmost cunning any merit in that.
mature and that we ourselves are much more ma to play upon his sentiment, who have resorted to the The Centrist methods of struggle against the Right ture. for rest upon the shoulders of Marx, Lenin most damnable tricks, to the most shameful pressure are disgusting, and in the long run help the Right. and many others. We will be able to utilize this advan upon him and his family, will not succeed in dragging But that does not by any means signify that a de tage that we possess only if we know how to manifest him into the mire of Stalinism. When the whole story mocratic regime in the Communist Party must assure the greatest ideological intransigeance, fiercer yet than of the dastardly role played by the Stalinists in the citizenship to the opportunist tendency of Brandler. that of Lenin at the beginning of the imperialist war. Malkin case before and after his entry into prisonParty democracy cannot be regarded as a thing in There will still me characterless impressionists, like is told, and it will not be long delayed, it will redound itself. We speak of democracy on a definite revolution Radek, to abandon us. They will still talk of our sec to the credit of comrade Malkin and to the ineradicable ary hasis which excludes Brandlerism.
tarianism. We must not be afraid of words. Twice shame of the Party. You see the second merit of the Brandlerists already have we gone through all this. Such was the To his fellow workers in prison, and to comrade Malin heir struggle for immediate demands, in their case during the reaction of 1907 1912 in Russia. It kin, we send again our warmest Opposition greeting.
string to find contact with the masses, etc. But was the same during the war in Europe. The present Speed the day when his release will enable him to redo ve need such contact for itself, and not for revo reaction is deeper than the preceding ones. There turn to the front ranks of our movement from which lutiary (and, what amounts to the same thing, in will yet be isolated capitulations, desertions and even he was snatched!