October 1, 1929 THE MILITANT Page The Cult of the Third Period theory there can be no revolutionary practise. The decline of the capitalist system, however, does not proceed in an unbroken curve. The defeats of the proletariat in 1923 helped the capitalists stabilize the CONCLUDED FROM LAST ISSUE sciousness, has led the Center to advertise a swing to system, and gave the social democracy a new lease of So much for the first part of the manoeuvre to the left a move which is either shadow boxing or a life though on a different basis than before 1914. We avoid responsibility. But the rank and file was be swing to the left of the Marxist line. The centrist cannot disregard the fact that the defeats in China, ginning to get restive. The hammer blows of the Op staffs of the parties of the Comintern, subsidized ap Great Britain have not strengthened but weakened the position platform were beginning to sink in especially pointees of Stalin, imitate their master closely or fol proletariat. The contradictions of capitalism are again as the passage of events continued swiftly to vindi low out instructions implicitly. The centrists seek in the process of maturing and not explosion.
cate its every important argument and criticism. Re to extricate themselves from the fruits of their past CLASS AGAINST CLASS pression, deportation, expulsion, slander, and victim collaboration with the Rights unsuccessfully because The leftward movement of the workers must not ization were proving insufficient for the bureaucracy they cannot follow a true Marxist policy without recbe exaggerated. There is such a movement but it still to maintain their grip on office. The grain crisis in ognizing the monstrous errors committed in the fight flows in reformist and parliamentary channels. In Russia, the Chiang Kai Shek coup in China, the against the Leninist Opposition. Hence the obverse Europe it is a movement from the bourgeois parties to corpse of the Anglo Russian committee, the consequent side of Stalins cooperation with Chiang Kai Shek is the social democracy and and on a much smaller scale weakening of the international position of the Soviet the Canton Putsch.
to the communist parties. In the United States it takes Union (Arcos and Pekin raids) the exposures of degenULTRA LEFT ADVENTURISM OF CENTRISTS the comparatively primitive form of sporadic struggles eration and corruption in the party and state machines, The centrists interpret their Third Period as an in the worst paid industries, in a certain revival of were too flagrant to dispose of with mere abuse of the almost immediate revolutionary and war situation. The progressivism in the trade unions, in scattered signs Opposition. The growing unrest had to be canalized. May Day events in Germany were hailed in extrava of labor party sentiment. Our policies must be adaptThe old gag of bolshevization had lost its force. So gant terms as a proof of the rising tide of the revo ed accordingly. The united front must be our guide resort was had first to self criticism. which meant lutionary movement. The terms of the call of the to the winning of the masses, and unity must be our anything but criticism of the leadership, and second Western European Bureau of the Comintern leave lit slogan in the trade unions even while we proceed ly, a new line for a new period.
tle doubt that the First of August was conceived as imately to the organization of the unorganized.
At the Fifteenth Russian Party Congress (1927) some sort of dress rehearsal for the insurrection. The The slogan of class against class as issued by the and at the subsequent Ninth Plenum of the Soviet Union is pictured as in danger of imminent at Comintern looks terribly radical but is in reality the outlines and the strategy of the Third Period betack. Fascism and social democracy are identified a reversion to the Lasallean theory the single regan to emerge. The sophistic Bucharin suddenly without regard for their specific political functions. actionary mass outside the industrial workers. class discovered that the social democratic leaders The social democratic worker is characterized as the movements is not created by the use of so general a were merging with the state apparatus and were most reactionary element of the working class, and slogan but on the basis of the concrete needs and detraitors to the working class and that hence the unorganized worker as the most revolutionary. de mands the workers in their developing struggles forth only a united front from below was leftward movement of the working class is monstrous linked up with the final goals. Not class against permissible. Hitherto communists had been under ly exaggerated. The slogans of united front from beclass but peace, land and bread was the slogan the impression that the social democratic leaders were low and class against class are used to liquidate launched by the bolsheviki even in the directly revolutraitors in 1914, 1927, 1919, 1923 and a number of in the policy of the united front in general and in the tionary crisis of 1917. The period requires concrete tervening years and that they had been pretty well trade union work in particular. All warnings are dis programs of action, flowing not only from the revmerged with the state apparatus all this time. Is regarded. No heed is paid to the results of the Saxony olutionary estimate of the international situation but Arthur Henderson more merged with the State and elections which registered losses for the communist expressing the specific characteristic and demands of a bigger traitor today than when Lenin urged that party despite the May day, events, to the apathy of the situation in each country. The senseless confusion the Communists support him as a rope does a man the German workers in face of the proscription of of social democracy and fascism must abandoned.
hanged, when Henderson was in the first Labor the Red Front organization, to the fiasco of the new The former play their main role as agents of the Government? But the capitulations to Purcell, Hicks, line in England where the party secured some pal bourgeoisie in the peaceful parliamentary period and and Cook, during the second period had to be ex try 30, 000 votes, communist impotence in the Ruhr the fascisti are their arm in the period of direct civil plained away. Furthermore said Bucharin, the inde struggle. The results of this ultra left adventurism war, and different tacties must be applied in the appendent role of the communist parties must now be are seen clearly in the United States in the isolation proach to each. Millions of workers are still in the strengthened and the British and French Communist of the party in the fight for Gastonia, in the debacle fold of the social democracy and their leaders have not Parties, but yesterday enthusiasts for the Chiang Kai of the left wing furriers strike which it was respon yet been unmasked to them. The united front from Sheks and the Cooks, were presented with the slogan sible for, in its failure to exercise any influence on the below cannot be regarded as the exclusive legitimate of Class Against Class for use in forthcoming strugcloak makers stoppage, in the loss of its base in the form of the united front. It cannot be any less pergles. Apparently Bucharin Stalin would have us be needle trades in general, in the playing with the idea missible now than in the days of Lenin to engage in lieve the communist parties knew and practised noth of a new socialist trades and labor alliance of dual united fronts form above as well as below, if that ing of their independent role during the active leader unions, in its inability to manoeuvre in connection with does take the form of the Anglo Russian Commitship of Lenin before the class against class slogan the new progressive movement in the trade unions. tee replacing the mobilization of the masses and the was launched.
For the real Left in the Comintern, the Cominunist independence of the party, by mere combinations with The Third Period with which the Right Danger Opposition, the basic estimate of the epoch given by the leaders. It is the Opposition that has been fightwas tied up, blossomed out into full glory at the Sixth Lenin remains valid to day as it was several years ing all these years for the independent role of the Congress. Bucharin and Stalin, Serra and Ercoli, ago when it began to fight the theory of national so Communist Party in England, in China and elseEwert and Thaelmann, Lovestone and Foster equally cialism. No real Marxist policy can be pursued until where. The idea of Workers and Peasants Parties gave it their blessing. It was a meaningless and plati the program of the International is cleared of revision and Blocs as a substitute for the party should be extudinous substitute for the concrete Marxist analysis ist undergrowth. We recognize more than ever the punged from the program and strategy of the Cominof the given class relations and world situation upon force of Lenin dictum that without revolutionary tern.
MAURICE SPECTOR.
which communist strategy must base itself. The Third eriod is defined as one of capitalist stabilization but of growing contradictions which leads to the danger of fresh wars for the shrinking world market, sharpens the danger of an attack on the Soviet Union, and Outside of a few splits, another few score of expul trades, is to be expelled for supporting Lovestone. ReLrirgs with it a leftward movement of worksions, a series of defeats, a burglary or two, the latest ing class and an intensification of the general crisis information from the Party shows that it has reached moval from his position in the Union will naturally follow. Here, as in so many cases, the Volkzeitung of capitalism This definition adds exactly nothing. or is it about to reach the Apex of Unity and enter and the Jewish Forward carry the news long before it to the fundamental and elementary communist concepinto a period of uninterrupted growth. The following is announced in the Party press. tion of the epoch of imperialism as one of wars and are a few of the choicer bits of news that seem to have revolutions and capitalist decline which was as true been omitted from the Party press, probably for lack Albert Weisbord, suspected of conciliationism, has at the Third Congress in 1922 as at the Sixth in 1928. of space.
been removed by the Party from the secretaryship of But because it is so general and vague, the definition the National Textile Workers Union, and replaced by of the Third Period unanimously endorsed by the The Young Communist League has been given a Eli Keller. These purely administrative, mechanical Right and Center at the Congress, has also strong dose of new functionaries, to replace those exand factional methods are guaranteed to destroy the served as the argument of each of these factions pelled and renoved. The hungry Fosterite wolves, kept rew unions before they are out of their swaddling against the other since the struggle in the Right cen from the apparatus for years, are coming into their clothes.
ter bloc began to assume sharper forms.
own. Gil Greenberg has been made District Organizer Bedacht and Stachel are still on a precarious perch New replace Pershing: in the Party. Lovestone reports that the Comintern THE COMINTERN RIGHTS theoretical weight has been added to the new by has cabled for information on their part in the notorThe Right Wing in the Soviet Union bases itself making Mates agit prop director, after his removal ious Lovestone cablegram. The idea of Bedacht and socially on the state bureaucracy, and the upper crust from Pittsburgh, where his place is taken by Sam Her Stachel being dumped out of the new leadership into of the labor aristocracy, and the new possessing clas man. Morris Tomash is now in New Jersey, Jack which they ran at the last moment, is delightful to ses. It worked out its real perspectives on the inter Childs in Kansas, Piccoli in California, Pobersky in contemplate.
national siiuation and the stabilization in common with Chicago, Clem Forsen in St. Paul, Art Stein is saving the centrist Stalin party apparatus, in the theory of so the recalcitrant Seattle League for the new line. The Dr. Moissaye Olgin, arch Bolshevik of the very cialism in one country, which is the revision of the peerless Frankfeld is now running the Detroit League.
Furest water, has finally been made secretary of the Jewish Bureau and editor of the Freiheit. That what international socialist character of the Russian revoThe Right nevertheless continues to make headway.
we call a real pogrom on the Jews.
lution. It implies the stabilization of capitalism for Lovestone caucus circulars say that: The Boston decades, the attempted retreat to the theoretical posiLovestone continues the publication of his faction The District Bureau voted down Puro proposal (on Aug.
tions of the party in 1905 (bourgeois revolution)
documents, and raises a loud outery about the Trot24) to endorse the Address and the expulsions. rerights in the Comintern must formulate their outlook skyltes, whose platform of yesterday has been adopred less bluntly than the social democracy which expresses organizatim has taken place, Bail, the Party Organiz by the Political Committee for today. Although we er, has been removed, and his regeneration is hailed have been assured a thousand times that Trotskyism its outright belief in the consolidation of capitalism with glee in a Lovestone faction document. few is wiped out, we are shown the spectacle of Lovestone as a progressive historical factor. The tradition of months ago another document covered the same Bail Marx and Lenin is still strong in the Communist masaccusing the Party of being Trotskyist today, and the with yards of mud.
ses, and this compels the Rights to proceed in round Party, oficials accusing Lovestone of having united about ways. Their perspective includes the peaceful In the Anthracite district, the Bureau voted down will the Trotskyites! However, neither accusation has cohabitation of socialist and capitalist system, the for Stachel proposals, and removed the imported Organan ounce of merit.
mation of Workers and Peasants Parties, the kulak izer, Gorman, packed his grips and sent him home. The Lovestone circular says: It is also important to growth into socialism, the orientation on Amsterdam, Bureau reversed the decision of the National secre know that Pete Shapiro, an agent of Cannon in the collaboration with the national colonial bourgeoisie. tariat to expel Frank Vrataric by a vote of to The Party, is being suggested for the Lenin School for his Brandler and Thalheimer have expressed agreement Bureau was thereupon itself wiped out and a district magnificent services to Trotskyism. This is maliwith the program of the Bucharin Rykov Right in secretariat of takes its place.
cious stuff, sent out solely for the purpose of preventRussia, and so does the Right clsewhere.
mg Snapiro from getting his well earned trip across.
The Seattle Bureau refused to allow the The ultra left zig zag is represented by the Russian National Committee representative (Stein) to disEveryone knows that Shapiro flees in panic from a party bureaucracy which cent: is, it ings Trotskyist approaching a mile off. His slig itarupt and wipe out the growing League organization between social democracy and communism, between the tion and doubts of the first couple of days after our bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The strength of Stalin (writes Lovestone. Subsequently, the emisexpulsion have completely disappeared. He now beis in the party apparatus, which however, is more subsary, and specialist in unification, Jakira, straightlieves with deep conviction that socialism can be comened out the situation by reorganizing the whole disject to the pressure of the party masses, with pietely constructed in one country alone or in one city, trict. Ditto for California.
their revolutionary traditions of October. Jointly reor one back yard alone in fact, he believes anything sponsible for the opportunist theories and course of the At a meeting of the New York needle trades frac and everything that he is told to believe. When one past six years with the Rights, the fear of the influ tion, almost one hundred members voted against the has faith (and a bit of discipline, too, eh. one can ence of the Opposition among the industrial workers reports of Foster, Stachel and Weinstone. In addition, even say of socialism what the Biblical Peter said of and the awakening of their revolutionary class con Sascha Zimmerman, the Party leader in the Needle the church: On this rock shall we build.
All Well in the Party, Says the Daily Worker!