November 1, 2929 THB LITANT Paper Party Plenum of Cliques The Mechanics of the Coming Struggle within the Party decision, but they must even refrain from interpreting these decisions, for that again will lead to deviating in one direction or another. The memory of Lovestone ghastly fate is too fresh in the minds of all.
That is why the only thing left for this heterogeneous and absolutely incompatible collection of leaders is a struggle of cliques, devoid of principle and pregThe Plenum of the Central Committee of the Com against the nomination of Dunne for the Political Com nant with further corruption of the movement. If munist Party, the first one to be held since the last mittee, ostensibly for good Party reasons. It is no there is any doubt of the clique character of the com open address of the Comintern, has only two accom one secret that they were put up to this bit of stage ing fight, read Frankfeld letter reprinted in the first plishments to its credit. The first is the adoption of play by Bedacht and Stachel who are vainly trying to issue of Lovestone paper. The principle basis for a thesis on the present situation in the country and the stem the tide that swept the old minority into Party the purely clique struggle will be erected according to tasks of the Party, which is a classic of confusionism, control.
need. You will yet hear of Bedacht and Stachel role word mongering, false evaluations and stark ignorance This feeble struggle that has such potentialities for in the various Lovestone intrigues.
of many fundamentals of Marxisms, and is at least the future is manifest eleswhere. The triumvirate that But the Party ranks, the membership? It is dwindtwice as long as it should be. The second is the grow is running the Engdahl, Jakira and Codkind, ling rapidly, but that is where the source of regeneraing manifestations of collapse in the patched together are pulling strings to keep George Maurer down in tion is to be found. For the moment it is in a bar leadership imposed upon the now unified party the field and out of the national office, where he was rack. The Communist Opposition must help it to break by arbitrary Stalinist decree. There is very little to first placed as a Fosterite balance against the repen out of the stifling atmosphere and into the open say about the thesis since its only future is its inevit tant (but not entirely trustworthy. Lovestoneites. On struggle against corruption and opportunism.
able reversal or repudiation some six months from now. the other hand, a spike has been put into Stachel by The second product of the Plenum, however, is of first shifting John Williamson from the into the Nadir Khan, Liberator of Afghanistan, rato consequence, since contains all the essentials position of Stachel assistant in the Party organizaWill Convoke a National Assembly of an inevitable factional struggle in the very near fu tion department. where Williamson hopes to settle ture, which will be even less principled and more de up a few old scores with Stachel from the old days He will Give the People Voting Right. National As.
structive than those of the past.
of the Furthermore, now that Weinstone is sembly Will Decide Form of Government. Nadir The very nature of the present amalgam of leader to become American representative on the Khan and Amanullah Renounce Kingship. Reship in the Party is a guarantee of its brief duration, the struggle for his position as New York district or public Possible? Nadir Khan Renowned as Idealist since it was not established as a result of a struggle ganizer has been opened up. Bedacht is working for and Liberator.
between principled viewpoints in which the correct that notorious incompetent Amter to become view issued forth victoriously. It was thrown together District Organizer; the old Foster wheelhorses, who PEOPLE OF AFGHANISTAN DANCE IN THE hastily out of the rag tag and bobtail of all factions, never forget a friend or forgive a foe, are planning STREETS WITH JOY AT THEIR LIBERATION having nothing at all in common except their readiness to occupy that strategic post through Charlie Krum PESHWAR, India, Oct. 10. The population of Kato rubber stamp enthusiastically any policy and de bein, who is not only a good proletarian but has bul, the principal city of Arghanistan, is simply danccision of the dominant faction in Russian Com newly framed diploma from the Lenin School. Stachel ing with joy their liberation from the tyrannical munist Party this were not enough to insure the is being shipped to Detroit to plague the auto work King Habibullah, or Bacha Sakao, who was set upon speedy disintegration of this leadership, the lack is ers and mend his factional fences. And more may be the throne of Afghanistan a few years ago with the more than made up for by the ruinous inner Party re expected.
aid of agents of England.
gime and the policies being carried out today in the Weinstone is waiting for the future. He has got King Habibullah fled an airplane, but all his ofgeneral class struggle. It has ceased to be news that out from under the slow wrecking of the once power ficials who did not flee with him, have been arrested.
the Party is losing hcavily in membership and in in ful New York organization by accepting the post of Nadir Khan, commander of the revolutionary forces, fluence among the workers (the coming elections in American representative across. That gives him the is now being awaited in the city.
New York City will only be another demonstration of double advantage of not being in on the crash and of It is now expected that Nadir Khan will call togethe latter. staging a well timed comeback when a savior is re ther the leaders of all the tribes to a national assembly year ago, upon the expulsion of the Opposition quired. He has gathered around him a meager ring which will give voting rights to the entire people, so from the Party by the joint forces of Foster and Loveof New York functionaries to form the nucleus for a that they can themselves determine their government.
stone, we were quite safe in predicting that the great coming faction (Weinstone factions have always been It appears that the former King Amanullah will unification achieved in the Party against Trotskya spectacle. Weinstone reckons: Right now things not be called back to Afghanistan. Nadir Khan also ism was the sheerest illusion and would fall to pieces are too unstable. will off to Moscow where my declares that he does not want become a King at the first blow. The same prediction held true in my somewhat tarnished reputation can be refurbished. Whether he has in mind proposing republican form It is the similarly great unification achieved by the Fostain that Bedacht and Stachel are discredit of ernme to national assembly as yet unter group and the remnants of the Lovestone Pepper ed to offer any serious competition for leadership. known faction after the expulsion of the latter leaders. The is equally certain that Foster, even if he should tako Nadir Khan, the leader of the uprising against King failure to reinstate the expelled Opposition which over the leadership, will soon hit a blind alley, since Habibullah, is very much beloved by the entire people.
alone has fought for a Marxist policy in the class strug he has no Bittelman and only a very dubious Brow His name is now borne on everyone lips as the hero gle, against sectarian opportunism, and for a demo der; his own theoretical qualifications are below con and liberator of the country.
cratic inner Party regime, continues to leave the new tempt. Then, when chaos and lassitude have set in in In the days when Amanullah was King, Nadir Khan ly concocted leadership floundering in ever seavier seas the Party, will make my entry again. After all, was his diplomatic representative in Paris. He is picwith fatal reefs just ahead.
why should not the mantle of leadership rest snuglytured by the Afghanistan Consulate in Paris as an inon my broad shoulders and the scepter of power be It is important to analyze the corftending factors interesting personality, courageous and ready to sacrifice side the Party today and the mechanism of the impendwielded by my hand and brain? It is true there is that himself for his ideals.
ing factional struggle which will become official annoying matter of Judge Panken, and the cooperatives, and a few other trifles. But they will be for The reader may well rub his eyes in astonished disParly property in a relatively short time.
gotten.
belief that the stupidly reactionary nonsense printed The Plenum officially transferred the leadership This far more fantastic. It is merely Weinstone above should appear in the columns of the Militant.
of the Party (the Political Committee) to the former method of thinking. He is not the only one who has We hasten to assure him that it is copied, word for Foster group by replacing the expelled Lovestonites Napoleonic dreams. There are many others who muse word, from the first headline to the last sentence, from with William Dunne, Hathaway and that over this corrupting, unprincipled struggle for lead the front page of the Jewish Morning Freiheit. Octogranite monument to brilliance Harrison George. But ership, among them those from whom better could ber 11, 1929) official organ of the Communist Party this is an achievement without a victory. The Foster be expected.
of the which was recently spanked, de chauvingroup is an army without a general. The Fosterites There remain the Weisbords and the Browders. ized, de ntaionalized, purged, re organized and Bolwho have thirsted for four years to replace the LoveThe former has already been put the sword by Be shevized by the Central Committee of the Party.
stoneites in power, find that their Caesar refuses dacht and Stachel, formally for certain heresies, and The Liberator of Afghanistan. Renowned as the crown not only thrice but every day in the week.
in actuality because he claims (by the way, with jusIdealist. population dancing with joy. comFoscer is being cajoled and urged by this faction coltice) that Bedacht and Stachel are just as guilty of mander of the revolutionary forces. rights to the leagues to assert his leadership in the Party, but he every crime with which Lovestone is charged as Love entire people to determine their government. besteadfastly declines to take all the responsibility of stone is himself. Weisbord has a deep ineradicable loved by the entire people. and liberator! Who that office. Foster is too shrewd for that. He knows that conviction, that if the American Party must have a is it? It is a Nadir Khan, the Lenin Simon Bolivarthe Party is due for pretty stormy weather, for pain leader, there are few if any so well fitted for that Debs Chiang Kai Shek Kemal Pasha Herbert Hoover of fully regular decline, not the least reason for which is imposing task as he is.
Afghanistan rolled into one, the darling of the Freithe pseudo Left policy. He goes along with this poliAs for Browder, he has the unique distinction of hav heit!
cy, and is even to be found at the head of the parade ing been wrong on almost every single important dis The Freiheit news writer who wrote that story, and some times, but his heart is not in it. Foster every puted political question in Party history. This does the Bolshevized editor who let it pass to this dayinstinct and inclination has always been in the other direction, e. to the Right. Even when it appears not prevent him from having delusions of grandeur. without a word, have simply made a horrible mistake.
He is no longer satisfied, as he was years ago, to play They have wandered into the Communist movement most certain that Foster has closed all his doors, onc the role of Foster secretary of state. He has man purely by accident. They have a couple of splendid, may be just as sure that he has left himself an open aged to get himself placed on the secretariat, together good paying jobs waiting for them on a Hearst newswindow for a necessary future right about face. He is with Minor and Bedacht. Right now, the secretariat paper or in the press department of the Chinese embiding his time for new Communist winds from Mosplays only a lesser role, but it has possibilities. Didn bassy at Washington.
cow, or winds of a different kind in the United States.
Stalin succeed in making the Russian Pol bureau a Nevertheless, the formal transference of Party tail of the secretariat at one time? Browder reckons The Real Situation in Russia power to the old Foster faction, gives another set of like Weinstone: What little competition these is can be leaders the opportunity for a revival of their tenuous overcome with judicious activity, There is not even THE REAL SITUATION IN RUSSIA by political life. That is the thin layer of former Love a bittelman left to fear (by the way, where is BittelTrotsky, containing the PLATFORM OF THE OPPOstonites functionaries still clustering furtively around man now. In the meantime, will not offend anySITION and the FALSIFICATION OF THE HISTBedacht and Stachel. These two unfortunates snified ORY OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, a book of one and try to live at peace with all, for allies can come the Moscow wind tardily. The solitary difference befrom the strangest quarters. And when the hour 350 pages, can be purchased through the Militant, in tween them and Lovestone Gitlow Wolfe was that the strikes.
either ENGLISH or JEWISH at 00 per copy. No latter refused to sign a document acknowledging that That is the blueprint of the coming factional fight work is more important for an understanding of the they were corrupt, petty bourgeois, speculating, lying, in the Party. There may, in fact there will undoubtedsituation in the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of Tammany Hall politicians, whereas Bedacht and Stach ly, be some changes in the personalities, but in essence the Soviet Union, in the Communist International and el readily agreed to say all that and more if necessary. it is there. It may be objected: What will do the Com ternationally and in each country. Comrade Trotsky the causes of the crisis in the Communist movement inBut all this was done on the promise that the de intern representative do? Where are the differences in cision meant a victory for neither the Lovestone nor principle? The former is not so much of a factor in also presents in this work, first given to the XVth the Foster factions, and that the Party would not be Party Congress of the Soviet Union, the solutions to this connection. He has only a formal standing with turned over to the minority (Foster. But that is the present Party leaders, because they know him for the problems facing the Soviet Union and the Comprecisely what has happened, and it is far from being what he has done in the last seven or eight years. THE MILITANT.
munist International. Make money orders payable to a minor functionary in the apparatus of the Lovestone group who stayed loyal to the Comintern.
As for principles, that is another matter. The esA DEBATE IN WASHINGTON In these dog days, when a mild inquiry is denounced sence of the coming fight will be the absence of prin All workers are invited to the debate at the Washas a factional conspiracy, all that is left to these poor ciples. No one dares to advance any differences of prin ington (D. Open Forum, 808 Eye Street, comrades is to look helplessly at each other, plan lit ciples, for that involves a deviation to one side or an between Edward Irvine, who will defend the views tle intrigues and bemoan the glories of their past. And other of the current line of the and the thought point of the Russian Opposition and Maurice Hollod, little intrigues there are a plenty. At the Plenum, of the fatal consequences of such a bold step makes who will represent the viewpoint of the Stalinist facthree of the former Lovestoneites, including Jakira your average bureaucrat shudder. Not only must tion. The debate will take place on Sunday, November and Bejamin (of Philadelphai) laid down a barrage everyone shout in chorus for every comma in every 24, 1909, at p. Discussion will follow.