THE MILITANT Page Saturday, February 8, 1930 Foster Return and the «New Wind» in the Comintern most Centrism is a parasite in the revolu sky) with being to the Right. trist faction) symptom form the growing lan tendencies, which are dangerous beBut the Left jag did not last very long. basis for a change in the present course cause they balk and frustrate the struggle tionary movement. Having no firm foundin Before they had much of a chance to warm this direction. The principal, and against the main Right danger.
ations in the working class, and no ideas This of its own, it must perforce live alternately the seats of power, the Fischers and Masalready enough indication to resolution is another harbinger. There 18 lows were turned out into the cold as show that the dominant on the Right (reformist) wing and the Left group is every reason to believe that Fried groups. Bolshevik) wing, falling back in the end ultra Leftists. In their place were injected preparing to bear down in this direction, that is, scape goats for Stalin past policy into the camp of reformism. The most recent, is the speech of Manuilsky, the replittle cliques of characterless individualswill be discovered and officially condemned perfect example of Centrism in the rey of whom Heinz Neumann is the perfected resentative of the Comintern, to the Plenum in virtually every party in the type who are so little encumbered by of the Young Communist Internationai.
olutionary movement is the Stalin faction The Right Wing Approves spines that they can adjust themselves to a (Communist International, Vol. VI, No. 28. in the Russian Communist Party and the The central organ of the German Right International. That it has been conducting corkscrew if the ruling regime gives the For the first time in almost two years, we wing, Gegen den Strom, devotes almost necessary orders. pseudo Left course for the past year or The brief Left swing have what ainounts to a programmatic hall of its entire issue to the new change was followed by a deep and lasting swing speech in which all the polemics of the more only brings out into bolder relief the and hails it as a justification of its whole course towards Menshevism it pursued to to the Right which had such catastrophic speaker are directed, not against the Right, line, criticizing it only because it is a hallgether with the Right wing (Bucharin results as the policies of the in the but against the Left danger. Using the change in the direction of the Brandler Tomsky Rykov) for the four or five years British miners and general strikes, in the reports of the itself, Manuilsky program. It writes: We, the expelled previous. But just as Centrism has never Chinese revolution, and in Russian domestic paints a picture of organizational and pol renegades. at all times adopted a standaffairs. It was hey day of the Buch itical decling in the International that is been capable of conducting a consistent point in the questions touched on by Man.
line, so also has it been essentially incap arins, Peppers, Lovestones, Smerals, Roys, drearier than anything yet attempted by ulsky which the Executive now suddenly Martinovs, Tascas, etc.
an Oppositionist.
able of holding to a course to the Left for claims for itself. And, fearful of the disin Comrade Furenberg, he says, says an extended period. The Centrist helms In this period also, however, the Righttegrating effects the new change will have that the decline is no less than 20 percent, man may hold the rudder to the Left under Centre bloc (Stalin Bucharin) had to suffer in its ranks, it ends with the appeal: the storm of a proletarian wind but he has the most biting lashes of criticism from and that these figures are a little out of Strengthening of the Opposition! Change a fatal yearning for the reposeful sbores the Bolshevik Opposition. Each comprdate. Note that this decline is occurring from below and not command from above!
to starboard.
mise, each step away from the revolutionin a situation of a rise in the revolutionary complete and not a half change!
wave. Not in circumstances of a reaction, Stalinist Centrism is now preparing to ary road encountered the powerful obstacle That the American party will not cs.
but in circumstances of a radicalization of of the detested Trotskyists. Goaded on capo the consequences of the new winl ir make the turn to the Right which has been the working youth. Khitarov: The same inherent in the whole situation since the by the equally powerful Right wing, the the is to state a commonplace. Fos.
applies in the Communist Parties. Their The Center collaborated with it in the Thermost recent course was undertaken.
ter has just returned from across with the turn is coming.
midorian act of cutting the Opposition from We shall deal with the first indications are already at hand. The new line in his inside pocket and God Comintern also.
the Party. But with this act, the equilibknows that he feels more at home with a record of Centrism in the past enables us The attack is not only directed against to illuminate the factors known, to connect rium was rudely upset, and the Center course to the Right than he ever did or the but also against the sections them, and to draw the necessary conclu found itself confronted by even more outcould while he gave obedient lip service (never the international leadership. of spoken demands of the Right on the one sions, In this manner, we will be able to the Left jag for which constitutionthe On August 1st all our parties to observe the similarities between the hand and growing pressure from the Rusally he had no heart at all. The Party had big possibilities of showing their present trend of events and the develop slan workers on the other.
pregg may soon be expected to harp on readiness to put this decision into force.
ments in the International and the Russian The Centrists calculated: Now that new string, to discover. by command tha In reality, with the exception of Greece and danger from the Left, whose banner bearers party after the year 1923.
the Opposition is organizationally liquidated France, where was there any attempt to The fatal blunders of the leadership of by expulsion, a swing to the Left will not may be found in either Joseph Zack, or call a mass political strike on August 1st? Browder, or Amter, or any other conventhe International and the German party in only be in harmony with the mood of the October of that year (Zinoviev, Stalin, proletarian masses, and bring no credit in not one country did we see any serious ient victim of the latest change.
attempts to carry out even a one hour genBrandler, Thalheimer) ruined the revolu to the Opposition, but will unleash sumNew Attitude towards Right Wing eral strike.
tonary opportunities in Germany. The cient mass force to destroy the organizaThe Party membership, which has been teaders of the Russian party, who bore tional power of the Right wing. Thus, the Manullsky Warns the Apparatus! turned in the direction of sharp antagonism the main responsibility, made first rate apparatus zig zagged to the Left. and Further. We have certain parties to the Lovestone faction, will be turned the where the Central Committee has not taken instituted a period of spurious Leftism other way just as arbitrarily, just as unexscapegoats of Brandler and Thalbelmer Only later, through the work of the Oppo in the International which has sted virtu a single step towards winning the masses, plained, just as mechanically and bureauand it does not enter the head of any memsition, was it revealed that the German ally since the Sixth Congress, and particucratically as it was last year when Loveleaders had merely carried out the timid, larly since the Tenth Plenum.
ber of the party to demand of such a stone was thrown out over night. line why the party directed by such a does of rapproachment towards the Right wing opportunist instructions of Stalin and ZinBut Stalin Leftism. induced by the not develop. Take the imperialiex war ovlev who played no different role in the pressure of the Opposition and its ideas elements (ostensibly for the winning over German revolution than did the latter and which the bourgeoisie is organizing: when that were permeating the workers, has no of the rank and file) wil be instituted. The Kameney in October 1917.
more essential resemblance to the platany general suffers a defeat, he is replaced; first signs of this are not lacking, particbut we onn lose half the membership of ularly in the needle trades where the Right The Leftism of the 5th Congress form of the Left Opposition than a delicate a party and the members of the remain wing is strong. For the first time since The Fifth Congress that followed in operation performed by a cobbler has to in their posts. Foster, Bedacht and Co. the official anti Lovestone fight, the party one executed by a master surgeon. Just augarated an epoch of sham Leftism in the take heed of the warning. fraction in the millinery workers union as the latter tends to discredit the very International, remarkably similar to that And the conclusions: The institution of genuine surgery, Stalin deJust a few days ago nominated an expelled instituted by the Sixth Congress and the always struggled splendidly against the bacles only tend to discredit a genuine Lovestonelte for a position in the localTenth Plenum, and causing just as much Bolshevik course.
right wing deviations, no one has any right havoc in the revolutionary movement. The In other words, prosan absolutely inconceivable action two to utter a word of reproach against you in months ago!
similarity extends even to the question of trated as the whole Comintern was by the that regard. But the struggle against the That the whole Comintern needs pre Sixth Congress regime, it has only been the leadership foisted on the various sec left wing zig zags was not so well carried more severely struck by what followed.
change from its present ultra Leftist adtions of the International. the ultra Leftist out by you.
Loss of influence of the Communist Parties, venturism (with which Stalin is paying leadership of the period of the Fifth ConTo whom does Manuilsky refer? To off his opportunist debts) to a Bolshevik loss of members, decline of the pressgress (Ruth Fischer, Maslow, Treint, SuzScatzkin, who at one time leaned towards line goes without saying.
these are but some of the results of the But Centrism anne Girault, Neurath) have their replica the Trotsky Opposition, and together with new line in little more than a year, cannot conduct such a change without inin the creatures of the Sixth Congress and Lominadze put forward the idea of poor evitably swinging over to the camp of the the Tenth Plenum (Thaelmann, Neumann, which cannot be concealed by all the peasants unions; to Nasanov, who was Right wing. This is a fact taught every Monmousseau, Bonte, Gottwald, etc. So screeching proclamations of Stalinism put recalled from China by Stalin a few years Communist by the experiences of the last far to the Left did the post Fifth Con together, ago for signing the famous Letter of Three six years. Unless the party membership gress regime in the International go that The Change in the Russian Situation Comrades from Shanghai which criticized compely a discussion of the basic causes it chided the Bolshevik Opposition (TrotMoreover, there has been a change in the Menghevik policy in the revolu for the preent situation and adopts the the Russian party situation. The struggle tion along the lines of the Opposition. But proper measures for unifying the party on gle for power. It absorbs, concentrates and against the Right wing (Bucharin Rykov not even these comrades are meant primar a correct revolutionary line, it will concrystallizes the experiences of past strug Tomsky) has been appreciably moderated 1ly; they are only the whipping boys for tinue to remain bewildered by the renewed gles. It Illuminates the path to power with since their temporarily inevitable capit others come. Manuilsky (read: zig zags and befuddled by its apparatus its theoretical clarity and precision. It ulation. The Center, which took the Stalin s) offe sive against the socalled leaders who act on command from the is at once the vanguard and the directing largely bureaucratic, apparatus like, be Left deviation in the is the Stalin faction. Otherwise the newest new staff of the workers. Without it, they are hind the scenes fight against the right direct forerunner to an even stronger at line will only worsen the chacs and dislike a lance without a point. There is no wing belatedly and with considerable timid tack on the various sections of the integration of the movement.
substitute for the revolutionary party: that ity, is greatly relieved. It can now turn which will initiate a swing from the preis one of the basic If not the principal its attention more and more to crushing sent ultra Left course all the way to the After this article was written and fust distinctions between the Marxist and the the ever present remnants of Trotskyism. Right, just as definitely as the famous before going to press, we have been informed syndicalist.
It is, in fact, compelled to make this new Open Letter to the German Party. direc of even more definite steps by the AmerThe failure of the Comintern under its turn because the necessities of the struggle ted against Fischer Maslow in 1924, was a ican Stalinists in the direction of conpresent leadership to help establish a Com against the Right wing unleashed social step on the road to the alliance with ciliation with the Lovestone group. AL munist Party rather, the prevention of forces which threaten not only the Right Chiang Kai Shek and Purcell.
the last meeting of the general party fracIts establishment has been one of the sev wing but the Center itself: the most ad The slogan of the Plenum, un tion in the needle trades, some comrades erest possible blows to the Indian revolu vanced sections of the working class and der the aegis of Stalin spokesman, was objected to the fact that the party fraction tion. This criminal defection must be over the basic layers of the peasantry. Thus, not Fire to the Right, but Fire to the Left. nominated a number of expelled Lovestonecome immediately. Without a Communist there is an increasing resistance among Chitarov, the head of the has al ites for positions on the Executive CommitParty, without a revolutionary political in the workers to the bureaucratic measures ready written a programatic article in tee of the shop delegates Council of the strument of the proletariat, the national taken by Stalin to deprive the workers Pravda which declares that the main fire Replying to the critics, revolutionary movement will have a Chin councils and the party nuclel in the fac in the Youth must be directed against the who took seriously the diatribes of the ese ending. Without it, it will be impossi tory from a decisive voice in management Left.
Dally Worker against the counter rev ble for India to go through a non capital and the transfer of the latter prerogative In Czecho Slovakia, the Political Bur. olutionary Lovestoneites. Rose Wortis and ist development. that is, to pass beyond to the technical and managerial staff. eau has adopted a decision which for the Joseph Burochovitch, leaders of the fraction the democratic revolution to the dictator There is a movement among the poor pea Arst time in more than a year not only declared that after the slate for the Counship of the Indian proletariat, which is al santry for the formation of poor peasants mentions the Left danger but is directed cit ad been made up, Foster, who has ready schooled in bitter battle. Without league to combat the Kulak and econom essentially against it. It (the has just returned from Moscow instructed the it, all talk of Soviets is a stupid mockery ically powerful peasant effectively a condemned all along the line the false fraction to put a number of Lovestoneites with possible reactionary consequences. movement so strong that it was reflected standpoint, injurious to the party, of this on the slate, which, therefore, had to be Without it, the Indian revolution may high up in the apparatus in the demand group (Fried. and has set the party the changed at the last minute. Needless have an Indian 1848 e. a vic for such organizations made months ago task of carrying out the inner party strug to, say the new line was not extended to of the bourgeoisle and a set by Lominadze and Schatzkin, who borrowed gle on two fronts: against the Right dan ihe Trotskyists andour comrade Bervel for the working class because if its the idea from the Opposition Platform of ger, which remains the main danger on an man received 18 votes practically all the immaturlty or organtzational political un 1927.
international scale as well as with us, and non party delegates, but not a single vole All these alarming (for the Cen against the Left, exaggerated and sectarDrenarodnes, but never an Indian 1917.
from the party fraction.
to