THE MILITANT Weekly Organ of the Communist League of America (Opposition Vol. III, No. 18 Telephone: DRYdock 1656 NEW YORK, Saturday, May 3, 1980 PRICE CENTS BIG STEP CONFLICT SHARP IN INDIA FORWARD The Popular Militant Spirit The Marine Workers Convention The International Conference of the Left Opposition The Left Wing and the Amalgamated Convention On April 6, a step of the greatest conSo serious has the situation become in sequence for the world Communist moveThe national convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of India, that the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, has ment was taken in Paris. In response to America is scheduled to open in Toronto on May 12. Outside of one or two found it necessary to proclaim a new ordina call signed by the Russian Bolshevik Len sympathizers with the Left wing movement there will be no Left wing group ance to censor the press which goes further inists (Opposition. the Communist League among the delegates. The Party policy in this union has revealed its own than th notorious press act of 1910. Deof France (La Verite. and the Communist bankruptcy by the virtual elimination of the Left wing from any Influence. The spite the rigid censorship, sufficient news League of America, delegates from practic only semblance of fight at the convention may be an open struggles behas managed to leak out to indicate that ally all the important groups of the Left tween the Hillman and Beckerman cliques, e. half a dozen of one or six ot there is a genuinely revolutionary temper Opposition in the Cryomunist movement the other. With all the talk of the third period. of very, very revolutionary pervading the masses of the miserably ex.
gathered for their first representative in action of winning the masses over night and the rest of the empty phraseolploited Indian masses.
ternational conference. They decided to ogy of the new line. the Party, and the official Left wing it controls, have Confilets Increase 188ue an international bulletin, and formed dono nothng absolutely nothing to prepare for the Amalgamated ClothConflicts between Indians and governá secretariat to direct the work of our fracing Workers of America convention! Only at the last minute, two brief weeks ment forces have become a daily OCCUR.
tion and the discussion of those questions before the convention, the General Executive Board of the Left wing needle rence. Scores upon scores have already which still require clarification.
trades union has appointed a sub committee to meet with a committee of the been arrested, 26 in Calcutta alone in ono The Conference Representation and then bring in recommendations for a policy! With the excelday, after the thooting of a British soldier.
lent situation for the Left wing created in the by the corruption The native regiments are not being counted Representing the French group, were comrades Rosmer and Naville; for the prevalent and the crude class collaboration policy of the bureaucracy coupied ed upon by the British Imperialists as thay United Left Opposition in Gormany, comwith genuine dissatisfaction in the ranks the Party controlled Left wing has had hoped. During the Peshawar ricts last neither program, nor policy, nor has it made any efforts to organize a fight.
week, it was later disclosed, at least two rade Oskar Setpold, Communist member of The criminal neglect of this situation not only of the convention, platoons that much is officially admitted the Prussian Landtag: for the Belgian Opbut of the union as a whole which is the only organized expression of the men. were found to be unsatisfactory. thau position, comrade Hennaut, with comrade tailors stamps the Party leaders properly: Phrasemonegers. Their mass is. to do murder work for Britain InanLesoll from the Charleroi federation; comwork. their wipning the magses for the new line. and all the rest of their cal lords.
rade Gorkin for the Spanish Opposition; Fraenkel for the Czecho Slovakian Oppobluff, begins and ends with manifestos and proclamations in the Party Press.
So serious bas the feeling of the massee With or without them, or in spite of them, the Left wing must take form become that the socalled Nationalist leadsition (Leonorovios group. Pert for the again in the C. It is up to the rank and file to speak and act. The ers, from Gandhi down, have felt compelled Italian Left (Bordiga group. Szilvassy for columns of the Militant are open to them. Readers will find the first of a series to do something agin th government in the Hungarian group: Obin for the Jewish of articles on the situation in the on page of this 18gue.
order to retain their hold upon the millions.
Opposition group in France; and ShachtGandhi, under the guise of an opposition man from the Communist League of Amerto British rule which he will give ur (as Ica. Endorsements of the conference were he has done in the past) at the first sign received from the Russian comrades, from of a genuinely revolutionary force appearthe group in Greece, and a second Czech By ing on the scene, is actually conducting Opposition group, composed of students, in Rose a reactionary campaiga. He is spreading Prague. Financial and other pressing ditThe ficulties prevented these latter from Bending Beamen the thoroughly reactionary idea that the convention held in gate, Bill Drennan, a member of the primitive fabrication of native cloth is not delegates, as was also the case with the New York from April 26 to th: 27, un who raised the quesquestionably represented Chinese, Austrian, Mexican and Argentine number of only superior to the advanced manufacture tion of seriatim adoption of the constitu of machine cloth, but is one of the ways groups.
highlights in the history of Subsequent correspondence has the move tlon. This gave the great Mink an op of unloading the burden of British rule!
already shown that virtually all these ment. The frst and most significant one portunity to vent all his ignorant bile The great difficulty for the Indian lib.
groups will collaborate in the work of the was that for the first time in years a real, against the Trotskyltes and eration movement is that it is still domInternational Secretariat and the Bulletin. representative convention, in the sense Lovestoneltes, and all those not baptized inated by such people as Gandhi, who can The same spirit that actuated the mil that genuine seamen and dock workers by the proper holy water. In ignorance lead it only into a swamp of betrayal. Itant groups of revolutionists that gathered from all the leading ports of the country, and villification, there has rarely been substantial revolution ry movement, a Comat Zimmerwald and Kienthal to salvage the came together to organize a real union. anything like it. After the Mink got munist Party does not, or as much as movement from the ruins of socialist be The first day of the convention was shot through with his illiterate explosion Jack does not exist and the mis leadership of trayal in 1914, pervaded the Paris confer.
through with an evident feeling and de Johnstone with a beningn smlie, got up and Gand:. is not yet challenged. The Indian ence. All the comrades were motivated by Bire really to launch marine workers explained that things were not quite Industrial union, and all the third period the ever more urgent need of firmly unitmasses are showing their militant spirit, so bad as the Mink would have uş believe; however, and Gandhi will not be fornver ing on word scale the Marxist core of preparations seened to have no effect. By that the of which about halt the able to direct it into theatrical, oystic, th Communist International. The conthe end of the second day It was quite men present had been members at one and to Britain. rmless channels.
flict between the formation of groups in evid nt to any understanding observor tim or another, did make militant history that most of the men in the convention on the waterfront.
every important country on the basis of With this bit of blarthe struggle for internationalism, and the were satisfied that a union bad not been ney, he proceeded to exhort them to use lack of organized international coordination properly organized, at least beyond the this background as a basis for bullding was, to a great extent, brought to an end formal act of naming the result a union. the new union. Good; only he neglected Jus: as we gu to press, the committe: by the conference. The first step was ta The convention was opened with the to explain in addition why so many Wobin charge informs us that the Labor Temple ken a big step made imperative not only customary blessings of the Mink. John blies or ex Wobs who had been associated 14th Street and 2nd Avenue, has been obe with the Marine Workers League, and by the situation in the official movement stone (representing the (T. readtained for a mass meeting on Thursday, which requires our united intervention, but ing a letter of political direction penned dared entertain ideas or thing for himMay 15th, to hear Max Shachtmen, editor bell, had been chlselled out of the organby Foster in the Tombs, and from that also by the conditions prevailing in the of the Militant, who has just returned from Left Opposition itself.
point the seamen started making motions ation by mechanical manipulation of Europe, Comrade Shachtman spent a num.
as if they seriously meant to get down Messrs. Mink, Sparks and Co.
The Communist Opposition is a product ber of weeks in Paris, where he attended of the development of the Comintern, with to business. Suggestions were made from Here it might be in place to note the International Conference of the Left the floor for the organization of the usual which it is indissolubly bound up by its that one of th paradoxical occurences was Opposition as delegate from the United committees to facilitate the work, only to whole past. The weakening of the Interthe fact that in the back of the hall sat States, and in Berlin, at the unity confer.
national, therefore, could not fail to involve be silenced by a broad proposal made about 15 or 20 men who, within the last ence of the German Communist Opposition.
by the chairman, Harvey, that the nationthe Oposition, at least in the first stage.
ten years or so, had at one period or In addition, he paid a lengthy visit to com.
al committee of th had certain Even more: insofar as the weakening of the another played a leading role in the inrade Leon Trotsky in Turkey, and at the International was caused by a series of definite recommendations about a gendustry. At one time or another within meeting he will bring the American mil.
eral committee which was to perform all defeas of the revolution and a strengthenftants a greeting from the great Bolshevik these functions.
the last two years, most of them had This took most of the ing of the social democracy, that process either been part of the League or very leader. Shachtman will speak on the sit.
men unawares, and without much discushad effect most heavily the Left ving close to it. And here they eat in the uation in Russia and the prospects of the sion, the committee was accepted. It conof Communism. The moods of disillusionback of the hall, apparently having no Party revolutionary movement in Europe and the sisted of hand picked, reliable ment and decline was directed primarily no formal influence upon the proceedings, United States, reporting also the viewpoint tendency.
members. Not a single outsider was on Against the revolutionary yet constantly being turnd to by those on of the Left Opposition in general, and ope.
it.
the floor. These men could find no place in invited to attend this important lecture.
elally of comrade Trotsky. All workers are The Centrist apparatus, which became The Mink Explodos the third period scheme of organizationstronger with the weakening of the revoluThe first stir of any opposition in the Opetlens will be asked at the end. Ad.
tionary movement, utilized all the advan( Continued on Pago 4)
convestion emanated from a ship dele(Continued on Page 4)
misalon will be 25 cents.
ATTENTION! r