Page тно MILITANT Saturday, May 10, 1930 Visit to the Island of Prinkipo ou the paper from which Trotsky had quoted, which he had found after considerabl effort, was stolen from his room. The Yaroslavskies, so meticulous about the literary records, real and forged, of comrade Prinkipo is the old Greek name for the ation and proceeded with a Five Year plan Stalin, my ex Trotskyist friends tell me, Trotsky, had no intention of letting their Isle of Princes, about two hours by boat of considerably greater breadth. The start bad done more than they wanted of him, own shameful records Ife around where from Constantinople. 10 was given this ling successes of the first year startling and more even than they expected of Trot Oppositionists could make use of them.
name because princes of the ancient realm to the Centrists who never really believed sky.
Fortunately, the protocol of the Control who incurred the displeasure of the ruling such a rapid tempo possible not only dem You see, we sal jokingly while Trot Commission still records the damning exauto rat were dispatched to the tiny island onstrated the enormous latent possibilities sky was scanning the paragraph, every cerpts unless that too has been put into in tie Sec of Marmora as exiles and pri for industrial development undr prolet body is saying that Stalin has gone much the furnace reserved for everything emtoners. The nationalistic Turks, having arian dictatorship (nationalization of in further than you ever proposed.
barrassing to the Stalinist regime! It is overthrown the yoke of Greek domination dustry, banks, etc. etc. but immediately That true, he replied immediately.
precisely such types that are now doing the proceeded to remove all relics of that hated produce an extreme boldness born precise When a man has a boil on his neck, a job of corrupting a whole generation of Tegine even to the extent of changing the ly out of Centrism previous timidity. Al capable surgeon will simply lance the boil. revolutionists with their shoddy substitute old Greek names: Constantinople has bemost overnight, the initial successes of the shoemaker will go much further and se for Leninism.
com: Stambul, and the Isle of Princes has Plan gave rise to the wildest kind of ex ver the man head from his shoulders. Yes, become buyuk Ada, or Grand Island. aggerations. The Kulak was going to be there is no doubt that Stalin has also gone considerable part of our conversation The name of the island has been changed liquidated as a class. The Five Year Plan much further than proposed!
was devoted to the situation in the Uni tu, it remains a place of exile. There is was to be realized in four years or three. And the capitulators? Would they States and the perspectives for the moveno longer a single prince imprisoned on it.
and a hall, or three as some said. Agrarian play any considerable hole in the resurment here. He asked about very detail But for that the island is now reserved collectivization was now definitely accom gence of the Opposition within the Party?
our work, our numerical strength, the cira different kind of exile, for the Bol plished in half of Russia. The Comrade Trotsky does not believe they will.
culation of the Militant, our work in the cvik who has incurred the displeasure of was to be abolished. Socialism was be The revolution is a great devourer of trade unions, the influence of the Party, ruling regime in the Communist Partying completed in isolated Russia. These people, he said. It has burned out these the strength of the Lovestone faction, etc. of the Soviet Union, By, gentlemanly arwere only a few and among the mildest men, used them up, exhausted them. They etc. The establishment of the weekly Milrangement between Stalin and Kemal exaggerations contained in the Soviet press, cannot even play an important part in the fant, which he follows closely, he considers Pasha, Buyuk Ada has become the fourth and repeated in the official Communist Centrist faction. It must not be forgotten the greatest achievement of the American place of exile for. Leon Trotsky, his wife press abroad. The achievements of the first that these men are not newcomers in the Opposition. When we spoke of the difficul1 son.
year were utilize to prove that the en movement. On the contrary, Many of them ties of the paper, to which every labor and Trotsky Health tire Opposition platform was bankrupt, the have gone through two, three revolutions.
revolutionary Journal is subject, he even previous accusations of super industrial They spent a large part of their lives in wrote to the American comrades urging that We did not visit comrade Troteky as ism ere converted into Trotskyist pes czarist prisons and exiles. They were the the greatest efforts be exerted to mainnewspaper correspondent seeking sen simism. and on these foundations, a num milſtants who organized and led the Boltain and strengthen the weekly.
sations and 30 we have no journalistic ber of capitulations were realized out of shevik revolution in 1917 and for years sensations to report. As it is, there are the ranks of the Left.
afterwards. They passed through the rigorOn the Farmer Labor Party plen y of reporters and writers who knock But the very first signs of difficulties ous years of the civil war and intervention Trotaky does not know the American on the door every other day to ask: May transformed the cocksure braggarts of Centhen through the period of reaction after situation as well as he does, let us say, see Trotsky about his views on relitrism back again into tim, cautious bur the death of Lenin, and finally through prithe Russian, or even the French, but he tion? or What does Trotsky think eaucrats. The rapid pace of collectivization son or exile under Stalin. They have lived is very far from being unacquainted with Bu modern art? or Wil Trotsky write and industrialization ran its head into the through the intensest years of history. Very it. Of the American Party leaders, he is reply for us to Floyd Gibbons Red brick wall of a proletarian state isolated few have come out of them unscathed to best acquainted with Pepper. He told Napoleon. or Can we get a statement in a sea of capitalist world economy, proving one degree or another. The others have of how Pepper came to him during the CCC on the report that Trotsky is on not in abstract theory but in cold practise, been burned out or the revolutionary fires days of the great farmer labor party boom his death bed? or any number of similin them quenched.
the absolutely untenable position of Stain the United States, and tried to convince Ar questions. Yet, out of all these personal lin and Eucharln theory of national soquestions, so to say, the one about his The Old Bolsheviks him that the revolution in this country cialism. crisis began to develop in agwould come about by winning over the teritli recurs most frquently, there have ricultura, exactly along the lines indicated Of course this phenomenon is chiefly revolutionary farmers, allying the Commuteen so many conflicting reports on this by the Oppositon. Stalin forth with sound noticeable and widespread in the ranks nist Party with the petty bourgeoisie and point that it will be worth while to tate ed the retreat. So long as uninterrupted of the ruling apparatus. Trotsky men neutralizing the working class! The questoatters accurately.
progress had been made, Stalin sedulously tioned one name after another of comrades Comrade Trotsky is not on his ceath tion of a farmer labor party (i. e. a party In the most prominent Party and Soviet of two classes) had come up then for the cultivated what he now, when obstacles be. that goes without saying. He 18 were encountered, sought to unburden re positions, all of them imbued with the proucually quite vigorous and works with cusfirst time in the Political Bureau of the sponsibility for: Dizziness of success. foundest hatred for the permanent revolu Party in Moscow. Everybody spoke hesitomary alligence. Unfortunately, the action. That formula runs against the grain tantly or tentatively about it. Stalin even erimulation of certain maladies, made more The Danger of Retreat of every self contented bureaucrat who has said: am sure that it Vladimir Ilyitch acute by his exile in Alma Ata and the Tht a retreat was necessary was alsqueezed his bottom firmly into a chair sunce of proper medical attention, makes were present he would be for it. Trotsky ready evident. It was already proposed by after the consolidation of the revolution inSim subject from time to time to malariat intervened immediately and spoke sharply comrade Trotsky to ward off an impending itial victories. All of tbm have sought to attacks and headaches of some severity, and at length against the whole idea. Kamcrisis in the country, the danger of which put themselves beyond criticism by the re eney gout, and most alarming of all, to trouble who has a flair for the Left in a is by. o means averted yet. At the same ligious title of Old Bolsheviks or the with his heart. What is needed is treattheoretical discssion, picked up the thread time he raised a warning against the Old Guard. Yet the overwhelming mamont by a specialist as well as a climate right away and as a result of the subseenvironment for a cure.
quent decision, the American Party was, Thus far, treat going too far. It now becomes in jority of the members of the present Central creasingly clear that Stalin who is on the Committee of the Russian Party are men every effort has been made to prevent him in part at least, dragged by the hair out of road leading away from the recent ultrawho, inside or outside of Lenin Party befrom obtaining the necessary attention. It the opportunist swamp into which Pepe Left zig zag in Russia will not come to fore the revolution, never went beyond the per had led it.
has been a concerted effort of Stalin and a halt until he has reached the other ex conception of revolutionary democrats or Kemal Pasba ba the one hand, and all the Trotsky outlined we repeat them hero Mengheviks.
treme and accepted the original program Trotsky recounted an inclbourgeois countries of Europe democrabriefly his ideas of the perspectives for dent which adequately characterizes the cies and dictatorships, on the other. The of the Right wing. That is now the great developments in this country. In my work danger in the Russian situation. Old Bolshevism nine tenths of the much advertized right of asylum is obviouson the Russian revolution of 1905 he said, It is equally clear that Stalin will not present Party spokesmen.
ly extended to the Bessodovskys but not to remarked on the fact that Marx had Bolsheviks.
be able to gain the support of the whole It was during a meeting of the Party written that capitalism passes from feudParty for this new bureaucratic turn about Central Control Commission, where TrotDuring our brief stay, we talked at alism to the guild system to the factory.
some length about the situation in Russia face. In the zig zag to the Left, mass sky was being tried and his non BolIn Russia, however, we never knew the forces were of necessity unleashed which shevik past brought out against him. Durand about the movement la the United guild system, with the possible exception it will not be easily possible to put in ing his speech, he quoted from an issue of States. Trotsky had just finished writing of the kustarl. Or one might compare the his articles on the new course in Soviet chains Again. The proletarian core of the the Social Democrat, a journal edited and development of the working class in Engeconomy and the prospects for the Five Party will resist the sharp turn to the Right published in Yakutsk Solntly by the Men land and Germany with that in Russia. In Year plan. Just about the same time, the which has already begun. That is why sheviks and a number of now prominent the first two countries, the proletariat has news began to arrive from Russia reporting comrade Trotsky spoke with the greatest Ola Bolsheviks. Ordjon kidze, Petrovsky gone through a long period of parliamenconfidence of the re formation of a strong (of the Ukraine. and the peerless Yarothe latest turn begun by Stalin towards the tary experience. In Russia, on the other Left Opposition inside the Communist Party. slavsky. This paper was issued not in moderation of the Plan. The question arose: hand, there was very little of a parllamenIt is in connection with the big four1905, nor in 1912 or 1914, but in 1917, after How is it that Stalin, and even Bucharin tary system for the workers. That is, the Kerensky rvolution and on the eve of the Russian proletariat learned its parliof late, after having conducted a furious nalistic bluff and exaggerations about the campaign for years against the Opposition Five Year Plan and the capitulation of the October uprising!
amentary history from an abridged handby accusing it of being super industrialbook.
many Oppositionists who pleaded the suc He read from some of the articles ist. finally adopted and began to carry out cesses of socialist construction as their written by these old Guardsmen. all of In many respecte, the history of the a plan for industrialization and collectivipretext for leaving the Opposition, that a which were penetrated by the most vulgar development of th United States is akin to zation which, at least on the face of it, humorous but pointed conversation took kind of bourgeois democratic notions conthat of the Russian working class, It is was far more radical than any previously place. copy of the New York Nation had ceivable. The Kerensky revolution if only nowhere written, and theoretically it canproposed by the Opposition. Comrade arrived one morning, containing an article it would introduce a few reforms was not be substantiated, that the American Trotsky explained it in this way. Russia New Revolution. written by halled as the great people democratic workers will perforce have to pass thruogh Louis Fischer, one of the innumerable 11b government. When Trotsky mentioned the the school of reformism for a long period Stalin and the Five Year Plan eral Journalists commuting between New trio of Bolsheviks who, wrote these ar of time. They live and develop in another York and Moscow and earning a livellhood ticles, there was a sensation even in the The requirements of the economic sitperiod, their coming to maturity is taking by writing publicity for the Stalin faction. Control Commission. Yaroslavsky tried to Wation that developed in the country after place under different circumstances than the presentation of the Platform and CounWe showed Trotsky a passage in the bluster and bluff it out, but the blunter that of the English working class, for inter theses of the Opposition, and the latter article which reac: Stalin ultra radical, Ordjonikidze simply replied: Well, what statue. That is, the stage of a labor party subsequent expulsion from the Party, soon revolutionary policy has won the hearts of of that? We wrote lots of stupid things in or a powerful socialist party is by no means demanded the formulation of a much more the Trotskyists, and they have come rushing those days.
inevitable. The rapidity of the developradical and far reaching program than had back from Siberian, Caucasion and Volgan Yes, said Trotsky, but would let ment of the American workers, of course, originally been conceived. The Centrist also depends to a large extent upon the exile to participate in the pressing business my arms and legs be cut off and my head faction of Stalin, which had first adopted of reconstruction. They have come back taken from my shoulders if in all of my degree of preparedness of the Communist the timid and worthless plan of Rykov, re humbly, with clipped wings, acknowledging writings you could find anything halt so bad movement and its clairty. The socialist Jected it under the pressure of the situ Stalin talents and Trotsky mistakes.
as this! little while later, the copy party in the United States need by no means