fage THE MILITANT Saturday, May 10, 1930 Character and Limits of Our Faction. The Case of Roy Stephens the Right wing against the Party The result: a false attitude on fundamental questions, the steady deciine of a promising proletarian movement, a miserable Lessons from Recent International Experiences of the Opposition By James Cannon degeneration culminating in a split.
The lesson for us in this event is the organization of our faction on principle The American movement is condemned sion, falsification and corruption. These organization of a faction on the basis of lines only.
Our strength as a faction, is by its position, geographically, and politic. methods were utilized to the limit. Six principle; and, in the third place, by an our platform. Numbers will follow from ally to lag behind events in the Interna years were necessary, says Trotsky, in intransigeant struggle for these principles that, not precede it. The Right wing at tional. This has been demonstrated with an order to bring the weightiest questions and under all circumstances and through all tacks this insistence in close principle unalmost arithmetical precision during the differences out of the bureaucratic under fluctuations in the movement. Lenin taught ity as sectarianism. That is because entire decade of the existence of the Com world into the world arena. But political these lessons positively through the long their aims are different than ours. Opporintern The developments in the Russian logic is stronger than bueraucratic machin struggle and final victory of the Bolsheviks tunism has always made allowance for all and West European Parties have always ations. It has forced the ideas, and the by these methods; the German Leninbund kinds of divergent tendencies except the been registered in our own a few years struggle over them, into the open. has taught them negatively through its proletarian revolutionary tendency. Love.
later. This was the case regarding the This struggle for us is a struggle for disintegration and degeneration by the restone freed by his expulsion from oblig.
crisis in the Russian Party and the Cominthe October revolution and for the prinjection of them.
ations to Commur. ist tradition, is appealing tern. We were one of the latest detachciples embodied in it and in the first four The Left wing is not a Party but a for recruits on this basis. Anyone can ments of the International Communist OpCongresses of the Communist International.
fuetion fighting to win the position to take definito shape in the open Lenjoin the Right wing and still have the right It is a principle fight for the foundations of Just as the Lovestone group is a somewhat to think and freedom to express theminbund stumbled on this question, MisLeninism. The International Left wing selves one way or the opposite. This is belated reinforcemen in the rear of the alone defends these positions. That is the taking the corrupted bureaucrats for the the Right wing inducement to prospective International right wing. Neither of these reason, and the only reason, wo wore exproletarian masses in the Party ranks it members.
American factions, however found its Inpelled by the bloc of the Right wing and set out toward the formation of a new Qernational connection by accident. We We can have nothing in common with the Centriste. It is obivous that such a party. In order to bet numbers quickly it these conceptions.
were prepared by the past for our place assembled heterogenous elements. Instead We stand for Party fight can be ended only with victory.
democracy because a living party can deunder the banner of the International Left of defining and sharpening its principle Opposition. Lovestone and Co. served their The question then arises: how can line it blunted it. The Leninbund admitted termine its united will only through demoApprenticeship and became journeyman op this fight be waged successfully?
people who had all kinds of grievances cratic forms. But the democracy we adportunists, qualified for union with Brand The answer is: in the first place, by a vocate is a centralized democracy, that is against the Party but had no common basis er, in the American Party struggles. clear and definite principle line on all ques in principle. It maintained relations with to say, a form for a Party of action, not a The protracted period of our gestation tions; in the second place, by the firm mere discussion club for the exchange of anti Marxists and speculated on a bloc with ideas. Party of action, thus governed, as a fr. ction on the line of the Bolshevikmust have definite organization limits.
Leninists has not been without compensatThese limitations have a double applicaing advantages. The rich experiences o the tion for a faction.
International struggle were realized for us, as it were in advance, and we have been The Limits of a Faction able to build on their foundationg. This Lenin prescribed strict limits of prin.
insured for us a clearer perspective and tactical line.
The assault upon the former Boston as an irresponsible person, a man with ciple for membership in the Party, and organizer of the Party and present adher. little or no principles in the movement, a still narrower limits for a fraction. The On the one hand our deductions from ent of the Lovestone faction, Roy Stephens, careerist whose services are very easily Zaternational experience enabled us to avoid sneers of the Revolutionary Age against by a Central Committee directed slugging purchased in a factional struggle. We the sectarianism of Trotsky advice false attitude toward the Party and an squad, adds another black page to the list know further that Suephens himself, while to the members of the Leninbund over ambitious program for the creation of of Fascist attacks by which the Stalinist district organizer of the Party in Kansas is characteristic of opportunists. Lenin, a new one; on the other hand they were regime in the movement threatens to dis City, tried to terrorize the Party members in justifying the expulsion of the Otzovists a shield against the capitulation panic.
credit Communism for years in the eyes of against fraternizing with the Trotskyist (boycottists) from the Bolshevik faction, elThis sickness, which periodically attacked the whole working class. The beating up counter revolutionaries. We know that ucidated the question as follows: the Opposition movements in the other of Party political opponents, organized on Stephens himself, while district organizer As a faction, as a union of those countries, was never a problem for us.
slaughts upon public meetings, burglarizing of the Party in Boston, organized, just a who think alike in the Party, we cannot Three or four weak and inconsequential private homes and robbing documents, are little while ago, a thugs assault upon a people at the most, who found themselves work without unity on fundamental ques.
essentially fascist methods, and there is Lovestonieite meeting there where Ben tions. To break away from a fraction is in our ranks by mistake, denounced themlittle if anything to distinguish them when Belves as renegades as soon as they found Gitlow, his newly found leader, was the not the same as breaking away from the they are used by black shirts or Stalinists. principal speaker.
Party. Those who have left our fraction that membership in the Opposition meant a are by no means deprived of the possibility hard fight.
Tactics copied from Fascism Nor are we very much convinced by the of working in the Party. Liquidating the That was all. One strives with difficulvirtuous protests of the Lovestone leaders, Indeed, it is from the grusome chapLiquidators. ty to recall their names so little influence and their moral indignation. We have yet did they exert on our cause.
ters of fascism that all of these methods The wisdom of this point of view is have been copied by the Stalinist usurper3 to see their paper condemn the deporta confirmed by all revolutionary experience.
tion of comrade Trotsky. We have yet to Internationalism our Touchstone and introduced as an allen body into our In order for a Party to lead the proletariat see them condemn the imprisonment and movement. The whole Communist moreThis careful attentiveness to Internato victory it must have a clearly defined exile of thousands of Oppositionists in the tional development which has served us in ment fought these methods when the desprogram and organization limits. rev.
Soviet Union.
perate yollow socialists and of We have yet to see them olutionary faction must draw still closer Such good stead all along should mark our fakers applied them in the trade unios in condemn the atrocious murder of comrade lines. Otherwise it will not be able to Seliberations now as we prepare to raise Jacob Blumkin, and the recent assassina act unitedly and influence the Party.
ar struggle to a higher ground.
10 In conorder to stem the tide of progressive and Left wing influence. The same tactics detion of two more Oppositionista by Stalin, will be lost in the current of events intradistinction to the opportunists, Internabeside which the attack upon Stephens serve not one ounce more of approval when tionalism is the touch stone of our facstead of helping to shape them. We will not looks like an insignificant incident. These tion. But this does not assure for us tha they are applied by the Stalinist bureaucmeasure up to our historic mission if we are questions to which Lovestone must still rcay against any of the political groups in forget the lessons.
automatic assimilation of International exreply.
perience.
As a group of Communists convinced of Continuous study of our probthe movement be they of the Left wing or lems in their international aspect is necesthe Right wing. These methods bring only Away with Fascist Tactics!
our platform and confident of our future, the most negative results. They are a we have no need to boast of accomplishmens sary now as before if we are to draw the But Lovestone past and present alticorrect interences. Recent experiences in contemptible abuse of what little power or to exaggerate our present influence. We the Party bureaucrats have at their comtude neither justify nor diminish the enor know that the political line will decide the International movement, particularly in mand.
mity of the Stalinists crimes. Their conGermany and France, should be the occaand that the numerical ratio at the moWe condemned these methods when tinuation will rob the whole movement ment means little in the final analysis. But sion for study and discussion in our ranks.
they were first used against our group. We of its great moral and political power to And from this must follow firmer conIt is already clear that the Opposition, in do not forget for an instant that the first fight the same crimes when they are prac spite of the heaviest obstacles, is going solidation of our ideological position and a faction to use them was the Lovestone tised against the Left wing by the reform forward. In less than a year after our strengthening of our tactical line in the faction itselt. It was that group which ists and reactionaries. They will alien expulsion we succeeded in uniting our struggle for the proletarian sections of the first organized bands of hoodlums to break ate the workers of our movement and make forces in a National Conference and adoptParty and Left wing.
up the mass meetings called by us. It was it hateful for them. They are a manifesIn the light of recent events in the ing a platform. In less than a year since camp of the International Left three questhat group which first burglarized a pri tation of political and theoretical impo our Conference a new layer of Oppositionvate residence which temporarily housed tence. They pervert the whole conception ists is assembling in the Party.
tions present themselves with especial inOur unour office, and stole our files and documents of the historically progressive value of vio relenting fight on principle lines is shapsistence. They are: The character and (which they have yet to return. It was lence in the class struggie, degrading it ing this development. The progress in the limits of our fraction; Our attitude tothat group which sent armed tuogh guys into the reactionary weapon of fearward the Party and the Party bureaucrats; next priod and our whole future depend on to beat up our comrades when they attemptstricken clique. These fascist methods Our attitude toward the Right wing.
our continued adherence to this intransi.
ed to sell the Militant at meetings or in must be exposed and condemned. They geant line of struggle.
Developments in the American Party since front of Party buildings. It was that group must be burned out of the movement, and our National Conference also serve to push Our platform is the platform of len all these deeds, of course, in active col those who advocate and practise it elimThe principled character of our these questions into the foreground.
laboration with the Foster faction which inated with them.
faction and its definite organizational IlmWe proceed from the point of view that the crials in the Comintern arises from the first established the theory that our meetits are the Leninist methods of organization.
reaction agalost the October revolution and ings are to be disrupted in the same sense The slogan of intransigeance in principle that monarchist meetings are to be attackthe weakening of the position of the revoluIl the number on your wrapper 18 questions is the slogan for Bolshevik struged!
vonary movement on an International gle and victory. The late experiences in the scale. This crisis has split the Comintern We condemned those methods when apcamp of the International Left wing, it into three factions, and the character of plied against us. We condemn them now properly assimilated, can only strengthen when there are still instances of them. We and reinforce our positions on this ground.
these factions becomes clearer every day.
The issues were obscured for a long time.
condemn them equally when the Party buFrom this the question of our future then your subscription to the militant has reaucrats use them against the Lovestone attitude toward the Party and Party burThe exceptional positio. of the official Cenexpired. Renew immediately in order to ttriats, their monopoly of the apparatus and faction or any of its supporters, eaucrats and to the Right wing is easy to ot unlimited material resources, gave them We are not very much interested in avold missing any issues, decide. These are subjects for subsequent unprecedented opportunities for suppres. Stephens personally. We know him only articles.
inism.
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