Saturday, June 7, 1930 гне MILITANT Page Answer to a Socialist Worker Yaa predsee theater de Norman The Suicide of Vladimir Mayakovsky Social Democratic Betrayal delivered the German workers over to the class movement. But we have, and it is tender mercies of the Dawes and Young more than melancholy experience. These Plans. And has the course of the Labor Left Oppositions in the social democracy Government in Great Britain differed in are always the reflection of rank and file any essential respect? What plans and unrest, dissatisfaction and radicalization, election promises of socialism have they The function of the Maxtons is to canalize We are in receipt of a letter from out committing social treachery. The his carried out even on an installment plan? this movement, avowedly to prevent it Engelman, a socialist worker in which he toric function of the social democracy, ever They have not had the power? Then what from flowing into the currents of Comtakes issue with our bitterness of since its break with Marxism, has been that are they doing in office. They are serving the munism. Their independence is a sham.
attack on socialists in general and of an agency of the bourgeoisie inside the class that has the power the capitalist In the course of the developing class strugNorman Thomas, American leader in working class movement, and the cons class.
gle in Germany, the Independent Socialists particular. The glittering theory of social cious recognition of this fact by the in We have adduced the classic exper split, the Right going to the majority sofascism conjured up by the present Com dividual social democratic leaders is not ience of the German and the Pritish social cialists, the Left to the Communists. The intern regime lumps together the social necessary to make it true. The march of democrats. We could with equal truth, Austrian social democracy preseats one of democratic officialdom and rank and file events speaks for itsell. For years be space permitting, have dealt with the like the most shameful spectacles of verbal radin the same fascist pot. It is a theory fore the world war, the Left inside the socialist evidence from Sweden, Belgium icalism as a cover for a petty bourgeois polwe decidedly repudiate. We are in a per Second International warned aganst the Denmark, France or any other party in icy of surrender to the pressure of big iod not of direct revolutionary crisis when ominous consequences of socialist oppor the Second International. Consider the bourgeois reaction. municipal program arguments must mount the barricades but tunism, of ministerialism, of parliamen Russian Mengheviks who strove obstinately of bigger and better apartment houses and of preparing the forces of a revolutionary tary cretinism. The collapse of the In to divert the Russian revolution into the swimming pools cannot conceal the fact class movement. Accordingly we do not ternational on the declaration of war like channels of a conventional bourgeois re that in every crisis Otto Bauer and his believe that the best way of convincing our a pack of cards was a complete vindication public for expansion of private capital: and associates have held the proletariat back correspondent is by cracking his skull of the Left struggle against both the Right now continually hope for a crisis which from revolutionary action to the point open, say with a blackjack. We recall a wing and the centrists.
will compel the Soviet Union to retrace its where the forces of the bourgeoisie, of speech of Zinoviev when still an authority Can it be gainsaid that the German path to a democratic revolution (dena clericalism and fascism have never been so in which he sharply condemned the tactics Social Democracy ruined the prospects of tionalization of the factories, a stop to powerful since the war.
of raising a physical barrier between Com the Revoluton of 1918 for the working collectivization of the country side, cessaThe Way of Thomas munist and social democratic workers. class? With every nerve they consciously tion of support of revolutionary movement That speech published in the theoretical In the light of all this we see no worked for the restoration of German cap abrond, entrance into league ct Nations, reason for inventing soms unique exceporgan of the International retains all its italism.
They deluded the workers with etc. tion to the internationaliy tested principvalidity.
paper plans of socialization. They called The Role of the Maxtons les and experiences of the class struggle am a socialist, the letter runs, in the white guard generals to help crush The writer of the letter refers to the so as to exempt Norman Thomas.
the revolutionary Spartacist because do not believe in acquiring anymovement Independent Labor Party (Maxton group)
with fire and sword. They liquidated the thing through violence and blood shed. as the real socialist party. Once more Just now it costs him nothing gently to am a true follower of Debs.
remind the British labor imperialists of the Of course Soviet movement in favor of the bourgeois he argues from the present pseudo oppoour Party is infected by opportunists and Assembly in Weimar. They came to the necessity of a modicum of internationalsitionist of the Maxton group as if we had ism in their relations with India. It would traitors. Every party has them.
rescue of the capitalists in every subseEven no political experience of the role of the not be difficult to find an equivalent sentithe Communist Party. And further on quent crisis, and notably in 1923. They Independent socialists in the working ment among certain sections of the petty he adds, while agree with your debourgeoisie outside the socialist leadernunciations, fail to comprehend your conship. After all this is England funeral.
clusions.
It was not hard in the past, por in the Thomas was in MacDonald position he war to whip up petty bourgeois enthusiasm would do the same in regards to our colThe most celebrated of the contem with every fiber to the present to this for the right of self determination of the onial policy. You know this is a very porary Russian poets, the futurist Maya present which Yessenin could never com other fellow subject nationalities and dangerous argument, because the same kovsky shot himself in the heart on April pletely grasp. The better part of wisdom more than once the world rocked with thing can be said of you or anyone else.
14th in Moscow. He was for years at the is to leave these fellow travelers to find accusations of Belgium mismanagement What is there to assure us that if Trotsky height of renown and in the limelight in their own road, and to find their own work of the Congo, of Germany brutalities in replaces Stalin the former will adhere to defatigably he spread in the gazettes a without pretending to baptize them, cate her African colonies, of Austrian represLeninist principles. Suppose grant the socialist optimism of the most orthodox chize them, regiment them, without im sions in Bosnia. During the Brest Litovsk indictment of European socialists. Are kind. His evolution was still more marked posing on them too minute requirements, negotiations even the German militarists they the only workers movement that is in this direction lately. Only a few weeks without imagining that one can by the suddenly manifested an ardent desire misleading the worker According to ago he gave his resounding adherence to combined method of copyright, suppression, the self determination of the Ukraine.
yourself, Stalin is doing the same. Does the Society of Proletarian Writers of Mos criticism and lashings in the press bol But this Norman Thomas is the man who that mean the Communists are unworthy cow. His unexpected end is almost in shevize them to the marrow.
shortly after the New York civic elections of workers support? No, you will have explicable.
proposed to change the name of his party betrayals in any movement, no matter what color it is. You cannot indict a whole romanticism and sentimentality wrote in a palatable to and indistinguishable from, movement.
final note addressed to all that suicide That Shook the World»
the liberals, and was only prevented by Indictment of Social Democracy was certainly not a solution, but there was the opposition of the more cautious HillBut of course you can indict a whole no other way out for him.
quit.
No proper appraisal of the Bolshevik movement in the sense that we indict the He made some reference to affairs of Revolution of November, 1917, can be made The Line of Bolshevism social democracy. and the author of the the heart that were thwarted by the conwithout giving due consideration to all the We are quite ready to have the record letter would bave no difficutly in under ditions of life. After which the publicist leaders of the Russian people who played of Bolshevism stand comparison.
standing us if his philosophical point of Koltsov who knows how to make fun of a leading roles and made the Revolution achievements of the socialist dictatorship The departure were historical materialism in reader compares in the Literary Gazette possible speak for themselves. Under the Comstead of a vague idealism and his arguthe accident that happened to MayakovThat is why we of the Opposition so munists the Russian workers conquered mentation grounded in the realities of the sky with the accident to Shelley who was insistently and always expose the attempted poltical power and have held it.
class struggle instead of the sterlity of drowned while canoeing, and Verhaeren are building the foundations of a socialThey falsifications of history of Yaroslavsky and One can social pacifism. There are well intentionwho was run over by a train.
other Stalinist historians. Comrade Trotist society. It they nave encountered fored, honest, sincere and cultured people obviously not make these comparisons sky great part in the revolution cannot midable difficulties the principal reason on all sides. But the essence of the mat without a cultivated sense of humor. At Future be explained away permanently.
is not far to seek. The isolation of the Soter is the class struggle which rages the same time there was a good deal of history we know must give him the credit viet Union, the retardation of the interthroughout the capitalist world between talk of illness. But neither affairs of the due him.
national revolution is the basic objective those who live by the extraction of rent, heart, nor even serious illness can entirely factor in the difficulties of socialist conI have just seen the picture Ten Days interest and profit, determined to maintain explain the end of such a man.
That Shook the World. The great mass struction and for this isolation, the suctheir privileges and perquisites either by This death supervened after eighteen cessive betrayals of the social democracy events of the Ten Days are faithfully democratic or fascist means and the months of heavy literary confusion (not a given.
Leaders, and its cooperation with the hourgeoisie, is The photography, direction and class subjected to exploitation.
production, not a single one during this in turn ebietiy responsible. The Communscenery are all wonderful and as we know parties and movements in the social strugwhole lapse of time) but frenzied campaigns ists made mistakes but these mistakes were gle, their program, and their deeds are against Tom, Dick and Ilarry, major and from other Russian pictures, it is a reof an entirely different character from the freshing change from the usual American motivated by class interests.
minor excommunications, incessant recogWhen we indict the Social Democracy mistakes of the social democrats which nition of mistakes! It is certain that we pictures. But the point any serious student of events will notice very quickly in Ten were sheer counter rerolution.
we Indict the petty bourgeois bureaucracy did not know how to hold this artist. The Days is the entire omission of Trotsky Certainly there is no absolute guaranwhich is in control of the masses, and great official fame and publicity he rehistory has made it possible to predict the tee against the manifestation of conciliceived, the money success, were not sufanywhere in the acting of the picture. The impression an uninformed observer gets atory and social democratie tendencies incourse of that bureaucracy with tolerable ficient for him, perhaps because of the side the Communist movement is that he must have played a very minor accuracy. The program of the socal demelement of falseness involved and the empsont struggle of the factions in the Comocracy is a program of class collaboration, tiness role when we all know that the names of experienced that he from it.
Lenin and Trotsky were inseparably con intern testifies to that. Under conditions cp constitutionalism, of parliamentarism, He was a magnificent fellow traveler of nected with the whole Revolution as well of capitalist stabilization and encrcleof legislative reformisın in accordance with the revolution useful and courageous; he It the interests of the potty bourgeoisie.
as all of the first years following it. ment of the Soviet Union, of the slowing squandered the best part of himself in fufollows inevitably that the socialist leadup in the pace of the world revolution, the tile and harrassing search for some corI could not help but ask myself. What ers will oppose the developing mass action petty bourgeoisie begins to exert a presrect ideological line that he could never would Lenin say? about the entire omof the workers at every turn in the strugsure on the Soviet and Comintern apparfind for many reasons and that a handful ission of the man who was President of choking off gle against Capital, from atus that is dangerous. The consequences the Petrograd Soviet in the crisis and of of petty pedants and petty censors demandstrikes in the interests of conciliatory of such pressure have in some major ined from him because that was their job, whom Stalin him fell has written, All methods to forcefully resisting the prostances already been tragie. It has been their way of earning their bread and butter the work of practical organization was the letarian revolution. In logical accordance conducted under the immediate leadership requirements of the resistance to (not in the sweat of their brow. Having with their class interests the socialists this petty bourgeois pressure on the Party become a brilliant rhymster. the most of the President of the Petrograd Soviet, practise coalition government with the that has given rise to the fight of the sought after by the newspepers he sufcomrade Trotsky. It is possible to declare bourgeoisie and reject the idea of the proLeft Opposition for the continuity of the fered from this daily demand which was with certainty that the swift passing of letarian dictatorship. It follows inevitably line of Marx and Lenin aganst both the bound to be ruinous to art and the rich the garrison to the side of the Soviet, and that social reformism and opportunism Right and Centrist factions in the Cominest part of his personality. He made the the bold execution of the work of the Militern. class collaboration on the basis of demWith a keen memory of the reasons tary Revolutionary Committee, the Party best of a bad job up to a certain point.
ocracy in time of peace) will be transfor the degeneration of the social deinoHis work of the last years remained very owes principally and above all to comrade latod into social imperialism and patriotcratic leadership, the Left Opposition is unequal and full of weaknesses. He was Trotsky. Pravda, No. 241 Role of the ism. National Defense. in time of war.
determined to fight to the end against every aware of this. He felt himself diminishing.
Most Eminent Party Leaders. Record of Betrayals He did not cease, to justify himself and John Reed is given no credit for the revision of the program of the proletarian The records of the past few decades revolution, against every deviation from to plead superior force.
title, as he should be, especially before bear this out in full. You cannot serve both What lesson can be drawn from the American audiences.
the base of internationalism.
the Bourgnosie and the proletariat with finish of this career of a great poet attached This audacious spirit, this enemy Of Stalinized «Ten Days from a socialist in order to make it more The pre SP.