THE MILITANT Saturday, June 14, 1930.
Manifesto to Seventh Convention of the Continued from Page 1)
ism in the working class, crisis or rendered impotent by stagnation bued with timid conservatism, dragging The United Front Policy and passivity. That is the balance sheet along behind the masses, bureaucratio (we do not speak here of the bluff and From waited front exclusively at the of Stalinism in the Comintern. maneuvers and united fronts at the top exaggerations of the Party leadership or top. with bureaucrats like Purcell Fim This condition is part and parcel of the with all varieties of reformist leaders, exof their incompetent direction which remen, and their ilk, or with reactionary crisis in the Soviet Union and the Ruy aggerations of the omnipotence of Amersulied in the frittering away of these gains)
militarists and national bourgeois like sian Party. The attempt to bridge the gulf ican imperialism, faith in the capture of and the alarm of the American bourgeoisie Chiang Kai Shek or Calles, the official pol between an isolated proletarian state and the official trade union apparatus as a subat the specter of Communism. are signs the icy has been changed today to no united the retarded world revolution In addition, stitute for the struggle to win over the of the changing situation.
front at all, that is, no united front with utopian, reactionary theory of socialisin workers in the ranks. Its whole line of sections of the workers are moving from non Communist workers who are still in a single country has failed in two dif thought and action fitted it eminently to acquiescence in the leadership of Green, under the influence of the reformists. The ferent ways. Proceeding from this theory lead the reactionary campaign against Woll and Co. to participation in the var.
ruling apparatus and its spokesmen in all the Stalin Bucharin regime proclaimed that Trotskyism. which the present manufacious progressive movements, the Confer.
the Parties have changed from their con socialism would be built at a snail pace tured leadership is seeking so vainly to ence for Progressive Labor Action, and to ception of the progressive leaders as by the kulak growing into socialism. continue.
certain extent the new Left wing of fighters against imperialism to a concep This perspective of decades long cap We stamped the nature and course of the socialist party. For the workers, this tion of the progressive workers as social itafist stabilization was accompanied by this group correctly and in time.
is a movement towards the Left. Muste, We fascists. Both conceptions have a com resting upon and mobilizing all the anti fought against its liquidationist tendencies Thomas and Co. form the idological and mon base: the surrender of the non Com proletarian elements in the Soviet Union instead of uniting with it to expel the Lett organizational curb on this movement, a munist workers to the control of the re in the campaign against the Left Opposi Opposition. The official leaders of the safety valve against Communism, a rut formist leaders.
tion. The course towards the Kulak cul Party have now undertaken a belated for the harmless canalization of the forHowever, the labelling of reformists minated not only with the organizational struggle against the Right wing but they ward movement of the ranks.
American Reformism ag social fascists does not result in the crushing of the Leninist group in the Rus. are incompetent to conduct it. In reality, decline of their strength and influence. sian Party, but also with the bloodless they have helped to strengthen it, and that There is no foundation for the idea Social reformism is growing in the Kulak uprising of 1928. The pressure of in three ways: by uniting with it against tha the half way house of reformism, or not a little of which is attributable to the Opposition ideas and the proletarian us; by carrying out such an adventurist, its Left variety. must be occupied by the policies of official Communism. The petty core of the country compelled the rupture sectarian, ultra Loftist policy that they the American workers for a long time.
bourgeoisie, heavily hit by the industrial of the Right Center bloc and the commence play into the hands of the Right wing and There is no fatalistic analogy between the and stock market crises, is seeking polit ment of the zig zag to the Left of the development of the German or Br sla drive many Communist workers in its diical expression manifest in the tendencies Stalinist faction. But just as the Stalinist rection; by methods of hooliganism and working class and that of the American towards a third party. and in the in faction abandoned with one foot the po strong arguments which discredit the proletariat. The unevenness of social strug.
crease of the socialist party vote and or sitions of the Right for those of adventur Party and only create an artificial sympa.
gly and development, and the abrupt ganization, to which the desperate middle ism, so surely is it now preparing to re thy for the Right wing. The Centrists, changes inherent in the imperialist epoch.
class so largely contributed (Thomas vote That decades turn to its former position and to heal bound to the Right wing by a hundred thespeak against this analogy.
in New York. its temporary breach with the Thermidor oretical threads, are incapable of conducteised between the bourgeois and proletThe socialist party is gaining not only ian elements of the Right wing. This ing a serious Marxist struggle against it.
arian revolutions, in let us say, Germany.
among the middle class, but also among movement backward, foretold by the was not at all an absolute precedent for The smashing of Centrist impotence and the workers in the new miners unions of position, is now in the process of realiza theoretical confusion will be the heaviest the interval between them in Russia. The Howat Fishwick Brophy Ciermer Ameringer, tion. The serious situation engendered blow against its former and future ally, British and German workers went through and in partial reestablishment of socialist by the adventurist course of Stalinist Cen the Right wing.
their long period of reformist domination strength in the needle trades unions. In trism in Soviet economy, which brought As in our struggle against the Right during the upward swing of world imperthe South, the sectarianism and blunders about a virtual rupture of the bonds be wing. the course of events has more than ia!
e American working class is develof the Communist Party have made it eas. tween the proletariat and peasantry, which sufficiently justified our opposition to the ier for both the of bureaucracy to tightened the bureaucratic stranglehold 0:12 to maturity after the world war, in present Centrist regime in the Party. The play its ordained role of labor agent for that stifles the Party and reduces it to an the period of the collapse of world imperlatter has only deepened the crisis engencapitalism and the Musteites to play the automaton. demands the active interven dered by the previous rule of the Loveialism of violent wars. of proletarian and role of shock absorber for Green and Co. tion of every Communist worker.
stone faction. It has weakened the Party, colonial revolution, of the existence of an against the militancy of the workers.
The predictions and the program of international Communist movement which paralyzed its activity, cut down its influThe sectarian, ultra Leftist line of the the Left Opposition have been confirmed a Concentrates within it enormous experence and prestige among the militant workParty. its failure to apply the tactic of the thousand times over. For that crime it ers. It has driven away hundreds and even iences. These facts, and America involunited front, ils refusal to penetrate and has been subjected to the foulest slanders, thousands of workers from the Party: it ve and dependence upon a declining work within movements, not under the di to imprisonment, exlle, deportation has been unable to hold the thousands of an anarchical economy, make probable a rect control of the Party has enabled Green even assassination. In exile, in the fac workers who have recently come to the siuation in which the reformist experto have a free field in the South (and in tories, in prison and in the Party, the Left Party: it will continue to be incapable of ieces of the working class here can be the of L, as a whole. has enabled Opposition (Bolshevik Leninists) stand on holding the many others who move towards trred with uprecedented rapidity.
the Musteites to play their treacherous is process and its speed are not guard for the revolution and its conqueats. Communism under the impulsion of the game in Marion and Elizabethton without It is the revolution reserve of gold. The struggle.
depends audic. Their acceleration the Left wing having any chance to interIt is the American Opposition proudly re affirms its Solution of the Party Crisis la gely tipon the Communists.
vene, has enabled the Muste Fishwick con solidarity with the Russian comrades. Their task of the Comtounist Party to reduce to The pre requisite for the solution of bination to establish their control in the reinstatement into the Party, like our own.
the smallest minimum the reformist per the crisis is clarity and understanding of Illinois mine field without effective chal is the principal guarantee for the advanceiod of the American workers, to paralyze its nature and its source. To attain this longe from the Left wing.
muent of the movement and the solution of clarity and understanding, the Party rethe power of the Left and Right wing reThe Party must change its course and its crisis.
formists, to fight for every worker whom quires a genuine, a free discussion, which adopt instead the tactic of the united front.
they still influence. But it is precisely we have not had up to now because it is The Right Wing and Stalin Factions here that the present course of the Party Applied in a revolutionary sense, and not officially prohibited. For such a discusin its pro Purcell, pro Chiang Kai Shek The pre convention discussion up to and the leadership foistied upon it demonsion, the Party requires the re establishThe great oppor interpretation, it is a most effective instrunow. the fact that the theses were offi.
strate their impotence.
ment of workers democracy. For workment for separating the workers from their cially and finally adopted long before the ers democracy, the Party requires an intunities are allowed to pass by entirely. or discussion communaed. and all Stalinist else they are misused and ruined to the reformist leaders, and helping to speed transigeant struggle against the Party bur.
the movement of the American proletariat precedents, are sufficient indication that detriment of our movement and the advan.
eaucracy appointed from above and against along the revolutionary path. The present the convention will be another meeting of the regime which it represents and by tage of its enemies.
line of the Party is a brake on this the functionaries of the Stalinist faction, Fruits of the Third Period which it lives.
movement.
with a purely formal and decorative atThe weaknesses and the defeats of the The Party must be returned to the tendance of workers delegates. The conParty, and conversely, the growth of reInteruational Roots of Party Crisis Party membership!
vention will prove incapable of solving the The Left Opposition, since its existence foruuism, are traceable to the policies purThe crisis in the American Party is urgent problems of the Party. Our ap.
sued by official Communism for the past as a separate group formally outside the not an isolated phenomenon, it is a part peal is therefore directed primarily and Party as a result of bureaucratie expulsix years, and more recently, to the theory of the crisis in the and the essentially to the worker Communists in sion, has continued to fight for its prinand practise of the third period. The Communist International. That crisis de the Party.
theory of the third period with its thorveloped under the reatcionary banner of cipled viewpoint and to defend the found Our warning against, and designation ations of Communism, eve oughly opportunfst motivation, officially under the the struggle against an alleged Trotsky. of the character of the Lovestone group. tremost provocations of the apparatus. It inaugurated the present ultra Leftist zigism. that is, in reality against the funda made while it was still the American rep is pledged to continue this struggle. The 2ag of the Comintern.
mental principles and strategy of Marzism resentatives of the ruling regime in the The arbitrary proclamation of a third Centrist regime deformation and discredand Leninism. The Lelt course has not Russian Party and the International, have iting of fundamental principles upon which period was intended to serve as the thealleviated this crisis. It has only brought been more than confirmed by subsequent our Party and our International were oretical foundation for explaining away the it to full bloom, The Parties of the Inter events. We characterized the Lovestone built, only necessitates a firmer and more past crimes and blunders of the Rightnational are everywhere incapable of mea.
faction as a Right wing group, which was Centrist bloc in the International (Stalinrelentless strugogle in our Party since suring up to their tasks, and are paying leaving the positions of Communist prin the whole future of our movement is inBucharin. The fatal subordination of the with defeats for the past years of Stalinist ciple, at the moment when half of the Chinese Cominunist Party to the bourgeois volved. The great problems with which the corrosion.
present leadership of the Party was an Kuo Min Tang, which enabled the Chiang whole movement, particularly the Amer In India, with a revolutionary situa integral part of the Lovestone group (Min ican, are confronted demand the re incor Kai Sheks to mount to power over the tion, there is no Communist Party in exist or, Bedacht, Stachel, Weinstone) and the poration of the Opposition into the Party.
corpses of the Chinese proletariat and peaeace, and the mass movement is threatened other half was in a bloc with that group to Our fight for Communism must of necessantry, was and is justified by its ocwith complete strang tlation by Gandhi, expel us from the Party (Foster, Browder, currence in the second period. The bursity be conducted in fraternal solidarity.
Hathaway. Nehru and other representatives of the naeaucratic protection which the Anglo RusAll the noise and predic shoulder to shoulder with the Communist tional bourgeoisie. In Great Britain, the tions of the uniting of the Right and workers in the ranks of the Party.
sian Committee gave to Purcell, Hicks, It is hostility of the workers towards the mon Left Opposition is designed to conceal the Swales and Co. after they had stabbed the they, and not the miserable, blind burstrous treachery of MacDonald and the damning fact of the unity between the eaucrats, who will decide in the end.
British workers in the back, was and is 10 Labor Party is being transformed into Lovestones and Fosters in the fight against is to this end that we are working. It is explained away by the second period.
support for the Left wing of the Ind us.
for the clarity needed to attain this end The course based upon the Kulak in the The pendent Labor Party: the official Commi nRight wing has turned its that we address ourselves now, in the Soviet Union, the reactionary struggle against the industrialization proposals and lat Party in virtually out of the picture back upon internationalism, and applied the past, and in the future to the Communist In Austria, Italy and Spala, where there Stalin Bucharia theory of sooialism in workers.
the rest of the program of the Leniniat are powerful or potential mass movements one country to the United States. It has National Committee of the Opposition, is similarly excused. There is, against fascism, the Communist Parties are crystallized its opportunist conceptions of however no change in the practical conCommunist League of America (Opposition)
reduced to unini portant sects with no sub Communist work among the masses, which, sequences of the third period. which, Martin Abern, James Cannon, Albert stantial Infiuence. There is hardly a Party while it led the Party under Staliniat dis Glotzer, Max Shachtman, Carl Skoglund like the practise of the second results in the International that is not torn by a pensation, was always so thoroughly in Maurice Spector, Arne Swabeck in realix in the strengthening of reform