se THE MILITANT Saturday, June 14, 1930 An Open Letter to the Members of the (6)
and sterile in the sphere of transitional demands. It defends the erroneous siogan of democratic dictatorship. It conbines the scholasticism of Bucharin with the empiricism of Stalin and gives a theoretical elucidation of all the aberrations of Centrism.
It is necessary to construct a program worthy of the theory of Marx and the revolutionary school of Lenin Barred from Union Activity for «Trotskyism. Concluded from the Last Issue)
By TROTSKY French proverb says that one must kaow how to fall back sometimes in order youth the possibility of developing its own the better to leap. That is the condition and practise of the Workers and Peainitiative, of judging, of discussing, of comin which the leadership of the Soviet state. mitting mistakes and correcting them: in sants Party (Stalin. The cowardly, half way abandonment as well as the leadership of the Communist the absence of such pre requisities there of this theory is not enough. It must be International finds itself at present.
is the danger of a fatal rupture between pitilessly condemned as the worst example Both are driven by their own adventhe successive revolutionary generations. of political treachery which has comproturism to the depths of an impasge. PlacAbove all, it is necessary to alter the mised for a long time the proletarian forces ing its prestige above the interests of policy of the communist International in of Japau, India, Indonesia, and other the world revolution, the Centrist bureau the East.
countries of the ICast.
cracy draws ever more the noose around The organization of peasant guerilla With no less decision must there be a the neck of the Party. In matters of tacwarfare in China wbile the workers move. repudiation of the slogan of the demotics, the first task is the following: to beat ment in the proletarian centres continues cratic dictatorship of the workers and peaa re rent by abandoning the positions of to vegetate, is to throw dust in the eyes it sants which is only a reactionary cover adventurism. The retreat is inevitable in is the sure road to the destruction of the for a policy of the Kuomintang kind, that any case. It must therefore be carried out Communist Party.
to say, for the hegemony and dictatorAs soon as possible and in the best posIt is necessary to stop playing with the ship of the bourgeoisie in the national sible order.
fire of adventurism. The Chinese Com revolution.
Put an end to the complete collec munist Party must be armed with the slo The program of the Communist Intertivization replacing it with a careful sel gans of revolutionary dennocracy to aid it national adopted at the Sixth Congress is ection based on a real freedom of self de in the mobilization of the great masses it entirely eclectic. It gives an incorrect termination.
city and country.
conception of the world situation. It is Bring the Kolkhoz (the farm collectives) The weakness of the Hindu proletariat built up on a concoction of Internationalism into harmony with real resources.
at a time when a profound revolutionary and of national socialism. It gives a MenPut an end to the policy of merely ad crisis is developing in the heart of an shevik characterization of the colonial rev.
ministrative abolition of the kulaks. То enormous colonial country is explained by olutions and of the role that the liberal bridle the exploiting tendencies of the ku the long reign of the reactionary theory bourgeoisie plays in them. It is impotent lak will remain a necessary policy yet for many years. The fundamental policy with regard to the kulak holdings must consist in a rigid contractual system of coercion (1. e. a contract with the governEditor of the Militant: Youngstown workers were honored by the ment organizations obliging the kulak to furnish certain products at fixed prices. Your issue of May 17 carried a brief presence of a combination organizer. He was here to build up everything. The árticle from comrade Plarinos, describing Put an end to the shock brigade methods of collectivization.
Party, the L, the the Re evaluate the the May Day demonstration in this city.
Brief though his article was, it was adeM. and what not. He spoke at question of the tempo of industrialization in the light of experience taking into ac quate to cause his rejection as a member the Public Square and the thing he sucof the Metal Workers Industrial Lengue; ceeded most in doing was in keeping the count the necessity of raising the standard the League which ironically claims to be crowd moving. No one would stop to lis.
of living of the masses.
interested in the organization of the anten to him. Such organizers who cannot Frankly raise the question of the qual.
organized.
ay of production, its importance being as speak and do not know what they are trying to say do much more harm than good.
great for the consumer as for the proPlarinos, who has many years standducer.
ing in the revolutionary movement, did not Barred from Union for Opposition Views Put an end to inflation by establishing participate in the May Day demonstration The Metal Workers Industrial League is rigid financial discipline by means of for the purpose of seeing its faults. He supposed to be an organization of metal cutting down exaggerated plans, went into it with revolutionary enthusiasm; workers Irrespective of their political Give up the ideal of a closed econwith the desire of doing his part to make views, their race, creed or color. They omy. Work out a new variant of the it a success; and to challenge the Steel pretend to be extremely anxious to organize Barons.
plans based on as extensive a collaboraBut despite his fidelity and en the unorganized, but it is obvious that they tton as possible with regard to the world thusiasm he could not avoid seeing the are ouu to organizo no one but the bona market conspicuous blunders of the leadership. fide followers of Stalin. The application of Supported on the growing unemploy In his May Day in Youngstown arcomrade Denis Plarinos has been rejected ment in a number of countries develop an ticle comrade Plarinos said, Thousands because he sent the Militant a truthful important international campaign having as of workers and business men gathered on synopsis of the May Day demonstration its basis concrete economic proposals in the streets to see our parade. He might in addition to the fact that he is a reader the direction of economic collaboration have added that the only workers on hand of the Miliant. So it seems that readers with the Soviet Union. Organize an that day were the unemployed.
of the Daily Worker exclusively are eligible offensive of the working masses under The Mass Political Strike to join the which pretends to be an organization of metal workers! Only this slogan, particularly of the unemployThe party call for a mass political the faithful disciples of Stalin will be ored, against the social democratic governstrike was a complete failure. How could ganized, although these disciples do not ment in Germany and against the labor it be otherwise? While the great major number more than one percent of the government in England, ity of the workers were unemployed and workers. It is quite safe to say that nine It is necessary to stop looking upon the were walking from place to place in search out of every ten of the mill workers have Communist International as an auxiliary ap of anything they could find, they would be never heard of Stalin, paratus for the struggle against the dan willing to work under almost any condigers of intervention. It is a question no tions, just for coffee and. The workers The great majority of mill workers who longer of occasional demonstrations read any newspeper at all read the capitwho had a job looked upon themselves as alist sheets. They do not read them on against war but of a struggle against im the favored recipients, as the chosen child.
account of their editorial policy or politperialism, for the world revolution. It is ren of their particular deity. While it is ical views. They read them for the latest necessary to develop a real struggle in quite true that the great majority of the news of baseball football horse racing, the capitalist countries to win the masses mill workers, employed and unemployed, etc. But, yet they read the capitalist papers taking into account the real state of the are sore at the bosses and hostile at the and not the Dally Worker. Are they to be economic and political processes in each Company, yet few know anything of the ignored and pushed off the map by the her.
country.
international revolutionary movement and esy hunting Are they not to An end must be put to the falsifica still less of the Third International, In fact, don think the mill workbe or tion of facts consisting in the (verbal)
to fight the steel barons untransformation of specific economic con ers who have a job would respond to any less they are born again or unless they wake up some morning and by some cableAllcts or unimportant demonstrations into strike call at the present time. But it gram magic And themselves ardent admirers 80 called revolutionary struggles. they were called on to organize with the of Stalin and diligent students of the Third Stop the fabrication of statistical data intention of ultimately striking for betPeriod?
in the service of pre estabished schemes. ter conditions, higher wages and so forth, It is easy to foresee the end of this Drive out ignominiously all tailendism they might at least understand it. But the 80 called Metal Workers Industrial League.
the lying and deception of the masses. call for a mass political strike of unGive up the scholasticism of the third organized workers during an industrial deIts sectarianism will choke it, lead it to period. pression is of course beyond the compre decay and finally to the scrap heap of obPut an end to the adventurist policy hension of these non class conscious work livion, unless 10 is taken over by the militant workers who will fight the steel of red days. ers. It is easy enough to see why the mill Condemn the theory of social fascism workers who had jobs paid no attention to barons by forming a united front of all which renders the greatest services to the the call for a mass political strike. The steel workers irrespective of their politsocial democracy!
call reached deat ears as any one with any ical vlews or of what newspaper they read.
Return to the Leninist policy of the senge might casily anticipate.
The mill workers can be organized on united front!
The slogan of a mass political strike an industrial basis only. But they cannot The loss of influence over the youth at this time and place is like sowing seed be drawn into an organization which 15 one of the most menacing symptoms of on barren rocks. The seed not only will spends its time talking of the Russian sitthe abyss which is opening up before the not grow but it will die. This serious slo uation, the Third Period, etc. These workCommunist International and the masses. gan has been abused so much by the phrage ers believe in organizing to fight the steel Never yet has bitter, dried up, self mongers and half baked intellectuals who barone. Asking them to fight the battles Interested and conceited bureaucratiam been look on themselves as the fountains of of Stalin is sheer folly.
able to and its way into the hearts of the working class knowledge that it has be Organization will yet come but not younger generations, What is needed is come meaningless. No one, not even those through our present Communist leadership not commandments of officialdom but sen who write 10, any longer take it seriously. which Insists on substituting wishes for itive and tactful leadership on the part But of course this 18 the Third Period facts and which believes the rank and file the Party so we cannot be surprised at anything. are to be merely drilled by the Party burOne must leave to the proletarian For quite some time this year the ea veracy. CHARLIE BRYNE One cannot find a way out of the present contradictions without crises and struggles. favorable change in the relation of forces on a world scale, that is to say some striking success of the revolu.
tion would constitute an important and even decisive factor in the domestic affairs of the Soviet Union, But it is impossible to construct a policy on the expectation of some miraculous salvation in the short est possible interval. Certainly there will be no scarcity of economic and revolutionary crises in the coming period, esecially in Europe and Asia. But this will not be enough to solve the problem. The defeats we suffered after the war taught us that without a party powerful and sure of itself, in full enjoyment of the confidence of the masses, victory is impossible. Well, on this very decisive point, the balance of the post Lenin period shows a marked deficit.
That is why it is necessary to be able to foresee that the situation internally and internationally heralds a coming period full of prolonged and grave difficulties which will have their political repercussion. The suppressed questions, the hidden doubts, the heavy discontent of the masses will come to the surface. The whole question is to understand whether they will ex.
plode tumultously taking the Party by surprise or it the latter will be able to miner sufficient forces in itself at the supreme moment to become a new Party (or recher the old party again) in determining its role in regard to the laboring masses. The key to the future is to be found in this alternative. To effect the retreat which has become necessary. to renew its strategic arenal without too great damage and without los ing its sense of perspective this is only given to a party that clearly understands its goal and knows its strength.
This demands a collective criticism of the whole experience of the Party tu the post Lenin period. The fraud and lies of self criticism must give place to internal democracy within the Party. gener. cl examination of the general line not in its application but in its direction this is the way to commence.
Only the Lets Opposition is in the present circumstances capable of condensing and explaining fearlessly all that is going on in the country and the Party to the extent that it is the result of the whole preceding course of developments. As long as this has not been tinderstood it is of no avail to talk of some general line whatever that is.
At the present moment the Left Onposition is more than ever a nec sit for the Party. The crimes of the Stalinist apparatus must be put an end to and the Opposition returned to its rights within the Party. This we will once more say to the Sixteeenth Congress.
The mission of the Opposition at the present time can be formulated as follows: to increase tenfold its efforts to aid the Parly despite all obstacles to overcome the profound crisis which is manifesting itself internally, before there should dovelop in all its amplitude the crisis of the revolution.
Just as in the years of the imperialist slaughter little uncompromising groups and even isolated revolutionary individuals per sonilled in themselves alone proletarian internationalism so the Lefty Opposition, small in numbers and persecuted, is the guardian of the spirit of the revolutionary party. Neither the oppression of rulers nor the treachery of the feeble and exhausted, will shake us of our determination.
Against bureaucratism! Against opportunism! Against adventurism!
For the October Revolution!
For the regeneration of the Russian Communist Party and the Communist Internatonal on the basis of Leninism!
For the International Proletarian Rev.
olution!
Priokipo, March 23, 1930. LD. TROTSKY