НЕ Saturday, June 14, 1930.
MILITANT rage. MY LIFE. and Its Critics De Wit Browder and Gold cipation in the Trotsky discussion thor would be nothing really lost. The New on Trotsky Autobiography Leader will say it for them and say. first.
The Stalinist United Front To a revolutionary all activity is a By James Cannon Quotations from these reviews, after The fundamental similarity or de three form of struggle and every instrument is DeWitt s, would weigh this article down reviews mentioned has its own meaning for a weapon. Cooped up in Constantinople ique in literature of this kind. But, even with an unavoidable burden of repetition those who look for the political content in through the amicable cooperation of Sta 90, the book remains an autobiography, not The soul of DeWitt is marching on in them. literary polemias. It is quite posible lin and Kemal Pasha patiently, waiting a history. It does not merely describe the The words of The Chatter Box leap from that many will fail to see any significance for what is to follow Trotsky writes his historic events but relates also the part the pages of the New Masses like armed in this united front and ask: Are people memoirs, and they become a bombshell the author played in them. And this is the men from ambush.
not allowed to have the same opinions once whose explosion resounds throughout the first point of DeWitt complaint.
Browder, like DeWitt estimates the his in a while? And to this we can answer world. There is so much of Leon Trotsky in toric Party struggle as a contest for per It is not only allowed; it is unavoidable My Life is a literary sensation. The those six hundred pages of print and phrase sonal position and dismisses Trotsky pre when they approach questions from the critics are amazed at the brilliance of that one receives only a hazy outline of the tentions in the same cavaller fashion. same essential standpoint.
its literary execution. The killful ar Russian episode. Again: m terribly The theme of the book is how Trotsky The common ground on the matter a rangement of words, in their conception, is sorry to have allowed so much animus to happened to become subordinated to len issue of the social democratic philistine an art which belongs exclusively to those creep into a review of a book. ut Trotsky in; how he planned to come into his own and the Stalinist Hessians of the pen only who have nothing to say. The legend that has left me so little of impersonal material when Lenin died; and how the degen demonstrates how far the official Conimun.
wisdom expresses itself through dullness to judge, and so much of himself, that no erate leadership of the Communist move ist Party has departed from the Marxis has a wide popularity but that fact does other procedure is possible. Well, that ment entered into a conspiracy to despoil method of analysis the method whic)
not give it any real value. Why should too bad But how could it be helped? Trotsky of his inheritance. Around this seeks the underlying social explanation of those who devote themselves to the strug As Trotsky himself remarked: Nobody rather trite detective story scheme the book historic event and which sees persons gle for ideas not learn the art of present has yet succeeded in writing an autobiog is built up. Needless to say the shrewd even the greatest as representatives of 80ing them effectively? Trotsky has done raphy without writing about himself. Browder is not fooled by this dodge about cial forces.
this to a superlative degree and has there big section of the book is devoted to political issues at the bottom of the We Oppositionists who fight under the by added to his power and stature as a the Party struggle that began with Lenin contest and like DeWitt refuses to be lured banner of Marxism in the International art revolutionary politician. His book, besides fatal illness. The account is a political into a discussion of these extraneous ques often reproached with merely being ad being a literary masterpiece is a mighty analysis which shows that it was not as tions. I, Trotsky, had power, he says, herents of Trotsky in a personal struggle.
weapon in the political struggle. This, the philistines think, simply a struggle of This was taken away from me by a conspir But it is precisely the Oppositionists who in fact, is its essence.
persons for power. The struggle of the acy of the degenerate leadership of the protest against such an interpretation o Political Autobiography epigones for power, as shall try to prove, Party headed by Stalin. And from this the cleavage in the Party. The struggle was not merely a struggle of personalities; follows logicnily his pontifical admonition. In these pages, says the author, of the Opposition against the reaction in it represented a new political chapter. the The dictatorship of the proletariat can have continue the struggle to which my whole the Soviet Unioni is no more a mere fighi reaction against October, and the prepar no more dangerous or insidios enemy life is devoted. Describing. also characof persons for power than was the strugtion of the Thermidor. On this thesis than a leader inside its apparatus who terize and evaluate; narrating, also degle of the Bolsheviks against Kerensky Trotsky bases his account of the Party thinks in terms of personal power.
fend mysell, and more often attack. And In each case the philistines and reaction.
struggle; but it is all lost on DeWitt.
again: This a boox of polemics. It reBrowder Joins the Freudians aries saw only the persons fighting for He sees, or pretends to see, only the flects the dynamics of that social life which For Browder, as for his confrere of the place, while the Marxists sought to explair personal side of the struggle and takes 18 built entirely on contadictions. So, New Leader, there is too much Trotsky in tho causal social factors and their potenth Trotsky to ask for failing to play the Trotsky book about his life, and the two manifestations.
in the introduction, the author het the game like a good sport. The conductor of keynote for his work. That he has succeedreviewers meet again in protest against The Chatter Box chides the organizer of Trotsky applies this scientific inethod ed in his design is attested by the Good of his underestimation of the working class. to his entire book about all stages of the the Revolution and the Red Army: When comment which the book has called forth As a matter of fact we are quoting Russian revolution up to the present moit came to stepping down from your pet comment which shows that his politcal Browder now. it is almost impossible ment. The failure of De Witt, Browder and blows have hit their mark.
theories, and playing along with your po to find any hint of the existence of the Gold to grasp this issue and meet it con: litical comrades on a give and take basis working class in this book. It exists only demns their interpretations to absolute The positivo political qualities of Trotyou flopped miserably. Either they would to provide a dark background which throws worthlessness. They miss the point eptire.
sky memoirs have already been evaluated do as you ordered, or they were betraying into higher relief the brilliant exploits of ly and throw no light on the real questione in the Militant. Since then a number of the revolution.
Trotsky.
hostile review have appeared in other Alt issue.
This business of being as infallible What is tort of Trotsky after these coiuing. review of these reviews should The worker who seeks an understand as God is so stupid.
withering blasts? Putting an upstart in enable us to bring out more sharply and ing of these questions must turn from the One might think that DeWitt would his place is what we call it. And it is to clearly the essential character of the autocritics of Trotsky book to the book itself stop at this and call it a day. But the be hoped that he will stay there when he biography, since a book, like a man, is They will find it there, Trotsky killer has tasted blood and press gets the following profound diagnosis of also to be judged by the enemies it has es on remorselessly. I, for one wouldn the whole trouble. Trotsky refers th)
made swap a regiment of strutting Trotskys for As far as the bourgeois writers are one Stalin. There another vote to make social Browconcerned it suffices to say it not one it still more unanimous. He must have der declines to follow him into this field.
Declines of them, to our knowledge, has failed to thought he was writing a Party thesis. being too smart, as they say in the West, to understand that Trotsky standpoint is He continues: Calling all of us names, and play another man ganie. Browder a The millions of AMSTERDAM (FP. Oficial statistics what it has always been then spitting so viciously at Stalin con peals to Freud, and the result is fatal for show the trade union membership in 76 words that have been written to prove that vinces us beyond further argument that Marx as well as for Trotsky. Trotsky bas countries as of Dec. 31, 1927 and 1928, as he has become a renegade to the revoluyour present fall from grace is the direct a complex says the reviewer Erowder, respectively 46, 187, 060, and 44, 180, 525. This tion and an ally of the bourgeoisie have result of the poetic judgement. wherein pot DeWitt. Lenin once gave him a pair great loss in one year is due to the collapse all been wasted as far as thehe same great pride cometh before a fall.
of shoes which hurt his feet so badly that of the huge figures reported from Asia at bourgeoisie are concerned. For them, now, Trotsky might receive a grace if he he recalls the incident in the book after the height of the Chinese revolution. For as before, Trotsky is the symbol and repwould be a bit umble under his adversities, many years. And what does that prove? 1927 Asia reported 3, 697, 000 trade unionists, resentative of the October revolution, and, but his stubborn pride shuts out even that. It proves everything. Says Browdler: Let while in 1928 it reposted only 724, 194.
in solar as they depart from the purely And he doesn understand the workers each amateur Freudian give bis own an Chiang Kai Shek had crushed in blood the literary side of his book and express opeither! There is an aristocracy about alysis of this interesting paragraph. Our Chinese trade union movement which inions on the Party struggle, their syniyour carriage, says DeWitt, throughout own analysis is that Trotsky ruling idea, spruas up at the triumph of the revolupathies are invariably given to the practhe adventure which belies your oft quoted from the time he met Lenin, was connected tion in 1927.
tical Stalin as against the visionary love for tho proletariat. There is so little in one way or another with occupying Len. Europe reports at the end of 1927 a Trotsky. This simple fact speaks volumes.
about the workers in your narrative. All in shoes. What mud could be clearer? total of 33, 936, 784 trade unionists, while a The Social Democrats you are taken up with is your theoretical Mike Arrives yer later its total had risen to 35, 392, 081. we turn to the social democratic paragraphing in this radical journal and After all this it might be well to let America confessed that while its 1927 topress we meet the same phenomenon. that. And so on and so forth. We must the matter rest. But the review of Mike tal was 7, 416, 491, its 1928 total was only Trotskyism has more than once been leave DeWitt here while we try to catch up Gold remains, and who can ignore him?
6, 947, 296. Australia rose from 99, 652 to Jabelled a social democratic deviation in with his line of argument in other columps.
Mike has arrived. so to speak, and suc1, 018, 29 Africa fell from 144, 33 to 90, solemn official documents of the Comintern.
The Stalinists 497.
cess has made him bold. He thinks he can But with a strange perversity these people The Stalinists had to take notice of get away with anything even plagiarism.
Trade unionism in the United States also fail to catch the point. The New the book in question in order to bury once There has to be some honor, among writers showed an increase, but in Mexico and Leader review of My Life is no less again the doctrine that has died so many other Latin American countries a loss was as well as among thieves, and DeWitt has hostile than those of the Stalin press, and deaths at their hands. And they have done a just ground to complain at the way Gold registered. European countries making What is especially noteworthy its bitter the job this time with characteristic bril has stolen his stuff on Trotsky and has gains in that year. 1928 were Austria, criticisms reveal such an identity of conliance choosing for the medium, the New passed it off as his own.
Bulgaria, Czechoslovokia, Denmark, Fintent with the Stalinist reviews that one Masses.
An example: One point that struck land, Italy, Latvia Luxemburg, Memel, Nor.
could hardly distinguish between them it Why the New Masses of all places and me in Trotsky autobiography. What Luciway Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, they were printed side by side in the same all things? The explanation is simple. fernian pride in every line. Trotsky is and Yugoslavia. Notable losses occurred journal, with the names of the authors Up till now the New Masses confined it too convinced that he is a great man.
in Greece, Great Britain, Lithuania, Poomitted.
Belf in the war against Trotskyism to the But there are no supermen. All men are land and Portugual and less losses, in BelLet us first consider the review in the modest role of keeping quiet, suppressing fallible, etc. That clever, but DeWitu gium, Esthonia, Hungary, Ireland, France New Leader for May 10th by De Witt.
all material on the question and refusing said it first. Why not give him credit?
and Rumania.
The reviewer is somewhat of a literary paid advertisements for our publications. Another example: Trotsky writes of man himself and the conductor of The This course was predicated on the theory the revolution as a chess player might, or Chatter Box. One might think that Trotthat it was a polítical matter; and the a general. And believe it or not He sky has suffered enough of misfortune and New Massey is a hot house for the cultiv has no feeling for the pathos, the poetry All readers on the Militant and their tribulation. But no, another cruel disapation of that flower of the ages: the pro and human beauty of the proletarian pointment awaits him: comrade DeWitt letarian writer who has nothing to say friends, who desire to get their copy of masses. This is more literary Jarceny disapproves of Trotsky and his book, too.
about polities.
of Leon Trotsky, My Life. should make it against which DeWitt may rightly protesti He says so straight out with all the heavy But My Life. it seems, is a literary These quotations are the core of Gold a point to order the book directly through solennity of a man who knows the weight product, and that makes it duck soup for review, and they are liſted bodily, almost the Militant. Shipment will be made the and import of his words.
the New Masses, which, as everybody literally from The Chatter Box. This day the order is received, and the cost of Trotsky autobiography is a masterful knows, is literary at all costs. Conse thing can go on. For the good of the the book, five dollars. 00. covers the quently we have in the June number not exposition of the historic process in which profession, literary ethics must be observed postage charge. Send your order, together individuals are playing their parts. His one review but two, and both of them from and swiping the other fellow stuft must with money order or cash to own activities are related and subordin eminent literati Earl Browder and Mike must be cut out. Even if such a ruling would THE MILITANT ated to it with an objectivity that is un Gold debar the New Masses from further parti 25 Third Avenue, New York, NY.
Mars and tries to hinge his case on the World Union Membership MY LIFE