Saturday, July 26. 1930.
THE MILITANT Page France Farmer Laborism in Action Opposition Progress nored.
Why Doesn Lovestone Answer Trotsky?
Northwest Experiences capitalista)
In the receat Minnesota Primary election the labor vote for the Farmer Labor ticket was very small. Thousands of workers paid no attention to the election as they could not see any objoc: in voting.
The workers have been fed up on broken camin the last seven years no question has tion is controlled by conservative farmers. paign promises by office seekors masquerreceived more serious study and attention small town lawyers. small business then ading behind the Farmer Labor label. The by American Communists than the socalled and individual office seckers, all of them wrong make up and program of the Farmer Labor Party, or Labor Party ques incapable of political leadership by de has completely blurred both party and class tion, Up to and including the 1928 elec cree of history. At the last state conven lines, and party issues in the campaigns tions the Minnesota Communist Party de tion the organized workers with their mild have degenerated to meaningless issues voted more time, money and energy to the programi were overwhelmingly defeated by between individuals. Since the has Farmer Labor Party idea than to any the reactionary elements in control. At become a plaything for ambitious politiother question on its program. Numerous each succeeding election the Farmer Labor cians of the Shipstead Starkey type the pamphlets and much literature was issued by Association is merely being used as a vote. endorsements of the Association mean nothe Party to show why Communists should getting machine for individuals like Ship thing to the workers and are generally isparticipate in the Farmer Labor move.
stead. Wefald Starkay and others. The That was the case in the Primary ment and there fight for a genuine Labor worker meinbers of the Association merely election just past where several endorsed Party.
furnish the votes and the campaign ex state and congressional district candidates After chasing this Labor Party phan.
penses were defeated by individuals who carried tom Crom the moment it made it appearance Two class Party no endorsement in the post war days the Minnesota work As mentioned above. one of the tuost All the efforts which have been wasted ers, who by training and experience should serious defects of the Farmer Labor Assoin the last ten years by the Communist be best qualified to analyze the question, ciation is that it is refornist in program movement to build and maintain Farmerhave come to the conclusion that this en wand outlook. Second, it is made up of two Labor parties in the United States can be tire Farmer Labor Party metement has clevisn farmers and workers, with the laid to the right wing opportunist policy nothing constructive to offer the American wrong class, the farmers, leading or rather of the Stalin leadership of the Communist working class.
strangling the movement. By the laws of International. This false conception conReformist Labor Parties econon. ic development farmers and smal! cerning the role of Farmer Labor parties, business men are unabie to furnish poIn the first place it should be made is but another blunder added to the long clear to the workers that there are two litical leadership for either the workers string of wrong united fronts sponsored kinds of political parties. revolutionary and or the capitalists, but on the other haaủ, by the Stalin gang in the It will be Teformist.
Practically all Farmer Labor. must of necessity follow one or the other the duty of the Communist League, the or Labor Parties, belong to the last named class. For this reason, any political move. Left wing of the Communist movement, to group. Like other political parties, the ment headed by farmers or small business turnish the American workers with a corcharacter and classification of a workingwill soon find itself in a blind alley or will rect political program which will guide be forced to surrender its leadership to the them class political party is determined by its along the most direct path toward organization and program.
The Farmer workers or the big bourgeoiste. the big their ultimate goal. EKSTROM Labor Association in Minnesota is of the reformist variety. That is, there is nothing in its program which calls for the overthrow of the present ruling class and to place the working class in power. Like all More than three months ago. the rol. we think, assume that if not the Revolu.
labor parties of the reformist character. lowing letter from comrade Trotsky was tionary Age as whole, then at least a the sinply intends to function as a transmitted to Harry Winitsky business section around it, no longer regards us as party of a subordinate class to ask for manager of the Revolutionary Age, organ counter revolutionists. Would it then not favors from the ruling class, the capitalists.
of the American Right wing: be in place to acknowledge this openly!
Therefore, it can be seen, that a reformist raise this question not in my interest political party of a subordinate economic Buyuk Ada, April, 16, 1930 but in the Interest of politicat clarification class can only obtain for its members such Dear Comrade Winitsky In general.
favors as the ruling class is willing to have received your organ regularly. In this spirit also sign myself.
grant them. On the other hand, revolutionThe various addresses signify the same.
Fraternally ary parties like the Communist Parties, In thanking you for your kind attention, TROTSKY have for their main purpose to put the nevertheless feel the need of expressing Three months, and many issues of the working class in power as the ruling cla38.
openly to you a certain surprise on my part Revolutionary Age, have elapsed. but 10 Communist (revolutionary parties of in connection with your letter. The Res. answer has been made in that paper, ulthe workers stand for this because it is olutionary Age has from its very beginning. less one can count as such the continued necessary. They know that the producing and its present director long before it misrepresentation of Trotsky and the class cannot even realize their immediate appearance, constantly and energetically Opposition standpoint that appear in it needs under capitalist economy and capitdenounced me and my friends as counter regularly. The letter, it is true. was realist rule, to say nothing about their legitrevolutionists cannot doubt that this ported at the recent convention of the imate aims. Communists also know, and they happened out of honest conviction, Lovestone group, and interpreted by the teach the workers this fact, that history You sign yourself, dear comrade Wine professional Trotsky slayer, Pert Wolfe, as does not disclose a single instance where itzky. fraternally. The sincerity of this a bid for unity with the Right wing! But a ruling class relinquished power because salutation. also have absolutely no right Wolfe conjuring tricks are tot yet enough they were out voted. More persuasive to question. But since we are no diplomats. to obviate the need for, au open reply to means were necessary to replace them and what we say must correspond to what comrade Trotsky letter.
Votes are only practical in settling disputes What have Winitzky and his paper to between a class, but votes are useless in SAV Trotsky refers to Jay Lovestone.
This, Aettling disputes between classes.
of course, refers to cases where there are material issues involved, and not to such immaterial quesvions as to whether Hoover or Smith should bo the President of the Unrerd States or whether Shipstead or Nel The French press is announcing new the mechods of struggle that Stalin uses Bou should have a seat in the Senate. On revelations on the activities of the against the Left Opposition. In the same such issues the capitalists do not object to They are supposed to come from a high So declaration, Agabekov says that while he abide by the result of the vote.
viet functionary. In fact, it refers to a was yet in Moscow he no longer believed With this all too brief analysis of tbe new deserter of Bessedovsky type, who in the dictatorship of the proletariat and aim and purpose of political parties, let us as soon as he pas908 over the other side that he considered it as the dictatorship Bump the net results of ten years of of the wall. goes over body and soul to over the proletariat. But Stalin doos not Farmer Labor activity in Minnesota the bourgeoisie and swears to fight Bol trouble about such a trifle provided the Thoory of Labor Refornilsm shevism with all his power, functionary is faithful to him and accepts The Farmer Labor Association is supThe cases of desertion by functionar all the dirty Jobs against the Opposition.
posed to be the organized political expres ies of the rotten apparatus abroad have All the rest conviction, fidelity to comsion of the workers and farmers in the become very frequent. Diplomats, military munism, etc. are secondary matters. The State of Minnesota. The intention is, on attachees, commercial agents, bank direc. Opposition, hunted driven from their posts, the surface at least, that through this or tory, the whole fine gang that is often re deported like Rakovsky or shot like Dlumganization the workers and farmers shall cruited from the bourgeois world, seeks kin are replaced by the Bessedovskys and control the legal Farmer Labor Party which the first opportunity to betray the prolet by the Agabekovs.
appears on the ballot together with the arian state. It is a normal condition and The Agabekov case shows us again that Republican and Democratic partios. The that is why we have not bothered ourselves in the bitter struggle against the Left OpFarmer Labor Association is supposed to with these people in our press.
position, against the Bolshevik Vanguard furnish the program and endorsed candi But the case of the latest deserter is that bas remained loyal to Communism, dates for the State Farmer Labor Party. very characteristic of the Stalinist apparStalin employs covert or open counterHowever, this theory has not worked out atus and of the struggle that Stalin, with revolutioniste, people who are ready at the very well in practise.
the aid of the apparatus, conducts against Hrst occasion to betray the Soviet state.
In the first place the organizational the Left Opposition.
structure of the LA. 18 wrong as a Agabekov, the name of the new desertlabor party in that it is partly based on er was charged with a secret mission of Individual membership. This arrangement the for Turkey, Greece, Syria, Paladmits politicians and office seekers whose estine and Egypt. And here is what Agabsole ambition is to use the Farmer Labor ekov says in Miliukov paper, Posljednt KLORKEIT No. Association as a stepping stone to climb Novesti (Latest News) of July 2nd, 1930: into some soft job. The representation to It is Blumkin who was charged before Note that the fourth number of Klorkeit, the conventions, where the political me with this mission. Last fall he was reprograms are written and canatdates en called to Moscow, and, suspected of Trotorgau of the Jewish Left Opposition group dorsed is based on territory Instead of fu skyism, he was shot. was designated in in France, has arrived. It contains among dustry. The territorial basis is the county. his place and was given the order to reThere are 87 counties in the state. The lieve from their posts all his collaborator other articles the fourth installment of farmers Co 84 Th suspected of Trotskyism, too.
comrade Trotsky The Third Period of of this is that the Farmer Labor Associa. This declaration explains lot bout the Mistakes of the Comintern.
The minor effects of the world crisis which French industry has already come to experience (textile, wines, etc. and the pessimistic perspectives created for it by the recently adopted protective tariff, do not as yet lead the French bourgeoisie to seek methods of despair. fascisation. as the Party here would have us believe.
It senses trouble for the futureto be sure.
It knows that the crisis is not going to leave France economically immaculate. And for this very reason it strains every effort to reinforce and consolidato its present political domination in the country. stable bourgeois bloc. purged of all extremist elenients, is its chief aim.
This was clearly, demonstrated by the recent speech of Tardieu at Dijon. By threat and by persuasion he hopes to win over the Radicais to his Republican Concentration, because it is these that he needs to assure stability to his class government. He openly admits that there are serious problems facing his class (the agricultural crisis, financial disorder, etc. and he makes a strong plea for cooperation to the different bourgeois parties on the basis of what he has already accomplished. As a major part of his accomplishments he cites his strong handed suppression of Communist influence! This Communist influenco. two, three years ago.
was menacing. Today it is impotent! Now, he sces as the task of the goverument: positive achievement.
The Party up a Blind Alies The Party writers pass over in painful silence this enemy class estimate of the movement. For, it is the solemn truth. The First of May, the inaction displayed in the campaign for the 13 martyrs of Yen Bay autests it. Yet nothing stirs the leadership from their phillstine complacency. Vacant, optimistic phrases are still the substitute for effective class action. As long as the Party will not realize that a strong.
solid working class resistance must be assembled to oppose the concentrated power of the bourgeoisie, its influence is going to decline still further. And such a working class resistance cannot be achieved by third period antics, by mechanical control of the mass organizations, by bureaucratic execution of the trade union work, by leaving the basis of reality. By these methods. it only drives the workers into the arms of the reformists of all shades 80cialists, popists or syndicalist minoritaires.
By these methods it discredits Communism as a whole in the eyes of the workers. The masses have to be educated through all possible phases of collective struggle for their historic class task and not by light headed optimism and talk.
Opposition Growth With all this tragic sterility of the Party leadership, the situation is, however, by no means hopeless. The Left Opposition is always there, watchfully exerting its pressure, struggling to revitalize the Party. The progress of the Left group is in.
creasing It was the Ligue Communisto which in conjunction with a majority of Annamite Communists here (who, after having carefully studied the events of the Chinese revolution know where to find proper Communist guidance for their own)
orgauized the first, real protest demonstration against the executions of Yen Bay, be fore the president palace. This demonstration and the impression it made upon the bourgeoisie contributed a great deal to awaken the membership of the Party to the insufficiency of the leadership and to force the Party itself into (belated) action, governmental measures striking our comrades heavily (expulsion and prison. In the North of France a strong detatchment of the regional has joined the Opposition Unitaire (which rallies about the political program of the Left Opposition and the Verite. The Left Opposition is rapidly developing, parrying successfully the calumniating attacks of the both the Stalloist majoritalres and the syndicalist minoritaires. Committee for Trade Union Independence. In the Party itselt, different nuclei and subsections (Tours, 13th Arrondissment, Paris etc. have started a struggle against the false policy of the leadership, backing and declaring their full support of the Left Opposition. The struggle for the Party and for the reestablishment of Leninist line has only begun. GORDON The Man Stalin Chose to Succeed Blumkin!