Le THE MILITANT Saturday, July 26, 193 Deeper into the Party!
Opposition Problems few weeks ago by another bombshell. bastic as language will allow. Not so the This was the declaration of Hugo Oehler Party workers in the field for the platform of the Opposition follow. Deprived of the right to discuss anye ed the next week by a whole group of young thing really important in the official Party Communists in New York. There are more channels, the comrades begin to discuss to come Just the other day we received among themselves. The gap between them a letter from a comrade in a city where and the leadership widens. This process By JAMES CANNON we had no supporters up till now. The has been goinz on now for a long time.
letter states that a number of comrades That it has not exploded before now in a In a previous article on the character united front with the Party. Our participahave been reading the Militant very at faction struggle over questions of current and limits of our faction reference was tion in the demonstration for the Indian tentively for some time and that they are policy is accounted for by the terror regime made to the experiences of the German revolution was an excellent illustration of about ready to make a declaration in our in the Party and the lack of prominent Leninbund, and to the fabbiness of prin this policy and we must follow more enbeball. Hardly a week goes by without leaders. This lack of leadership is not alciple which brought it to impotence and ergetically in the future. On the same simllar news.
together a minus quality. While it retards ruin In this case, as always. confusion order is our offer to participate in the and looseness on principle questions were New York election campaign, our repeated There can no the open manifestations of the proletarian longer be any doubt bound up with errors in tactics which con attempts to enter into joint class struggle current it drives it deeper into itsell, conthat our propaganda is penetrating into pels it to weigh the questions more caretribused to and hastened the debacle. One action with the official Party in behalf of the Party ranks and influencing the Comfully and to relate them to the fundamental of the greatest errors of the Leninbund in munist workers more and more as they soe the unemployed, the class war prisoners, issues.
this fiold, as the results have shown was etc. By these means we are continually it borne out by events. What is happening its false attitude toward the Party. In refuting in action the slanders of the Party now is not the adhesion of isolated indi The logic or the situation drives the common with the entire International Op overseers against us and gaining in the proletarian revolt in the Party toward the viduals here and there, but the beginning position we have drawn the lessons of the sympathy of the Communist workers. of a movement for the Opposition. We are platform of the Opposition. Only on that split in the Leninbund and reacted to a The Centrist leaders are always basis can breaking through the wall reared against it develop into a real power.
firmer intransigeance in regard to prin aroused to the greatest fury by our at ug by the Centrist leadership. The second There are some who understand this alciple questions. We must make use of tempts to make a united front with the layer of Oppositionists is taking shape in ready but who shrink from its implications.
these lessons also in determining our at Party in common struggle against the class To think the conflicts through to the end the Party means to connect the contradictions in titude toward the Party. It is particularly enemy. And that fact ought to be instrucThe Character of the New Movement necessary now because we stand on the tive for our own members. The bureaulocal policy with the national, and the national with the international. This leada eve of new developinents the Party which crats fear our contact with the Party work The new movement for the Opposition will be vitally affected by our tactics. erg on the firing line of the class struggle. shows certain distinctive features.
inevitably to a consideration of the standJta Question of Tacties They fear the influence of our example. They main current is made up of the best types point of the Opposition. To study the plat.
For us this is a tactical question. We fear our arguments and our slogans. They form of the Opposition objectively and hon.
of proletarian Communists who have been do not make a fetish of the Party organ want to tear us away from all contact estly means, for a conscientious worker attempting to carry out the policy of the with the prolotarian Communists. This ization; our disregard of the bureaucrats Communist, to support it.
Party on the battle field of the class strug.
This means discipline is a sufficient indication that ambition of there is quite understandable. disgrace. Loss of position. Expulsion.
gle. Here they are confronted with the Slander. The severing of social relations we do not put the form before the sub But wo must not help them realize it by contradiction between the bluff and the fakand other trifles.
false tactics.
Some fear this Others stance. What we are concerned with at ery of the Party jacks in office and the go forward resolutely and tell the truth to the present moment is the composition of The Party that is the Party member. realities of the situation. The more these the Party, its influence among the radical the Party. Such a type is Hugo Oehler, ship is not a dead body. It is a living comrades in the field try to apply the offiThere will be other Oehlers.
workers and the present relation of forcos organism constantly under the pressure of cial policy the more they bump their heads Closer Bonds with the Rank in the struggle in the Commuist ranks. the class struggle. It cannot be kept in against this contradiction. The result is It is our most important task at the Our task is to win over the workers strait jacket. The Party reacts to events. a gradual awakening to the fact that somemoment to calablish closer bonds with this vanguard to the platform of the Oppo It is influenced by criticism especially so thing is amis.
coalescing proletarian movement in the sition. tactic which gives us the best when the Party members see the criticism They begin to criticise and to propose Party and help it to take shape as a genuapproach to them is the one we must seek confirmed in life. Things which have just modifications, and are met with accusations ine political force. We must help from a and apply. tactic which hampers our recently happened in the Party and others ot Right wing tendencies and threats of political standpoint. We must stimulate approach to them is wrong on the face of which are in a course of preparation bear discipline. The swivel chalr generals in the its organization.
it. Such a tactic would block the path of out this contention.
Party office have no sympathy for the grievtuture development for the Opposition. long time after the echoes of our ances and complaints of the fighters in the Regardless of the vacillations of some Where are the American revolutionary expulsion had died down in the Party, after field. Slogans and instructions cost the of the potential leaders, this movement in workers today? This question we must it seemed on the surface, that all our conthe proletarian ranks of the Party will Browders nothing they don have to carry angwer first of all. Unless we close our tact was broken. the Party was startled develop and go forward. It will do this them out. Therefore they can be as bomeyes to all reality we have to recognize because it is rooted in the deepest needs that the great bulk of revolutionary workof the Party of the proletariat to coordinate its policy with the realities of the class ers who play an active role in the class struggle.
struggle today are in the Party, and around And this is not a question of the Party. The Party has the unquestionempirical and short sighted shrewdness and able hegemony in the Left wing labor practicality. It is a question, in the last movement. Take the needle trades as an The much talked of revolution in analysis of the Marxist fundamentals on the have profited by the Eolivian revolution example. It is true that Communist Influ Bolivia is nothing more than a change are certain military groups, some of the main issues of international import from ence has declined as a result of the monwhich, and only from which the correct of power from the hands of one clique to liberal petty bourgeois elements and Britstrous errors of the Party leadership, but another of the same semi feudal milltary everyday tactics flow. To make this clear ish imperialism, this latter onl, in case the Party remains the decisive leading force exploiting class. It is one of those many to the revolting workers in the Party ranks the new regime does not reach an inderin the Left wing. The same thing applies revolutiong frequent in the turbulent is the task of the Leninist Opposition. In standing with United States finance capital.
to other fields, for instance, the miners.
order to do this we must have the closest and Instable democracles of Latin These internal struggles among the exco: act with the Party. We must go There are many Communist workers not in America at the same time that it re ploiters in order to steal the booty from the Party: there are many who have dropdeeper luto the Party. The decisive trend flects the struggle between those elements one another, offer an impulse to the masses ped out of the Party thousands of them favorable to British imperialism attemptof this movement in our direction, already for spontaneous participation in street noticeable, is a justification of our attivude but they are not an organized force.
ing to scatch the political control of the fighting where they serve the ends of the It is possible. with an agressive poltoward the Party. The successful devel.
country from the hands of those indisput opposition group, and as soon as the workicy and an energetic independent activity, ably on sido of the North American bankopment of the movement into a new fighters and peasants demand certain concesto reach some of these revolutionary working regiment for Leninism will confirm ers.
sions bettering their conditions, they find these tacotes beyond all further dispute.
ers directly and bring them into the ranke The recent occurrences in Bolivia have the machine guns turned on them for the of our organization. This we must do. But As the new developments show. the not the revolutionary class character thay restoration of order and the pacification Party cannot be judged by the apparatus.
the nain road of approach to them the Daily Worker gives them when it of the country.
through the Party. Under the present cirWith most of these people political stuitificstates in a recent issue that the workers situation similar to that in Bolivia ation has been blended with moral corrupcumstances and relation of forces a comand peasants almost captured power, which existed in Ecuador in 1925, and there were tion, and their reclamation is beyond the plete break with the Party a course tothe Party organ interprets as proof that many comrades who interpreted the milit power or politics.
ward the organization of another PartyNot to trust them, but the revolutionary movement in Latin Amer ary rebellion at that time as a social to fight them; not to count on them for would weaken, not strengthen our connecica is becoming deepened and extended. revolution. while others thought that a the regeneration of the Party but to see tion with tho Left wing workers who are In other issues of the Daily Worker dur petty bourgeois democratic revolution had that they will be its first victims that is ympathetic to Communism.
ing the last few days declarations are taken place; in reality it was nothing but This relation is not fixed and anal for our attitude toward them. It is different made la the sense that the Bolivian mass a replacement of the dull swords of the old with the Communist worker who has no all time; it simply determines the atties, truly viciously exploited by financial military chiefs for the sharper, newer ones axe to grind. Let us not forget this dis.
tude for the present and the near future.
capital are already completely radicalized of the younger elements.
tinction In comrade Trotsky letter published in the Militant some months ago he expressed in the spirit of the Third Period. This Facts should not be exaggerated in Our Independent letivity is a false and childish method of analyzing the opinion that the relation of forces in this manner. real analysis of each sit. One way and one of the very best the situation, born perhaps of the desire America justified an orientation on our uation should be made in order to draw ways to give real support to those comto make it appear that a real mass move.
part toward the formation of an indepencorrect conclusions so as to better or rades fighting for our views inside the ment exists throughout Latin America.
dent party. We did not agree with it at lentate the revolutionary movement of Lat. Party is to increase the independent ac.
the time and we thought comrade Trotsky Revolutions of the Bolivian type, in in America in particular and the interna tivity of the Communist League. The countries where the mass of the population would change his opinion when he recieved tional movement in general.
stronger we are as an independent force, is made up of peasants with few workers, more complete and detailed material on. CAMILO TORRES the more rapid will be our progress in the and where no true class consciousness has the situation in the Communist and Lett Party ranks. The steps we have taken wing labor movement. This proved to be yet developed, always turn out to be means since the Plenum of our National Commitby which certain cliques of the exploiting Trotsky Autobiography has proved case. ay attested by a second letter from tee toward the formation of an Opposition classes dispute for power and for the right to be a dangerous subject for critics of his him.
group in the needle trades unions as an to serve imperialist interests.
standpoint to review. The bad luck of the independent factor has Need Flexible Tacties special value and The state of disorganization of the New Masses with this enterprise has not importance in this regard.
The pecultarities of our position as a toilers of Bolivia, in the mines as well as only caused these dilletantes to regret the We cannot foretell every fluctuation or body of expelled Communists impose upon in the countryside could not be less prom. ir venture into the field of politics; it has the struggle for Leninism in the Communus a flexibility of tactics. Dogmatic narising. In Bolivia there is no Communist frightened away others who once posed as rowness and one sidedness will be fatal to ist movement nor the forms it will always party, nor for that matter any real work experts on the menace of Trotskylam. The take.
our future development. We are confrontThe main tasks and the main line, ing class organization, ed with the necessity of maintaining our poUnder these cir. Revolutionary Age announced in a previous however, are clear to us. Under a shower cumstances how could the workers and issue that it would review the book, but in of slander we are organizing the fundasition as a fraction of the Party, despite peasants take power. With this state of the intervening period it thought better of the prohibition of the officialdom, and at mental nucleus of the future Communist affairs, to speak of the workers and peathe same time of developing an independent this rash promise. It serves up instead a Party and we must counect this nucleus sants almost capturing power, results only quotation from a German paper of the Right organization with its own independent ac.
with the larger body of worker revolutionin cheap phrase mongering; 1t 19 a mistlvities and its own discipline. To combine wing. We would like to know what Love aries and win them for our platform. At these tasks, to make each supplement the erable bluffing attitude towards the work stone has to say about the book, Or does he the present stage of the struggle wh! ch ers that read the Party prese, disfiguring intend to surrender leadership in tre strugother is our problem, We visualize as a long one it is above all The most important means of an manch gle against Trotskyism to the New Leader, a fight for the Party. clear understandthe New Masses, and the Dally Worker?
At the present time the only ones who lag of the will hasten our victory to the Party members is the tactic of the The Truth About the Bolivian «Revolution»