SEAMEN KATELE NO REVOLT AGAINST STALINIST BUREACRACY THE Published Twice a Month by the Communist League of America (Opposition)
VOL. III, No. 32, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 1, 1930.
PRICE CENTS 13 Years of Russian Revolution!
speak RESULTS OF THE ELECTION The socialist fatherland is thirteen years ficance. The treachery of the social demo leadership primarily, has been selected old this week! It is worth reminding those crats, who sold their proletarian ideals The infuriated cries of these courtiers and who have come to take it for granted, that for the right to serve the capitalist class courtesans, who regard revolutionary crithe first stormy days of the Russian re in the ranks of the working class, is re tics as lese majeste, make this criticism volution were the days of those false pro vealed in truly monstrous proportions in all the more imperative, for its absence is phets in the camp of the capitalists and the lights of this fact. Their effective a guarantee of decadence.
their socialist assistants who predicted work in stemming the revolutionary tide The threat to the Russian proletarian that the Russian choas would dissolve frequently at the safe end of machine revolution to which we refer is a reflection in a few weeks into a peaceful capitalist Bung ig the historical crime that has set of the whole capitalist encirclement of democracy. The few weeks became a few back society for a decade and threatens the of the pressure of impermonths. The few months gave way to a to set it back for another.
jalism and the war danger from without, few years. The capitalist class, so firmly But these are not the only difficulties and the upward strivings of the capitalconvinced that their services as masters of the Soviet power. To ignore the others, ist elements within the Soviet Union itself.
are indispensable to society, could not imtoday more acute than ever, is to do that The danger is embodied in the ruling reagine the working class not only taking peculiar, detestable dis service to the re gime within the Bolshevik party, the corthe state power into its own hands, but volutionary cause for which a whole sec rosive course of Centrism oscillating berunning it successfully for more than a tion of the Communist movement and its tween the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, decade and organizing a classless society.
The social democrats, steeped in their parliamentary democratic prejudices, and reflecting the hopes of the master class they really serve, refused and still refuse to give sanction to a proletariat that came to power by any means other than that of Outstanding in the national elections condemnation.
the MacDonalds, the Hillquits, the VanJust concluded is the enormous increase of Hoover is the staunchert representaderveldes, the Noskes and Muellers. The Democratic party strength in the country, tive of capitalist reaction, as is the printhirteenth anniversary of the Russian reraising it to a power it has not enjoyed cipal opposing party the Democratic. The volution adds another tombstone over since the days of Woodrow Wilson ad revolt against the Republican party was these rotten prophets. The proletariat has ministration. To state it more accurately, not led by the big bourgeoisie, but by the shown its ability to seize power, to hold it should be said that the most significant petty bourgeoisie, the middle class so brufeature was the almost unprecedented deit, and to lay the foundations for a new tally hit by the crisis. The middle class society, thus opening a new chapter in feat of Hoover administration.
led the mass of the workers and poor farmthe history of human kind.
Hoover and his party were swept into ers behind it, directing the futile revolt office with an immense majority in 1928.
into the stagnant pool of the second capitTHE OBSTACLES IN THE ROAD Traditional mocratic strongholds in the alist party.
South were captured for the first time The profound dissatisfaction of the To the Russan proletariat and its since the Civil War. Despite the relative masses is incontestable. Equally inconparty, the Bolsheviks, go the honor of bely huge vote for Smith at that time, the testable is the fact that the proletariau in ing the first. They have drawn with bold, majestic strokes the outlines of the road Democratic party seemed to have received the United States has not yet taken the a blow at its very vitals.
first big steps to break away from the ideothe working class everywhere must travel The 1928 Hoover was the great monu logical and organizational dominance of the in order to emancipate itself from the yoke of capitalist enalavement. Never bement to the unparalleled prosperity. the bourgeoisie. If the votes for the Demofore has a ruling class been subjected to fat years of American capitalism.
crats do not prove this sufficiently, the votes such arduous tasks, or confronted with The Democratic Sweep the Communist and Socialist partles do.
such apparently insurmountable obstacles.
Speaking volumes for the jerky and The Socialist vote must have been a The wrack and ruin of the imperialist abrupt rapidity of events and changes in war: the oppressive heritage of czarist great disappointment to those who received our times, less than two years in office backwardness, ignorance, bureaucracy: it. In spite the contemptibly petty were required to deliver an even more the devastation of the civil war organized bourgeols, reformist campaign it conductcrushing blow to the administration than by the domestic reaction and backed by ed revolting to any class conscious workSmith suffered in the presidential elecLoreign Imperialism; the direct military iner It only superficially doubled its vote tions. Lost fortresses have been retaken tervention of Wilson, Poincare, Benes, the (according to reports at hand up to now. by the Democrats. The most extravagant Milkado, the Kaiser, Lloyd George and Co; predictions We say superficially, because in reality, it the economic and then the credit block fore the actual returns.
Democratic leaders pale be did little more than stagnate. In New York As colorless a ade; the ravages of the famine the plaCity, for instance, the standard bearer, candidate as Roosevelt succeeded, in spite gues of biblical times could hardly have Weldman, doubled his 1928 vote, it is true, of the stigma of Tammany Hall, in piling been worse than these but recorded no increase over the 1922 up an absolutely unprecedented plurality. vote, not to speak of Thomas mayoraltly Added to these obstacles, which a state Mossy Republican states like Ohio, Illinois, last year, or Hillquit 1917 vote. For where the few rule could never have over Kansas and elsewhere went Democratic. In a socalled radical party today to double, eome, have been difficulties of another na Minnesota, a Democratic Senator was re or even treble its vote in comparison with ture. The Russian proletariat came to turned for the first time in almost three a pre crisis e. 1928 or earlier, vote, power under the Red Flag, the banner of quarters of a century. The Democrats is no achievement at all. The received the international working class revolution.
took over most governorships and lost buti thousands of petty bourgeois votes; its It calculated upon the rapid and indis one. They have changed the relationship disgraceful Jewish nationalist campaign in pensable development of the revolution in of forces in both houses of Congress, where some districts. every good Jew should other countries to come to its aid. com it appears at this writing that they may vote for Vladeck. brought it many nationbination of circumstances some of which be sufficiently represented to organize both alistic votes. But the distribution of its might have been averted by correct Bol houses for themselves. In a word, Hoover vote nevertheless shows that this petty shevik strategy set back the revolution and the Republican Party were almost ev bourgeois party of capitalist democracy ary movement, and compelled the Russian erywhere heavily snowed under.
gained a majority of its support from working class and peasantry to continue In 1930 Hoover defeat is the first pollworkers.
the work of defending and strengthening tical tombstone erected to mark the passthe proletarian fortress by their own dirThe Communist Yote ing of prosperity.
ect efforts. That enormous progress has already been made since the day when The flerce crisis, with its mags unThis is all the more noteworthy in face employment, has made its mark on the power was taken, in the face of the burof the poor showing of the Communist densome, unwanted heritage of the past, elections. Even the hardy perennial of Party, a penalty for which Stalinism makes is eloquent proof of the giant vitality of American politics, prohibition, took a digour Party pay. In New York City (the only the proletariat, count at hand at this writing) Foster got immense capacities, tant second place. The intoxication even and the inspiring power of the socialist of the masses with a delusive prosperity 15, 560 votes more than double the Weinideal.
which produced the tremendous Hoover stone vote of last year. But that was a majority, has given way blind dissatishumiliating low point for the Party. The THE TREACHERY OF THE SOCIAL faction of the masses with the crisis and Party banner bearer this year did not DEMOCRATS Its ravaging effects. The Democratic party succeed, however, in even doubling the was endorsed only in the most purely 1928 gubernatorial vote, that is, a vote cast At the same time, it is implicit with parliamentary sense. In actuality, the De before the crisis or the unemployment! The the truth that the state aid of the revo mocrats were not so much the recipients tottering with less than one tenth lutionary proletariat of Europe would have of an endorsement as the Republicang the Party apparatus or influence, quadchanged infinitely more the complexion of short sighted held solely responsible for mupled its 1928 gubernatorial vote!
society today, would have produced suc the crisis, instead of being regarded as We will return more exhaustively to cesses before which those attained on a one of the pillars of capitalism which pro the results of the elections in the next national scale would shrink into insigni duced the crisis were the recipients of a issue.
embodied in the dominant Stalin faction.
The Party and the revolution have been sincerely punished by it.
For proletarian internationalism, the Stalinist usurpers have substituted a pettybourgeois nationalism, a consoling philosophy of socialism in one country. For the live, pulsing, vigorous proletarian Party, Stalinism has substituted a hideous caricature in which all that is retained of democratic centralism is an exaggerated bureaucratic domination, where the Party worker does not dare to criticize or mind. For the fighters and leaders of the October revolution whom it has sent into Siberian exile, in the prison, into banishment, it has substituted a servile group of incompetent yes men. For the policies of Lenin, triumphant at every time, it has elaborated a revisionist concoction which produces only defeats and setbacks, and that not only in the Soviet Union, but throughout the world revolutionary movement. In undermining the revolutionary proletarian base of the Bolshevik partly it is undermining the October revolution. It has led the workers republic from one crisis to another, barely escaping catastrophe only because it adopted, at the last minute, part or other of the platform of the Leninist Opposition it persecutes 80 rabidly. Our allegiance to Bolshevism, our lealtly to the October revolution which has changed only by becoming more profound and staunch, compels us to aid the cause of the world revolution by indicating the danger threatening it and organizing the struggle against it.
THE MEANING OF THE OPPOSITION The proudest heritage of the world proletarian vanguard, the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, the foundations of the Bolshevik revolution, are embodied in the Left Opposition. It is pledged to defend them tenaciously, without yielding to the assaults of capitalism or its socialist retainers, or to the ravaging attacks of Stalinism. The van guard fighters hail the 13th year as the victory of Bolshevism, but not of Stalinism. Our warmest greetings to the proletariat of the Our warm and comradely salute to the courageous fighters of the Bolshevik Opposition whom a usurpatory clique has confined in dungeons and exile, and to their leader and ours, comrade Trotsky!
Long live Bolshevism and the world Trevolution. n.
In the Next Issue Pressure of space, due largely to the need of publishing the declaration of the Marine Workers Opposition, compelled us to omit from this issue a number of very important articles: the of convention in Boston, a complete analysis of the elections, the continuation of Trotsky article on Stalin as a theoretician, and many others. They will all appear in the next number of the paper, which will be printed in about a week in order to make up for the delay in publishing the present number See