Against Opportunism and Adventurism of the Right Wing!
On the Proposal for a New Farmer Labor Party Fraud In this letter we wish to elaborate on The letter printed on this page was recently sent by the national committee the brief and hurried note sent to you on of the Communist League of America (Opposition) to its Minneapolis branch. The September 27. We are in a better position occasion for the letter was a proposal made to the League to participate in the foundact now because we have had the oppor ing of a general Left wing paper in Mineapolis, to be launched after a conference tunity to think more thoroughly of the on October 13 1930, at Superior, Wisconsin. The conference was initiated by the questions involved. because we have re directors of the newly founded Farmer Labor Party of Montana. a movement cen.
ceived the point of view of comrade Swa tering around the Producers News of Plentywood, Montana, edited by Charles Taylor beck, and the minutes of your executive and Flaherty, and has been endorsed by the leaders of the Finnish coopcommittee meeting of October 1930. eratives in Superior (Halonen and others recently expelled from the Communist Four questions are involved, which are Party. by the Lovestone group, and by a scattering of individuals formerly active in various Farmer Labor Party ventures. The significance of the conference does all connected with each other and touch upon our fundamental principled position, not at all in any mass movement it represents, because it doesn t, but in the for maintaining which the Foster group of thoroughly opportunist conceptions inspiring it. Not the least important of its feaCentrists combined with the Lovestone tures is the growing reapproachment between the Lovestone faction and the Right Right wing to expel us from the Party and wing Finns who find a common basis in such opportunists adventures, as well as hound us in the revolutionary and labor in their general conceptions. Ed.
movements. If we approach these questions from the standpoint of expediency, the by those workers whom we convince of the ative role in the class struggle towards need of snap decisions someone compels correctness of our position and by clasg the new unions. in a word towards the us to make by a certain date, or from an conscious militants outside the Party. This whole complex of world and domestic proallegation that a combination of circum means a firmly welded Opposition move blems which cry out for solution? We think stances exists in which our theories and ment, which it must be our primary duty the envisaged composition of the editorial principles are not supposed to hold, we are to strengthen. Particularly in Minneap board is a guarantee that the paper will guaranteed in advance to make terrific olis, where the relation of forces is very be anything but in harmony with the local blunders, to retard our progress, and com advantageous to us, our efforts should be and the of the League. How promise our movement. Our point of de concentrated upon recruiting revolutionary will we be able to assume responsibilityparture in these as in other important workers directly into our ranks. We are without indelibly compromising ourselves questions can only be that of revolutionary not building a second Party, so we have for a paper which gways helplessly beMarxists who do not yield on principles. little vo worry about from the empty ac tween the Left Opposition and Lovestone cusations to that effect made against us or the Superior Finnish movement, or the by the Party What Party shall we support in the bureaucrats whose own poli Lundeenites or similar nondescript elecies and acts have systematically cultivated ments.
Minnesota elections: the Communist Party the seeds of opportunism and social dem We are not opposed to a popular paor the Farmer Labor Party? We believe ocracy within and without the Party itself.
per which concentrates upon agitating that the decision of the Minneapolis branch In this sense, the action of comrade Cowl among the workers for a certain minimum on this point is absolutely correct.
is incorrect.
We program without being definitely and avowParty only the support the of Why should this position be construed edly stamped as the organ of any specific proletariat, the Communist Party, and opas leading isolation. to pose the petty bourgeois Farm Labor We have had section of the movement.
to sectarianism? All analyses that conclude such papers in the movement before, and Party and in this we have the approach, in this manner may be based they have been of service. But at the not of a faction, but of our class. The upon same conjecture and upon a sound refusal to time it must be dominated by a official is not merely the only pobecome disconnected from the masses, but distinct political conception and guidance, litical organization in the elections that which will not and cannot be the case they are surely not based upon the exspeaks for Communism and the revolutionperiences of the movement, not in one but with the proposal under consideration. The ary overthrow of capitalism, it is the only paper will either be torn to pieces by conParty that represents and defends the in in many countries. Where has the impatient desire to become a strong movement. over tending viewpoints as soon as an importerests of the proletariat. Does it do this night and at any price, led other groups in tant questions arises, or else it will go intelligently, or correctly at all times?
along with the Right wing combination There is the Opposition before us? The hostility no dispute among us on that represented. by Lovestone, Halonen and point! It does not.
towards the official Party shown by the The marionette leadothers, and compel us to fight it openly Paz group, and its contacts with the Right ership imposed upon the Party is distorting from the beginning.
and discrediting the cause and name of wing in an attempt to build some sort of IV a bloc led not to mass contact Communism, it defends the proletariat but to interests badly at times, and even infiicts Paz isolation. Brandler mass move1. The proposed paper is only the literary expression of the other proposal: ment and conferences for unity with great damage upon the cause of the workLeft social democratio elements, his open the formation of a Farmer Labor Party ега. But in spite of that it differs from opposition to the olcial Party in the Saxon movement in the North west. Upon what all other parties by the fact that electione led to the inevitable result: thouand whom is the movement which is in defend these interests and the workers sands of workers originally followed our opinion enormously exaggerated by who come to its support do it not because the Right wing deserted it.
the Montana people based? All evidence of the Reeves and Erowders but in spite points to the farmers and not the workers.
of them. That is precisely why we, who re Our position, on the other hand, like The socalled movement has begun in present the future of the movement tothat of our French and German comrades, Sheridan County, Montana, where it wa day urge the workers to support the has strengthened us. We have gained new avowedly based upon the farmers, as can Communist ticket at the game time that and invaluable recruits from the Party be gathered by a reading of the Producers we subject the Party leadership and its ranks (and we will gain more. and in adNews. The only other concrete instance destructive policies to a merciless critic dition, we have won the organizational is North Dakota, where a handful of Ism. By refuging to take responsibility adherence and sympathy (especially in individuals, formerly associated with such for the blunders of Stalinism, we uphold New York) of revolutionary workers outmovements has been revived. The the cause of Communism before the work side the Party, clusively agricultural nature of that state ers. The Farmer Labor Party, on the III needs no exposition. With the exception other hand, represents and defends tho As to the Left wing paper to be of a really insignificant movement among Interests of the petty bourgeoisie in the published in Minneapolis, as proposed by a small group of miners in Illinois, these cities and the better off elements among Taylor and Flaherty, in what way can two (Sheridan County and the North Dathe farmers the latter dominating the we involve ourselves in responsibility for kota tempest in a teapot) are the only inParty in alliance with the corrupt trade it? In your minutes of August 9, 1930 it stances adduced to prove the spread of the unio aucracy and careerist bourgeois says: The policy of the paper ing Farmer Labor Party movement Both of politicians a la Shipstead, Olson and Co. to Flaherty will be that of a general them are farmers movements in every Take the characteristic case of Lun Communist organ with a humorous touch. sense.
deen. In which direction has he gone? Un W111 not be the organ of any faction, al As we pointed out in our note of Sepmistakably to the Right. Yesterday, he though he proposes to work in harmony tember 27, The base of the Communist collaborated with the Communists at least with the local and the of movement is the industrial proletariat. It in the socalled anti imperialist work and the League. Wants the paper to cover the is not our task to organize the farmers poin the political movement. Today he opposes Northwest class struggle with a national litically into a party. The Comintern everythe Communists and collaborates withi and International perspective Expects where (and in the particularly) althe leaders of the Party, which from the to solicit the support of prominent Far. most broke its neck in similar adventures letter of Flaherty himself, is dominated mer Laborites like Lundeen and others. which had nothing to do with Marxiam.
by the Backus power and lumber interests, The proposal of Flaherty for the char Is it not of great significance for us that and willy nilly he serves as a mask for acter of the paper is the principal hum the further East one goes, e. the furthese interests. Lundeen, it is well to orous touch. It will not be the organ of ther one goes towards the section of the bear in mind is to be one of the fathers of any faction (that is, presumably, of neither country where the industrial proletariat the new movement planned for the North our Group nor Lovestone s) but it will have predominates there is less and less of any west. It it really is a question of what a national and international perspective. distinct labor or farmer labor movement tail we should ride and in actuality it What kind of a perspective? Lovestone s? afoot?
ds not at all then we unhesitatingly Ours? The two differ sharply. Or wil! What becomes of our principled pochoose our Party as against that of Backus Its national and international perspective. sition on two class parties in this sitShipstead Lundeen. What divides us from e. its political outlook and policy, be uation? Has it lost its validity? We think Stalinist Centrism is how to make the rev neither Lovestone nor ours nor that of not. Do the adventures with Raditch in olution; what divides As from Farmer the official Party? hen whose will it be? Jugoslavia mean nothing? Does the crimLaborism is why to make the revolution. Comrade Cowl raises a pertinent ques inal gamble of Stalin Bucharin with the The one division can be bridged, the other tion when he envisages an editorial board four class party of the Kuo Min Tang, cannot. let us say romposed of Flaherty, Taylor, which wrung the neck of the Chinese revoIT Halonen, Gitlow and Dunne or Skoglund utio and set back the world revolution for The official Party is not a fetich with (and maybe, Lundeen. What will the years, bear no warning for us? Does the us. Our relations to it depend upon a policy of such a board be towards two two class party formed by Stalin Buchar.
multitude of circumstances which differ at class parties. towards the Indian or Chin. In Roy in India, which has left the Indian various times and places. In general, our ese revolution, towards the dispute in the proletariat without revolutionary leaderattitude is pressure from within the Party Communist movement towards the cooper ship especially in these critical days, teach no lessons? And finally, are the instructive and rich experiences with two class parties in the United States, from 1924 to this day, to be lost not only upon Lovestone and the Stalinists but upon us Marxists as well? The articles on the leasons of the Minnesota written for the Militant by our Minneapolis comrades, are worth re reading especially comrade Dunne and comrade Hedlund recent article endorsed by the Minneapolis branch.
What great change has occurred since Hedund article?
This whole venture, therefore, is born under an inauspicious star: the two class party. The fact that Taylor and Flane. who declare their agreement with us.
most other questions, are making aluments today so vehemently for a two cias party should be already sufficient to make us hesitate. Taylor arguments are reminiscent of Bucharin in the worst days of the Kuo Min Tang adventure. According to him, the Montana farmers (at least) are virtually proletarians by now! What should make us hesitate even more is that Taylor writes that Gitlow remarked that he was surprised if the Trotskyists acquiesced, because of the Trotsky position against the two class Party. And good grounds for surprise if we were to cast overboard our elementary principled position on this question for the sake of a bloc with Gitlow and the Superior Finns, who, like Taylor see nothing wrong with Communists not only joining a two class party (and socalled is a corect adjective, for in reality it is the petty bourgeoisie that mins these parties. but in advocating their Initiation and organization. They see nothing wrong in it, because they also agreed and still do agree with the Kuo Min Tang policy of the Comintern, and Roy policy in India, and the rest of the decalogue of the Right wing in the Communist movement and evidently with the whole Pepperistic conception of the revolutionary farmers. and Federated Farmer Laborism. But that is no reason for our supporting such a reactionary hotch potch.
It is true as comrade Dunne says, that Pepper cannot be credited with originating the idea of a farmers and workers party (that probably goes to Stalin. but Pepper can be credited (together with Lovestone and Co. with having led the American movement through all the disgraceful adventures with Farmer Laborism in America, with the ideas of the notorious August thesis. that every political party has a farmer labor party of its won, that out of the would develop the mass Communist Party over night that the Communists. confronted with the third American revolution would become the unblushing hangers on to the LaFollette kite, etc. etc. Lovestone wants to repeat the yesterdays that should never have occurred. Flaherty and the Finns apparently want to turn backwards the wheel of Communist experience and history while we want to move it forward. In that sense we stated before: It is not our job to revive Pepperism in the northwest but to liquidate all remnants of it. Finally, onference. We are decidedly opposed to any participation of our group in this conference, just as we are opposed to participating in the formation and promotion of the new paper and the movement rising out of it. Our position must be stated categorically and without concealment, so that this agglomeration of opportunists is prevented from carrying out its negotiations and dickerings behind the scenes. What unity could we possibly expect to establish there? The conference is the second inaugpicious star of this new movement. Our position 18 not determined geographically, and we do not condemn a unity or bloc with the Right wing in Germany, or in New York, only to accept it in Wisconsin. It is proposed to unite all the Communiste not under the organizational whip of Stalin. But being in that state is no particular virtue in itself? At Superior it is proposed that the variegated elements represented there should form Communist nucleus, a caucus to represent Communist policies and interests in a broader Left wing conference. What sort of Communist policies will be represented by a caucus embracing the Lovestone liquidators, the Superior business cooperators (we reiterate the appellation, because it is entirely true. the two Continued to DOES