EDITORIAL NOTES ly drawn.
struggle against them. In no small degree the party of the proletariat is to be judged by the vigor, and also by the wisdom, with which it conducts this struggle. And it is HOW THE MINERS questions put straight and the lessons clear District Organizer in New York, he put his self evident that the Negro question takes WERE DEFEATED whole little heart into that crusade. He first place within it. Communist ideas, Not the least of the crimes of Lovestone was the organizer of the slugging squads Communist teaching and practise must break The article of Gerry Allard in the last and Foster was their poisoning the movewhich attacked our comrades on the street down the artificial wall which bourgeois number of the Militant paints a picture of ment with diplomacy. This diplomacy, this and broke up the meetings at the Labor prejudice has reared between the races; the catastrophe in the Illinois mine fields, the Communists must be the heralds of a genumuddling, hiding, twisting and obscuring Temple. Now already, and quite logically, old time seat of labor militancy and the ine solidarity between the exploited workers he has developed further the implications the principle questions, is not a proletarian stronghold of Communism. His remarks on of the white race and the doubly exploited but a bourgeois method. Let us have none of that struggle. This is all true to form.
the situation have a value, but that value, of it in the Communist League.
The campaign against the Left Opposition Negroes.
unfortunately, is a purely negative one. They was for him, as it has been for many This is no question to be played with.
are an excellent example of how not to MILLER GOES OVER TO MUSTE throughout the world, the starting point Its seriousness and its difficulty are enorsolve the problems of Communism. For When a man bites a dog that news, and the transition stage for a transfer of mous. The deep seated prejudices of the that reason, and that only, the deserved class allegiance.
white workers will not be extirpated by said Dana; and on the same principle that publication in our paper.
the unusual is always interesting, when a The fight against the Left Opposition force or terror any more than the justified The Left wing for years was a power man goes so far to the Right that he gets has been the training school for treason to suspicions of the Negroes will be removed in Southern Illinois, based on mass support expelled from the Lovestone faction, the Communism. Bessedovsky fought Trotsky by cajolery. In this field education takes of the militant miners. The Save the incident deserves a little notice. Such it ism valiantly. He rewarded with Rak the first place patient, unceasing and sysUnion movement under Left wing leaderseems is the fate or the fortune, if you ovsky post as ambassador to France, and tematic explanation combined with a genuship challenged all the fakers for supremacy.
prefer of the well known Bert Miller and then he jumped over the fence of the em ine policy of equality in practise. Such a The coal towns and camps were dotted with a half dozen or so others who have pooled bassy into the arms of the white guards. policy must be as free from discrimination thriving locals of the Communist partytheir intellects in order to produce one Agabekov, a tried warrior against Trotsky on the one hand as it is free from flattery the surest sign of a conscious movement.
great thought. The thought is that the way ism, took the place of the murdered Blum and demagogy on the other. Only along But has been told before, and as comrade to serve the cause of Communism in Amerkin shortly before he passed over to the this path will real progress be recorded.
All: rticle points out again, this whole ica is to join the Muste organization (the camp of the class enemy. The bottoms of movement has slipped away. The mighty During their career as leaders of the without further pariey and many a soldier in the war against the Left revolt of the miners has been broken for party, Lovestone, Minor Co. did their best to accept its platform. So much we learn Opposition throughout the world are al to spoil this work, as they did others. For the time being. The rebels have ben corfrom the last issue of the Revolutionary ready firmly wedged into the functionary discrimination against the Negroes the inralled again by the labor fakers with the Age in which Ben Gitlow reads Miller out chairs of social democracy.
stinctive attitude of all petty bourgeois elehelp of Howat and other so called progresof Lovestone organization for the preservaTell us, tell us, Communist workers, ments, but an attitude formally impossible sives.
tion of Leninism as Lenin never knew it. why do so many Trotsky killers turn out in the name of Communism they substiAnd with it there is the complete colto be social democrats and white guards? tuted an unscrupulous demagogy, and a polThis matter has been a topic of conlapse of the Party apparatus and the nonversation on Fourteenth Street for quite a functioning of a single local union of the icy of flattery, condescension and bribery TRIFLING WITH THE NEGRO of Negro intellectuals and careerists on the while and the facts were well known beLeft wing miners union. In the recent QUESTION make. By this they attracted not a few fore the item appeared in the paper. There elections the party candidate for senator In its struggle against the workers emoutright scoundrels and adventurers while polled only 24 votes in Franklin County are people who, on the grounds of fair play, ancipation movement capitalism plays upon they repelled the self reliant type of prolwhere we once had over 400 party mem sympathize with Miller and consider his all the dark sentiments of ignorance, preetarian militants of the Negro race the expulsion a frame up, or at least a misbers. So says comrade Allard, and he juice and superstition.
carriage of justice. Crime, say these exThis is seen type which is offended, and justly so, no ought to know because he is on the spot.
ponents of the Rights of Man, is qualitative daily and hourly in its endeavors to divide less by discrimination than by its twin, He cites these facts as a clear cut examnot quantitative. If a man is not put in jail condescension.
the workers and oppressed people along naple of weakness. Weakness indeed! BetThereby they arrested the tional, radical and religious lines. The for stealing a nickel why should he be arreal work among the Negroes and transter to say an example of catastrophic devery air we breathe is saturated with these rested for taking a dime? If one is not formed the whole question into a factional feat. And better yet to ask what are the football.
prejudices which arise from class society real causes of it.
penalized for mistaking Lovestoneism for Instead of that comrade Communism, he should not be condemned for like foul odors from decaying matter. The Allard muddles the issue further by arguThe Foster leaders, who have set for making the same error in regard to Muste revolutionary struggle for the solidarity of themselves the historic task of matching the ments over secondary questions.
ism. It is only, they say on Fourteenth labor is also a struggle for knowledge and Lovestone régime in unworthy demagogy For the results in the Illinois mine fields Street, a question of degree.
light on these questions.
and combining it with a stupidity all their there is a chain of causes, one linked to These problems have a particular imMiller mistake however, another. Fishwick and Farrington, the dirfrom own, are now having their fling at the the portance and acuteness in America where Negro question and at the Negro. They ect agents of the mine owners, were suf Lovestone istic standpoint, is a mistake of the proletariat, enslaved by bourgeois ideo seem to labor always under ficiently discredited. They could not recapHe wants to walk directly to the tactics.
psychological logy, is inflamed against the foreigner, the fixation that their time is short and that ture the revolting miners by themselves point of objective instead of circling Jew and the Negro. Communism cannot be what they do must be done quickly. The For this they needed Howat and other around to it. In this he violates the tradiother than the mortal enemy of these de eradication of racial antagonisms, like the pseudo radicals. This explains the neces tions of the Lovestone faction; and, morevastating prejudices, and the Communist creation of a new trade union movement, sary prominence, as decorations, of these over, he spoils the strategy. The Right party is charged with an irreconcilable is a small task for these high pressure peoelements in the Fishwick union.
wing movement, it is true, is a break with ple; a task to be accomplished between Communism and a new bridge to social But Howat and the other progressives plenums, by command. Prejudice against in turn could not harness the miners again democracy. But there some Communthe Negro, that ugly poison which has been to the chariot of the mine bosses, driven 1st workers in the Right wing camp driven injected into the veins of the white workby Fishwick and Farrington, by their own there by the crimes and absurdities of the ers, is to be removed at one stroke.
efforts alone. In order to accomplish this party leadership who do not know this yet.
The Daily Worker of February 24 feaThey have to be prepared and maneuvered they needed the disruption of the workers step by step. Lovestone understands this tures the announcement of this major opvanguard the party. The policy of Foster eration. Comrade Yokinen, a member of accomplished this for them from within.
and leads his movement accordingly.
the party in Harlem, is accused of mani.
The policy concocted to fit the exigencies Miller, who is different only because he festing a prejudical attitude toward Negro of the spurious third period. was crimin is dumber, doesn understand it. He wants Hold Open workers. One might think if this is really ally false. The course of expelling and to go too fast. Therefore he had to be the case and not a frame up as we knew blackguarding the most reliable Communist pushed out and the gate was slammed be Saturday, March 21, 1931 of in the days of the Loevstone leadership militants was absolutely reactionary. By hind him with a loud and virtuous bang.
FOR THE PARIS COMMUNE. that the incident could be made the oc.
these means Stalinism disorganized the van He is breaking with Communism. cries CELEBRATION casion for an education of the party on the guard and prepared the way for the betrayal Gitlow with crocodile tears in his voice.
organized by the concrete case. Education however, particuof the progressives and the victory of the But the case is not really so bad for Miller New York Branch, Communist larly on such a question, requires a calm reactionaries and the bosses. Foster helped and he need have no fear of a permanent Howat no less than Howat helped Fishwick League of America (Opposition) atmosphere; an atmosphere free from deseparation. The whole character of the promagogy, hypocrisy and incitement; an atmsand the mine owners.
paganda and activity of the Right wing is at the sphere created by teachers of the proletarThe Communist miners will not be able an assurance that they will catch up with HUNGARIAN HALL, 323 East 79th Street iat, not by terroizers.
to take a single step forward out of this and rejoin him after a while. Prominent Band Will Furnish Music But such methods are alien to the blusMiller, the recruit of Musteism, which blind alley of defeat until they understand Admission 50c 60e at the Door tering vulgarians who feel the need to shout its whole chain of causes and their connec is nothing but a wing of social democracy, down their own prejudices of yesterday.
tion with each other. Comrade Allard hears served his novitiate in the war against They are going to summon the offending a direct responsibility for the present sad counter revolutionary Trotskyism. As the comrade to a mass trial! This trial. they state of affairs. At a critical moment of announce, must be packed with Negro and the fight he deserted the banner of the white workers. Workers organizations Opposition and capitulated to the Centrist are asked to send delegations to the sport.
bureancrats who were organizing the defeat The mass trial, they say further, will be of the vanguard from within. It is quite the forerunner of similar trials all over necessary to expose the role of Howat.
the country. And all this is to be done The function of progressivism as a come so that the Negro workers will know that on for reaction is graphically illustrated by the Communist party is in deadly earnest the Illinois experience. Even the Opposiin its fight for the Negro masses. Othertion, which suffered very little from illuwise they would not know.
sions on this scere, can learn something from this example. But we cannot allow Just a moment, gentlemen! Aren you a discussion of this factor in the defeat insulting the intelligence of the Negro massWORLD UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE FIVE YEAR PLAN to cover up an even more decisive one the Introduction by Arne Swabeck 10e.
es just a little? Aren you stultifying the disarming of the workers vanguard by the party with this stupid campaign of terror. 7c in bundles)
bureaucrats of Centrism.
If you have been educating the party properly how does it happen that race preAn emphasis on this side of the quesTHE SPANISH REVOLUTION 10e.
judice among party members is manifested tion is doubly necessary when currade Al(7c in bundles. all over the country. For the Negro lard is speaking. This is the first and most masses radical persecution is a bitter actuimportant lesson of the Illinois defeat.
ality that confronts them every moment of COMMUNISM AND SYDNICALISM (The Trade Union When comrade Allard begins to explain this their lives. They have learned to recognize Question)
to the miners we can begin to have some 15c.
Introduction by James Cannon all forms of this reactionary poison, inconfidence that he will be able to serve the cluding that form of so called freedom from interests of the party and the working class. 10c in bundles)
it which protests too much. Take care, again and to make good some of the Kreat triflers, lest your indecent demagogy beharm he has done. As long as he avoids Order from comes a boomerang for the party. Take this question he puts a chasm betweea himTHE MILITANT care lest the Negro masses ask: If your self and the principled policy of the Oppost84 East 10th Street New York, own conscience is clear, why do you shout tion. We are not in the least interested so loud?
in self humiliating confessions according to the Stalin ritual. We only want the COM MECHANINICIATA AMAROSANCIRAMIDIRICINCO THE MILITANT, Vol. IV No. 5, Mar. 1, 1931. Published twice monthly by the Communist League of America (Opposition) at 84 10th St. New York Y, Bubscription rate: 12. 00 per your; foreign 250. Five cents per copy. Bundle rates cents per copy. Editorial Board: Martin Abern, James Cannon Max Shactman, Maur 10e Spector Arne Swabect. Entered as second class mall matter, November 28, 1938 at the Post Omice at New York under the act of March 3, 1870 (Total No. 64. PARIS COMMUNE OFF THE PRESS!
Trotsky Pamphlets