The Right Wing Liquidators and the Militants»
weaktionary class content of Stanley resolution, its close approximation of the Communist position and of other non existing virtues which they have attributed to this reformist rgoup? What does it mean when the Revolutionary Age gently chides the Militants for not demanding the organization of socialist fractions in the trade unions? What is the meaning of Gitlow indignation at Norman Thomas because he advocates the liquidation of the Socialist party into a petty bourgeois third party (as for ourselves, we are quite willing for Norman Thomas to liquidate the Socialist party, but not for Stanley to rehabilitate it. It means that Gitlow is idealizing the Left wing reformists, that the charm with which he invests them is spun entirely out of the thin web of his imagination.
The gifted sculptor of Greek mythology.
Pygmalion, spent arduous years in carving out a marble incarnation of his impassioned imagination. It was so beautiful when the artist rested, that he fell in love with the image. So ardent was his love and so in.
tense his desire for the marble to come to life that, with the aid of the gods, we presume, the cold stone was transformed into the living flesh and blood of Galatea, with whom he thereupon lived very happily. In any case, that is the story. But Gitlow is no Pygmalion. Neither his ardor nor his artistic skill in molding Stanley in the in age of his desires, neither his imagination nor yet the gods, will succeed in converting the stony figure of Left reformism into a revolutionary Galatea.
No, that is hardly the transformation which the new edition of the saviors of re formism will undergo. They will change and develop, but not in this manner. They have a significant role to play yet in the working class movement of the country, for they are a product of a new situation which will not disappear over night. But that question deserves special consideration. OPEN FORUM (Concluded from Last Issue)
By MAX SHACHTMAN The Militant group in the Socialist party, led by Stanley, Coleman, Porter and This ts what the Communists said to workers who are sincerely willing to fight Bright, is not the first of its kind to ap the vacillating Left Centrists of the Eng the capitalist class in such a way as to pear in that organization. Since the con dahl type, to people who were even then win them for Communism which means to clusion of the war, three distinctly Left infinitely closer to Communism than nine win them from their present leadership of wing groups have arigen in the Each tenths of the leaders of the Stanley group, Leonard Bright, McAllister Coleman and succeeding one was progressively weaker in all probability, ever will be.
Louis Stanley. For us, this is the ABC than its precedessor weaker in numbers But the Stanley group is nevertheless of revolutionary politics. And just because and weaker in principle. The first Left pro Soviet. argue the liquidators of the these spurious Left leaders, these saviors wing produced the Communist party (or Right wing. Yes, but essentially in the of reformism, are compelled to garb themrather, parties of America. It stood for same way that Oswald Garrison Villard or selves in second hand radical left overs in the Communist International, for the dic any other advanced liberal is pro Soriet. order to accomplish their reformist aims tatorship of the proletariat, for the Soviet The inexpensive observations in the Stanley with greater facility just because of that system for the revolutionary principles of resolution on the Five Year Plan being con the Communists must patiently and intelMarxism not only in Russia but also in the sistent with socialist philosophy. do not ligently make their real rôle clear to the United States. Its shortcoming change this fact. The difference between workers who follow them.
nesses are not the subject of the present Stanley and Hillquit on what the former Shouting at them will not succeed in article: it is enough to say that they were calls the extermination of minority e. detaching their followers for the Communof a fundamentally different character from Menshevik) opinion is largely the differ ist movement. What is needed instead ie those that marked the subsequent Left wings ence between a diplomatic six of one and such a policy as presses Messrs. Stanley and in the a brazen half dozen of another.
Co. to the wall on every concrete issue of The second Left wing (Engdahl, Olgin, It is precisely on this point that the the working class struggle and enables the Kruse, Salutsky, Trachtenberg) was a piti cloven hoof of the reformist becomes obworkers under them to see in their own ful caricature of the first: it was timid, vious to anybody but a Lovestone or Her experiences to what extent the radical cowardly, more afraid of joining the Com berg who do not want to look. what Irks phrases of their leaders match their deeds munist International than it was of liv. Stanley is the suppression of democratic What is needed, in a word, is the policy ing under the same roof with the reaction rights in Russia, that is the suppression of the united front, which was and remains ary high priests of the Nevertheless, of bourgeois democracy. We Marxists are a revolutionary weapon for the mobilization driven by the still existing revolutionary divided by an insurmountable wall from the of broad masses of workers in struggles sentiment in the party, it issued public reformists in the working class, by a class against their class enemy on the basis of pronouncements of a far different nature distinction: we stand for proletarian demo concrete issues, struggles in which they will than those of the Stanley group. It did cracy, the others stand for democracy In clearly perceive whether it is the Communnot attempt, as do Stanley and his fellow general. that is, for bourgeois democracy.
ists or the reformists who represent the exporters of radicalism at low prices, to Whether it is Mr. who frankly con today and the tomorrow of the proletariat.
defend the Mensheviks, and their demns the denial of elementary civil rights We would not waste two inches of space democratic rights under the proletarian in the Soviet Union. or Mr. Stanley who on the Wilitant group were it not for the dictatorship. It demanded that the more plaintively looks forward to the re fact that it is at one and the same time affiliate (even though with reservations) to moval of two obstacles the cessation the channel through which working class the Communist International, an idea as of the extermination of minority (what minremote from the minds of Stanley and Co. ority. opinion. does not weigh very much discontent with reformism is being confusedly expressed and the channel through which as the planet Neptune is from Mercury. It either way with us. The Left Opposition is its leaders seek to divert it harmlessly. Premade public summary denunciation of the fighting for the rights of the revolutionary cisely because of the workers in it, is it Second International, as well as of the tenproletarian core of the Party and the Soviet incumbent upon the Communists to tear dencies towards a two and a half InternaUnion, but it is bored to death by the inthe rays and tatters of cheap radicalism off tional a radicalism towards which the terminable repetition of the old Menshevik the leaders of the group and reveal them Militant leaders do not even lay claim.
chorus of praise for the democratie rights as reformists. To do anything but that In a word, it was so far in advance, from of the Russian bourgeoisie.
is tantamount to keeping the workers feta revolutionary standpoint, of the present tered in the chains of reformism, only one Militant group that a comparison in any FRONTIER GUARDS FOR THE of whose links is in the hands of the Stansense favorable to latter is entirely out SOVIET UNION leys, for the whole chain is pulled by Hillof the question.
But, the Revolutionary Age persists in quit and Lee. And this is just what the its fervid defense of this newly found potLovestone faction is doing, despite all its LOVESTONE AND THE ential ally, the Militant group is for the declamations about the workers in the STANLEY GROUP socialist accomplishments of the Soviet Unranks.
Now let us interrupt ourselves before ion, and unlike Hillquit, is ready to defend reading how the Communists in those days Russia from intervention so that socialism THE MECHANICS OF evaluated the Engdahl Trachtenberg Olgin may be built in one country. Only the LIQUIDATIONISM Kruse group, so that we may first see latter day apostles of the Right wing can In not a single one of its analyses how Lovestone and Gitlow estimate the Left conceive of this as very closely approxiof the Militant group have the Lovestone reformist wing in the today: The mating a Communist position. This song leaders made any distinction between the resolution introduced by the Stanley group too is an old one, and does not wear ranks and their spokesmen. But worse was thoroughly pro Soviet not merely in well on the ear. In 1920, Hillquit S. than that has been the outrageously exag.
revolutionary class content. Herberg, as much and even more under the pressure gerated idealization of the Militants and Rev. Age, No. 7, emphasis in original. It of the workers as the Stanley group of leadtheir policy. Lovestone and Co. are lookis a resolution which, basing itself on the ers, adopted a resolution which said: ing for recruits and allies. They cannot proletarian character of the Soviet state, Moscow is doing something which is find any substantial prospects in the Comvery closely approximates a Communist really challenging world imperialism. Mosmunist party. Since the Right wing is the position. Rev. Age, No. 6, our emphasis. cow is threatened by the combined capitalbridge to the social democracy, the Love The differences between the Militants and ist forces of the world simply because it stoneites look to the for succor. On the Oneals, Hillquits, Lees and Thomases is proletarian. Under these circumstances, the way from Communism to reformism are differences of principle of such a char whatever we may have to say to Moscow they first encounter the Left reformists of acter that they cannot be reconciled within afterwards, it is the duty of Socialists to the Muste school on the trade union field the realms of one party. Gitlow, Rev. stand by it now. etc. etc.
and the Stanley school on the political Age, No. 9, emphasis in original. Stalin at that time was not yet the field.
The Militants position on the Rus best disciple of Lenin. and there had not sian revolution. certainly an unerring yet been evolved the theory that Russia But the mechanics of this voyage back touchstone for a revolutionist is thus not could build a socis ciety alo to the socialist camp are such that Loveproonly pro Soviet in its revolutionary class vided that military intervention is warded stone is compelled to sail there under the content but is very close to the Communist off. The Comintern therefore replied to Communist flag. The color in the banner position at least according to Lovestone. Messrs. Hillquit, Oneal, Engdahl and Olgin, has faded considerably in recent times, but Surely, very little could be added to so in the letter mentioned above: This resothe working class crew of the Right wing fiattering a recommendation for a group lution evidently is based on a misconcepship, which is not yet aware of the port which not only does not deserve it but tion of the role of the Communist Internacbarted by its captains, still insists upon ungratefully refuses to accept it.
tional. The Communist International is in flying the flag of Communism. Miller and Benjamin and others did not understand Let us compare these letters of credit no sense a defensive organization. It is an these mechanics, or else they were too imto the manner in which the Communist In organ of aggression, the general staff of the ternational evaluated the Engdahl group in world revolution.
patient to reach the comfort of port; these That Stanley has now 1920 the Comintern of Lenin days in approached closer to the Stalinist theory of renegades from Communism changed ships which Lovestone so fervidly avows faith. national socialism, and the conception of in mid sea and are sailing home to where In an open letter to the American Socialist the international working class movement as they always belonged under the reformist Party after the latter national convention frontier guards for the Soviet Union, does flag of Muste, comforted by the thought in May 1920, when the Engdahl minority not thereby signify that he was approached that they will meet again their more cauresolution on affiliation with the Third tious shipmates of yesterday.
closer to Communism.
was accepted by the membership, the Com But the workers, the workers, the workBut Lovestone, who wants to arrive on munist International wrote: ers in the ranks! cry the Right wing polihis own ship, continues to sail under a The convention was dominated by ticians. It is hard to refrain from laughfalse flag, or rather, one to which he is Centrist and reactionary elements by the ing to see all the big and little Lovestones, false. And like other captains before him, yellow reformist politicians Hillquit, Lee, who yesterday could not see the workers he must constantly assure the crew that Stedman, Oneal Block, Panloen; by the at all because their eyes were hypnotically the promised land is not only in the offing one hundred percent Americans. Meyer fixed upon the leaders, Chiang Kai Shek but that it is filled with fabulous wealth, London, Solomon: by the State Socialist and Purcell and Raditch and La Follette like the riches of the Indies with which and inverted social patriot, Victor Berger; display such maternal anxiety about the Columbus fascinated his men. The social by Cannon (Joseph and not James workers in the ranks. But their new posidemocracy is Lovestone logical objective and Soltis, Karlin and Berlin all of whom tion is hardly an improvement upon the after departing from Communism. The have no place in a party affiliated to the old.
miserably poor ideological baggage of the Communist International. There was a There are workers in the ranks of the Stanleys and Brights and Mustes is a poor Left wing Engdahl, Kruse, Tucker, Hol Militant group, and undoubtedly good inducement for such a voyaga, and the land, etc. which demanded affiliation to the ones, workers who are striving to adopt a Right wing leaders are simply drawing upCommunist International and a revolution militant policy of class struggle, who are on their imagination to ascribe to the forary restatement of Party principles; but fed up with the disgraceful course of Hill mer a revolutionary richness which they this group was a pitiful minority, its ideas quit and Oneal. That is precisely why the do not and cannot possess.
were confused, permeated by cowardly com. Communists must not adopt the simple Up to now, Gitlow and Herberg have promise and petty bourgeois prejudices. In minded policy of the Stalinist theorists, who been hardest at work in shaping up the all the convention not one Communist volce lump leaders and masses into a single soc Xilitants as attractively as possible. What was heard.
ial fascist pot, but must approach the else is the meaning of the alleged revoluMarch 7: COMMUNISTS AND PROGRESSIVES By James Cannon March 14: THE PARIS COMMUNE: 68 YEARS AFTER By Max Shachtman March 21. No Lecture: Entertainment)
March 28: THE SLOGAN OF THE SIXHOUR DAY By Arne Swabeck at the LABOR TEMPLE 14th Street and Second Avenue Open at P.
Admission: 250 Auspices: New York branch, Communist League of America (Opposition. Chicago Open Forum MARCH 1: Trotsky Stalin and the Theory of Socialism in one Country By HUGO OEHLER MARCH 8: Trotsky, the Left Opposition and the Five Year Plan By MAKELIE MARCH 15: Unemployment, the Six Hour Day and the Communist Party JOHN EDWARDS MARCH 22: The Three Currents of the Communist Movement and Revolutionary Perspective By HUGO OEHLER EVERY SUNDAY 2:30 at 30 Wells St. Chicago DRESSMAKERS STRIKE Pressure of space and other unavoidable difficulties have compelled us to omit from this issue a report on the situation with regard to the dressmakers strike called in New York by the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union. In the next issue, however, shall print thorough report on the latest developments and an evaluation of the whole course of the strike. The question of the future of the Left wing union will also be discussed in the Milltant.