EDITORIAL NOTES MORE TREASON TO THE MINERS Events of the past week in the Illinois coal fields provide another striking illustration of the role of pseudo radicalism as a come on for reaction. The great revolt of the ininerx there, which broke out of the bonds of Lewis and his outspokenly reactionary policy. was corralled more than e year ago by the Fishwick Walker Howat faction and diverted from its purpose. They could not do this by talking as Lewis talked.
In order to head off, and tame, and finally break the uprising of the miners the Illinois leaders were obliged to put on the mask of progressivism. They appeared to express in words the militant aspirations of the insurgent workers. By this ineans, and with the help of the entire national movement of counterfeit progressivism, they deceived the miners and led them into a blind alley. Now, after having and disorganized the revolt. they have put the crowning touch to their betrayal.
Press reports from Springfield carry the news now of the liquidation of their sham attle with Lewis. They have signed a court decree recognizing the Lewis faction as heads of the International Union. and have issued a statement calling upon Lewis to join in a more with them to end all warfare. With the miners once more at the mercy of the coal operators, nothing remains except al division of spoils between he reactionaries and their progressive whips.
To the very end the latter ran true to form. It is all in the interest of the miners. To continue this fight, their statement says, would mean the absolute destruction of the United Mine Workers of America. Which is their way of saying: The miners are lefeated what is there left to fight about?
This shameful betrayal of a really magnificent movement of the minere was made possible by the policy of the official Communist party. Driven by events and the criticism of the Opposition to a break with the opportunist course they followed in union with Lovestone, the Fosters plunged in the characteristic manner of un principled Centrism into a policy of wild adventurism that had no relation to the facts of the situation. They disrupted the party and Left wing forces by their mad campaign against the best revolutionaries within them. They boycotted the convention where Fishwick and Walker, with the help of Howat were consolidating their movement. The false radicals were thus left a free hand. All the rest followed from that.
In the tragic experience of the AngloRussian Committee there was written as in gigantie letters on a vast canvas, an example and warning for all time of the persidious function of reformism, and particularly of its Left section. Every concrete experience.
such as that of the Illinois miners, only serves to reiterate that warning. Reformism is bourgeois poison in the labor morement. The workers can be vie.
torious only in irreconcilable struggle o gainst it But this slight defect if it can be called a defect is more than compensated for by the fact that it provides a common ground for cooperation with Leftward moving elements such as the Militants in the Socialist party.
Miller, it is clear, is no sectarian.
to have huge crowds at all demonstra And he is not one of those who learn nothtions organized by the party. And if the ing and forget nothing from experiences masses didn exist at the demonstrations and defeats. It is true he analyzes defeats it was necessary to invent them. That is in his own peculiar way in order to rewhy the crowds which marched through the peat them. The international experience of streets were always outnumbered, five or the Communist movement under Stalinten to one, by the legions marching through Bucharin leadership has not passed without the columns of the Daily Worker.
carving mark on Miller brain. The Now it is different. The third period fact that the has a political theory is being dropped (without saying so)
character, as a wing of social democracy, and the party leaders are marking out tacdoes not deter him. He asks the rhetorical ties for a two and a half period. Adventur quesin, Is it permissable for Communroad ists to join middle of the ism is giving way to minimal reformism.
political, The swing from fighting the police and capnon Communist organizations. And, inturing the streets to knocking on back doors structed by the catastrophie defeats sufwith modest petitions requires different refered by the Comintern in the East, he ports about the attitude of the masses. If answers, Yes! It is not only permissible. the third period needed exaggeration in he says, but it is absolutely necessary.
this respect the present period calls for the And how does he know? Because it has opposite. The crowds must grow smaller been shown by our experience with the as the slogans and demands become more Indian Nationalist movement, the Kuo Min moderate. This is the explanation of the Tang and the British Labor Party.
campaign against exaggeration.
He might have added that it is also shown by the large number of people who have passed over in recent times from the MILLER MANIFESTO Right wing of Communism to the social democracy. This step, as we have pointed The poet Goldsmith in The Deserted out before, is the culmin:ution of Right wing Village trew an immortal picture of the logic. The fact that Miller, and with him schoolmaster whose assorted knowledge was a group of nine others from the Lovestone the marvel of all men. His listeners who camp, are jumping ahead of the faction as didn understand him stood open mouthed a whole in this respect does not signify a before his display of wisdom, fascinated by conflict in principle.
the spectacle. Goldsmith tells it, if mem Milier, like Goldsmith hero of the ory serves same profession, is a man of learning, and And still they watched and still their like all savants, a bit of a philosopher.
wonder grew Communism, as he ses it now, is a nebulous That one small head could carry all thing in America, while social reformism, he knew.
like truth, is concrete; and its slogans, as Goldsmith pedagogue perished inglor. Muste formulates them, are well suited lously with the doomed village of the poet to the present stage of development of the lament. But his undying spirit rises from American labor movement. If he is rushthe dust and finds reincarnation in a school ing where Lovesotne still fears to trend, teacher of our own day, one whose head it is merely a question of tempo. The phil is also crammed with knowledge that is osophers of movements are always in adhidden from other humans.
rance of the politicians and organizers.
Lovestone will catch up. Give him time.
We refer of course to Bert Miller, the Trotsky killer, who has leaped into the white light of fame with a discovery which he bas proclaimed to the world in a maniA GREAT STEP FORWARD.
festo. This unique document was printed Slowly but none the less surely the in the March 7th issue of Lore paper, the Communist League forges ahead. As this New York Volkseitung. And with an un. number of The Militant goes to press we erring newspaper instinct the editor ran it are able to record another signal achievein the department headed Of Interest To Everybody. Miller has been looking around ment in the publication of the English edition of the International Bulletin of the prospecting, so to speak for a grouping Left Opposition. For an organization of that can serve as the center and directing our limited resources even such an accomforce for the Left wing. He has found it plishment, involving additional technical he says, not in the Communist movement and editorial labors and expense, is worthy but in the Muste organization the of note. And we should value it all the and with the enthusiasm of the 49 er, higher because of its paramount political who found gold in the gravel bottom of a importance.
xhallow creek, he shouts aloud his discovThe Left Opposition is first, last and ery.
always the faction of revolutionary interWhat are the merits of the reformist nationalism. In the name of international organization of Muste and Co. which entitle ism we have taken our stand and under it to replace the Communist movement as its banner we conduct our fight. Stalinism, the organizing center of the workers van with its circumscribed outlook of national guard? Miller lists a number of them. socialism, has dealt powerful blows to the Among other things, it is distinctly Ameri international movement of the workers vancan in its approach. As we know, the guard and is still dealing them. We will has been fighting the Communists. not accept the caricature it attempts to substitute for the international organization of the proletariat projected by Lenin, and before him by Marx. Neither will we adopt the Brandler idea of platonic relations between independent and autonomous national sections. We have broken forever with the spurious internationalism of bureaucratic command. But all the more are we obliged to replace it in the policy we defend before the entire movement and in our own work with a living internationalism consciously and deliberately achieved.
We do not believe in the theory of socialism in one country. And no more do we believe the various national sections of the world Communist movement can live isolated national lives and solve their problems exclusively by their own resources. This conception holds for the faction no less than for the party. The internationalism toward which we strive is the fraternal union of the Communist workers of the entire world under one single flag. We strive for a reconstitution of the international Lenin army, imbued with a common ideology and regulated by international discipline. in anticipation of this, and in order to make our work fruitful for its realization, the international faction of the Left Opposition must be so organized. The left, that is, the Marxist faction is and must be at once the fundamental nucleus and the advance guard of the reconstituted Lenin International.
How will we quarantee this? Not by say so merely, and not by trusting to the ability of the various sections to work out a correct line on national and international problems without mutual assistance. Sad experience has already spoken on this point in the most emphitic manner. No, we must push forward at all cost toward the consolidation of the Left Opposition on an international scale into a single organization, and function as such. Real progress has already been made, as we know. The conference of last year and the constitution of the International Bureau were historic milestones along this path. It is a selfevident necessity to cooperate heartily with the International Bureau and strengthen its authority.
But that is not enough. All sections must steer a deliberate course toward real participation in the affairs of the others and in the common international tasks.
This duty is particularly insistent for us be cause we inherit from the past a certain insularity and we are hampered barriers of distance and language. All the more necessary, therefore, is a conscious struggle to surmount them. The translation of the International Bulletin and its publication in English creates the primary conditions for the success of this struggle. We have no doubt that the members of the Communist League will recognize the importance of this event and make the most of it.
It mill be remembered in this connection that the publication of the International Bulletin was listed as one of the items in our program of expansion for the current year. Its speedy realization has been made possible by the prompt response of the New York branch to the campaign for the two thousand dollar fund to finance this program. The other items in the program will follow in order as the other branches get in step.
Our Subsciption Drive AGAINST EXAGGERATION.
If you live long enough, they say in Missouri, you will see everything. The proThe drive for new subscriptions and renewals is just beginning to get under way.
verb is not without merit. It affords a sort Some of the branches have already sent in results. To stimulate the campaign, we are. philosophie protection against apoplexy making the following SPECIAL OFFERS, good only during the duration of the drive.
from shocks and surprises. No doubt there were many who remembered it gratefully With every year sub. for, 00 With every mos. sub. for 00 in that sense the other day when they read FREE either one of the following Trotsky FREE any of the following Trotsky pamthe front page editorial in the Daily Worker pamphlets: phlets: entitled Against Exaggeration. In that Criticism of the Draft Program of the Com World Unemployment and the Five Year editorial it was promised that henceforth munist International.
Plan there is to be no more padding of figures Strategy of the World Revolution or Since Communism and Syndicalism regarding attendance at party demonstraLenin Died by Max Eastman tions. And to make it more authoriative a The Revolution in Spain way or so later Red Sparks himself proTrial subs. months for 250 mised to tell the truth from now on. He acknowledged that exaggeration is a bad For subscription collectors we offer as follows: habit. and he pledged himself, with all With yearly subs. 10. 00 the fervor of a man who has come to Christ With yearly subs 00 FREE copy of Trotsky My Life 19te in life, that he also would overcome FREE bound volume of The Militant for it. Later followed articles on the subject. and a half years.
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FREE colorful beaded watch fob, made Is this a moral regeneration? Have by comrade Malkin while in prison.
these people given up the idea that they can lie the capitalist system out of existence, and with it 120 million fascists. Such Enclosed and. for. subs. Send me free of charge the items marked hopes are optimistic and exaggerated. The above.
whole thing has a political explanation.
NAME During the third period which was alleged to be characterized by a revoluADDRESS CITY tionary upsurge of the masses it was necessary in order to substantiate the theory THE MILITANT, Vol. IV No. 6, March 15, 1931. Published twice monthly by the Communist League of America (Opposition) at 84 East 10th St. New York, Subscription rate: 00 per year; foreign 50. Five cents per copy. Bundle rates cents per copy. Editorial Board. Martin Abern, James Cannon, Max Shachtman, Maurice Spector. Arne Swabeck. Entered as second class mail matter, November 28, 1928 at the Post Office at New York, under the act of March 3, 1870 (Total No. 65.