THE SUCCESSES OF THE DANGERS OF SOCIALISM AND ADVENTURISM We have always emphasized the uniBy LEON TROTSKY times higher than with us.
versal and historical importance of the exThe power of primary mechanical inperiences and the economic successes of the the principal argument against the Trot wrote: We shall yet see which countries stallation in industry in the United States and it would be a superfluous skyists of those days, which produced the are to be ranged among the most backward is calculated at 35, 800, 000 horse power. In repetition on our part to emphasize it here greatest effect upon the masses, was this: and which among the most advanced. Such the it is 4, 600, 000, that is, alonce more. Nothing better reveals today They want to carry on the work of econ declarations and others still more categori. most one tenth as much. If the power of the striking degradation of the world social omie construction with the same methods cal were published and reprinted without a horse power is compared to the power democracy than its openly manifested de employed to make war.
end. They set the main tone to all the of ten men it can be said that in the sire to make the return to the It is in the atmosphere of the reaction work of the five year plan. In the way of United States, three steel slaves are at work path of capitalism, as well as its active against the period of civil war and war posing these questions before the masses, in industry for every inhabitant while in political solidarity with the imperialist con Communism that the economic philosophy there are elements of deceit, half deliberate the there is but one steel slave spirators and the bourgeois sabotagers. Noof the present majority of the Stalinist fac und half unconscious on the part of the at work for every three inhabitants. If the cowardice and thing beter characterizes tion took form: Slow but sure. The reto bureaucracy, which wants have the mechanical motive power is taken into acthe vileness of the ruling classes of bourtreat before private peasant economy, the masses believe that the realization of the count not only in industry, but also in eoisie society, the social democracy incontempt for planned methods, the defense five year plan will put the at transportation and in agriculture, the ocmcluded than their protestations against of minimal rhythms, the detachment from the head of the capitalist world. Does not parison would be even more unfavorable forced labor in the at a time the world revolution all this constitutes the Kautsky of the apparatus Varga be for us. Yet mechanical motive power is the when the clerk of the hereditary slave ownsirext measure of the power of man over the essence of Stalinism for the epoch of lieve that the theory of socialism in one ers, MacDonald, with the aid of the Second 1923 1928. But the well to do middle pea country, however absurd in itself, is never nature.
International, is oppressing three hundred sant the prop and hope of this policy be theless necessary to encourage the workers. At the end of the five year plan, the millions in India and keeping the Hindu came, by the force of things, the rich pea the deceptions of the priests for the good of Soviet Union, in case the whole electrificapeople in colonial servitude. Can the comsant (Kulak) and seized by the throat the the soul?
tion program arrangeul for should be realparisen be made for one instant between dictatorship the proletariat, whose indusSTALIN CATCHING UP WITH ized, will dispose of a fourth of the electric the scurryings of the coalition or op trial basis proved to be terribly backward.
AND SURPASSING power of America, of a sixth of it if the positional social democracy and the gigan.
The period of presumption and indulgence difference in population is taken into acFor his report to the Sixteenth Conthe work which the people roused up by cave way to a period of panic and precipicount, and of a still smaller fraction of it kross, Stalin ordered, among many other the October revolution is accomplishing totation. The slogan was issued: Catch up if the clifference in area is considered; and figures, statistics to prove that at the end wards a new life?
with and surpass in the briefest possible this coefficient assumes that the Soviet plan That is precisely why we Marxists are time. The minimum five year plan of of the five year plan the will is realized entirely and that the United catch up with and surpass the capitalist obliged to put the working class of the Stalin Krzhyzhanovsky approved in princiStates doe not advance one step.
world. The traces of this order are found whole world on guard with special force ple the Fifteenth Congress was replaced again in the speech of Stalin. Coming to In 1928, the United States produced and insistence against the dangers that are hy the new five year plan whose essential 38, 000, 000 tons of pig iron, Germany 12, the central point in the report of the reheaping up and threatening the dictatorship elements were borrowed from the Platform lations between Soviet economy and world 000, 000 tons, the Soviet Union 3, 330, 000.
of the proletariat, dangers which are the of the Opposition. That is what determines Steel: United States 52, 000, 000, Germany result of the false policy of a leadership the character of the declaration of Rakoveconomy, the reporter confined himself, un 14, 000. 000, the Soviet Union 4, 000, 000.
that has lost its hend.
expectedly, to the following phrase: We sky to the Sixteenth Congress: You have In the first year of the five year plan our are terribly behind, with regard to the The official chiefs, the press, the econadopted a plan which can become il more level of development of our industry, the metal production was equal to that of the omists everybody recognizes that the labors serious step on the right road and we are advanced capitalist countries. And he United States in 1880: just a half a century of the five year plan converted into a four prepared to offer yon our most loyal cooppromptly added. It is only the acceleration ago. the United States produced 4, 300, 000 year plan are being accomplished under ex eration without giving up any of our ideas tons of metal, with a population equivalent of the rhythms of development of our intreme tension. The administrative methods and reserving the right to defend them in to about a third of the present population dustry that will permit us to catch up with of emulation show that the rhythms are all the disputed questions.
of the and surpass technically and economically 1929, the attained in large measure at the expense When the Opposition defended first the produced about 000, 000 tons of crude the advanced capitalist countries. Is a of muscles and nerves. We do not for a necessity itself of elaborating a five year single tive year plan assumed here or a metal. This means that the consumption moment doubt that a certain stratum of plan, and then of fixed rhythms (the realof metal for each citizen of the Soviet reworkers, above all among the Communists, series of five year plans of that nothing ity proved sufficiently that the rhythms we is known!
public today is close to a third of what it bring a genuine enthusiasm into the work, proposed were not at all illusory, as all was a half a century ago for each citizen and that the roader mass of the workers With his theoretical rudiments, Stalin the members of the present Political Burof the United States.
18 drawn by this enthusiasm from time to eau, without exception, clamored at that was simply frightened by the unexpected The present metallurgical production in time into different undertakings. But one information with which he had himself suptime. in word when the Opposition the United States is 28 percent higher than would have to be totally Ignorant of huplied, and instead of presenting the party fought for an accelerated industrialization agricultural production; with us, metallurman psychology and even physiology to be with exact data of our backward state and and collectivization against the line of 1923gical production is almost one eighteenth of lieve in the possibility of a mass enthusi 1928, it regarded the five year plan not as showing the real extent of the task which the agricultural production. At the end of asm for a work that lasts for a whole a dogma but as a consists of catching up with and surpassrealizable hypothesis.
the five year plan this relationship should number of years.
ing. Stalin confined himself to smuggling The collective verification of the plan must be figured at 1:8. It is needless to explain MASS ENTHUSIASM IN THE be made in the process of work; as to the in a small phrase on our terrible backCIVIL WAR the significance of metallurgy for the inwardness (so as to it in case of need elements of this verification, they do not lie dustrialization as well as for the collecThe work is carried on to day with the as a justification: there lies the whole art Bolely in the figures of socialist bookkeeptivization of agricultural economy.
same methods that were used during the ing, but also in the muscles and nerves of of his politics. As for the mass propa(Continued in the Next Issue civil war. During the war, as is known.
ganda, it continues in the spirit of bluff the workers and the political sentiments of our experience and our munitions were not the peasants. The party must take all this and deception.
up to snuff. The masses made up for the into account, probe it, verify it, sum it up But it is not a question of the Soviet omissions by their own superiority in num and generalize it.
Union. The official organs of all the parties bers, their dash, their enthusiasm. Even of the Comintern do not cease repeating HOW THE ECONOMIC TURN during the war, this enthusiasm was not that at the end of the five year plan the general, especially among the peasantry.
WAS CARRIED OUT will be placed in the first ranks The evaders and the deserters at that time In reality, the economic turn towards of the industrial countries. If that were played the same role as the drunkards who industrialization and collectivization took right, the problem of socialism would be are frequently missing from work and the place under the lash of administration solved at the same time on a world scale. March 21. No Leeture: Entertainment. floaters who are constantly changing panic. This panie still rages. It is enough After having caught up with the advanced factories. But in certain periods, under the to see the front pages of all the Soviet paMarch 28: THE SLOGAN OF THE SIX.
countries, the Soviet Union with its popuattacks of the Whites, not only the workers pers today: there is a complete adaptation to lation of 160. 000. 000 inhabitants, with its HOUR DAY but also the peasants flung themselves into the slogans, the formulae and the appeals enormous area and riches, would, already By Arne Swabeek the struggle with a genuinely revolutionary of the civil war: front, mobilization, breach in the course of the second five year plan, at the Slan. That is how we triumphed.
in the front, cavalry, etc. the whole that is, in three or four years, have to The civil war lasted three years. TO seasoned now and then with sporting snobLABOR TEMPLE gain a position, in relation to the rest of wards the end of the civil war the general bishness: start, finish, etc. How all this the capitalist world, of much greater dom14th Street and Second Avenue tension had reached the extreme limit. We must sicken the serious workers and dis inance than that which is enjoyed today Open at P.
gave up the second Polish campaign, in gust everybody! While, under the terrible by the United States. The proletariat of Admission: 25 spite of the onerous conditions of the Riga conditions of the civil war, we introduced, the whole world would be convinced by exAuspices: New York branch, Communist treaty profound reaction against the not without hesitation, the Order of the perience that socialism in one of the most tension and the privations of the three Red Flag 118 a provisional measure (Lenin backward countries has created in few League of America (Opposition. years of civil war began among the masses was at first opposed to it and only ac years a living level for the people incomof peasants and workers. Among the pea cepted it later on as a temporary measure. parbly higher than that of the advanced santry, this reaction led to uprisings which today, in the thirteenth year of the revoluCHICAGO OPEN FORUM capitalist countries. The bourgeoisie would embraced the fleet and the army. In work tion, there are four or we do not know how be unable to resist for another day the MARCH 22: The Three Currents of the ers circles, it was translated into strikes many more different Orders. But what is impulsion of the working masses. Such a Communist Movement and Revoluand the socalled stalling. Inside the more important is the introduction of the path for the liquidation of capitalism would tionary Perspectives party, the Workers Opposition began to uninterrupted working week, the attach he the simplest, the most economical, the Its strength obviously did gain in influence.
ment of workers to enterprises, the extreme By HUGO OEHLER most human and the most certain, if it not lie in the semi syndicalist naiveness of augmentation of the intensity of labor. If were. correct. In reality it is nothing EVERY SUNDAY 2:30 at its leaders in general, the dispute of that the realization of these exceptional measbut a fantasy.
30 Wells St. Chicago time did not at all concern the trade un ures has become possible, it is due to the The realization of the five year plan ions, as is taught by the stupid official manfact that in the mind of the vanguard stra began in 1928 1929, at a level very close to uals but in the protest of the masses tum they have a provisional character, that of pre war Russia, that is, at a level The lecture scheduled for comade Max against the continual tension of forces and closely hound up with the idea of the five of misery and barbarism. In the course of Shachtman at the Chelsea Labor Lyceum, in the demand for rest.
year plan. Just as during the period of 1924 1930, enormous successes were achito be held March 13 was called off by acIn the famous discussion of 1920 1921, the civil war, the workers and peasants ered. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union still tion of our national committee. The reason In reality, under conditions of very bent all their strength to crush the enemy finds itself today, in the third year of the is the following: and assure themselves the right to labor poor productive forces, or better yet, of misfive year plan, from the point of view of Very recently a conflict arose within the ery without the New Economie Policy, that and to rest, the vanguard elements of the its productive forces, much closer to czarLabor Lyceum between two forces: on the is, without the introduction of private inworking class of today sincerely count upon ist Russia than to the advanced capitalist one hand comrades, members of the party terets on the basis of the market there catching up with and surpassing the ad countries. Here are some facts and figures. and on the other hand non party workers were not and could not be any other methvanced capitalist countries and of guaran Four fifths of the whole productive with the result that the party members were ods than those of war Communism. Before teeing themselves against economic and population with us is engaged in agricul ejected from the Lyceum hall. While we the passage of the the discussion military dangers. Theoretically, politically ture, In the United States, for each perare at all times eager to bring the revolualways swerved around the question. The and psychologically, the idea of the five year son engaged in agriculture there are tionary message to workers wherever they plan has become for the masses the problem passage to the caused the very engaged in industry.
may gather we were not willing to keep this object of the discussion to disappear. Only of the construction of an armored wall Industrial work with us is five times speaking engagement which could too easily around socialism in Zinoviev, and to a certain extent Tomsky, one country. The as productive as agricultural work. In become interpreted as a support to the fight continued to repeat the rigmarole on the workers find in this the only justification Amerion, agricultural work is twice as pro against the party. We continually carry on ABC of trade union questions, without for the extreme tension imposed upon them ductive as it is with us and industrial work our fight against false policies of the party ever having understood what it was all by the party apparatus. times. The net production per person leadership but will not become implied parOn the about twelfth anniversary, Stalin in the United States is thus nearly ten ticipants in a fight against the party. OPEN FORUM