NOTES OF JOURNALIST we Revolution in Spain STALIN AND THE COMINTERN By ALFA In the course of his opposition struggle, Lominadze put into circulation one of find better ones? They haven any revoluhis conversations with Stalin about the Com tionaries. Naturally, if we could give them intern. The in itself does not re our Uglanov, he would conduct their affairs present anything and lives only by the grace in an entirely different manner. For them, of our support. Stalin, as is the custom, Uglanov would be another Bebel. This denied this utterance. However, all those phrase has had its history: Uglanov in the who know Stalin and his attitude toward role of a Communist Bebel in Germany!
the do doubt for instant that At that time Viroshilov had not, apparently, Lomindaze is telling the truth.
foreseen that Uglanov would some day beBy this, we do not want to say that come simply a pillar of the kulaks and an Stalin words correspond to reality. agent of wreckers. Besides, even at preOn the contrary, the lives regardless sent Voroshilov himself does not doubt that of the support of Stalin. The lives the policy of 1925 was the best of all polby force of the ideas on which it is based, icies.
by the force of October; finally, and priThus we see that Lominadze has said marily by force of the capitalist contradic nothing new. His testimony only bears wittions. In the past and in the future, let ness to the fact that the intimate attitude us hope these factors have been stronger of the leading summits towards the than the bureaucratic financial noose which has not changed after all these years. And Stalin calls support.
how could it change? The testimony of But the aphorism which have Lominadze becomes pale and absolutely suquoted above expresses better than any perfluous in the face of the fact that the thing else the real attitude of Stalin and leadership of the international proletarian Co. toward the and supplements per vanguard is at present entirely abandoned fectly the theory of socialism in one coun to. the Mauilskys, the Kuusinens and try.
the Losovskys, that is, to the people who In 1925, when the kulak course of the in the are not and cannot even policy, was in flower, Stalin did not at all be taken seriously.
feel ashamed to express his contempt for No. The does not live with the the and for the leaders of its differsupport of the Stalinist bureaucracy, but ent sections. When Stalin, with the consent regardless of it. The sooner it will liberate of Zinoviev, proposed at the Political Bur itself from this support, the sooner will it eau to pull Maslow out of the archives and regenerate and raise itself to the level of to send him to Germany, Bucharin, who its historie tasks.
at that time was following Stalin and Zinoviev, but who was not taken into confidWHOSE PHONOGRAPH IS THIS?
ence about all the plots, objected: Why certain Gorsky, an ex OppositionMaslow. You know this figure very tat, repented last summer. We do not deny well it is impossible, etc. To which anyone the right to repent, or to smear Stalin replied: They have all been bap the repentance with tears and some such tized with the same holy water. There are of her stuff over his own face. Nor are we no revolutionaries among them, in general.
inclined to object to the form that this Maslow is no worse than the others. repentance takes, for the laws of estheties During a consultation concerning a cer(as well as those of anti esthetics) require tain concession, one of the members of the the form to correspond to the content. But Political Burean remarked: To grant it nevertheless, It would seem to us, there for forty or for Afty years makes no ditare certain limits before which even debaseference. We must assume that up to that ment multiplied by lightheadedness should time the revolution will not have left any stop. It appears that Gorsky succeeded trace of the concessionaries. The revolu in overstepping all these limits. Of course tion. Stalin rejoined. Do you think the it is not a question of Trotsky scaring will accomplish it? Walt: It will not people with his impossible rhythms of inbring about a revolution in 90 years. Is dustrialization. nor of the fact that Gorit necessary to recall once more the consky, on this subject, identifies Trotsky with temptuous remarks of Stalin about the Groman, Groman with the wreckers. Here emigres. that is, about the Bolsheviks who Gorsky still remains within the confines of had worked in the parties of the European the official ritual. It is only after he has proletariat.
gone through the practise of it to the very Such was the general spirit of the end, that Gorsky introduces a distinctly perPolitical Bureau. haughty and contempsonal note into his repentance, by dragging tuous attitude toward the west European in the Dnieprostroy affnir (the hydro elecCommunists was requirement of good tric construction on the Dnieper Ed.
form. Do you really think that Purcell against which Trotsky fought and which and Cook will make the revolution in EngStalin rescued. Gorsky ends his article land? asked the Oppositionists. And you with the following words: Those who conperhaps think that your British Communists sidered the Dnieprostroy as a phonograph. will make the revolution. was Tomsky are dancing on their own political tomb.
retort.
Unfortunately, to the tune of their music.
The attitude toward the Communist myself once danced. Gorsky. Za Inparties of the East was still more contempdustrializatziu, No. 2514. tuous, if that is possible. Of the Chinese What is this? It is unbelievable! One Communists only one thing was required: doubts one own eyes. In 1925 1926 TrotTo keep quiet and not to disturb Tchang sky was the chairman of the governmental Kai Shek in the execution of his work. commission of the Dnieprostroy.
It is not at all difficult to imagine what For this reason, in part, and especially a savorous form this philosophy takes on because at that time there still reigned in in mouth lov who is disthe summits of the party the idea of the posed to all sorts of Chauvinism. In the declining curve of industrialization, all the sessions of the delegation of the Russian members of the Political Bureau were unC. immediately before the plenum of the animously opposed to the hydro electric Executive Committee of the in 1926, station on the Dnieper. At the plenum of Voroshilov defended Thaelmann with the the Central Committee in Apr! 1927, in his competence that is so characteristic, almost programmatic speech on economy directed in the following manner: Where can they against the super industrialist Trotsky. Continued frim page 4)
Stalin declared: For us to construct the and the production of the advanced capitalDnieper station is the same thing as for ist countries, not only as a guide to the a Mujik to buy a phonograph instead of a practical needs of exports and imports, but Cow. The debates were stenographed and also as the only correct criterion in the printed as all the minutes of the Plenums question of catching up with and outare in the printing house of the Central stripping.
Committee. Stalin phrase about the phono8. To put an end to being guided in graph created a certain sensation and was econonyy by the bureaucratie considerations often repeated in the speeches and docuof prestige. Not to gloss over realities, ments of the Opposition. This phrase endnot to keep silent about the truth, not to ed up by becoming a by word. But since deceive. Not to qualify as socialism Gorsky has decided repent completely. he present transitional Soviet economy which without omitting anything, he attributes (of In its level, is much closer to czarist bourhis own accord or under instructions from geois economy than to advanced capitalism.
Yaroslavsky. the economic philosophy of abandon the false national and Stalin, including the immortal formula to international perspective an economic. Trotsky.
development which flows inevitably from the However, what has become of it? Those methodology of Lenin.
who consider the Dnieprostroy as a phono10. To finish once and for all with the graph are dancin their own political catholic church dogma of general infall tomb. On their own political tomb! But, ibility, disastrous in practise humiliating it was Stalin who considered the Dnieprofor a revolutionary party and profoundly stroy a phonograph. Then, who is dancing stupid.
on his own tomb? Say what you will, the 11. To revive the party by shattering repentance of Gorsky sounds dubious. IS the bureaucratic dietatorship of the appar it sincere? And, in general, is this really atus.
repentance? Isn there something back of 12. To condemn Stalinism. To return his mind? Isn Gorsky trying to discredit to the theory of Marx and the revolutionary Stalin in the language of Aesop? And why methodology of Lenin.
does the editor, Boguchevsky. stand by and ganizations with the mases of the unorg ized and with the rural periphery? And under what slogans?
But the point is that the leadership of the is hiding something from the look on, Boguchevsky, who has seen things!
proletarian vanguard. We can be certain, And what about Yaroslavsky? Why doesn that the lion share of these 200, 000let he put two and two together? And, in us say from 90 to 95 percent. come from general, what are we headed for?
regions where the detachments of the Red WHAT IS HAPPENED IN THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY?
Army carry on their activity. It suffices only to hold before one view the political The Pravda of December 25, 1930 telle psychology of the peasant detachments, and us: In the fall of 1930, the Chinese Com the conditions under which they carry on munist party numbered 200, 000 members.
their activity, to have a clear political picThe party has uprooted the remnants of the ture: the partisans, we can readily imagine, ideas of Tchen Du Hsieu and has destroyed enroll almost to a man in the party, and Trotskyism ideologically. after them, enter the peasants in the re However the complicated circumstances gions occupied by the Reds. The Chinese of struggle have lately given rise to certain party, as well as the Red Army and the besitations of a leftist semi Trotskyist Soviet power have abandoned the procharacter inside the party. whole series letarian rails and are heading toward rural of leading workers, who believe that rev districts and the countryside.
olutionary situation has matured on an In seeking an issue from the impasse, international scale, have posed the question the new Chinese opposition advances as we of beginning the immediate seizure of have heard, the slogan of proletarian nppower on a full national plane, ignoring the rising on a national plane. Evidently that necessity of consolidating the Soviet power would be the best issue if the prerequisites in the regions already occupied by the Red for it were to exist. But they not exist Army. Proceeding from such an estimation, today. What, then, can be done? We must they consider it possible to cease the econput forward the slogans of the present interomic struggle of the proletariat and to revolutionary period, the length of which liquidate the revolutionary unions.
no one can gauge in advance. These are These lines give an idea of the chaos the slogans of the democratic revolution: that reigns in the minds of the leading funLand to the peasants, the Eight Hour day, etionaries of the Chinese party. They have the independence of China, the right of nadestroyed Trotskyism Ideologically that tional self determination for all peoples goes without saying but immediately after and finally, the Constituent Assembly. Unthis destruction, hesitations of a semi der these slogans, the provincial peasant Trotskyist nature rise anew. Such things arpfsings of the partisan detachments will have happened time and again. These heslbreak away their provincial position and tations have arisen even among a number be fused with the general national movement of leading comrades That has also hap linking up their own fate with it. The pened ebfore. will rise not as the technical aid of the But what do these new semi Trotskyist Chinese peasants, but as the political guide hesitations consist of? They manifest them of the working class of the entire country.
selves, first of all, in the demand to begin There is no other road!
immediately the struggle for power on the whole international scale. But the Left Opposition has demanded the direct opposite since the fall of 1927: to withdraw the (Continued from page 1)
slogan of armed insurrection as a slogan for the moment. Even today our Chinese rights to private property which may have been confiscated. But it is precisely these comrades put on the order of the day, not the armed uprising, but the mass mobili rights that must be destroyed if the prozation around the social demands of the letariat is to live. The industries, the rallproletariat and the peasantry, as well as roads and the banks must be put under the the slogans of revolutionary democracy, control of the proletariat; the land must not adventurist experiments in the countrybe confiscated and given to the peasants; side, but the building up of the trade un the strangulating hạnd of the Catholic lons and of the party! It the Pravda is clergy must be torn from the throats of the not caluminating (which is very likely) if people; the right to national self determinthe new opposition really demands cease ation for the Catalonians and Basques must the economie struggle of the proletariat be guaranteed in reality and not in words; and to liquidate the trade unions. then feudalism and clerical reaction and capitalthis is directly opposed to the proposals ist exploitation must be burned out if the of the Left Opposition (Bolshevik Leninrevolution is to mean the liberation of the ists. masses and not the perpetuation of class We read further on that the new oprule. But the bourgeoisie is utterly incap position ignores the necessity of consollable of taking these steps, which means its dating the Soviet power. it demands, so to own destruction. The task falls to the only Speak, a revolt on a national plane. Here too, class capable of taking them: the revoluthere is nothing in common with the position tionary proletariat.
of the Bolshevik Leninists. If we regard the The bourgeoisie leads because the proChinese Red Army as the weapon of letariat has as yet no leadership. The years proletarian uprising, then the Chinese Com of Stalinist reaction and incapacity have munists must be guided by the general law left deep scars Spanish Communism, reof every revolutionary uprising. It must ducing it to impotence. It can be revived take the offensive, extend its territory, and become equal to it stasks. Here the conquer the strategic centers of the coun Left Opposition has an enormous mission.
try. Without this, every revolutionary up That our Spanish comrades have already rising is hopeless. To mark time, to remain furnished many prisoners to the Spanish reon the defensive instead of the offensive action attests their activity and devotion.
spells defeat for the uprising. In this That the bourgeois press is even now resense, the new opposition, if its point of porting the appearance in Barcelona and view has been correctly reproduced, is far elsewhere of revolutionary literature with more consequent than the Stalinites, who pictures of Lenin and Trotsky is another believe that the Soviet power in the coun harbinger of coming successes. Feeble as tryside can be maintained for years or that Communism is in Spain today, it can grow the Soviet power can be transported from with phenomenal rapidity out of a soil one end of the country to another in the enriched by the revolutionary fervor of the baggage train of the partisan detchments, masses. In the white heat of the revolulabeled Red Army. But neither the first tionary struggles that are on the order point of view nor the second resemble our of the day, the troops of the real revoluown. Both flow from a wrong point of de tion can be tempered, hardened and ntted parture. They renounce the class theory of for the magnificent task that must be perSoviet power. They dissolve the revolution formed which only they can perform.
into provincial peasant revolts, linking up The Spanish bourgeoisie is in power towith them, in an adventurist manner, the day only because the proletariat as a class entire fate of the Chinese is not yet strong and conscious enough to What does the latter represent? Qulte take power itself and hold it. Tomorrow unexpectedly we learn from this article that may bring a new relationship of forces in the numbered in the fall of 1930 about Spain. The last word has not yet been 200, 000 members. This figure is given spoken. n.
without any explanation. However. last year, the Chinese numbered only about to 7, 000 members. If this gigantic growth IN THE NEXT ISSUE of the party during the last year is an acThe next issue of the Militant will contual fact, then this should be a symptom tain a detailed exposition of the Left Opof a radical change in the situation, in position standpoint on the lessons of the favor of the revolution. 200, 000 members. recent dress strike conducted by the Needle If, the party were to Trades Workers Industrial Union and pro40, even 20, 000 workers, after it had posals on the course which the militants in experienced the second Chinese revolution the needle trades must pursue in the best and absorbed its lessons, we would say: interests of the advancement of our moveThis is a powerful force, and invincible; ment. The liquidationist panic which the with such cadres we can remodel all of Lovestone Right wing is seeking to sew China. But we would ask at the same time, especially after the dress strike, and the are these 20, 000 workers members of the bankruptcy of the official party leadership, trade unions? What kind of work are they make an analysis of the situation all the carrying on within them? Is their influ more necessary for the Left wing. Watch ence growing? Are they linking up the or for the next issue.