PAGE THE MILITANT SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 1931 leon Trotsky Writes on Stalin Latest Speech EDITORIAL NOTES New Zig zag and the New Dangers or class.
can devlop socialist society while the The harder the fight of the workers the more by socialist emulation and by shocktion of this task except by the systematic tion of the forces and the means and the ranks themselves. In order to work Miners Strike Is Called Off BERNARD SHAW ON RUSSIA out of the very nature of the system and (Continued from Last Issue) is to say what is, declares our platforin bilities. The trade unions must fulfill the truth and know how to defend itcannot be exorcised. If we take the most The Russian revolution is making its probable development of the next future SOCIALIST ENTHUSIASM draft.
their functions on the basis of genuine populate the prisons of Stalin and the way in the world. After fourteen years a further deepening of the economic AND PIECE WORK The proletarian revolution has no need election, submitting everything to the places of deportation and exile. There It has received the honor of a tep day crisis then it becomes obvious that the Nine tenths of the new program of of the bureaucratie hotch potch of ideal control of the trade union members lies the knot of the problem of the party, Inspection by George Bernard Shaw and stop cap policy of state and municipal re Stalin amounts to the re establishment ism. We want the truth.
giving accountings, bearing the respon After having crushed the Left OpposiLady Astor, and that To be sure the enemy w91 rejoice over sibility at every degree of the hierarchtlon, the Stalinist bureaucracy has stitted itselforsamos llet for the Winter will fall to pieces. of piece work. All the rest. In the and Andy would say 1s somethin Orif we grant the prospect of a slow meantime, has an extremely confused the obscure sides of this truth. It is cal scale. An article must be inserted the party. It no longer exists, this aniIt is not every revolution that wins such recovery and that is the most optim character and, in part, only serves to obvious that it will selze upon certain into the Tenal Code punishing as an mated, sensitive, supple and flexible arsignal honors and passes the inspectionistle hope expreased by any serious econ mask the turn to the Right.
with such flying colors. It Lady Astor, omist in the capitalist camp. it implies Stalin makes his new turn depend up upon certain sections of Stalin revela direct or indirect, open or conceaked, of masses, which saw all, which criticized as bets one of her exalted station, re further rationalization of industry and on the new epoch and the new tasks tions today. When the enemy uses frax worker for his criticism, for his in which generalized, which signaled the pressed her emotions and said little a residue of unemployed workers run which require new methods.
ated the new roads. Now that the Centrthe great play. writer save a flattering ning into the millions. Sporadie charity But that is too crude a deception. Wements of truths in order to weave a wependent proposals, for vote. How dangers in time and collectively clabore endorsement to the Soviet enterprise. will not be able to cope with such a have seen, in a whole series of questions But when the workers themselves do not ist bureancracy has strangled the party.
The revolution got a fifty fifty break in situation. Either the federal government of the world labor movement that the know the truth and do not know where But the sharpness of the present turn says the draft platform of the Internathe examination.
will feed them or they, to quote the turns of the Stalinist bureaucracy flowed to seek it, that may have tragie conse towards plece work is the result not of tional Left Opposition, that is, has reBut if you will pardon us for saying words of Engels, will take matters into in no way from the changes in the worla quences.
a system of wages, but of a more pro. mained without eyes and cars, it moved Faced with this al situation but, on the contrary, they were So we are not entirely satisfied with their own hands.
Heroic enthusiasm can draw behind it found reason of the lack of material along gropingly and determines its path the report. When Shaw sums up his ternative the masters of America will very often accomplished in opposition to the masses for relatively short historical wealth to satisfy the needs of the under the direct pushes of the classes, workers. The wrong method of the Oscillating between opportunism and adconclusions with the advice to young most probably reconcile themselves to a these changes and flowed from the pre periods.
the venturism. Even more within the ap ceding errors of the bureaucracy itself.
men in the Western countries to go Nystem of unemployment insurance. small minority is capable of mani plan the incorrect adjustment in to Russia and settle there. we beg leave There will do this all the sooner if the were told that at the third year of the testing enthusiasm for a whole historical course of its realization, the absence of paratus itself, the fear of the lower func objection. And once having disturbed the upon them, organized and menacing. The to break into the happy rarty with an class movement of the workers pres. Five Year Plan, the Soviet Union had epoch: it is upon this that is based the menuine control of the masses, the ab tionary for the superior functionary as atmosphere of mutual felicitation with prospect that the ruling class will resort, entered into socialism. If this was right, idea of a revolutionary party as the sence of the parts, the struggle for ab reached such a point that nobody cares the well known Opposition quarrelsome to this remedial measure in any case, we should have witnessed a tendency selection of the best elements from the atract figures of the plan in the name of any longer to look facts in the face and prestige, the administrative command to point them out to the superiors. At ness, we may as well speak bluntly. The does not in any way argue against the towards the gtadual equalizati Socialist construction is a task for ment braggadacio, blus the lower rungs, they acquiesce in every whole idea is reactionary nonsense. necessity of a working class fight for un wages. This tendency should have justitering the stilling of criticism all these thing asked of them at the higher rungs Russia is not a separate planet, which employment insurance. On the contrary tied itself and be supported more and decades. One cannot guarantee the solucombined have led to a false distribu and the latter regard it as the voice of Western countries are surrendered to sooner will they wrest this concession. brigades. Absurd as it may appear, it raising of the material und cultural That has created In view of the extremely out the measures for applying the new capitalism Russia is boudd up ingep. And the more will their morale be was nevertheless we, the left Opposi standard of living of the masses.
arably with them The struggle for soe strengthened by the victory. Moreover, tion, who were accused by the Stalinist is the principal condition, more impor rapid growth of the number of workers polles, the Plenum of the Hal is not a Contres wage funds. That is why the workers seek to give this event an exceptional That is why they significance for this time not only the tional struggle. as Marx and Engels ance law which, as has been said, we socialist enthusiasm of the Russian struction of a Dnieprostroy, of a Turk satd. The Russian revolution marks only belee the light will take place over in order to preserve the seeming continuBy the power of inertia and sib or of a Kuzbas, because with the do not feel at ease.
fall in the physical and moral energy run from one factory to the other. The members of the are called, but the beginning of the international TV the nature and extent of the relief pro. lty Stalin today repeats the empty for of the proletariat, all the gigantic en excessive pressure on the one hand and also the representatives of the regional olution and will find its fulillment in mulations of bureaucratic idealism. Do terprises may remain without a tomor the degeneration of the trade unions on organs and of a series of rank and file the other, have provoked the anarchic organizations. In other words, the supit Lenin and Trotsky said. The bis vided by it.
not forget, he says, that the vast maj row.
riction called the fluctuation of labor orlor functionaries call to their aid the. In the last resort the reformists, who ority of the workers have accepted these Stalin relishes his bearers with quota forces. Stalin has shown revolution in the capitalist countries. The are shouting now for unemployment in conditions of the Soviet poter (disciptions from Marx and Lenin, according to mous extent of this reaction. You will abave. Both are united by subordination the enor inferiors. Both are designated from home. This is the only way they can the shadow without the substanceIt ne tension, emulation, shock brigades) which the differentiation of wages is in few enterprises. he says, where and mutual responsibility. And this passage the personnel is not renewed every ball council of functionaries is represented help Russia and also help themselves. will be the duty of the Communists to a year, and even every quarter by at as the supreme expression of democracy!
have entered into socialism, if the vast No matter how it is camouflaged with organize the masses for a fight to comberoically. Now, if this is true if we to socialism.
big talk about working for socialism. pensate the unemployed millions with mkjority (mark it well: the vast masThere is Tomorrow Stalin will quote to least thirty to forty attained by the emigration to Soviet Russia represents an insurance relict which will afford ority. of the workers fulfill their tasks passage to socialism the small producer disense which the bureaucracy has sought the convocation of an extraordinary con Marx and Lenin to show that during the the threatening extent Does not the new abrupt turn justify in 99 cases out of 100 a flight from them an existence under the conditions( with enthusiasm and even heroically. Of commodities, the peasant, inevitably to bring to an end. The shifting from gress of the party? But the regime of the class struggle at home. On the part which capitalism has forced upon them.
of scalled revolutionists it is little less The fight for unemployment insurance one asks himself why this same vast gives birth to the kulak. These generall one factory to another, from one town personal revlations (each time after a majority wander from one factory to truths are indisputable, it is precisely to another, means moreover the enormous delay of a few years) does not tolerate than desertion. Who will organize the as such at the present time and for ade another in the search for fortune? And we who recalled them during the air waste of productive forces, the needless the regime of party democracy, nor the rehet hopeale per George Bernard Shaw Hae of its enactment, remains na center all the successes obtained to pass at an end today. But it is precisely the well as for the adaptation to the new the Bolsheviks really afraid of the for this exodus from the West is regardtral issue of the revolutionary vanguard over to the system of piece work which stalinist bureaucracy which contrary to working conditions. That is the princi: truth? The name of the Bolshevik who ed by shallow minded people as a sign slo for real and immediate relief in the This goes hand in hand with the struk is, after all, the most refined capitalist us, posed for itself as a practical task pal reason for the fall in returns and today most fears the truth is Stalin.
that the Fabian has become a Commun present situation.
method of the exploitation of the work the liquidation of the kulak, that is, of the increase in the net costs. But the otherwise he would not fear to consult ist. It is nothing of the kind. He has ers forces?
the differentiation of the peasantry, with greatest danger of the fluctuation in the congress, that is the party, in this only become an advocate of socialism in The principle of the Left Opposition in the limits of the Five Year Plan in the hunt for fortune! consists of the new abrupt turn in policy.
one country. And that is much nearer four years. Contrary to ourselves the moral wear and tear on the proletariat.
In recent months, we have received a Stalinist bureaucracy affirmed that the The mere aggravation of plece work number of letters while relate conversato Fabianism than to Communism.
essential difficulties on the road to soc settles nothing. It can only create a tions which our correspondents have had ialism are overcome that we had already atratuin of more favored workers. The with party bureaucrats at various deentered into socialism, that the realiza tendency toward creating a labor bur grees of ossification. They are for the DEBATING THE DOLE (Continued from Page 1) strike was not its wrong policy but. improved the conditions of the workers, respond better to the procedure of the they see and understand a great deal, but The debate over the question of un once but many times, from the very in lack of relief.
employment Insurance has held the cenception and during the course of the The final outcome of the strike says and that one could outstrip the Five Stalinist bureaucracy. From this angle, their will is broken. Their philosophy er los estupe In recent days in the strike? Speaking of the danger of how more than we can say to controvert the could the question of piece work be posed As a panacea, it completes the evolution is what they say most frequently: You camp of Important section, hended by Governor from the Kentucky movement, from the warts. The counterposed policies have with such acuteness at the end of the of Stalinism. The tradition of Bolshev sponk of the party reyime. To be sure inchot of ennsylvania, has come out Keeney movement in West Virginia and been tested. The bureaucratic, meaning third year? There is a question which ism is a tradition of struggle against the it is very heavy. Everybody feels it.
in outspoken advocacy of the federal dole the rank and file rebellion in Illinois, we less uolted front from below failed to every conscious worker will put to him aristocratic castes within the working But you must know that it cannot be for the unemployed. On the other hand, issued the warning that unless swift give the a solid foothold in self.
class. On this list is erected the struc otherwise. Without an Iron hand we the dominating elements of finance cnpi and resolute measures were taken to the other movements. The strike was On July 7, Pravda quoted the follow ture of the dictatorship of the proletar would not overcome the difficulties. Your tal represented by President Hoover overcome the prevailing disunity, the not extended, but narrowed down to the ing lines from the organ of People lat. The program. the Stalinist bur criticism of Stalin mistakes is right on have taken a number of measures to strikes would be threatened with the point where it had to be called off, which Commissariat for Labor: The develop eaucracy leads it inexorably to the nec the whole, and the events have confirmed dramatize their opposition to federal in poison of slow disintegration and de in turn, will have the gravest effects on ment of technique and the growth of the essity of supporting itself upon the ever it. We have no illusions about Stalin.
surance and to set in motion a coutur. feat. We proposed that the u. the West Virginia strike. The role of transports of electrification, etc. more privileged labor aristocracy. Here of course, he will never set the Thames propaganda. Outstanding in these man. take the initiative to address the or did not make a particle of the gains that narrow the field of plece work. Is this les hidden the immediate political dan en fire: from the intellectual point of euvers was the conference with the head ganizations conducting the strikes and were made possible by the whole splen nota Marxian truth? But Pravda calls ger for the dictatorship of the proletar view, to Is a mediocre man, with an in of the national Chamber of Commerce rebel movements with the proposals for did situation. The Posters and Browders this truth Trotskyist assertion. This ist!
adequate theoretical preparation without and the resultant statement in favor of aa soint conference to unify them all. stood like a huge boulder in the path of strange conflict between the official or PERSONAL REVELATION broad perspectives. We frequently feel handling og next Winter problem by This, together with agitation in the ranks progress.
gan of the People Commissariat for The new policy is decreed in the same these defects on our own backs. But he the states and cites through emergency everywhere to have the workers exercize By superior force, by the apparatus Labor and the ollicial organ of the Cenway as the old policy: as a personal rehas indispensable positive qualities: firma propriations and charity. The leading pressure upon their leaders, is the first strength which has been granted them tral Commitee of the party is explained velation. Stalin Informs us that the un ness, tenacity, perservance. Besides, he espapers of the bourgeoiste support real step towards a genuine united front, through the usurpation of the interna by the fact that the second number of interrupted working week was introduced is entirely bound tp with the apparatus.
this view. The Times spoke for it, cit desperately needed by the miners tional Communist movement by the Stal Questions of Labor appeared before Stal too precipitately and without the pre and whatever you may say, the apparing the cumbersomeness of the serail (Militant, 8 1931. inist faction, by misrepresentation and in speech, while No. 185 of Prayda ap paration of appropriate measures. What atus now is everything. Thus spek inchinery bich could not be wheeler Three weeks before that, making the demagogy in the press under their con peared two days after the speech. Why were the results? Stalin is compelled many bureaucrats. It seems to them into shape in time to meet the winter samo imperatively needed proposal we rol the Stalinist agents in the United was Pravda obliged to transform this to point them out: lack of a spirit of that the stilling of the party, painful suppressing our pro simple truth of Marxism into a Trotsky accountability for the work, neglected though it is, is justified by the circum Issue August 17th, argued against the The worst thing the Loft wing can do posals during the strike, in preventing ist heresy? Because the new turn of maintenance of machinery, considerable stances and Inter. oh well! later federal dole from a principle stand is to grow intoxicated with an inflared the Left wing from adopting the only Stalin does not flow at all from the de accidents to the machines and absence socialism will come and will change erpoint. As matters stand now, the op idea of its own strength or position. It course that could lead to a successful relopinent of socialist construction, but of stimulation for raising the producerything.
ponents of national Insurance for the unis not leading the whole miners move issue. Let them be proud of their short from the acute contradiction between the tivity. Stalin generalizes it all in a employed have the upper band and it is ment but only a part of it. It can win lived triumph over the counter revola erroneous course of the bureaucracy and single phrase: Nobody is accountable Socialism is no ready made system which Here lies the fundamental mistake.
hardly within the range of probability its way to leadership if it pursues the tionary Trotskyists. They won their the vital needs of economy.
for anything. terrific avowal, or ra can spring full panoplied from a head, that the next Congress will pass such right polley now and not after the victory at the cost of the movement to strike in the self critical articles of the which they dealt such brutal blows, and pled contradiction with the conditions of that always happens when a single in means of production can only be solved ther a disavowal of his own policy. even the most gifted onc. The task of a uneasure.
Piece work wages are not in princi: Nobody is accountable for anything the rightful division of the forces and Isut the matter does not end here. Au press. The Left wing darey not be de no revolutionist will find in such a vic transitional Soviet economy: it would divdual wants to be accountable for ev. by means of constant criticism, hy veri.
surance are proviented on the sumpruinous self contentment with the big blander upon blunder, and crushed the But the abrupt turn towards piece work the arguments against unemployment in ceived by cheap phrases, by boasting, by tory a source of rejoicing. They piled be stupid doctrinarism to oppose them. erybody.
fication by the ideologien struggle of the tion that as unempiment is a tem achievement it enn legitimately record promising movement under a mountain The uninterrupted weck was intro various groupings within the proletariat.
porary phenomenon. The spokesmen of now. Will the party have to draw of error. They bear the terrific respond the extreme accentuation of the duced too precipitately. But who Intro. If we reject formal democracy which, ruling class shadow of up balance capitalist features of this system pre duced it? The General Secretary. Was in the framework of capitalism, means beyond it. They think their problem con remark that a small measure of organ whole even the heavy blows infileted up the end of the third year of the Five working masses before its introduction? od to the teeth, we affirm, on the other Year Plan after the uninterrupted suehists in the feeding of hungry masses izational success was secured. The on it by Stalinism are not yet morta cesses, after we have entered into soc secretly. The masses accepted the man will not only not succeed in building Not at all. Everything was prepared hand, that without class democracy we for a brief period. Beyond that they do party is pursuing a course of conceit, of The vitality of the workers movement not see and do not calculate. And just separatism, which is false and unworthy is still strong enough antidote to the talism. one of the harshest blows because their premise is false they will of Communists. Its leadership of the corrosion of the bureaucrats. The mi against the workers, from the material Interrupted weck with enthusiasm. ac socialism but we will not even maintain be compelled to revise their conclusions miners can not only be extended but made ers movement is not deadfar from as well as from the moral point of view. And are things happening differently Stalin zing cost more dearly every cording to the oflicial communications. the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In our opinion the ruling class of or miners in West Virginia, in Kentucky, that in short order. The next exploston cocks and the chameleons of the pressities of which stalin speaks today were lieve that socialism can he vouchanted frm and lasting. The tens of thousands it. It will experience a resurgence, and it is not surprising that the weather now? Just yesterday, all these calam time. Only fools and blind men can be able avoid the establishment of a can be won on the basis of the appeal for ado, where Rockefeller has again cut positions of Marxism in the field of hare already said and written more thun the bureaucratie was. Tonder than ever federal system of unemployment insur! unity and solidarity, must not be ignor deeply into the wage scale.
It may wages in order to cover up, be it but once that among the Stalinist buren before, we warn the advanced workers break out elsewhere. In any case, the for a day, the blow dealt to illusions.
present moment is only a reflection of od. Militant, 18 1931. cracy everything proceeds marvellously of the and of the whole world: The party strategists rejected these Communists and the Loft wing must be the hopeless anarchy of capitalist pro proposals with a lofty contempt. These on the watch and adequately prepared.
five minutes before everything begins to The new zig zag of Stalin, regardless of duction out of which not even their people who make a profession out of be The miners need a revolutionary leader bad from every point of view, has been disastrous results of the bureaucratic. the next period will lend inevitably to That the old method of wages was proceed very badly. In enumerating the the manner in which it will develop in stalling for time in the hope that some were too internally wise to adopt the Lewis machine or the various timid and obvious to us for a long time. One can interrupted week stalin touches in pass. new and still sharper contradictions at thing will happen to free them from this course we proposed. Their policy of 1sotreacherous reformist movements offer not work out a rational, living and pro ing upon the most ticklish and the most the next stage. We must begin with terrible contradiction which has arisen lation was advanced as vastly superior the miners no way out at all. In the collaboration of the masses themselves. he says that our directors understand That is now the decisive link in the gressive system of wages without the dangerous question. It is beyond doubt the revival of proletarian democracy.
to ours. The vials of scorn were poured coming struggles, entirely inevitable, of THE MILITANT upon the counter revolutionary Trotsky the miners, they will anew be impressed the trade union bureaucracy is no bet. all this very well. But they hold their whole chain. The problems of cconomy isis who, together with the Lovestone with the fact that only the domination of ter than any other bureaucracy. Collectongues. Why? From all evidence, be must be put for discussion in their full ites wall for the return of the good a national movement, unified militant the contracts and wage scales are ela cause they are afraid of the truth. But scope before the party and the trade Vol. IV, No. 20, August 22, 1931 old united front with the progressives class conscious can guide them out of the borated in the offices and imposed upon since when have Bolsheviks begun to mions. For this it is nowary that the Publisbed weekly by the Communist and) unlte in labelling the real united cruel misery to which a ruthless capital the workers like all the other decisions tear the truth? Since the Stalinist ap. Bolsheviks cease to fear to speak the League of America (Opposition)
front from below of the workers as sec ist system has condemned them. The of the infallible center. Without the reparatus, by its cretinism, by its lack of truth. This can be attained only by reat 84 Fast 10th Street, tarianism (Browder. August Com day of the isolated struggle has come to birth of workers democracy, a correct ideas and principles, stifled the Bolshe moving the chains from those who fought mumist. Following Browder, Foster a close, particularly among the miners. polley of wages is absolutely unrealiza vik Leninist faction. Precisely since and still fight for the right to speak Editorial Board says the that moment! The directors, according the truth. The left Opposition (Bol(who has his own differences with the Broad and fierce battles are on the hort ble. Collective contracts.
former over the counter offensive char zon. The road to their victorious conclu. Platform of the Russian Opposition to Stalin, fear the truth. What a pershevik Leninists) must be re admitted inMartin Abern James Cannon acter of the strike. announced that the sion lends through the united front. The must be submitted to genuine and Adious formula! It is not the truth they to the party. discussion must be Stalinist policy provides a means to un Maurice Spector Left wing, learning from its own bitter not a fictitious discussion at the work fear: they are afraid of falling victim opened on the fundamental questions of MAY Shachtman Arno Swabeck ite the various disconnected strike move experiences, must find the courage to casters meetings. The work of the trade for the truth because Rakovsky, Sosnow. cotomie and politics. new party conments and rank and file upheavals in off the shackles of dead and arbitrary unions must be determined above all by sky, Muralov, Eltsin, Gruenstein, Kassrens must be prepared upon the basis Subscription rate: 00 per year; for the Foster, August Commun formulae which fetter it, and strike out the defense of the economic and the cul parova, Rossior and together with them, of party democracy!
eigh 50. Five cents per cops. Ist. and proclaimed that the fundamental boldly on the right path. TROTSKY Bundle tates, cente per copy If not the decisive weakness of the THE MILITANT. framework of the given economie possi. sheviks the very ones who do not fear Kadikoy, July 15, 1931 ance