THE MILITANT WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE Weekly Organ of the Communist League of America Opposition Published weekly by the Communist League of America (Opposition) at 84 East 10th Street, New York, NY. Entered as second class mall matter, November 28, 1928 at the post office at New York, under the act of March 3, 1879.
VOLUME V, NO. 14 WHOLE NO. 110 NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1932 PRICE CENTS Marine Workers on Trial TODAY ор WHAT NEXT. by Leon Trotsky Chapter 1: The Role of the German Social Democracy time OPEN FORUM The trial of the three marine work he examined Hoyle in a little room at THE COMMUNIST PARTY AND THE The six to one decision of the Alabama The intention of the Southern bour, tions. Who refuses to see this under.
ers, which was interrupted for a week the police station and got a statement Supreme Court upholding the death bong to dispatch the boys with all posstands nothing. The must ap WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT on account of the Illness of Assistant troin him. Bolle knew nothing what sentences of seven of the nine Scottsborosible expedition was clearly revealed by peal to all working class organizations District Attorney Capazolll, was resumedever about unions on the water front, he prisoners is a class verdict. It is nee the arrangements made for and conduct regardless of political tendency for a Lecture by Monday in the court of General Sesald, and had never heard of the slons No. before Judge Allen. With nor of the defendants.
essary only briefly to review the case of the trial. It was held on fair day united front on the one issue of the fight ARNE SWABECK to prove this and to give the lie to the in a court house surrounded by a lynch for the Scottsboro boys. Concretely, at six witnesses for the prosecution already As The Militant goes to press the trial examined, the contentions of the state is still in progress, and is expected to sabotagers, the socialists mob, held in check by promises from the the present stage. This should take the FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 1932 and their liberal supporters like the New militia that verdicts of guilty would be form of conferences, to work out sysare already before the jury. The great continue for at least another week. The The task of the tematic plans collectively conspiracy announced last November, Marine Workers Defense Committee is at the Republic, all of whom have claimed that speedily forthcoming, The conferences, to serve this tim with such a fireworks of publicity and appealing for financial support for the Labor Temple the verdiet of guilty and sentence of prosecution was made easier by the coldeath were the result of the hatred stir rense lawyer who produced no witnesses of the familiar stalinist varlety laboration of the de cannot be replicas of the united front cries of the red terror, is taking on the expenses of the legal defense. The Com14th Street and Second Avenue They character of a farce at the trial. The munist League, which is affiliated with at P.
red up by the agitation of the Commun and refused to ask for an acquittal. The cannot be mechanically controlled. Pre Ists.
gigantie dynamite plot to blow up the the Defense Committee, decided at it QUESTIONS and DISCUSSION trial required only three days. The versidiums and committees must be freely shipping in the New York harbor has last meeting to concentrate its activities The nine Negro boys on their way to dict was guilty. The sentence was death elected. Freedom of discussion and critdwindled down in the actual testimony in the next ten ADMISSION: 25 Cents look for work were taken off a freight by electrocution. The entire elapsed leism must be the rule, not the excep.
the raising of Unemployed Workers Admitted Free to the claim that the defendants were funds for the defense. The address of Auspices: New York Branch Communist But, upon the subsequent discovery on only fifteen days.
train and charged with ing ride time between arrest and conviction was tion.
responsible in some way or another for Neither the prisoners nor the Communa leak about the size of a quarter which the Marine Defense Committee is 82 East League of America (Opposition) the train of two white girls, the charge The decision of the Supreme Courtists, who alone can lead their fight, have was discovered in the bottom of a worn 10th St. to which contributions should was changed forth with to rape, which, upholds this verdict and sentence. It anything to lose in such a united front.
out sand and gravel barge.
be sent.
in Alabama, is a capital crime.
affirms that the trial was fair and im On the contrary, they have everything to The first witness was John Schimmel, partial. It says that the militia which gain. The cause of the prisoners, and night watchman on the barge Anthony fraternized with the mob while it march with it the influence of the Communists, owned by the Boyle Transportation ed around the court house singing the will reach masses of workers now inne Company, a non union concern and com Star Spangled Banner and stopping only cessible. In the fight the superiority of plainant in the case. Schimmel testito cheer the verdict of guilty. was the Communist program will be demonfied that on November 4, 1931, at about notice to everybody that the strong arm strated. The workers will see this for one o clock in the morning, he heard of the State was there to assure the ac themselves that is the only way they cused of a lawful trial.
can learn it.
noise that brought him on deck to investigate. Finding nothing there, he The six robed and dignified justices. On the other hand, should the socialThe iron front is essentially a bloc of numerically, its very foundations, depends not on the fighting found no ground for reversal in the 1st and progressive leaders and their went to the hold of the boat and discovered a small hole through which powerful social democratic trade unions with impotent strength of the German proletariat, not on the shock speed of the trial, basing themselves on brethen of all shades and hues refuse water was entering. He also claimed groups of bourgeois republicans which have lost troops of Fascism, not even on the personnel of the the precedent created in the speedy trial to enter such a united front, they will that a man, whom he now identifies entirely the support of the people and all confidence Reichswehr; but on whether the pure spirit of the and execution of Crolook, the assassin stand exposed before their own rank as Bunker, called to him from the pier in themselves. When it comes to fighting, cadavers Weimar constitution (along with the required quan in the Scottsboro case, no one was as they can be made to reveal their true him if he had a place to sleep that night. are worthless, but they come in handy to keep the liv tity of camphor and naphthalene) will be installed in sassinated (they intend to accomplish nature as misleaders who live on the On cross examination it was brought out ing from fighting. Their bourgeois allies serve the the presidential palace. But suppose the spirit of this en masse on May 13th. but, they division of the working class. In either that the only light on the boat was e social democratic leaders as a bridle around the necks Weimar, in a well known situation, recognize, together say. We are of the opinion that case the communists have nothing to kerosene lamp on the cabin 70 or 80 feet of the workers organizations. We must fight! We with Bethmann Hollweg, that necessity knows no than death and if the evidence is to be there were ae Webts on the pler, and must fight. but that is only empty talk. With law. what then? Or suppose the perishable substance believed one of these things happened who have the leadership of them.
the only street lights were more than God help, everything will be settled ultimately with of the spirit of Weimar falls asunder at the most un to this defenseless woman, Victoria Price and the in their hands do not see 500 feet away. In addition to these dit out any bloodshed. Is it possible that the Fascists toward moment, despite the camphor and naphthalene, this, do not understand anything. They ficulties in the way of positive Identt will really decide to stop talking and get down to what then? And what if. but there is no end to The verdict of the Supreme Court are still obstinately playing with united fication under the circumstances, it was business? They, the social democrats, never so much such questions.
speaks the intention of the capitalist fronts from below. At the time of this class to make a significant example of writing (Tuesday) they have not made Schimmel was both hard at hearing and as ventured on such a course, and they, the social The politicians of reformism, these dexterous wire these boys: to warn the super exploited, any move to build a united working clasa afflicted with poor eye sight. It was democrats, are no worse than other people.
pullers, artful intriguers and careerists, expert par suppressed Negro masses of a similar movement. They have tssued no call for also shown that he was a non union man, In case of actual danger, the social democracy banks liamentary and ministerial machinators are no sooner omle and social equality, and dare to working for a a day. He was once not on the Iron Front but on the Prussian police thrown out of their habitual sphere by the course of struggle for it. It is the familiar answer for a demonstration on April 6th. By They have limited themselves to a call Union, he said, but admitted he had been It is reckoning without its host! The fact that the events; no sooner are they placed face to face with of the capitalist class to all working all means let us have the demonstration always in trouble with them and police was originally recruited in large nambers from momentous contingencies than they reveal themselves class protest the frame up. The ver. But also let us begin to build the work.
thought unions were no good. among social democratic workers is absolutely meanThe next witness, named Murphy, a ingless. Consciousness is determined by environment boobs.
to be there is no milder expression for it inept dict is a class verdict. The case Is aing class movement without delay.
working class issue.
The execution has been set for May runner for Boyle testifled that he even in this instance. The worker who becomes a To this class verdict the working class 13th. It may be postponed for a To rely upon a president is only to rely upon the must reply by a united, fighting, mass because of the legal appeals. But even about A. on November 4th and went policeman in the service of the capitalist state, is a government. Faced with the impending clash be movement. The working class must close so there is not too much time. Magg into the hold to examine the loak. bourgeois cop, not a worker. Of late years these tween the proletariat and the Fascist petty bourgeoisie Its ranks. It must say to the capitalist pressure must be brought to bear on the found it stuffed up with some material policemen have had to do much more fighting with rev two camps which together comprise the crushing claw it will not permite uneous Alabama Supreme Court. and, falling He also sald there was some water in olutionary workers than with Nazi students. Such majority of the German nation these Marxists from this case the white and black masses Mass pressure can slve a welght to the the hold, although on cross examination, training does not fail to leave its effects. And above the Vorwärts yelp for the night watchman to come must begin to achieve the unity indis legal appeal not contemplated by the boat on the previous day found water all: every policeman knows that though governments to their aid, Help! Government exert pressure! pensable for the overthrow of capital Judicial fossils of the Jurdical system.
in the hold on that occasion, This wit may change, the police remains. Staat, greif zu. Which means, Bruening, please ism.
Mass pressure can prevent a second ness also found a battery and some In its new year issue, the theoretical organ of the don force us to defend ourselves with the might of a class fight.
The class verdict must be answered by Sacco Vanzetti case, a second Mooney case. It must be organized. To this end were put in evidence of the instruments social democracy, Das Freie Wort (what wretched workers organizations, for this will only arouse the For this the and must we must work. The Stalinist policy of with which the shipping in the Harbor sheet. prints an article in which the policy of tol entire proletariat; and then the movement will rise break through the shell of their isola fulmination in the press, without a serwas to be blown up.
eration. is expounded in its highest sense. Hitler, it above the bald pates or our party leadership: begin tion They must go to the masses with lous mobilization of the masses, will not The testimony of shimmel, the dollar appears, can never come into power against the police ning as anti Fascist, it will end Communist.
the proposal to unite on this one issue. avatl. The comrades in the party should day hero who had positively identified and the Reichswehr. Now, according to the conThe logic of the situation leads with add their voices to that of the Left Op To this Bruening could reply, unless he preferred irresistible force to the tactle of the position for the polley of a fighting unicross examination of Scarr, of the stitution, the Reichswehr is under the command of the silence: With the police force could not handle united front of working class organiza ted front. STAMM.
Weather Burean, New York District. As president of the Republic. Therefore Fascism, it fol. Fascism even if wanted to; but wouldn even if day in question, there was a moon, and that a shadow cast by a per: ment. Bruening régime must be supported until the against us. But what is most important is that the BERLIN, March 1932 waning to the constitution remains at the head of the govern splitting the Reichswehr, if not throwing it altogether it was established the man whom Schtm. presidential elections so that a constitutional president turning of the bureaucratic apparatus against the in the tremendously large unemployment mer dentified as Bunker stood, would may then be elected, through an alliance with the par Fascists would mean untying the hands of the work is over. The results are astonishing. The of factories, mass dismissals, bank crashThe parliamentary battle of March 13 gutes (6. 0000, 000) in the shutting down be hard to recognize.
liamentary bourgeoisie; and thereby Hitler road to John Hickey, the manager of the 0Boyle Transportation Company, who has power will be blocked for another seven years. The ers, restoring their full freedom of action: the con clection figures speak a clear language. es and export decline. The economie er sequence would be precisely those which you, social 18, 000, 000 votes for Hindenburg. 11, 333. ploitation of the working class increases been one of the leading lighters against above is, as given, the literal context of the article: democrats, dread so much, and which accordingly000 for Hitler, 4, 970, 000 for Thaelmann from day to day wage cutting goes on the union in the harbor, gave a touching mass party, leading millions (toward socialism. dread twice as much.
display of Innocence and of disinterest, holds that the to which class will come Marshall General almost attained victory most reached the point of total suspenodness in the labor side of these case. to power in present day Germany, which is shaken to produce on the state apparatus, on the judges, the the working class to The u Brueniense die etical oprescha boleh la thoekingeles The effect which the appeals of the social democracy on the shoulders of enormous sections or slon. Only a few plthy crumbs remain tion, that he has acted as a State witness in many cases. He didn know but admitted that he paid less than the have not labored in vain. Great revolutionary thinkers and tionary, the most neutral. the least bound to the Reichstag elections of 1930 (6. 370, 000. crees, one following on top of the other, If he had any unton men in his employ, should be engraved for posterity. Generations of workers opposite to the one desired. The most loyal fune tors.
German Pascism was able to near has its expression in the rule of the union scale. He didn know anything fighters did not Journey over this earth without leaving thelr social democracy can reason only thus: Millions are although the predicted victory of Hitler are directed exclusively against the tollabout the unions the water front mark. exists, stays on his job, and points the way behind the social democrats; enormous resources are has not been realized. The number of ing masses. The right of assembly, the The police. he said, should know to the German proletariat.
in their hands: the press, the parliament, the munici votes received by Hugenberg candidate right to strike have been suspended. War about them. He had never been treara Evil tongues would bave it that Is closely related palities; their own hides are at stake; in the struggle The increase in the vote for the commun war danger is more immediate than ever. Duesterberg Is also relatively high. is looming up as a reality. The general of the T: before This man, who gets a salary of 4500 by the most sordid kind of chauvinism. Impossible! What against the Fascists they are assured of the support ist party is, on the other hand, astonish before. Aside from the economic cola year for his efficiency as a union such a lucid head. Continued on page 4)
ingly small, especially when we take into lapse of the capitalist system, aside from smasher, admitted on cross examination account the fact that participation in the economic and political reaction, that he gave money to Hoyle, who is the elections was greater by 3, 000, 000 there is the Joining the front regarded as the provocateur in the case.
for entry into Germany is promised me than in the Reichstag elections of 1980 of the reactionaries, there is its support for this The cross examination of defense at.
All this information, in which, The results in some of the industrial in the election of Field Marshall Hindtorney Peter Sabbatino and the of course, it is clear to you, there isn districts are especially alarming for the enburg, against whom it fought in 1926 bizzare explanations of the witness on With Inevitable delay learn from as the Manchester Guardian, at that time a single word of truth, is taken from a proletariat. Thus, for instance, the this point, evoked a lot of merriment Pravda of your decalon of February 20, characterized the Karrier Podzenny as Berlin reactionary, anti Semitic sheetDirty could not retain the 780, 006 votes war. On the other hand there is the in the court room.
Hickey, who has 1982, depriving me and the members of a newspaper which has already distin. Which one can hardly take into one It received in Berlin in 1980, but had toists in the successes of cialist construc never been known as a spendthrift, got my family sharing with me expulsion, gulshed itself by the forgery of an arti bands, let alone quote. Not one news contend itself with tion in the Soviet Union and in the fact a fit of magnanimity on the day that exile and work of the rights of Soviet cle by Trotsky. demanded from Pravda paper in Germany attributed any signin other hand, the figure for the Hinden from 1, 170, 000 to 1, 307, that there is only one working class the defendants were arraigned. Hoyle, citizenship and forbidding our yntry to a factual dental. It did not appear cance to these creative labors of the Ger burg Front roseFascists from 396. 000 candidate nominated for the elections he said, asked him for a quarter for the Wherein my counter Pravda consciously deceived millions of man Pourishkevitahes. Only Izvestia, al 000 and that of the Thaelmann. Despite these unbelievably cigaretes. But big hearted Hickey open revolutionary activity lles, the decision workers, red soldiers, sailors and pea newspaper formally under yours the to 665, 000. In Berlin the party vote tentavorable circumstances, the ed his pocketbook and handed him a does not say. If we should discount the sants, lending support under its own Presidium control, published this ac from 27. per cent to 23. per cent and has not been able to make any progress.
bill, with the remarks the un there were elted in the Soviet press One cannot but recall that the author of ously deceiving by it millions of citizens cent, of the total number of ballots cast. leaders to convince overwhelming masses share it with the other he said polemical rituals against Trotskylam name to the forgery of Polish Fascista, knowledgedly false information, conset the Naul vote rose from 14. to 22. per Why was it possible for the ion men whom he is trying to railroad, only two instances of my supposed ac these disclosures in the Pravda was of the Soviet Union.
Industrial regions like Halle, Duessel of workers of the necessity of the policy The next witness was Lieutenant Leon tivity which could have been character none other than Yaroslavaky, in these Thus you did not consider it possible dorf, Essen, Dresden, Hamburg, Boch of the lesser evil. The leadard of the Harbor Police Squad. He ized as counter revolutioary had the days one of the supreme guardians of to adopt your decision before two of the um brought losses for the party and to ers succeeded in restricting the question admitted, by way of confirmation, you actually occurred.
party morality. it after that he has suf most responsible papers of the Soviet most cases, sains for the Fascists. La of the decisive struggle between Fase might say, of Hickey contention that Pravda of July 2, 1831, carried with fered somewhat, it was at any rate not Union the central organ of the party the workers section of Wedding, the cism and proletariat to the sphere of par the union was no way involved that corresponding commentaries, photosta due to the forgery, but rather to its in and the official organ of the government dropped from 90, 000 to 80, 000, while lamentaty contest. They could gueceed the headquarters of the had tie reproduction of the first page of the completeness. had deceived the people with the all the Hindenburg Front rose from 87. 000 in this only because the and been raided, a police padlock put on the Polish newspaper Kurrier Pordenny con The second example of my counter of forgeries fabricated by Polish and Gerto 97. 000 votes and the Nauls from 21, 000 along with it, the proletariat, is incap door, and the files taken to police head taining an article supposedly by me and revolutionary activity, preceded your man Fascists. This is a fact whteh can to 30, 000. In the Landtas (provincial able of conducting an extra parlamentquarters. Leonard knew, he said, that directed against the Soviet Union. It is decision only by a few weeks. On Jan. neither be erased nor obliterated. diet) elections of Neu Strelitz, the party ary struggle. For the workers organized the defendants were union men but understood that none of you doubted for wary 16, 1982, the Izvestia of the But even after such prbparations you lost 000 votes previously 7, 000, now in the and the trade unions, it didn know anything about the Tide a moment that this article presents a carried a dispatch from Berlin to the found it necessary, or it was suggested 5, 000) and the gatoed 1, 400 votes was not a matter of a choice in which water Boatmen union or any other forgery of a Althy sheet, well known for effect that call for the support of the to you, that you carefully mask your de The conditions preceding the elections they are faced with the prospect of a union on the water front.
Its falsifications. The same newspaper Bruening Government, acting in agreecision. This extraordinary measure were full of promise for an absolute armed with a tremendous infuPurther Ignorance of any connection shortly thereafter forged documents ment with the German social democrac. acainst me especially prepared by the growth of the Communist movement. The ence, prepared for an extra parliamentof unionism with the prosecution was against Galician (Ukrantan) revolution and in particular with Karl Kautsky latest anti Trotskyist campaign do economie crisis has reached an unprecedary struggle, ready to defeat Fascism exhibited by detective Bolle, who saia aries. Even the bourgeols press, such and Alfred Adler. and that a visa (Continued on page 3) entedly low level. It produces its effects (Continued on page 3)
pour extinced that are is Germany after the Presidential Elections Open Letter to the of the