SAGE CAE MILITANT SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1982 The Checking of the Stalin Thaelmann An Open Letter to John Watt Policy Against Their OwnExperience of among the that (Continued from page 1) sacrifice and heroism. We carry on the class struggle against disagreed with your criticism of The problem here and everywhere the labor aristocracy in the name of the the West Frankfort Miners March. ad always consists in the ability to apply working class in order to gain them on mit that the march was not organized the general and fundamental principles our side. And we do battle against the properly, but vevertheless, the miners of Communism to the specific relations opportunist and social democrat leaders From the Series of Articles in the Forthcoming Book The Only Road. by Leon Trotsky Lave accomplished more by the West between classes and parties to specific to achieve the same object.
Frankfort march than they would conditions in the objective development The attitude of a political party to.
their march on Lewis Walker was whol. toward Comrounism conditions that are wards its errors is one of the most im.
Tactics can be checked in the critical and most re question lies in what aim the compromise shall sub is successful.
peculiar to every separate country and portant and enrest criterions of the serihow It fulfils disagreed with your criticism of which one must be able to study, under ourness of the party sponsible moments. The strength of Bolshevism rests serve; how it looks to the masses; what its limits are the separate local agreements that are stand and point out.
in practise its obligations towards Its upon this, that its slogans and methods find their su To confine the compromise to the Landtag or the being signed by the also class and towards the laboring masses.
preme confirmation as soon as the course of events de Reichstag, to regard as an independent aim whether believe in district and nattopal agree.
To admit a mistake openly, to disclose mands bold decisions. What value have principles the president will be a social democrat or a Catholic ments. but under the present condition: Where Is 7th World Its reasons, to analyze the surroundings which created it, to study attentively the which must be renounced as soon as the situation as democrat instead of a Fascist, means to sink complete and circumstances the local agreements means for correcting this mistake these sumes a serious character?
ly into parliamentary cretinism. Completely different is the best tartle for the present time Congress Realistic policy bases itself upon the natural devel is the situation when the party sets itself the task of proper thing to waste the miners time are the signs of a serious parts, this means educating and training the class opment of the class struggle. Sectarian policy en(Continued from page 1)
and consequently the masses. Our theory is not a dogma, but deavors to prescribe artificial regulations for the class democratic workers on the basis of the united front Mine Workers Journal, the Illinois Miner. sear. Even the pieth Congress took manual of netton, said Marx and Engels struggle. The revolutionary situation signifies the policy. parliamentary agreement against Fascist the Congressional Record and the ne place tous than two years after and the grentext crime of patented highest accentuation of the class struggle. Just be predominance in the præsidium, etc. would in this case time it is necessary to rally the miners Between the Firth and the sixth Con Marxists ax Karl KantsksOtto Bauer, cause of that, the realistic policy of Marxism, in the constitute merely one component part of the extra on clearly detined class innues in consci gresk (which was opened on July 17. se, is that they have not understood revolutionary situation, exercizes a powerful force of parliamentary fighting agreement against Fascism. ous opposition to the power to the chestandes 1828. four years Clapsed, during which is the most important moments of the roletarian revolution.
the contrary, becomes all the weaker the more mighty solve the whole question at one blow outside of parceiver its most julished embodiment in wax crushed by the bureancracy and. From Infantile Sickness LENIN)
is the impetus of events. The Blanquists and Proud liament. But preferences alone are not sufficient where the Jewis, Walkers, the socialist even the leadership elected regularly at the Fifth Congress was legally wiped very sence for an understanding These quotations of Lenin are the honists, taken by suprise by the events of the Paris the forces are lacking. The social democratic workers It was after my reply that you went out.
what communism is. And as a member Commune, did the opposite of what they had constant have demonstrated their faith in the magic power of completely wild.
OppositionI have tried to ly preached. During the Russian revolution, the an proceed. The former mistakes of the Communist. You accused me of trying to break passed since the last World Congress. apply theft work archists were forced to recognize the Soviets, that is, the organs of power. And so on without end. party (Prussian referendum, etc. extraordinarily when you weladend the Socialist, many plete with important struggles and pro to organize the communist movement on Hindmarsh just blems left unsolved or badly solved. And the basis of a Marxian policy and to The Comintern supports itself upon masses who facilitated the sabotage of the united front practised slipped in mawares into the Socialist not the slightest Indication is given by trengthen the working class in its strugwere won over in the past by Marxism and fused to by the reformist leaders. technical parliamentary party but that the communist party had the Comintern leadership that a seventh le for the overthrow of capitalism, but gether by the authority of the October revolution. agreement or even only the proposal for such an or worse elements.
Only, the policy of the present leading Stalin faction agreement must help free the Communist party from where the Communists as split it is one of the most urgent requirementssary to come oneweit tore Martian group of the present world situation.
seeks to command the class struggle instead of invest the accusation that it is collaborating with the Fascwhich is the only organization that can You accused me of trying to pre. The eighth point of section Il of the rive the correct laedership.
ing it with political expression. This is the essentialists against the social democracy. This is no inde vent you from speaking before the so Constitution and Rules of the commun. feature of bureaucratism and in this it coincides with pendent action, but solely the clearing of the road to cialist whole matter would have a ring grees In 1928, rends as follows: party local branch.
ist International. adopted by the Con his sympathy with a Communist group Imagine a man who has expressed sectarianism from which it distinguishes itself sharply a fighting agreement or at least to the struggle for or comeds, it it didn have some politas the files of the Militant will show, in other features. Thanks to the strong apparatus, fighting agreement of the mass organizations. ical significance. will som up the whole once every two years.
The World Congress shall be convenelcoming to speak before a Socialist party to the material means of the Soviet state and to the The difference between the two lines is entirely ob matter as follows: local and ending his speech with the authority of the October revolution, the Stalinist bu vious. The joint struggle with the social democratic Why has this important point been reading of the declaration of Independ.
Watt and the Opposition reaucracy has been able, in comparatively calm per organizations can, and in its unfoldment it must, ascontemptuously ignored? Why has a perence The Declaration of Independence jods, to impose for a length of time artificial measures sume a revolutionary character. The possibility for true when yom accused me of trying to fresses should have been helt been alles in their fight against the capitalist You know yourself that it is not lod during which at least two World Con is not a guide of action for the workingof restraint upon the proletarian vanguard. But to the degree that the class strugglt condenses itself into must be paid for, under certain conditions, cven with ist wirty lwal. The first time that one is the statinis bururacy bent Which Party?
civil war, the bureaucratic prescriptions come into in parliamentary agreements at the top. But for a Bol hward of your speaking at the Socialist in destroying even the format existence You said before the. ineeting at the of the Communist International, Ithat the working class must organize creasing collision with unrelenting reality. Faced by shevik, this is merely the admission price. The Stalin: Slavie Hall wfore the Most. Hapgoo has been engaged in overtime work to politically into an organization to abolsharp turns in the situation, the arrogant and inflated ist bureaucracy acts in the opposite manner: it not meeting. when you yoursel told me, destroy st politienills and organization. In the capitalist system. But that asbureaucracy casily lands in a muddle. If it cannot command, it capitulates. The policy of the Thal maliciously destroys those agreements which arise matter wp after, the merting and you læt the Communist workers reflect on nund a program of action now and mann Central Committee in recent months will some from below. At the same time, it proposes to the agreed. At our meeting on Cook st. this vital question and join us in the de: WILAT PARTY. Do you believe propowed that you speak on the mining mund for the convening of the Seventh the workers should join the socialist day be studied as a model of the most pitiable and social democratie deputies parliamentary accorci. tation eru member of the left or World Congress of the Complutense de pares that accepte such men as Oscar Since the Third Period it was held to be inviolable its own ultra Leftist theory and praxis to be worth tion policy for the miners fight. You clerks, bureaucratically called together Germer, Jack Reid, etc, and which is that there could be no talk about agreements with the less; only it does not replace it with the policy of retured to do this saying that it is too and ordered about without any tent mart and parcel of the Second Interna social democracy. It was not only inadmissible to asrevolutionary Marxism but with an unprincipled par Yon maid that you would not support but a Leninist Congress, adequately pit correct leadership to the working class?
sume the initiative in the united front, as the Third liamentary combination in the spirit of the esser the communist party in the next elec. pared in advance with a previously mub or do you Helieve that the Lett Opposiand Fourth World Congresses taught but even pro evil.
tion because the party had nominated lished agenda to be discussed openly and tion, with comrade Trotsky as our leadposals for common actions canating from the social We will indeed be told, the Prussian and Hessian Poster in my opinion had a right to ask with the true selection of the delegation working clas? militant leader of the democracy had to be rejected. The reformist leaders are sufficiently exposed. The experience of the past episodes were a mistake of the deputies and were made you to speak as a member of the left and with the active participation of the working class always takes a decisive good again by the Central Committee. In the first opposition and on the policies of the Left Left Opposition. stand on all problems pertaining to the is sufficient. Instead of pursuing polities, the masses Without these condidtions, a World working class and am sure that you must be told history. To turn to the reformists with place, a decision so important in principle should not writion for the miners fight of the head a Congress would be an even worse tragi will do the same.
proposals means to acknowledge them capable of fight mistake falls back completely upon the latter as well, pretor of the left Orposition. The comedy than the recent Tlenums of Finally, don want yon to think that Left a Marxian which have passed like there is anything personal in this whole intoned the ear deafening melody of the ultra Leftist in the second place: how expain that the steel hard the first fundamental text of a Marxistship in the night, unnoticed unrerair. m not like the Stalinists. We ing. That alone would be Social Fascism, etc. Thus consistent. Bolshevist policy, after months of 18 Lunin at itis. membered.
both have gone through many battles as harrel organ in the last three four years. And look: blustering and screeching, of polemie, of vilification what rests the discipline of a The Seventh Congress of the Comin. frieuds and comrades for quite a number in the Prussian Landtag, the Communist fraction pro and expulsions, at once gives way at the critical mo volutionary party of the proletariat? tern must be convened immediately, in or years and know we will go through posed on June 22, unexpected by all and by itself, an ment to an opportunistic mistake. HOW IS IT TESTED? How is it rein the spirit of leniu and Trotsky. The many more, and so we can be frank and forced strengthenext? Firstly, hy agreement with the social dtmocracy and even with the the cowardly, fatal silence and indifference ask each other just where we stand pollBut the matter is not confined to the Landtag. Coniousness of the proletarian van of the bureaucracy must be broken. It tically. am, Center. The same thing was repeated in Hessen. In Yours for Ours, face of the danger that the Præsidium of the Landtag Thälmann Remmele have absolutely renounced them suard and by itx devotion to the revolu. can lie tolerated only at the cost or selves and their own school in a much more responsible on, by its stendiness, spirit of self dreadful calamity for world Communism JOSEPH ANGELO.
might fall into the hands of the Nazis, all the conand critical question. On the eve of July 20, the Censecrated principles ficw to the devil. Isn this astoundtral Committee of the Communist party adopted the ing? And isn it debasing?
foundation for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in Amerler, much stronger To explain these goat leaps, however, is not so dif following decision: than we lind in the first stage of the The Communist party, before the proletarian pubficult. As is known, many superficial liberals and Soviets in Iust after October. The radicals continue to joke their whole life long about lic, addresses to the to the and strength of the class dictatorship lays religion and celestial powers, only to call for a priest to the Afa Bund the question if they are prepared to the basis for the higher class democracy.
Class democracy and democracy under when they face death or serious illness. So also in carry out, together with the Communist party, the a ces society are two different politics. The mark of Centrism is opportunism. Un general strike for the proletariar demands. Continued from last Issue) What must our slogans drive at! Our things, just as capitalist democracy der the influence of external circumstances (tradition, This so important and unxpected decision was The needs of the Negro, Mulatto, Asta tactical slogans must coordinate the spe and workers democracy are the differmass pressure, political competition. Centrism is at made public by the Central Committee in its circular tic, Atexican and foreign born workers cial grievances of the class and of see ont expressions of different systems. In certain times compelled to make a parade of radical letter of July 26 without any commentary.
ism. For this purpose it must overcome itself, violate more annihilating judgment be made of its whole pre ward democratie temands, as in Russia, sloganx, our goal. The priciul forms of communism it is necessary to explain its political nature. By spurring itself on with all ceding policy? The approach to the reformist sum manels. Only by direct steps to socialist Negro, Asiate.
Mexican and forctau voru viets. Only in this manner can we really its strength, it not infrequently lands at the extreme bourne of formal radicalisin. But hardly does the terday declared to be social Fascist and counter we solve the problems of the American measures in the first stage of the com. sive al proper answer to the question of hour of serious danger strike than the true nature revolutionary. Because of this question Communists workers. It the proletarian revolution Ing revolution the roletarian Revolu. our Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
of Centrism breaks out to the surface. In so delicate were expelled. On this ground the struggle against do not more with freed towards social tion. The slogane Stalinism presents are On the continent it may be possible for not special tactical slogans buit program of the lever countries to overthrow a question as the defense of the Soviet Union the Trotskyism was conducted. How then was this ist demand we will be lost.
The exclusion of a bourgeois stage, no matie slogaus. They lead in the wrong its exploiters before we do. Unless we Stalinist bureaucracy always built much more upon the Central Committee suddenly able, at one stroke, on the matter how short, the first stage of direction give them support unequalled in bourgeois pacifists, English trade union bureaucrats eve of July 20, to bow before what it had the day be the Proloturlan Hevolution is made neces: Once we brush aside the wrong pro axt, the new Soviets will not be able and French radicals than upon the revolutionary movefore banished? And to what tragic state has the bursary by the dinleties of history. This grammatic slogans of Stalinism for the to hold out against the American imperment of the proletariat. Scarcely did an external reaucracy brought the party when the Central Com exclude and condemns the rond stalin coming American revolution we will be lalints. This does not mean that the theory danger approach than the Stalinists promptly sacri mittee could dare to come before it with its amazing this following in the United States able to procent to the ring tactical actionary, no revolutionary The party under Centrist leadership ad. slogans to coordinate the problems of must be advanced thant must not ficed not only their ultra Leftist phrases but also the decision without explaining or justifying it!
vital interests of the international revolution in the name of amity with uncertain and false friends from Committee of the German Communist Party in reality Governmuut. Agrarkuna revolutionem alle ell as other classes who will be our cats we cannot hold out. With proper demonstrated to the whole world on the eve of July 20: the South. National liberation of the The Left Omposition must lead the way the Moviet Union they can hold ont and heroes. United front from above? Under no circum Up to this moment our course was good for nothing. Negrouw in the South. Self determina in formulating the correct tractice was extend the revolntton. The struggle for stances! At the same time, however, the Top Com An involuntary but completely correct admission. Un onder ste Negrass in the South. etc. strategical probleme for the coming rev. power always means the struggle against missar for Ambiguous Affairs, Münzenberg by name, fortunately, even the proposal of July 20, which over the direction, not of a proletarian rev the wrong prograjnmatie slogans and then leluns war.
fished around after the coat tails of all sorts of liberal threw the preceding policy, could in no case yield a Solution, they are driving in the direction follow up with proper tactical slogant on the other hand, a successful revolu: jabberers and radical tripe for the defense of the positive result. An appeal to the summits independ of bourgeois first stage of the pro. lending in to the revolution.
tion in the United States will carry with National liberation The proletarian revolution in AmericaIt the continent, extending far down into ently of the present answer of these summits can be letarian revolution The Stalinist bureaucracy in Germany, like in every come of revolutionary significance only when it has and self determination for the colonies, will establish dictatorship. What win Latin America. This opens abroad etc. is another question entirely. be the form of the Soviets? It will not impertive and confirms the theory of other country except in the Soviet Union is ex been previously prepared from below, that is, when it Ini backward countries. Stalinism skins be a Workers and Farmers Govern the permanent revolution.
tremely dissatisfied with the compromising leadership is based upon the whole policy in its totality, But the over democratie demands and economic ment. It will not be the result of tion in the United States will However On this field, Thälmann, Foster and others would pre workers, day in and day out: We Communists re tion. The ches struksle toward revolu. form of the Soviets will right at the which will wipe on the capitalisticama slogan for the Uni.
fer to be radical. Yet in their own national affairs, ject any connection with the leaders (sec to face with the revolution in backward form of the Soviets established in Rusted states For a Proletarian Revoluevery one of them proceeds according to the same Antworten von Thälmann. The unprepared, un. entries it does not intend to establish sia in 1917. In Roman the overwhelmingtion Indx alrectly to extension of civil model as the Moscow authorities at the approach of expected, unmotivated proposal of July 20 was suit dictatorship of the Proletariat, but majority of the people are peasant and war on the continent and to the slogan serious danger they cast off the inflated, falsified able only for exposing the Communist leadership by the envie datorate to establish of Democra: in America the overwhelming majority of the All American Soviet republe.
If the Soviet Union can withstand the radicalism in order to reveal their true, that is, their revealing its inconsistency, lack of seriousness, incline tica Molectatorship of the Proletarlut and are workers. This reflects the interest stages of the two countries in economic coming storms, and the Left Opposition opportunistic nature.
tion to panic and adventuristic leaps.
In advanced capitalist countries Stal development. This lays the basis for must see to it that our fatherland does Was the initiative of the Communist Landtag frac The policy of the Centrist bureaucracy helps the inism swings to the other wrong extreme different forms Soviets. The exist in spite of the stranglehold Stalinism tion, as such, false and inadmissible? We don think adversary and enemy at every step. Even when the time back to what economic condi cnce of the Soviet Union is another pow. has on the world revolutionary so. The Bolsheviks more than once proposed to the mightly pressure of events drives a new hundred thou los have already surpassed and preerful factor favoring the coming rev. ment, we can say the world proletariat Mensheviks anda Social Revolutionists in 1917: Take sand workers under the Communist banner, it takes sents slogans that can only be classed olution in America. Workers Councils has before it not only the realization at the power, we will support you against the bourgeoisie place in spite of the Stalin Thalmann policy. Precisely not because olemdendocratic demands and will be established on a higher plane In the Soviet United States here Teatrope. com net if it should resist. Compromises are admissible and, because of this the coming day of the party is in no We are discussing programmatie sloof proletarian democracy at the start, but also of the World Soviet.
under certain conditions obligatory. The whole way assured. TROTSKY. gans, not tactical slogans. In this case, Our Soviets will lay a much stronger HUGO OEHLER.
On the Proletarian Revolution in the United States the The policy is tested upon such turns. The Centrale the following slogans for the the Negro race, the other subjected races, strike for power in these countrieshe move