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. Entered as second class mail matter, November 28, 1928 at the Post ofice at New York, under the act of March, 1879 VOLUME V, NO. 45 (WHOLE NO. 141 NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1932 PRICE CENTS LEON TROTSKY September Plenum of Emergency Number Class Against Class in the Presidential Elections in berea among those who love the mouw: The New March on Washington Hunger March in London OPEN FORUM are or Fight in Illinois Sharpens Some Fleeting Marginal Observations on the 12th Plenum We have found it impossible to issue the present number of the Militant as the special Double Anniversary Issue, commemorating the 15th Anniver1. The report on revolutionary strat the doctrine on the basis of Stalin sary of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution and the 4th Anniversary of the egy was read by Kuusinen. His role in letter. Poor purity! Poor doctrine! Poor launching of our Militant. The extraordinary difficulties encountered by us the Finnish revolution of 1918 shows hec. in the process of moving and re arranging our headquarters and printing Communist Vote Will Test the Policy of the Stalinists is just the right man to be the strategist equipment were to great to overcome in time; in addition, the extreme finanof the international proletariat.
17. Soviets are mentioned the cial hardship of the National Office added to the burdens. However, in order with The principle theses declare again, China and Spain. As to the other countheses in passing in connection not to break the continuity of the paper, we have made desperatae efforts to On November 8, millions of American the Communist ticket. An outstanding The relative stabilization of capitalism tries, in spite of the revolutionary perget out the present emergency number with only two pages.
workers will go to the polls to vote for example of this is the Illinois coal field has come to an end. In 1932? But didn spectives set up in the theses, soviets in This does not mean that the special issue we announced last week is not the next president of the United States. where the party was a power in the past.
the Sixth World Congress already speak to appear. Even though slightly delayed, we intend to make the next number Millions of these workers will cast their Now the socialist party is running wild of the end of the stabilization? The Tenth the slogan of soviets is not raised before general are not mentioned in particular of the Militant sufficiently enlarged to carry all the material we announced votes for the parties of reaction. Millions through here. This is the reaction to Plenum of the of the propreviously, and more. Just as this goes to press we have received a number of other workers, the most exploited and the Stalinist policies.
the German proletariat. It is not dirclamed the third period. that is to say, ficult to find the explanation. In Ger.
of highly timely articles from comrade Trotsky, including a lengthy study of subjected will not go to the polls. These We at least know one thing that the the period which leads directly to the many as in the majority of advanced the present position of Soviet economy in the period of the Second Five Year millions who stay away from the polls election will not solve accumulating proletarian insurrection. Now we are Plan, an article on the significance of the expulsion of Zinoviev, Kamenev and are the disfranchized American Workers contradictions piling up upon the ruling countries, real soviets can only be creat told without any comment that In normal periods, the bulk of the Negro class and their henchmen. The workers others, as well as a shorter article on the 15th anniversary of the seizure of the stabilization of capitalism has again come ed on the basis of a broad and audacious power in Russia by the workers and peasants. We shall make every efforts to masses of the south are denied this must be told to vote Communist. The to an end. That makes how many times? slogan of soviets cannot be reconciled united front policy. Ultimatism and the include in the next issue the maximum possible amount of this material, bourgeois liberty by legal and illegal workers must be told that our class so.
together with various articles on the significance of four years of struggle of means of brutal supression. Millions of lution is through the proletarian revolu3. As to China, it says. The soviet with each other. By renouncing the the e Left Opposition and the Militant in this country. It goes without saying foreign born workers, who have not yettion.
revolution has triumphed over a largo united ifront, the Stalintats renounce the that the usual material on the development of the class struggle in this and obtained their papers, because of the part of its territory. revolution can soviets.
other lands will also be included.
special discrimination are prevented be bourgeois or proletarian. Which of TROTSKY But to make sure of the issue, we require the speediest assistance from from voting, yet these millions are numthe two tare we to understand in the all our comrades and friends. This means financial aid, sent quickly, by air present instance? Why does the Prinkipo, Oct. 13, 1932.
mail from every part of the country. We need it urgently! Do not delay!
useful and basic work under the capitalist cover the class content of the revolution system.
with its soviet form?
Workers Vote Cut Down The new world imperialist war The National Committee of the Unemhas become an immediate danger. The The laws dealing with election right ployed Councils of the United States has Sixth World Congress already had de.
are so complicated and exclusive, with adopted a plan for a National Hunger clared the danger of war to be immediate. British Working Masses Make New Turn Towards the Left poll tax in some states and other qualific. March on Washington to reach the caFor over four years (the of the ations that the unskilled and semi skilled pital on December 4, when Congress THE RESULTS OF THE millions of workers are has been repeating the same formula in For the first time since the general in these unemployment demonstrations, automatically convenes. The plan call for 000 elected any case, it is closer to a reality now than strike of 1926 workers of Great Britain it appears that it is making some proeliminated.
ELECTION delegates composed of workers from in 1928. But exactly what does the word have again begun to stir. There is an gress toward Leninist tactics. This we In addition to this, the crisis and every state in the union. All working immediate mean in the language of the upward surge of masses struggling in welcome. But such a gain, and it will mass unemployment have broken up the class organizations are invited to elect earnest, their demands seriously meant, become an important gain for the party, Speaker: homes of additional millions, who will not delegates.
be qualified to vote. The Communist On the march, demonstrations The Communist Parties are under and with all indications at hand that the in order to be fully and securely conso HUGO OEHLER Party will also be unable to get on the planned for every city along the route.
the obligation of opposing real strugcompelling force of economic necessity, lidated. first of all requires correct ballot in many important states, includin Washington the Council will holda which has increased in momentum estimation of the last great struggles of gles against the war preparations to the. Friday, November 11, 1932 ing some important industrial states. All Workers Congress, draw up demands abstract and hypocritically pacifist dec. through the shifting rule of the Conserv. the strike of 1926, the policy of the Anglothis this summed up, plus the stealing which they will present to Congress. After larations of the social democracy. That ative government to Labor and back Russian committee and its contribution and counting out of Communist votes will this another Congress will be held to 126 East 16 Street, not enable us to have an accurate picture determinine the next step.
no less abstract and no less hypocritical pelling these masses definitely in a Lect. decline of the Communist Party. Given near Irving Place declarations of the Congress of Amsterof the motion and direction of the work. The plan is to win winter relief from ward direction. Unquestionably the such an estimation, some important ob.
ADMISSION: 150 whole capitalist structure of the British stacles in the road of the Communist ing class unless these factors are taken local and federal government.
dam? It is remarkable: not a word on kingdom will soon stand before its most Party much more effectively asserting its into consideration.
The first march on Washington was Auspices: On the other hand, a more accurate organized around the campaign for the lution. Are they already ashamed of affirmed that the objective factors are class struggle in England, destined to be. Br. Communist League of America ered by the November election. The cond march on Washington does trend of the other classes can be regist. Unemployed Insurance Bill. The setheir own child?
not beginning to mature rapidly for a serious of gigantic propositions, will have been (Opposition) The theses give learned definitions Communist movement within the isles. removed.
Imbankers are putting their eggs in more feature Unemployment Insurance.
than one basket. Hoover and Roosevelt mediate Relief is to replace Unemployof the different forms of fascism. They Dramatic have been the accounts of. A, Bay. The social. fascists prefer the mothese recent struggles. Following shorthave the backing of the imperialist who ment Insurance as the main central derate and legal application of bourgly upon the determined flights want to play safe, knowing a shift to the slogan.
coming left will be registered in the eois violence. they defend its democraThis is a change in emphasis which in thousands of unemployed workers in tic facade and try to keep as much as Belfast, other thousands from Scotland, election.
itself can be explained by the pressing possible of its parliamentary forms. Wales and other points began convergThe big capitalists of America have importance of the need of immediate Now we understand. square is a ing upon London to lend emphasis to their sectional Interests within their class relier. What cannot be justified 1st but this interest is in no way menaced by shift in emphasis that means the exclu.
grow.
the election of Roosevelt instead of sion of the other immediate demands.
right angles.
ing misery and As to France, they say that while ticularly for the abolishment of the the means SPRINGFIELD.
Automatic Connection the and the revolutionary trade vicious capitalist measure The yellow uniformed state police are the middle class protest vote is sufficient to dislodge the latter.
unions have been weakened, to make up test. The actual rulers of the City The class struggle in the Illinois coal bis, portly fellows with muggy faces, The resolutions sent out by the Council for it a strong revolutionary movement and their lackeys at Downing Street knew field is as sharp as the crack of the rifles some of them former union officials. Position of Middle Class to be endorsed, coordinate the demand against war has been developed. But only one method how to meet this in. in the hands of the imported gunmen, the shady characters, sluggers. They know for immediate relief with the demand for vasion. and that they employd. Scotland state militia or the state police which in the underworld, the gangsters that work The middle class has shown the great. unemployment insurance, but the campmovement against war, when the prole Yard was kept busy enrolling special the last few weeks sent their deadly for Al Capone, ete. The state police was est confusion in the pre election days. aign itself is void of this relationship.
tarian vanguard has been weakened, necessarily becomes a petty bourgeois moThe fight for immediate demands in the police forces. Thousands were put on missiles into the bodies of unarmed created during the post war open shop Most of the middle class have shifted vement and becomes transformed to the miners and their women folks.
drive to fight the unions and now that their support from Hoover to the left. form of immediate relle does not lead benefit of reformist pacifism.
ployed masses to present their petition Who are the heroes hailed by the ca. the miners of Illinois are putting up a Many of the middle class are of the automatically to the fight for social and to parliament they were met with savage pitalist press?
militant fight for their new union, the opinion that Roosevelt is to the Left of unemployment Insurance as some of the The German is advised to attacks and clubbings. Scores upon strengthen its struggle against natio. scores were wounded and other scores Are they the men and women of the state police are ably fitted for the Lewis. Hoover and will vote according. This also party functionaries think.
If the class is put in motion on the nalism and chauvinism for proletarian rushed off to jail with the old and staid mining camps, led by the Progressive that led the miners during the West class. The Jingo, Hearst, with his middle basis of the struggle for immediate reller internationalism. That is right. But machinery of Justice geared up to a high. Miners Union, who face with their bare Frankfort march into the nest of Lewis class outfit. are in the Roosevelt band. and when this fight is well under way how about the program of national er speed meeting out heavy prison sen.
hands the forces of Peabody state gov. gangsters. There the marching miners wagon we move to the next stage of directing beration. tences.
ernment armed with every device or were pounced upon by the Lewis gangst.
Other layers of the middle class are the energy of the class toward social and The duty is placed before the PoBut in these fierce battles, which semodern warfare, who gave their livesers, black jacked right and left, kicket rallying behind the Socialist candidate, unemployment insurance, and so on, lish of destroying the influence or veral times turned historie Trafalgar that Lewis is be smashed and that the and stabbed, while the yellow uniformed Norman Thomas, and a layer, led by the until we move for power, we will never labor movement be stronger?
the Socialist Party on the masses. and Square into a bedlam. the unemployed state police stood by, ready to use their intellectuals has endorsed Foster and arrive. Instead we will be somewhere No, the heroes of the capitalist press clubs and guns in case the striking mi.
Ford, the Communist Candidates. The along the wayside in the swamp. This of overcoming its weaknesses in the workers gave a good account of them selves.
majority of the middle class will divide is the concept of the social reformer.
are the well armed gunmen hired by the ners should get the upper hand.
big works, among the railroad men, in their vote between Roosevelt and Norman The baton wielders carried off some coal operators, the state militia and the the army. No advice could be simpler If the Marxist, the Commmunist revoof the cars and received later a generous state police who club and murder at the And this gang is supported by the state Thomas.
lutionist does not connect these different destroy the enemy and become all pow.
their herole effort orders of the capitalists of Minois.
The agrarian division of the middle immediate demands properly and at the erful Kuusinen forgets only to show how extra vacation Brave men these. The capitalist pressployed workers who do not realize to class the reformers par excellence of the same time connect them with the ultimto do it.
in rescuing the allkhatted theatre crowds.
Thus while the workers are learning the is able to report that one was hit by alwhat use they are actually being put. pastís. up in arms with pitchforks ate goal the other parties of reaction and 10. For Spain, the advice is to strive art of effective resistance above all it stone and one had a finger slashed. Many of them had not yet time to learn against Hoover and the monopolists, with reform will beat us to our next step toward the dictatorship of the proleta can be said that the general lessons of Out of Society Gutter that they really belong on the side of the their holiday movement and farmers and we will find ourselves two steps riat and the peasantry under the form of the London demonstrations will serve as But ask the striking miners on the miners, and so, under the mask of strike. The farmer has shifted to the back.
Soviets. How this regime is different additional experiences gained which will picket lines and they will tell you that protecting law and order and the Left in the present crisis and the Ro.
The party has its eye on Washington, from the dictatorship of the proletariat count in future developments.
these heroes have been of the popula carrying out the filthy work of the coal. polling a goodly share of this discontent. In the factories. First we had the march recruited from sacredness of private property they are osevelt forces are counting heavily on even more than it has its activity rooted is not explainedas usual.
That these unemployment demonstra.
the underworld, that part Roosevelt has been busy with the stunt on Washington with the Unemployment 11. For England. as incidentally for tions are not mere isolated affairs be tion composed of gangsters thieves, murd. operators erers, etc. who are now very active in of straddling as many classes as possible. Insurance Bill, then we had the party all the other countries, the advice is to comes further clear from other develop The state police and the state militia promising everything in words that will side tracking everything for the Bonus realize the united front from below. In mente. Last summer a powerful trying to crush the Progressive Miners the has again approved the renunc. 000 spinners have struck in protest of an unionism among the winers of Illinois pickets. They see that the pickets carry bankers the day after the election ifto Washington for Winter Relief. If other words, the Plenum of the or weavers strike in Lancashire, New 200 Union and wipe out by open struggle all have a free hand against the striking be so many after dinner jokes of the Army in Washington, and now we return no weapons, while (Continued on page 2)
their new officex boy.
railroad workers have persistently refus. fits into this like a head into a body.
Communist work in the industrial field.
As for the workers, everyone knows the trade unions, etc. it could be unders12. For Manchuria. it is proposed to ed to accept a wage cut. But there is that layers of the class will vote for the tood, but when this parliamentary activity create, on the basis of the guerrilla war. also another aspect of recent events parties of reform and reaction, and overshadows the more basic work, the an elected popular government. which deserves notice. In the municipal mainly the parties of reaction. The im outcome will be known in advance no democratic slogan? Why is it given 80 elections just concluded the votes cast portant question to consider is just to matter how excellent the demonstravaguely? Why only for Manchuria? Why clearly show a new swing toward the is it not applicable to all China? Labor party. Bearing in mind the in.
In the Militant of October 22 we wrote, bureaucrats categorigally refuse to ac what degree these layers have shifted to ctions turn out to be.
creasing reactionary turn of the ruling about the appeal of thirty Greek work cept us into the ranks of the Spartacus the Loft? What has caused them to stop their first steps in our direction.
13. The Indian is assigned the class since the conservatives replaced ers in New York to the Spartacus Club Club we, as revolutionary workers, can on the way side? What has repelled them the party must connect Hunger task of liberating the masses from the the labor party at the government helm. for reinstatement. Also that comrade any longer stand with our hands folded from a further Loftward shift and how March on Washington for immediate influence of the National Congress. But this voting of course, glves further evidBrass was not allowed to protest the but wish ardently to participate in the can we dislodge this resting place relief with the campaign for social and at the same time, the of the fraternizes with Patel through the Amst. ward direction.
ence to the present working class Latt high handed and shameful method of actual work of the class struggle. To between reaction and revolution Reform. unemployment insurance, for long term suppressing the correspondence of the achieve this we propose the foundation The important question for us to solve credits to the Soviet Union, for the Sixerdam Congress and artificially increases The objective results of such a swingclub. The Executive Committee ignored ot an Educational Organization which is what the new relationship of classes hour day and the five day week with no the authority of the National Congress. of voting toward the labor party is as reflected by the vote? Just how far reduction in pay. The activity as a whole 14 In the organizational field, the The Communist party entered a number however, an entirely different matter, that they are determined to continue the tion was unanimously carried. The meet has the shift to the Left developed? How must rest upon solid class foundations in splitting tactics that were followed in ing lasted for five hours and drafted successful have the parties of reform and the mines, mills and factories, in the Plenum advises the resolute liquidation Every worker partiel. reaction been? How successfully have unions, the other workers organizations of pure and simple command. etc. This whom received sufficient votes. In the the Temporary Unitary Committee of the pated in the discussion and very prud our policies accelerated this process? Or and on the basis of the Leninist United of the excessive centralism, the system of candidates in these elections, none of the past. Last Wednesday, October 26 its constitution sense of this comparison, which is fun. club called the workers that signed the ently on account of their bitter ex advice does not sound bad from the how negatively have the wrong Stalinist Front.
mouth of the of the which for damental for future development, it appeal to a meeting where a comrade for perience with Stalinism they were anx policies and program repelled this Left The Commmunist Duty ward shift! All these questions are We must make the hunger march on the fifth year now has iled to must be aknowledged that while the the Committee the results of its efforts ious to see that every point to safeguarundamental ones. Not a Stalinist vic Washington a success, not a demonstra for unity. motion was proposed that against bureaucratic abuses, should be International Congress and commands by British workers are being pressed Loft usurping the name of the International outright capitalist party, this direction ward into opposition to the rule of the reads as follows: Since the Stalinist passed. motion was carried to issue tory of counting the gains mechanical. tion without a base, which will mean another appeal to the Spartacus membly compared to the last election without a shell without content. We must fight 15. The of the insists. still lacks so much in essential clarity ers and the Greek workers for the unifica. taking into consideration the shift in for the Marxian program in the unemclass forces and new relationship and ployment activity as presented in the that the Communist Youth be transform that it can today be utilized to advantage International Workers School tion of our revolutionary forces.
ed into a genuine mass organization.
by the traitors of 1926 and of the period chicken dinner will be served for ideological changes.
unemployment resolution of the ComMagnificent advice. But why of the Labor government. But this also only 40 cents. The Committee is promis.
Entertainment do the Socialist Advances munist League of America. We must ing a variety of entertainment. The date see that the march becomes the culminayouth organizations vegetate and decay compels us to aknowledge the fact that in spite of all the advice of Kuusinen the British Communist Party has not yet is fixed for November 12, next Saturday The inability of the Stalinists to un tion, not of demonstrations from city to Just because they have not been freed attained to a leading role in the general Saturday, Nov. 19. p.
evening, and the place will be the Headderstand the tactic of the united front city (a necessary part) but of UNITED quarters of the International Workers not only in their present activity but in FRONT UNEMPLOYED COUNCILS from his advice.
There is suffvient evidence to judge 126 East 16th Street School, 126 16th Street. The pro all fields of activity has cut from under activity of employed unemployed 16. In conclusion, the theses advise from a distance that the Communist party ceeds will go to the support of the Club us a broad base of workers who will vote workers, based upon a Marxian program nne and all to struggle for the purity of was a very active and a leading force Watch for further announcements and our Greek organ Communistes. the soclallst ticket this year instead of for unemployment. HUGO OEHLER Greek Workers Organize New Club an