WORKERS OF THE WORLD.
UNITE THEMILITANT Weekly Organ of the Communist League of America Opposition Published weekly by the Communist League of America (Opposition) at 128 East 16th Street, New York, Entered as second class mall matter, November 28, 1928 at the host office at New York, under the act of March, 1879 VOLUME V, NO. 51 (WHOLE NO. 147 NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1932 PRICE CENTS Million to Be Expelled! THE MILITANT MUST Ala. NegroCroppers Resist White Terror Pitched Battle Between Posse Negroes Unite to Smash the Trade Union Racketeers!
The New Stalinist Plan for «Purging the Russian Party Ranks BE SAVED!
The New York Times of December 27, prevent it from sturing the party in 30 informs us in Moscow dispatch from promiscuous and indiscriminate a man. An Appeal of the National Committee of the League Watter Duranty, the correspondent ner as to burst its firmness, its mobility, whose services it commands in partner. its vanguard character. Particularly 10 ship with the Stalinist apparatus, of a recent years, this plebiscitary decomposto To all Members of the League, selves from the bourgeoisie, to tell new event impending in the Soviet Union of the party has taken on the most To all Friends and Comrades of the the truth to the Communist so that ion.
disastrous forms. The working force of MILITANT!
they may be able to liberate them Nearly million members of the whole factories. composed in large part Our weekly organ THE MILITANT, selves from the physical and intelCommunist purty may be deprived of of backward workers whom 17 18 years is now in the greatest danger it has lectual strangulation of Stalinist their membership rights in the coming of world war and two revolutions did not experienced for more than a year. Centrism. If the voice of THE MILImonths, when Joseph Stalin follows the impel to join the party. was obliged to Unless drastic mesures are taken TANT, which never compromises The attempt to seize the mule and, ing, by torturing and murdering blu iu example set by Lenin and purges the enter the party by purely administrative Immediately, the success we have had with unprincipledness, fraud and cow of a Negro share cropper in Nota. accordance with the principles of Judge organization of undesirable elements. means. In this whole job of eliminating thus far in maintaining the weekly revisionism, with the bureaucracy, sulga, Tallapoosa County, Alabama, and Lynch. The uurelenting persistance The party itself has a little more than the vanguard character of the party, will end with its collapse. Through and adventurisais silenced even the armed conflict between the harrass which the Southern Bourbons have shown 3, 000, 000 members. The party las e. of eliminating that feature which out the country our friends have for a week, wide gap is left in ed croppers the legall mob in preserving this barbaric system of grown too fast, and many of its mem makes it the party of the proletariat, continued to make brave and gener the continuity of the revolutionary that attacked them, brings to the fore virtual enslavement of the Negro, is ac.
pers, though loyal, are undisciplined the stalinist auratus has been careful ous efforts to sustain us in the work struggle we are carrying on for infront all the horrors and misery of the counted for by the fact that the emanMany, though loyal and disciplined, are to strengthen its own bureaucratic posi of publishing our paper regularly. ternational Bolshevism.
Negro throughout the notorious Black cipation of the millions of colored toilers ignorant amb unfit for the leadership to tion. For to the same degree that the But the unrelieved erbasis has had That is why no stone must be left Belt in the South. At least three of in the South is equivalent to the end of which linin destined them. Some are party was being dissolved into the class, effects. The regular income telling not even loyal and have broken discip the upper stratum of the party dissolved unturned in the campaign we have the band of Negro croppers who gathered white capitalist domination.
of THE MILITANT is today too low launched to save the MILITANT! in the home of Clifford James to defend line. Only today the wpaper Pravda the bonds which connected it with the to make possible ils unhampered apSuffering most acutely from the nightThe National Committee of the Com him from the mob of armed deputies, are mare of Southern capitalist democracy, reports the expulsion and arrest of nine party ranks, and raised itself above and pearance. What is required for this munist League of Amrelca (Opport known to be dead; several are wounded.
Communists, Ukrainian district leaders, beyond them.
purpose is a number of special con tion) has set aside the next two As was the case in the Camp HIII, Ala are the Negrous engaged in sharecrop who had made common cause with the tributions which we can obtain only months for a concentrated national bama, affair a year and a half ago, the ping. The leasing of land, and somekulak enemy, and there are similar cases Dissolving the Party from our comrades and sympathizers. campaign to collect a special fund of attack was courageously resisted by the times also of mechanical equipment or from the Caucasus to Siberia. In 1921, live stock, to the croppers, is mid for For all of this the proletarian dicta The seriousness of our position 1, 000. 00, apart from the regular inassembled Negroes, who were finally by them in the form o of it portion of the when Lanin purged the party, wolver in Torship is paying a beavy price today.
should be obvious to all. For the come of the organization, to guano compelled to submit in the presence of crop they garner. The system is strongsheep clothing, the blind leading the The idea conceived in the distorted mind first time this year we have been tee the an overwhelming hostile force recruited blind, be called them, and Stalin will of the bureaucrat that a socialistically ly reminiscent of the dark feudul ages.
Weekly appearance of compelled to omit two of the regular the Margar the whole per from the entire country for miles around it places the cropper at the mercy of follow his hard example.
planned cconomy could be carried out issues of THE MILITANT, as well lol of the campaign, this question and even outside the county limits.
The gratuitous reference to Lenin was in purely administrative the white landlord from whom he can mcans, by 16 to print a half size edition of two must remain Point One at the top As a sequel to the Notasutga battle, scarcely ever liberate himself. The lisundoubtedy furnished Duranty by the command, and without the direct and other numbers. THE MILITANT is of the agenda of every unit of the the International Labor Defense office ing conditions of the croppers, lowest in linison officer in the Stalinist AgitProp genuine participation, the real control, the principal weapon in our fight and organization. It must be kept in department. For in reality, there is no the real initiative of the masses which whenever it is weakened, the effee mind as the matter of paramount ment practically destroyed; while Alice scribable. They are constantly, and natural connection between the purging can be assured only under a regime of tiveness of the whole Opposition in Importance by every friend of the Burke, the wife of the South more often than not, increasingly inof the party carried through in Tenin workers democracy has proved to be the United States is weakened. This Left Opposition. And above all, meern organizer, was arrested a short time debted to the landlord, who robs them day and the one being planned today, in false to the roots and pernicious in its blow has already been felt througla tion taken now, with speed, is doubly afterward in the home of a white work which nu estimated third of the kirly consequences. This necessary workers of their already scanty income not only out the country and we are confident important! Our need at the present er of East Lake, Alabama, where a pro by the cropper contract which puts membership is to be expelled.
democracy must start in the party, which that all energies will now be bent to moment is most acute, and every test meeting was being held.
the Negro in the hands of the landAn Involuntary Admission leads the class. But that is precisely make impossible a repetition of the measure must be taken with this in The Bourbon System owner, but also by fantastic prices retreat.
where the trouble lies. The party, shot mind.
The fact that the Negroes involved charged at the latter food and clothing The mere observation that in the six through with alien elements, is hacked THE MILITANT has fixed a distinct We look forward two months did not meekly submit to the arrogant commissary.
teenth year of the Bolshevik revolution, to bits. Its restoration as party, place for itself in the revolutionary of systematie, organized activity to demands of the white landlords and one third of the party membership must pulxing, breathing, thinking, acting and labor movement. It is to lay the put the campaign over the top, to their armed posse, is of tremendous sigThe Negro Stand Their Ground be turned out, is itself a crushing in controlling its executives, is the burn.
only paper in the United States which raise the thousand dollar fund, and nificance. Ever since the end of the When there is added to this the fact dictment of the whole system introduced ing need of the moment.
fights unremittingly for those funda thereby to make the MILITANT Ininto the party by the Stalinist appar letter from Moscow, Civil War, the bourgeoisie of the South that cotton, the principal cash money written toniental principles of Marx, Engels, dependent of the crisis which has has put at the very spearhead of its croy in the Black Belt has been hit atus.
wards the end of November, will serve Lenin and Trotsky which enabled struck it with such violence policy the determination to keep the terrific blows by the crisis, the desperaHow did Lenin carry through the to give an insight into the real situation: the Russian Bolsheviks to lead the We express the common opinion of Negro submerged as far as possible, to tion of the Negro share croppers may be cleansing of the party during his period Yes, many things have changed in re proletariat to power, which were em every Oppositionist when declare: inculculate in him the spirit of subeer easily imagined. No wonder that in of leadership The key to the situation cent weeks. The dominant feature of bodled in the foundation and build The MILITANT is in danger! The viency and non resistance, to impress spite of the tremendous forces the landat that time as well as to Lenin ap the situation remains the shaking of the ing up of the Communist Interna MILITANT must be saved! Shoul him with the absurd, unfounded, reac lords have at their disposal, the Negroes proach to the problem is indicated by personal position of Stalin. The gentional, in restoring the goal of the ders to the wheel, Leit Oppositionists! tionary theory of Negro Inferiority. in the South are beginning, for the first his famous proposal that nine tenths or cral secretary has lost all standing international social revolution to its National Committee, The whole social and political system time in years, to stand their ground the Mensheviks and Social Revolution among his own supporters. On the other rightful place of preeminence in the. Communist League oferected around these ideas has been bol against the arbitrary, tyrannical enists who joined the Bolshevik party of hand, we are happy to observe how the working class movement. THE America (Opposition. stered up by Jim Crowing, the Negro, cronehments upon their already suttil ter the revolution, should be expelled standing of Trotsky is growing MILITANT alone is in a position to disfranchizing him in every conceivable ently miserable living conditions.
forth with! The difference now is that in the political circles and among the speak out what is in reality, to tell All funds should be sent immedi manner, keeping him on the lowest rung Stalin has been carrying through the advanced proletarian strata. Those who the truth to the workers so that ately to the militant, 126 East 16th of the economic ladder, and, to impress Camp Hill and Notasulga of symbolic purgings at the other end.
were once his most embittered crities are they may be able to emancipate them Street, New York, him with the advisability of not resist significance. No longer does there exist Under the Centrist regime, the bureau becoming, in many Instances, his warma progressive bourgeoisie in the North which is compelled to grant at least cracy has been swelled to enormous pro est partisans. We could cite many exformal recognition to the rights of the portions. Into its ranks have been in amples in the capitals. Many of those jected all the Menshevik clements who who fought him, who approved of his Negroes, in the interests of their own fight for liberation from the hampering discovered the Bolshevik revolutionextle, admit today that a great future fetters of after it was already firmly established is opening up to him, his ideas and his slave owning aristocracy.
The shots fired by a member of the The Meaning of the Shooting in union democracy and the conversion of The union of the Southern Bourbons and the organiwers and leaders of the revolu ont end over his new works, his view which sent to the hospital two of its and consequently respectable. whereas companions. Others are disturbed with. Waiters Union, Local of New York, the unions into class struggle organiza the Northern republicans into a reactiontion and the Cominternt have been simpoints, etc. Believe us, this tells more business agents, brings sensationally to Waiters Local, No. tions instead of class collaborationism ary foancial oligarchy, has long ago ultaneously ejected from the party. For than all which invites racketeering these are the been accomplished. From thut source, the official panegyrics for the forefront one of these running sores the Trotskys, Rakovskys, Muralovs and Stalin.
which has made the American sticks of dynamite which will blow the the Negro can look for anything but Sosnovskys who were expelled from the The purging proposed by Stalin 18 movement unique in the entire world. beyond the dreams of many present day underworld leeches out of the labor support or comfort. But not much more party, the Stalin machine substituted aimed at consolidating his own badix The publicity attendant upon the shoot. kings. quintessential prerequisite support will the cruelly exploited Negro for this is the restoration of the Left get from the petty bourgeolale, his own Martinov, Saslavsky, Rafos to say noth that the party does not require a cleansing brought to public view the followThe Sam Kaplans, the Frank Commer wing in the unions, where it was once not excepted. The Negro petty bourgeing of the bourgeois sabotagers like ing. It does, and it must be a drastic ing facts: fords, the Big Tim Murphys, the make a growing force, commanding respect and olsle is in that peculiar position where Ramzin, Croman, Kondratiev and Co. one. It must run from top to bottom.
it actually thrives on the segregation and Coincidental with this process and in It must commence with the fulfillment for the business agents to charge workers world gangster crew who have bullied The fact is that the socalled socialist is why its interests are so intimately asIt has been the custom in this union Boyles and all the rest of the under making for progress.
Jim Crowing of the black toiler! That sepserable from it, the party has been of lenin last advice to the party, the anywhere from 100. 00 up to be placed their way to the top of whole sections unions are not very greatly distinguish sociated with these of the ruling bour systematically dissolved into the class advice that it should find ways of re on a job, in agreement with the petty of the labor movement with the sided in this respect for many others. To geoisie. That is why it continuously as a whole, reluced inert mass. When the Opposition de ship the man whom he qualified as rude racketeers a portion of the tax imposed can be thrown back into the cutters which is deouring thor vitals is a Uncle Tom banderchier on its head, letarian composition of the party be de. The party must be purged indeed licitly upon the worker desperate for whence they came only if the masses task which every worker CAD foin in the symbol of the fawning slave who mauded from 1024 onwards that the pro and disloyal: Stalin.
a job. short time after the worker of the workers affected are organized to carrying out.
strer ened, the never fights back.
And the purging must commence with had parted with his money, and aucracy ob put them out. While the struggle is no raised a hue aud cry against it on the the removal of Stalin and the bureau tained the job, he found himself dis easy one, as has been demonstrated on This leaves the Negro of town and grounds that the party would be swelled cratic crust which has strangled the charged by the boss, in cahoots with the more than one occasion, it is the only SEND YOUR CONTRIBUTORS TO country only one way out of the purgainto a huge membership. This did not party!
labor officials, who promptly proceeded way out. The establishment of trade SAVE THE MILITANT tory in which they are confined. The to start the game all over again with Negro tenant and cropper of the South some other worker. While the jobs were cannot lead and organize the movement rotated in this ingenolous manner, the Cor liberation; they can, however, contri workers were being separated from vast bute (as they have) all the pasalon of sums of money which found their way the wronged, the strength at their cominto the bank accounts of the union mand, the heroism they have already disLeft Opposition Launches Vanguard as Monthly in Toronto skates, The Stalinist Policies Fail to Meet the Test of the Situation played. But at the head of the columns marching to victory must stand the class The sufferings of the union membera new achievement for the interna, that region. In addition, the Left op In viewing the relationship of the ployment insurance, to focus attention corisclous, machine organized, urban prosystem may be tional luft Opposition is represented by position is engaged in work among the under this atrocious anda, The Vanguard. For several years published the second number of their celt impelled to veut bis desperation by the recente Antibes cast of the events at convention, to expose the AP of it will stand there. When it bien really the Canadian Commuvist movement was magazine, The Spark.
shooting at the two most notorlous pro Dor Convention, one specific feature son of the trade unions on this issue. not find the Southern Negroes wanting.
more or less isolated from the world The first issue of the Vanguard (which steers.
stands out strikingly. And for the thinkwido jaurty and the struggle begum can be obtained at cents a copy from The class conscious worker is not the ing worker there should be little dif come down from its lofty perch of the the vast inflammable material in the at round the problems raised by the Left Box (3, Toronto, Ont. Canada. 18 partisan of methods of individual ter ficulty in drawing conclusion. We third period dogma, from the revolution: South which can be ignited to burn to Opposition did not find immediate echo devoted iargely to the Russian revolu rorism. While we do not go into its have for some time, been faced with an ary upsurge of the American workers the roots the bestial rule of oppression.
in Canada. It was only after the public tion anniversary. Besides some timely of hysterical horror we leave that to unemployment situation pressing so to speak to the F of about unem Sn.
declaration in favor of the Opposition articles from the recent writings of the liberal friends of the labor move acutely upon the working class that the ployment Insurance. From an advenissued by the chairman and co founder comrade Trotsky, there are contributions ment we are aware that the incubus of Green bureaucracy found itself compel turist position which had no foundation of the party, comrade Maurice Spector, and editorials on the most important labor racketeering, like all the mani led to execute hange of front. The in reality to dragging entirely at the that the Left wing received its first orquestions of the Canadian labor and re festations of class rule and labor explot. AF of became committed, though so rear of events. This is the sum and ganized form. In recent times, the pre olutionary movement of beartening tation, cannot be solved by individual far only on paper, to the important substance of its recent course. But be OPEN FORUM liminary ground work done with the significance is the article by comrado attacks. They are at best the futile act measures of unemployment Insurance fore the rank and file convention had aid furnished by the Militant and the Bill Matheson, former head of the Am of desperation which ignores (and some and the six hour work day without re even gathered, the hidebound reactiondistribution of comrade Trotsky works erican Unemployed movement and active times evades) the imperative need of duction of pay. Yet the revolutionary arles of the F of had luas borne fruit in the forward spurt Communist party militant in the mine setting into motion the masses of those party had no direct influence in produc framed their insurance policy and, in Will Social Reformism that the Canadian Opposition has ex fields of two countries. In it he submits who suffer injury and Injustice. The ing this change.
addition, made rendy for the six hour perienced. Several months ago, the move the party trade union policy to search assassination of this or that king of The best proof of this fact is furnish day proposal. The rank Alle conven Grow in the ment was strengthened by the addition ing criticisin and shows how telling has Europe never brought about the abolied by the party own actions Thero tion theretore became entirely overof comrade Jack MacDonald who was been the view of the Left Opposition. tion of monarchism. It was abolished, assembled in Cincinnati, at the same shadowed by the of action. It for years secretary of the party and we have every reason to believe that however, when the masses rose in a time as the AF of gathering, rank exposed primarily its own backwardmost prominent spokesman for Commun our Canadian comrades have only made social revolutionary movement against and file convention for unemployment in ness.
ism in the country. Since then, the Op a beginning which augure well for the that decadent system, as happened in surance. It was sponsored by the off There is on the other hand, at least, Speaker: position in Toronto has gained considerenture. We look forward with confid 1917 in Russia, in 1918 in Germany and cial party, but, of course, without any a compensating feature in the fact that ably in membership and prestige, and ence to encouraging progress that will in 1931 in Spain. On a smaller scale, apparent formal connection. It had up the F of convention action had HUGO OEHLER extended the sphere of its activities in carry our revolutionary banner to every the same rule applies to the petty mon to 200 delegates in attendance, a few already served to influence the party the trade union movement and among working class militant in Canada. árehs of the American trade union move of them officially elected by F of Lviews somewhat. Party speakers are the unemployed workers who have our heartiest wishes go to our Can ment, who have fixed themselves to it union locals. Its purpose was, as in beginning to use the term class collacreated a fairly claborate movement in adian comrades in arms!
like leeches exercising at times a power dicated by its name, to fight for unem. Continued on page 8)
December 30, 1932 128 East 16 Street, ADMISSION: 15e SATURDAY DECEMBER 31, 1932 DANCE AND at 126 East 16th Street Auspices: ENTERTAINMENT ADMISSION: 85 CENTS Br. Communist League of Auspleos: Branch, Communist League of America (Opposition)
Canadian Organ Issued and Union Unity New Year Eve