PAGE NEW MILITANT SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1935 The Significance of the October Revolution for the Orient Lenin Bolshevism and Stalin Menshevism. Victory in Russia and Catastrophe in China By LO SEN Few were the countries under imperialist domination which failed In the post war years to react to the revolutionary stimulus which radiated from proletarian Russia. The war had strained the imperialist world until it broke at its weakest link. This breach once made, the tide of revolt rore in the whole colonial and semi colonial world. The October Revolutlon led not only to convulsions Europe but direct ly opened the path to national revolutionary struggle in Turkey, Syria.
perpetuated the barbarism of the therefore, fell to the militarists war, the growth of productive forces Arabia, Egypt, past, in China imperialism in a far whose warring straples became expressed in the creation of modern ghanistan, India, more drastic manner paralyzed the masks for the interplay of imperial Industry, had set all classes in moIndonesia, Indo country social and economic ist antagonisms in China itselt.
tion in China and out of this movechina, Korea and growth. The backwardness in econ But the 1911 revolution had nev ment a social, literary and cultural China.
omy and social organization con ertheless ushered in a new, transi renaissance emerged as the herald It was in China demned the masses of both countional epoch involving not the rise of the second Chinese revolution.
that this ferment tries to conditions of belotry sup of a new dynasty but the transfor. When the intellectuals and then the developed to its ported by the blackest of superstimation of the economy and class workers began to intervene in the Execution of workers outside a Hankow factory by a Kuomintang greatest dimention, ignorance and the burden of structure of the country and of the march of events and to seek to mold officer.
slong, China was tradition centuries old.
state superimposed upon it The them in their own interests as they in many ways. In Russia the comparatively dismal fallore of two attempts, in saw them, it was under the direct cratic movement in a Communist ton, Shanghal, Wuhan, Changabait and still is the small and youthful proletariat 1916 and 1918, to restore the mon. impetus and influence of the Octo garb.
was but a step step taken over key to the nationsmashed the shackles of the old so archy, showed that China had ber Revolution. Even the Chinese But Menshevism Leads in China the dead bodies of the flower of the al emancipation clety and established its own class rounded a decisive mile post in her bourgeoisie, its hopes for the inde.
movements These were the clear and unequiv. Chinese proletariat and peasantry.
thrudictatorship. With state power history, pendent development of capitalist ocal terms in which Lenin laid down Executioners in Russia and Orient out the vast doin its hands it unloosed mighty ere economy revived and fluttering, for the East the essential lessons mains of imperial Arrests in the streets of Shanghai. The police Proletariat Emerges in China ative energies which opened the tried to give its own class aspira of When against this betrayal Leon October Revolution. But by tam.
In the war years great changes tons a Communist coloration as the time the workers of the East. position, the voice of Marx, of Upon the belong to the International Settlement. way for the industrialization and Trotsky raised the voice of the Opoutcome of the modernization of the country. It took place. The imperialist IP Lenin foresaw it would and its particularly of China, were ready Lenin, of the October, he and his struggle there depended in large It was China tragedy to receive elevated the cultural level of mil. tighter after 1911, relaxed. Pro most conscious representatives to absorb and apply these Ideas, adherents were driven from the measure the correlation of class the lessons and experiences of long of people thus lifted from the ductive forces leaped spectacularly sought the prestige of Russia sup Lenin was gone. The thoroughly party by the club of the apparatus. in world but between the struggling through the dirty lenses or Stalin lumined by science and by educatariat came into being seemingly of the spontaneously growing move one country had replaced Leninist into exile. How bitter it is to think Soviet state and its enemies in CAD ism. For these lessons the Chin. tion. China victory bureaucracy that while in China workers, peas Italist Europe.
ese masses were forced to pay ahead, but in the experience of the development of the Chinese bourLenin Teachings which hoped for nothing better than ants and intellectuals, victims of Reaction Russian Revolution In frightful price. Today an under Russian working class there are les seotste condemned it, even in the Here the fundamental require placed the leaders who looked not under the lash of the terror wielded a Chinese Kemal Pasha had re the Stalinist betrayal, went down China standing of the real relationship be sons of precious and vital signif. period of its relative growth, to the The revolutionary wave in Europe Itween the October and China cance without an understanding of position of a vossal dependent uponment of the Chinese proletariat for nationalist but for class alllesby Stalin great and good allies of state, Isolated and embattled, had stored. reevaluation of the his. be unable, in its turn, to fulani itse would rated the proceeding pregnated with the experience and stages replaced the historical het ewany chtog. wels, the Peng tu: a. New Economie Polles, when the drawn from that relationship Permanent Revolution 1905 Lesson as part of the whole task of liber. Condamental strategy of the Octo dynamics embodied in the theory halange; in Russia Stalin used the ber Revolution. the.
in China. The Chinese Revolution lution is ever again to dawn toring ideology of the Russian revolu its new place in a new, socialist Congress of the Comintern in 1920. It not been for Lenin were dragked the Cavagnacs and Gallets into wave of struggle began to rise high Imperative if the red day of revo Both the events and the govern chains of its past and leading it torties for the Eastern countries Menshevik Ideas which might have apparatus of the Soviet state to envisaged by Lenin at the Second wrecked the Russian revolution had whip the Leninists who had tried to save the Chinese workers from threatened imperialism with a new. China.
tion at its various stages exercised and perhaps this time mortal blow. The Bond Binding both Revolutions a direct influence upon the develop world. In 1917. in the struggle at that Congress Lenin bad given out of the past by the same men whose hands he, Stalin, bad deliv.
Victory for the revolution in China ment of the Chinese revolution against Tsarism, the Russian pro the strategical lead to the East, who bad defended those ideas ered them!
could have broken down the isola revolutions there is an organic bond, factors which directly contributed Between the Chinese and Russian Russia 1905 was one of the world particularly to China where the against Lenin in 1917, the Stalins, development of class forces already the Bucharins, the Martinovs. This The course of the post revolutionstead harshly decided that the dis welded by the past and linked to a to the explosion in China in 1011 provided the most fertile ground Menshevik baggage was labelled ary period, the inevitable lurch to astrous defeat of the Chinese Revo two countries is joined, in the first of the Chings. From the 1000 ex.
common future. The fate of the which toppled the Dragon Throne or the planting of the Bolshevik with Lenin discarded slogan of Ingane adventurism, from August.
lution should itself become one of seed. Imperialist domination, be the democratle dictatorship, decked 1927, to the end of 1980, and the the most ghastly consequences of place by a contiguous trontier perience Lenin and Trotsky had alpointed out, stifled the forces of out with devious, tortuous interpre subsequent attempt to cloak an inproletarian Russia isolation with which crosses Asia for a distance ready arrived at the conclusion that production and therefore the pro tations which outraged Lenin very surgent peasant movement with a In a rim of hostile, capitalist states of almost 6, 000 miles. There is the task of realizing the bourgeois tariat had to take the lead in the memory. Thus fortified, and backed proletarian garb, only led to new The bureaucratie stratum which moreover, no real dividing line, el democratic revolutions in the backstruggle against it. but from this by the prestige of the whole Rus disasters, to new blind alleys. It had begun to solidity on the outer ther in the geographical or in the ward countries and carrying them it does not follow at all that the sian proletariat, the Boroding and did not lead to the Chinese October.
crust of the newly formed Soviet ethnical sense. The two countries through to their end devolved in leadership of the revolution will the Voltinskys came to China to Instead it has only fed the finest state took Russia national isola and the two groups of peoples do the present epoch of world capital have to be surrendered to the bour teach the Chinese workers that the fighters of the revolution into the tion as its starting point. To Justinot clash at a barrier, but tend im not upon the bourgeoisie but geois democrats. To the contrary, national struggle for liberation maw of Kuomintang reaction, It fy itself it erected the theory of gradually to merge, the one into the upon the proletariat allled with and The first and one of the few antithe Communists must prevent the preceded the class struggle of the only facilitated the Kuomingtang socialism in one leading the peasantry.
spring of Stalinism. In this cul Great similarities exist in the so This tremendous concept, Shanghal on September 26, 1931: bourgeolate from securing control working marges against their own betrayals to Imperialsm and its de of the national movement. They exploiters.
struction of the very lifeblood of ture the germs of opportunism cal composition of the two coun very essence of Leninism and of the must develop the dass conscious This was the monstrous thing. he Chinese people.
thrived and waxed strong. The so trles. In both there are large theory of the permanent revolution, letariat showed exactly how this ness of the masses, lead them to that from the land of the October For an end to this tragedy, too viet bureaucracy turned to the East number of races and nationalities possessed for China and for the der Lenin and Trotsky, translated the help of the proletariat of the talism had the effect of welding else Stalinism in China has loft could be done. The Bolsheviks, to the organization of soviets and with came men who taught that imper long, too costly! Like everywhere of the Bolshevik victory but to seek cultures. In both the agrarlan decisive significance. By 1911 October blazed the way for China In this process the Communists against it all the classes of Chinese of heroic dead in its wake. Its of the Eastern countries. Toward inates and the proletariat is a small not reached the point where it was and all the backward countries of would nd it useful and even society except the old feudal mili dead hand must be torn away from the world.
this end it draped the mantle of but decisive minority. Like Tsar possible for this idea to find expresnecessary to ally themselves to the tarists. From this to the bloc of the throat of the world proletariat.
Lenin around the death head of ist Russia, China is a backward na sion in the actual relationship of The validity for China of the national revolutionary movements, four classes, the stifling of the in China as elsewhere we must Menshevism and made it large tion in which the beginnings of capclass forces. Indeed, the state of underlying strategic theoretical con not however amalgamating with mass movement wherever It men build a new revolutionary party, Datlonal bourgeoiste de China. Frome forman of explorintion which hola perdher the Bourgeoisie, stillede hoy not immediately perceived. But the character of the proletarian move for the nationaler united front torty partye which will know this source flowed the policies which the peasantry as a whole in their imperialism, nor the proletalat, October itself, far more immediately ment, even though it is still in its the recognition of and subordina how to face problems of the led to the ghastly tragedy which in grip. Whereas in Russia the auto scacely yet born, were in a position and directly than in 1905, became embryonic form. They must pottion to bourgeois leadership through Chinese revolution with a real un1927 plunged China into the mawcracy acted as a break on the to replace the Manchu Dynasty by a mighty stimulus to a new revolu the masses on guard against the the Kuomintang, from all this to derstanding of the significance, for of reaction.
growth of productive forces and any new, unified class rule. Power, tionary upheaval in China.
The attempt to cloak bourgeois demo the shattering catastrophes of Can China, of Russia October.
untry, the well. other.
the Comrade Candide and Comrade Browder. Tragi Comedy Being the Story of an Honest Worker Who Fell into a Coma in the Twilight of the Third Period (Continued from Page 3) these contradictions in diplomaticus: to unite the independent unions Intern in the past thirteen years, Communist Party and the cominworld. The essence of this course the stalinists outside the Soviet Daily. For example, there the maneuvers with the imperialist with the revolutionary unions into years of great opportunities and tert. Turning their backs upon was to preserve the status quo, Union is to preserve the status quo appeal to the patriotic traditions powers, but how can the Commun a single Independent Federation of tremendous defeats for the revolu the international scene, the leader while socialism was being built in by means of the Soviet diplomacy of the American people. At Cleve. ist parties ask the cooperation of Labor. 38)
tionary working class.
of the bureaucracy, Stalin, devel. the Soviet Union.
of Litvinov or the subsidiary means land, you quoted from the new their own ruling class to fight an. At this point Candide broke into As we view the history of the oped the theory of socialism in one The Third Period.
of the Communist parties. The last fascist program for the pre other? How does such class colla hysteria and fell to the floor in a Third International, it has passed country as a justification for their When this policy culminated in remnants of revolutionary working sented by Joseph Sbarts, which boration look to the Italian work dead faint. We are informed that through four phases.
conservative and narrowly nation the bloodies Kulak uprising of class policy has been abandoned in read: These great traditions cinsers?
he has remained unconscious and The heroie period from the alistle viewpoint. According to this 1928, the Stalinists suddenly favor of popular fronts. The united ter around the Stars and Stripes Browder: Would you have us delirious ever since. In that un Bolshevik revolution in October, theory, a claseless socialist society veered around and transformed all fronts between the Socialist and and make it worthy to be fought Isolate ourselves from the organ fortunate condition, we must regret 1917 to the death of Lenin in 1994. can be built up in one single coun: their policies into their opposites. Communist parties are unlted fronts tor, regardless of the capitalist ized workers by opposing sanctions, Cully leave him.
In these years the Third Interna try klone, the Soviet Union, even if Instead of opposition to planned of inaction, instead of struggle. The connections in recent years. Not by which is the only way to avert war tional was built; its revolutionary the proletariat in the more ad economy came the first and second recent Seventh Congress of the the pacifist but by the patriotic ap and Chapter III program formulated in the first vanced countries fail to conquer Five Year plans with their mad Comintern set Its task of the seal of approval proach lies our path to power and and oppose. Fascism? Why, only counter revolutionary Trotsky four Congresses; the task of win power. From this theory dates the allop toward industrialization, re upon this course.
freedom. And then you said: Itites are against sanctions. We ve would be difficult to improve on Mr. Won over all the trade unions, alIDLAUSIBLE as It seems, we canning over the working class of the beginning of the degeneration of gardless of costs and consequences, Third International, which was or not, of course, vouch for com world to revolutionary struggle the parties of revolution in their together with the campaign for sanized by Lenin and Trotsky to Sharts by quoting directly from most all the Socialist parties to our plete authenticity of the above story under the banner of Marx and respective countries to auxiliary complete collectivization and liquid conquer the world for socialism, has the fascists by such appeals to pa. Candide: That just the point. thenticity home remet quotations from Struction the flower of the Rus policy of the Soviet bureaucracy. Policles were complemented by the defending the remnants of bour triotism?
You said that both the of Browder. They will be found in the stan proletariat in the civil wars, From this fatal theory flows all the social fascist, dual red trade union, geols democracy. Since the StalinBrowder: That is the American and the company antons were gov: Report of the Central Committee then the economie collapse which blunders, defeats, and catastrophes united front from below policies. It Laval pact, the French Communist approach to the problem of Bolsheernmental agencies of the capitaliste: the Communist Party to the Sth necessitated the introduction of the which the working class has suf was in this so called third period Party calls upon the French workvizing the masses.
class, just as the Fascists and so Convention, delivered by Earl New Roonomie Policy in 1921 pro rered since 1923.
that Candide received his political ing class to support its own capital Candide: The American ap cial fascists were the twin political Browder, published by the work duced a widespread proach! Why, that was the slogan agencies of the During this second period right education, or rather, misoducation ist government in case of war class opportunistic policies were substi. So different in its form from the against Fascist Germany, thus pitof Budenz, one of those left social 28 29 30. Ir the Pitalist class. per Library of New York, 1994. We exhausted Russian working in the fascists whom you called the most semi fascist agency of the Roose meditation these sombre days.
of is a recommend it for entertainment and Reflecting this passivity, the Soviet tuted all along the line for revolu second period, the third perlod conting one section of the working bureaucracy, whose control was cen tionary policies. Within the Soviet tinued the same objective: preser. class against another, and betraydangerous enemies of the workers velt regime, more dangerous than Candide, the honest Stalinist tralized in Stalin hands, devel Union, the bureaucracy leaned upon vation of the status quo even 10 Ing them both. This is a repetition struggles today. 76. the company untons, then it natur worker, was completely bewildered oped and strengthened its stip the Nepman and the Kulak for sup the cost Involved was to skerifice on a grander scale of the socialBrowder: Not so loud, comrade. ally follows that its leaders would by the contradictory lines of the upon the Communist party and the port in its struggle against the the German revolution to maintain patriotic betrayal of the Second InBudenz is in the next room. sanction the imperialist policy of Communist Party, and could find no state apparatus during this period Bolshevik Leninists: and opposed the satus quo.
ternational in 1914 1918.
Candide: There are lots of other the American government.
explanation for them. Bewildered and turned its face away from planned economy, Industrialization, The Fourth Period.
Since 1923 the opportunist leadthings in the Dally Worker don Browder: You re living in the and confused by his leaders, who the International revolution. The and collectivixation demanded by The adventurous, ultra leftist line ership of the Comintern had brought understand. The editorials call past, comrade. new progressive tell him one thing today and its post war tidal wave of revolution the Lett Opposition in favor of a of the third period was abruptly nothing but defeat after defeat upon the Roosevelt government and movement has sprung up in the opposite tomorrow, he relapsed into led by the Third International was course of concessions to Nepmen terminated by Hitler conquest of upon the working class. Although the League of Nations to invoke of. headed by such people as unconsciousness, Politically con broken by the retreat of the Com. and Kulaks. In the sphere of for power as a direct consequence of the leaders of the various parties Banctions against Facist Italy. John Lewis, Francis Gorman and scious workers, however, will want munist leaders in Germany in the eign policy the Stalinists relied the fatal policies pursued by the of the Third International still You taught us that the Roosevelt sidney Human, and that why to know why the Communist Party face of a revolutionary situation in upon the reformist trade union bu. Communist Party of Germany. Grape themselves in the banner of administration is the beginning of we re advising all our members to has followed such completely con October 1823 (this was under stalreaucracy of England through the Pante stricken at the spectacle of Lento, they have violated every revthe introduction of fascism. Join it.
tradictory policies in the past per In orders. which was preceded by Anglo Russian Committee to lead the Fascist monster they had helped olutionary principle he stood for.
The New Deal was in political e Candido: Lewis heading a pro lod.
the defeat of the Bulgarian in the struggle against imperialist create, the Stalinists have thrown The Third International is no longsence and direction the same as gressive movement? Why you coup To us, the reasons for the somer surrection in 1923 and followed war and for the defense of the away all the theoretical baggage of er a revolutionary organization, no Hitler program. 20 21. How led him with Green in 1884. And saults of the Stalinists are clear. by the crushing of the Reval Soviet Union; upon Chiang Kal the third period in the wild flight longer a progressive force in the can we, a working class party, call you re liquidating all the TU. It would be pointless to look for uprising in Estonia. The breaking shek and the Kou Min Tang in the to the right, which is still under labor movement.
upon one semi fascist government untons? Why remember how my them in Browder psychology or of the revolutionary wave in Ger Chinese revolution; and upon var way. This is a return to the fun to stop another Fascist state from heart beat with pride as listened American conditions. These have many and elsewhere paved the way tous unreliable pensant lendersdamental course of the Stalinist The proletarian revolutionists of conducting an imperialist war? to you describe the amazing pro nothing to do with the case. Brow for the reorganization and strength throughout the world. The Com bureaucracy, the right opportunist the world are gathering today onAren we playing the game of the gress made by the revolutionary der, the leader of the tsening of European capitalism with munist parties were subordinated to course of 1923 1928, on a wider der the new banner of the Fourth Imperialists, Instead of pursuing an trade unions of the Wy a political master mind in only one the atd of American capital. these alliances with allen class scale arid with more profound con International. The struggle for the Independent working class policyt developing the whole mass move sense: be reflects what goes on in The second period. The rev. elements. The balance sheet includ sequences. Again, its objective is. Fourth International is the strugBrowder: We are utilizing the ment of resistance to the NRA and the mind of his master, Stalin, who olutionary ebb and the temporary ed the betrayal of the English Gen the status quo.
gle for the ideas of Marx and Lencontradictions between the imper the whole chpltallat offensive, in in turn translates into political stabilization of European capitalism eral Strike and the impotence of Today the Stalinists are again in; for the overthrow of capitalism; lalist powers, just as the Soviet the development of the strike move terms the needs of the Soviet bugave further impetus to pessimism the British Communist Party: the seeking protection in the arms of for a workers world. Rally to the Union is doing in the League of ments. 36) while the Trotsky reaucracy. We must, therefore, and passivity regarding the pros tragle betrayal of the Chinese revo the social democratie leaders and support of the Workers Party.
Nations.
ates and Musteltes sold out the look abroad to the Soviet Union pects of world revolution in the lution; the weakening of the Com the reformist trade union bureau which has unfurled the banner of Candido: can understand why workers in Minneapolls and Toledo and the international scene to un Soviet bureaucracy, which had munist parties and the revolution cracy, as well as imperialist nations the Fourth International in the the Soviet state must try to utilize remember that slogan you gave derstand what has alled the Com usurped control of the Russian ary movement throughout the such as France. The sole task of United States!