SOCIALIST APPEAL October 16, 1937 Sabotage of Anti Fascist Fight By People Front Goverment armed the unions.
SOCIALIST APPEAL VOL. No. 10. Saturday, October 10, 1937 Published every week by the Answer to Journalist Devlin SOCIALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASSN.
Published at 116 University Place, By Leon Trotsky Subscriptions: 00 per year; 00 for The so called peace organizations, including the month. Foreign: 50 per year. Bundle order cents per copy. Single copies cents.
working class organizations, do not in the least constitute an obstacle to the war. The numerous All checks and money orders should be made out to the Socialist Appeal.
peace conferences, organized mainly by the CoApplication for entry as second class matter By Harry Milton mintern, are purely theatrical enterprises without the least effectiveness; in time of war all these is pending.
The Daily Worker of October, Anarchist and POUM organiza peace leaders, all these pious and humanitarian 6th carried an article written by tions the fundamental military ladies and gentlemen, will return to their governThe of Convention Robert Minor, American Stalinist policy and strategy were deter ments to support them in the war as they did The only political factor which today hinders Three outstanding conclusions may be drawn at present acting as a special mined by the Madrid. Valencia 1914 1918.
from a preliminary view of the first week ses correspondent in Spain. whose entire policy was based on the outbreak of war is the fear, on the part of the sions of the of Convention.
He refers to irrefutable evi the destruction of the militias governments, of the social revolution. Hitler himFirst: The events of the last year, natio nal and dence to prove the connection bet and the creation of a new army self has said it many times. We must draw the international, have brought not the slightest ween the Trotskyist POUM organized and controlled by the logical conclusions from this: the more revoluchange in the bitterly reactionary policies of the and Franco Hitler Mussolini and general offensive been given on ruling imperialist class, the more are these latter of officialdom. The hardened class collaborationism of the firmly intenched bureaucrate how the POUM General, Kopp, the Aragon front it would have prevented from carrying out their designs to make expresses itself quite openl and brazenly in the of the Lenin Division had brought been the Anarchist and POUM of the world by force.
forem enormous supplies of arms and militias who would have had to a new division the same time we must carefully distinguish ployer cooperation and their protestations of the ammunitions across no man land would have beene necessaryd te between the imperialist countries and the Back responsibility and respectability of of to the Fascists, and how supply these workers militias ward countries, colonial and semi colonial. The The key questions of the Convention POUM officers used to meet reg with all the necessary armaments attitude of the working class orga organizations in and are being settled in the classic bureaucratic ularly with the Fascist General required for such an operation towards these two groupings cannot be the same.
manner: with the central aim of protecting and staff in preparation for the open The success of such an offensive The present war between China and Japan is securing the position and privileges of the bureau ing up of the front simultaneous would have fallen to the Anarchist classic example. It is absolutely indisputable that.
Wey itself.
fiy with the attempt to sieze pos would have been extremely diffi. that, on the part of China, it is a war of national it on the part of Japan, it is a war of rapine and cond: In spite, however, of this thoroughly session of Barcelona during the cult to popularize the creation of defense. Only conscious or unconscious agents of tion of the bureaucrats, which depends upon their May days and turn the city over the new army or to justify the def keeping together and loyal to them a movement to the Fifth Column and Musso liquidation of the militias. Most Japanese imperialism can put the two countries of organized workers, compels them to take cer lini marines who were to land important of all it would have on the same plane.
aroused a tremendous enthusiasm That is why we can only feel pity or hatred for tain steps and put forward certain ideas which from ships lying outside the harland revolutionary feeling among those who, in the face of the Sino Japanese war are in the interests of the workers. For example, mole bor.
the When first arrived at Sietimo, the workers. Rather than risk declare that they are opposed to all wars, to wars Feriticism of the recent tendencies of the labor the divisionst anexequarteret mot the slightest possibility of another altogether. The war is already a fact. The work movement to rely more and more upon govern. the POUM army at the Huesca revolutionary wave in the direc. ing class movement cannot remain neutral in a ment boards and government interference though motivated primarily for the of L? than a week without proceeding to order for a general offensive on those who are enslaved. The working class move.
officials by hostility to the and jealousy the front. We knew the front lines the Aragon front was never ment in China, Japan and in the entire world must given, at the s comparative success in getting the were short of men and we could oppose with all its strength the Japanese imperialear of the government agencies, nevertheless con not understand why we were kept Not only was such an order ist bandits and support the people of China and tains much that is sound. Several of the speeches in Sietimo. Some hundreds of never given but the workers mili their army.
at Denver, whatever may have caused them, the Spanish volunteers had been tias were criminally short of arms.
pointed out quite correctly the grave dangers waiting for more than two weeks Long before the middle of July No Confidence in Chinese Bourgeoisie the independent strength of the labor movement that learned why we were kept smashed and it was only after some days when the militias were completely incorporated into the which result from over reliance upon the govern in Sietimo.
This does not at all suppose a blind confidence regular army the government, in the Chinese government and in Chiang Kainspired by the Stalinists, pursued Shek. In the past, above all in 1925 27, the genIt should never be forgotten that, however reac Deprived of Rifles a deliberate, conscious policy of eral was already dependent upon working class tionary the of bureaucracts may be, sabotage with regards to the organizations in his military struggle against the they are professional trade unionists; and thus, We were kept in Sietimo be workers militias.
Chinese generals of the North, agents of foreign in their own way, must guard and defend the cause the Division Lenin had no trade unions which they lead. However unsatis rifles to give us. Incredible as it sisted of some 9000 men. Several lass organizations by armed force in The army of the POUM con imperialism. In the end, he crushed the working 1927 28. We factory their way may be from a revolutionary is the powolume of some good thousand of our men were armed nust learn the lessons from this point of nevertheless preferable from a trade union stand the new recruits. We simply had Indians. These guns had been soldational war against Japanese invasion, the workthis experience which view, however fatal in the long run, it is men had absolutely no reserves with American Winchester rifles esulted from the fatal policies of the Comintern.
of arms or ammunition to arm of the type Custer used on the participating in the legitimate and progressive point to the policies of those who, like the Stalin: to wait behind the lines urte by Stalin to the Spanish governijing class organizations must preserve their entire ists. utilize the trade union movement merely and there were dead sufficiels onlanen ment and given to the Agrcherë political independence of the Chiang Kai shek schemes, and who are for that reason completely going on leave before we could military junk. They had been government. The Communist irresponsible toward the basic interests of the proceed to the front.
trade union itself. got my gun and was attached teede mini ethe period of armed in again, as in 1924 25, is making violent efforts to clear that the of is not dead, nor even contingent, La Granja sector. It of the army junkyards and sold tang. It is a crime all the more horrible because Third: Lastly, the Denver Convention makes to the Independent Labore. Party Russia and had been taken out politically to Chiang Kai shek and the Kuomini working class movement dying. For good or for ill, the of still was here that learned the ac by Stalin. is needless to say it is being committed for the second time.
lives, and is stronger this year than last. The tual state of affairs regarding that this military junk was paid beliet of those who thought that the day of the of the POUM for in At the same time, the remedy does not lie in.
in gold and When Franco attempted to the working class organizations declaring themFederation was ended, that the movement seize the power on July 19th the long and shorte Mausers most of selves against all wars and folding their arms would sweep it aside and leave only a pitiful frag Azana government was left with which were more than 30 years in an attitude of passive treason, but rather in founded. More than 3, 000, 000 workers are en The workers armed themselves ammunition and what we did have materially and morally, and simultaneously educarolled in the Federation, and for the most part its against the wishes and in oppo was bad. We had no small arms, ting the masses of peasants and workers in a unions are more firmly and solidly organized than sition to the Azana government, and bayonets were not given us spirit of total independence of the Kuomintang many of those of Since the failure who were more afraid of the re until late in April. We had no and its government. We do not attack Chiang of the Little Steel strikes this Spring, just prior volutionary workers than they tanks, adequate heavy artillery, Kai shek for conducting the war. Oh, no. we Our attack him for doing it badly, without sufficient comparative point with reference to the them dead in their tracks. They machine guns were very few, very the balance has undoubtedly been in the people and a new revolutionary (old and unreliable, vermate we werd energy, without confidence army, the workenrs militias. In have was a lot of men who were somewhat in favor of the of especially in the pacifist who has the same attitude towards he Catalonia they succeeded in driv. revolutionists and who were ready China as towards Japan in this terrible conflict If we ask why it is that the which ing the Fascists completely out to die rather than unquestionably represents a movement historically of Catalonia and half through fascists to advance.
permit the is like one who would identify a lockout with a more progressive than the of at least the province of Aragon to the strike. The working class movement is against its policies of industrial unionism and organiza very gates of Huesca and Sara Minor Lies lockout of the exploiters and for strike of the the mass industries, failed in this first gosa.
expoited. At the same time, strikes are often led When the Anarchists agreed hegemony of the AmRobert Minor is as well aware by misleaders who are capable of betraying the test to take over erican labor movement and to sweep aside the to confine the struggle against of these facts as am, he knows working class movement during the strike. This of proper, there are a number of factors the Fascists simples to the more there is non evidence of met kind is no reason for workers to refuse to participate in which must be taken into account in the answer. racy, in return for the military the POUM which he calls Trots. the strike but it is reason for mobilizing the work.
democ between The most basic consideration is doubtless the fact that the present stage of the development of aid they got from the Stalinist kyist (and which unfortunately ing masses against the defections and the treason American economy still leuves an economic foundabureaucracy the Caballero govern. never adhered to the principles of the leadership. It often happens that during tion for obsolete craft organization. The rainment inspired by the Spanish of the Fourth International) and or after a strike the organized masses change This can Stalinists began the systematic Franco. He knows he lies when their direction.
alization of many forms of economic life has not sabotage of the Aragon front he refers well happen in Kopp, one of the China. But this change can be favorable for the yet reached a point where the policy of industrial which was held by a crushing POUM generals, being an people only if the Chinese and international work.
uniorism is as warnily welcomed as it is, for ex majority of Anarests and POUM agent of Franco and of confer ing class organizations support China against Aple, in the mass production indus: militias. Althou; the admin ences that Kopp was supposed to Japan.
istrative control the workers have had with the Fascist general. qued on page militias were in the hands of the staff in no man land.
Sept. 25, 1937.
ment.
only as a the armaments is be un been swinging back in