SOCIALIST APPEAL OCTOBER 1, 1938 ON THE LABOR PARTY Pinning em Down to absurd to occupy oneself with abstract propaSOCIALIST APPEAL ganda in favor of an unheralded Labor Party.
Vol. II No. 40 Saturday, October 1, 1988 The situation since that time, however, has radically changed and it would be inexusable to Published every week by the RESOLUTION OF THE close our eyes to it. The powerfully developing SOCIALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASS trade unions under the conditions The decline of American capiat 116 University Place, New York, of a deepen BY JAMES CASEY Telephone: National orfice: Algonquin 8547 talism and the soclal crisis ening crisis of capitalism will project themselves suing therefrom have already During the past three months the membership of the So all the more irresistibly upon the road of politSubscriptions 192. 50 per year. Bundle order year: 00 for six VAST FIELD AWAITS called forth the greatest trade cialist Workers Party has been engaged in an intensive disews.
Ical struggle and upon the road of crystallization into a labor party.
union organizing campaign in With the fall election campaigns in full swing and for the cents per copy. Single copies cents, American history, which brought sion on the question of the attitude of the Party toward the far more important reason that the world faces its darkest days with it a wave of strike strugAll checks and money orders should be made labor party movement. This discussion bas now been concluded BUREAUCRACY WILL RESIST since 1914, it seems from this corner that recruiting should play a out to the Socialist Appeal.
gles unprecedented in scope and with a referendum vole of the membership.
major part in the life of every member of the Socialist Workers revolutionary Implications (the If the official leaders of the trade unions in Party during the next few weeks.
Entered as second class matter September 1, sit down strikes. At the same spite of the imperious voice of the situation and By a decisive majority, the membership has adopted a po.
The young, vibrant, healthy, and today the only po1937, at the post office at New York, New York, time the experiences and results the growing pressure of the masses preserve a under the Act of March 3, 1879 sition on the labor party worement, expanding and altering to litical organization in America that stands four square on a platreserved position on the question of labor of these herculean efforts of the form of revolutionary socialism, is gaining steadily in memberMAX SHACHTMAN American proletariat have demparty. It is precisely because the deep social a considerable degree the position heretofore held in this conn.
crisis of bourgeois soclety now imparts to the ship, but these increases reach out only to the fringes of the ferEditor onstrated the inadequacy of the iry by the Fourth Internationalist morement. The resolution is question of the labor party a considerably greattile fields open for recruitment, HAROLD ROBERTS purely economie struggle to solve There are now between nine and ten million workers afflated GEORGE CLARKE even the most pressing Immediate published berewith.
er sharpness than in all preceeding periods.
Associate Editors with the and of and a sizable percentage of this problems of the workers. The preNevertheless we can with sufficient assurance number are ripe for enrolment in STANLEY party of militant action.
cipitious decline in economy, as Business Manager predict that the resistance of the bureaucracy There are between twelve and Afteen million unemployed men result of the new crisis adds new millions to sentation for labor an attitude which has al will be broken. The movement in favor of a and women, most of whom are unorganized and certainly their the ranks of the unemployed, cancely out the ready Impelled the workers In Important local labor party will continue to grow. revolution places are within the ranks of the Then there are millions gains of the strike victories and even threatens instances to put up Independent or semi indeary organization occupying in relation to this of working class housewives to whom the party has to address Half the Battle Won the existence of the newly built trade unions. In pendent tickets testify to the profound Impulse itself.
progressive movement negative or neutrally stinctively sensing the Inadequacy of trade unexpectant position will doom itself to Isolation Unless the recruiting work is accelerated and pressed to fruiionism alone under these circumstances, the Independent political action. This impulse is tion on the widest scale during this critical period, the tasks of and sectarlan degeneration.
The strike of New York 15, 000 teamsters workers have begun to turn in million masses progressive and must consciously and deliberate the past weeks in drafting, studying and passing theses on the has reached a climax peculiar in labor history, toward political action. The further development ly be aided at every step by the Socialist Work The Socialist Workers Party, section of the weighty national and international questions will have lost much of the crisis is certain to strengthen this tend ers Party.
Fourth International, clearly realizes the fact of their practical reward, but one which is clearly the result of the power ency.
that in virtue of unfavorable historical reasons Nor will recruiting have appreciable and lasting results with of the organized working class.
Parallel with the developing sentiment for an its own development lagked behind the radicall out careful consideration and adoption of the proper approach.
The organized partielpation of the workers in independent party of the workers, and in large zation of wide layers of the American proleta In this connection, it may be said without any hesitancy that the Two days after the suspension of the truce, polities under the aegis of Labor Non Partisan measure interfused with it, there is a powerful rlat and precisely because of this the problem truck transportation unprincipled methods of recruitment fostered by Stalinist leadcome to a stand League represents a profound departure from trend in the direction of a new bourgeois liberal of creating a labor party is placed upon the the old Gompers school of labor polities, al party designed Include and swallow up the ers will never for a moment be countenanced by the still. 20, 000 New Jersey drivers had joined the order of the day through the whole course of During the last few years a number of membership drives though on the surface the two may appear to incipient movement of the workers for Indedevelopment.
were conducted by the Communist Party, amid much fanfare walkout. Longshoremen and seamen were awaitbe identical. In the past the labor bureaucracy pendent labor political action. Under further ing the call for sympathetic action. The entire and the blare of trumpets. At the conclusion of each such camconfined itself to endorsing this or that friend pressure of the social crisis this trend can and of labor on the capitalist party tickets. In the most likely will also gain strength, the present WILL SUPPORT LABOR PARTY labor movement, and of had de paign, branches, sections and districts were regaled with reports on the splendid accomplishments of the leading endres.
1936 presidential elections, and in virtually all Democratic Party may be split wide open and clared its solidarity. general strike was in the Consequently, the Socialist Workers Party If the had retained even a small fraction of the men and municipal and state elections since, we have a new party of the democratic bourgeols front offing.
gives positive and unambiguous support to the seen for the first time a systematic and increas emerge, with the labor bureaucracy occupying a women signed up during these drives, its membership today would be at least a quarter of a million, With New York billion dollar commerce ingly determined effort to organize and mobilize labor party movement in general and to all its prominent though politically subordinate place.
the political strength of the workers as a single Against such a development, as against the preslocal manifestations. It supports the afflation and industry facing strait jacket paralysis, with HOW THE JUGGLES FIGURES unit. This new movement, represented by the ent attempts of the bureaucracy to subordinate of trade unions to Labor Non Partisan League In 1936, Earl Browder told the rank and file and the World Fair construction unable to move the must be characterized as a stage in the workers to the Democratic Party, we coun as well as to local units of the movement having capitalist press that the party had 50, 000 members. About the immediate termination of the strike was im the development of the labor movement from terpose the slogan of independent labor politcomplete subservlence to the political parties of ical action through a labor party, an independent or seml independent form posed as an imperative necessity upon the emsame time his report to the Central Committee placed the big capital to an independent party of the (Farmer Labor Party of Minnesota, American membership at 28, 000. Now Browder claims 75, 000 members for the playing class and its representative, Mayor La workers.
Stalinists. If the disparity between the accurate figure and BrowRADICAL CHANGE IN TACTICS Labor Party, etc. and, in favorable circumGuardia. But how to end it? Only a wild man, der capacity for truth telling tremains the same as in 1936, the stances, the National Committee authorizes its thoroughly soaked in the dreams of Ford or BUREAUCRATS RESTRICT MOVEMENT At the time of our national convention, we membership today should be somewhere around the 40, 000 members to join branches of these bodles based mark Girdler, would advocate a head on collision to took Insufficient recount of the new developThe fact that the movement as yet remains on Individual membership.
In the earlier statement to his Central Committee, Browder smash the strike. Only a blind bat could fail to within the formal framework of the Democratic ments in the labor movement, especially in their reported that only 20 per cent of the members were in the party While the Social Democrats, Lovestoneltes, see that the strikers were not to be bluffed or Party is in part due to the conscious restrictions political aspects, and fell into the error of relonger than two years. If one considers that at least one third placed upon it by the bureaucracy and in part tricked out of their strike.
peating abstract formulas on the question of the etc. advocate a labor or farmer labor party with of the older members are installed in paid functionary jobs, it is to the as yet unclear aims of the masses. On the labor party which, in the light of great new purely reformist program and more or less seen that there are really very few veterans left in the party.
The one road to a settlement for the bosses other hand, the increasing aggressiveness of this confine themselves to unprincipled top combl. There are many bureaucrats in the who are hopeless movement on the political held, and Its mount developments, had become obsolete. It is neewas a compromise with drastic concessions for renegades from Socialism, and these will remain in the party until nations under cover of this slogan the Soclalist Ing demands for more concessions and repre essary now to reconsider the question and to Stalin finally scuttles the ship and the whole caboodle.
the workers. That LaGuardia was impelled onto make a radical change in our tactles in regard Workers Party advances its program of transl On the other hand, there are thousands of members who this road is due to the fact that the strike was tional demands in order to fructify the mass developing labor party movement. Over are very much in the doubtful column. Many of them, who were invincible. Had there been any other alternative ing pressure to bear on the bosses. The old ash period of years we have discussed and debated movement in favor of a labor party and lead it recruited through the use of spurious catch phrases such as fighting for democracy and fighting against bureaucracy, will hasten detrimental to the drivers but promising a so can trucks of the city cannot haul even a fraction this question with the opportunists only in the in a revolutionary direction.
out of the party once they learn it is the very anti thesis of a lution we can rest assured that LaGuardia of the traffic but the action itself has succeeded abstract. That could not be otherwise, because democractie body, in any sense of the term, and that its own would have taken it.
in breaking the employers front and forcing the nelther labor party nor formidable movePARTY INDEPENDENCE PRESERVED bureaucratic apparatus smells to high heaven.
The drivers wanted the 40 hour week, and smaller trucking companies to sign seperate ment for its creation was anywhere to be seen. Preserving its own full organizational and po These newcomers were enrolled in the through misrepresentation and downright charlatanism. Hence ers must esthey were willing to go through hell and high agreements. That La Guardia and the capitalist In these discussions we saw only two aspects of litical independence, the Socialist Workers Party tablish the closest relations with rank and carries on systematie and irreconellable struggle so that water to get it. For thousands of teamsters, the class generally was forced into this action by the questiona labor party which did not exist they will not be lost to revolutionary activity when completely dis40 hour week meant jobs at union wages for the formidable strike is proved by the accept in reality, but which the opportunists sought to against the trade union bureaucracy which resists the creation of a labor party, or attempts Illusioned by the Stalinist misleaders, as were thousands before the first time in months. For those already work ance of heads of the state and local Chambers of suck out of their fingers, or a possible fully them to convert it into an auxillary weapon of one of Commerce as directors of the City trucking veloped labor party some time in the future.
ing, assistance to the unemployed in this fashthe bourgeois parties. Explaining and propaHOW OUR RECRUITERS SHOULD SPEAK ion entailed no sacrifices of wage standards. Re business.
gandizing its program of transitional demands We now have to gear our practical activity in the trade unions, at meetings, and so forth, To the workers on projects and relief rolls, recruiters member this: the magnificent courage and the But the strike is not over. And it will not be toward a third and hitherto Insuffelently ap the Socialist Workers Party Indefatigably exshould speak in hard dollars and cents language in language reunbearable fighting power of the drivers can be preclated aspect of the question. namely, a poses on the basis of the living experience of the ceptive to the ears of hungry American workers.
over until the bosses associations or its leading powerful mass movement in the direction of the infused into the entire labor movement when it masses the reformist and pacifist Illusions of the At the last session of Congress, the Workers Alliance asked members sign on the dotted line of the new labor party which has not yet taken clearly trade union bureaucracy and its Social Demoten billion dollars for relief and jobs. The New Deal adinscribes on its banner the slogan of the drivers contract. Until that time, a sudden reversal of defined shape. We have always said that, con cratie and Stalinist allies.
ministration, to which this stalinist controlled group has just re the sliding scale of bours with the prevailing the present situation cannot be excluded as a fronted with a fully developed labor party, based newed its pledge of fealty, responded with an appropriation of a rates of pay.
likelihood. On the contrary, the bosses will be on the trade unions, we would take a positive When and how the labor party will be formed, billion and a half. few days ago the same Stalinist dominated attitude toward it and most likely participate in what scope and mass base it will acquire in the The acceptance of the 44 hour week is a com prone to believe that the confused set up now body, at a convention session, asked the New Deal administration It. We are now confronted with the necessity of period ahead and through what stages and splits for only 6, 500, 000, 000 to be expended over a period of six years promise on the original demands. It does not prevailing will cause a relaxation of the vigil. coneretizing this general point of view and of it will pass, the future will disclose. Defending for relief and recovery.
secure all the strikers wanted, but it nevertheless ance of the strikers. And from others, now the labor party from the attack of the bourtaking a direct part in the present developing One may pause at this point to inquire whether Roosevelt MOVEMENT for a labor party and of working geolsle, the Socialist Workers Party does not friendly to the drivers, the possibility of a marks a serious step on the road to the 10 hour has kept his relief pledges to the forgotten man and, also with all our strength to push it on the road of and will not, however, take upon itself any reweek. Moreover, it places the union in an ad. double cross is also not out of the realm of whether the Alliance is fulfilling its purported mission as an or Independence.
sponsibilty for this party. In relation to the la ganization for the unemployed. The answer is so obviously No!
vantageous position in the present stage of the possibility. These things have happened before.
bor party in all stages of its development, the in both cases, that must apologize for formally posing the battle. With complete victory within their grasp, Victory has been snatched out of the hands of PRINCIPLES NOT INVOLVED Socialist Workers Party occuples a critical poquestions.
workers on countless occasions when everything sition, supports the progressive tendencies with the great metropolis at their mercy, the The last figures of the Treasury Department place the The question of the attitude toward an exist against the reactionary, and at the same time teamsters backed down from their original de appeared settled.
ing labor party has never been a question of gross 1936 Income for all American companies at 132, 276, 820, 000 irreconcilably criticizes the half way character It is estimated that the 1938 income would be about five to seven mand and accepted a compromise. Now the onus The New York truck drivers must be vigilant principle for revolutionary Marxists. No more of these progressive tendencies. For the Social billions under that total. at the next session, the Great Liberal should our attitude toward a genuine mass Ist Workers Party the labor party should on the of the continuance of the strike rests squarely for themselves and for the labor movement of movement for a labor party he so considered. In and his Congress were to place a ten per cent direct tax on gross with the bosses associations, who have refused income for emergency relief, the funds from that source alone one hand become the arena for recruiting revo our tactics have always taken our point of this city and of the nation if their magnificent lutionary elements, on the other a transmissive to negotiate except on the old terms.
would be over twelve billion dollars for one year and of the departure from the concrete political situation strike is not to be derailed from its present obmechanism for Influencing ever wider circles of the administration might well add a tax on the huge bonus and the tedencles of its development. Several workers. In its very essence the labor party can economio royalists of whom Roosevelt talks so much. Such a move The Little Flower placed himself on the jectives. The eyes of the nation workers are on years ago, before the crisis of 1920 and even preserve progressive significance only during a spot when he granted the concession to the strik the drivers. They are providing the first an.
later, until the appearance of the we might cause Big Business to suffer a cut in the net profits, but it comparatively short transitional period. The would alleviate nation wide distress among workers and farmers ers and considered it as a final settlement. The swer to the problem of unemployment.
could have hoped that the revolutionary, that is, further sharpening of the revolutionary situaand could, in a slight measure, redeem the false promises of the unique spectacle of the New York City governthe Bolshevik party would develop in the United tlon will Inevitably break the shell of the labor New Deal spokesmen and their stooges.
And in this answer it is necessary to show not States parallel to the radicalization of the work party and permit the to rally around the ment entering the trucking business was a dar ing class and succeed in becoming the head of The afore mentioned figures reveal that not only has Roosebanner of the Fourth International, the revoluing method, but the only one capable of bring only what is to be done but how it can be done!
it. Under these conditions It would have been tionary vanguard of the American proletariat.
velt violated his campaign pledges but that the Stalinists Workers Alliance has shown scandalous leniency in its new requests for funds apparently to save the administration more embarrassment Consumers, in general, must be apprised, in the course of organizational work, of the burdens placed upon them by the profit system.
Government figures show that workers earning 2, 500 or less annually pay twenty two million dollars daily in Indirect taxes to city, State and the Federal treasurles. More than 63 per cent of To the Members of the Communist Party: The world now trembles on the brink of the most terrible all taxes are of the hidden variety. Thus a housewife is taxed class strength of the workers. Against this force no power on earth one pork chop for every three she purchases, or three eggs for For four years your leaders have told you to put your faith catastrophe in all history. We believe that the majority of you are can stand. But the class strength of the workers can be assembled every dozen. There are fifty three different kinds of hidden taxes in the democratic nations. They have said that the system of col.
at one with us in your wish and resolve to wipe fascist tyranny only when the workers themselves take their fight into their own in one loat of bread. These include taxes for the farm tractor, from the face of the earth, to defend the Soviet Union, and to lective security, support by the great democratic powers, would hands, break with all those who wish to tie them in the camp of grain elevator, country roads, freight, producers surplus income, advance the cause of the workers against reaction everywhere, and ote. All the workers, professionals and farmers affected by these stop fascism.
the enemy, and strike out independently and boldly in their own taxes belong in the ranks of the or its periphery, and they to achieve the freedom, peace, and security of a socialist society. interests and toward their own aims. The workers must fight their Today the democratic nations have shown their true colors, must be rallied to fight the wage cuts that come in the form of have made clear the real meaning of their democracy. They In the name of these great ideals, we call upon you to de own war, a war of the exploited against the exploiters, a class war the hidden levies.
have handed Czechoslovakia, and with it control of all central mand an accounting from your leadership, Events, themselves, of the proletarian revolution for socialism. Only this war will de The may be still too young to elect its own candidates feat Hitler Chamberlain, Daladier, and Roosevelt defeat them in the fall elections, but a vigorous nation wide recruiting drive Europe, over to Hitler.
prove that it has deceived you, that its policies have lead to discould so strengthen the party as to make it an important factor aster, that these policies have betrayed the struggle of the workers by wiping out the whole system which breeds Hitlers and HitlerFor four years your leaders have made the Franco Soviet pact in coming campaigns and in the daily life of America masses.
the keystone of their world policy. Today that pact is not worth throughout the world and have made easy the road for the ad ism.
vance of Hitler and international fascism.
There is not much time left.
the paper on which it is printed, By remaining silent you share the responsibility for these For four years your leaders have preached the doctrine of the We call you back to the path of Lenin, of the glorious leaders disasters, and that betrayal, and guarantee the continuance of of the October Revolution, whose names are recorded indelibly JUST PUBLISHED!
People Front, have told you that it would lead to victory over defeat.
in the record of mankind reaction, and have enlisted millions upon millions of workers There is no longer room for doubt. The full meaning of Staunder its slogan FOR THE UNITY OF ALL WORKERS OF EVERY America Permanent Depression lin road is now made pitilessly clear by history itself. That road Today the People Front everywhere lies in shambles. It NATION!
leads inescapably to the annihilation of man hopes, and to the The Truth About Unemployment.
was the Popular Front Government in France, put into office by AGAINST THE LIES AND DEFEATS AND TREACHtriumph of reaction, tyranny and barbarism.
all organizations making up the French Popular Front, which ERIES OF COLLECTIVE SECURITY AND THE PEOPLE By ART PREIS But there is another road: The road marked out long ago by handed central Europe over to Hitler, FRONT!
Marx, Engels and Lenin. It is the road for the unity of the work 3c per single copy Your leaders, in great part, justified their policy by telling AGAINST THE FRAME UPS AND MURDERS OF you that the People Front, and the support of the democracies, ing class in the struggle against its enemies, whatever labels these REVOLUTIONISTS AND MILITANTS OF THE WORK 21 2c in bundles of 15 or more would guarantee the defense of the Soviet Union.
enemies may wear whether fascist, democratic, liberal, socialist, ING CLASS Workere Interested in having their friends receive a copy of communist or however else they may disguise themselves. The Today the Soviet Union stands in more terrible isolation enemies of the working class are all those, of whatever breed, who AGAINST IMPERIALIST WAR!
this important pamphlet should send in names and addresses and five centa to cover the cost of malling and the pamphlet.
than at any time in its entire history. The Soviet Government had support and behold the system of capitalist exploitation, all those FOR THE DEFEAT OF HITLER BY THE OVERto learn from the press dispatches about the agreement to liqui who use or support the state power of the capitalist nations, dem THROW OF CAPITALISM!
Order Now!
date Czechoslovakia.
ocratic and fascist. Only on the basis of uncompromising socialist FOR THE UNITED SOCIALIST STATES OF EUROPE!
Your leaders promised that their policy would lead to the enmity to these enemies, and to every capitalist state, can the unity THE MAIN ENEMY IS IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY!
LABOR BOOK SHOP defeat of fascism and the defense of the Soviet Union. But instead of the working class be achieved.
FOR SOCIALIST AMERICA AND THE WORLD they have lead to fascism everywhere, and to the isolation of the Black as Europe looks today, the march of fascism can, and SOCIALIST REVOLUTION!
28 EAST 12th STREET, NEW YORK Soviet Union.
must and will be stopped. But only one force can stop it: the SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY