Page SOCIALIST APPEAL APRIL 20, 1940 In the World of Labor Christian Front Trial Portends the Wide Government Use of Agents Provocateurs By Paul Stevens for contact between us is one which involves a Controversy Regarding dispute on minor matters of fact. However, let the Facts on France us hope that we will be able to straighten out We have received this week a letter from these lesser disagreements and establish a reBy JOSEPH HANSEN lationship that will permit of a fruitful political Minneapolis. It is therefore of clear. According to one admission Provoked Fascist Moves Marceau Pivert, leader of the French Socialist Edgar Hoover, chief of the first importance to study the he was invited to join and serve en him one gun and told him Workers and Peasants Party (P. respectdiscussion between you and us.
FBI, artested and indicted 17 trial of the Christian Fronters as a machine gun instructor by the confidence of the members of for Healy technique was to gain where another could be bought ing some facts we have printed in this column As to the actual matter under dispute, allow members of Father Coughlin despite the fact that these defen. one of the leaders of the so called the Christian Front, to get them recently about his party and its actions against me to state the facts as they are. You say that in Christian Front last January for dants are the mortal enemies of Action Committee, the name used attached to him as a bosom friend Healy on every move.
The FBI apparently instructed the revolutionary minority within it. Since com my column in our December 2nd issue of the conspiring to overthrow the labor in order to see more clear to designate the 17 defendants. and then to provoke them into rade Pivert, who is at present in this country, Appeal, we announced that our friends had cap government of the United States ly how the FBI practises provo According to other admissions, he some action or declaration which Agent Helped In Robbery challenges information, we feel it is our duty tured the leadership of the reading by force, the theft of munitions as far, the government has slons may be true. On the witness FBI hidden nearby.
cation was sent in by the FBI. Both ver was recorded by agents of the When some of the Christian to air the controversy before the readers of the of that column will reveal that we announced and other government property.
Frontera plotted to steal some Socialist Appeal. We confine ourselves here to the nothing of the sort. We merely said that rumors The trial is now on and its utilized the testimony of only one stand he reported that after join with expense money furnished ammunition and equipment from bare essentials. Should further developments re had reached us to the effect that some of the real meaning and purpose are provocateur, although the FBI ing he got in touch with the by the United States government, the locker of John Cook, one quire it, we are quite prepared to go further leading Freemasons in the including becoming apparent. It is pre agent in charge of the case, Peter FBI, that he reported to his su Healy bought his Friends ronst of the defendants, the FBI inlengths in proving that every bit of information yourself, had been expelled by the leadership of paration by the govern. Wacks, admitted on the wit perior in the railroad company pheasant at 50 a plate, liquor structed Healy to go along with printed here, on French matters as well as in the organization with the participation of Jacq. ment, as part of its war plans, ness stand that at least 15 more that he was doing work for the for parties, invited them to din. the others. knew they could general, is based on sources whose reliability is uier, the secretary.
for an intensified drive against agents were employed. FBI. Whatever the circumstances ner at his home where the FBI not succeed, he hastened to exuncontestable.
This information received by word of mouth labor. It is preparation to acHis Father One, Too The letter of Marceau Plvert and the reply by from a reliable Spanish militant passing through custom the public to the use the author of this column follow below: and the company cooperated by In constant touch with the FBI had sought had been removed the States at that time. have since checked the of provocateurs as an official This provocateur is Denis giving him a leave of absence.
information with the comrade in question and he method of the FBI Healy, an expert machine gunner agents, Healy arranged methodic from Cook locker. The agents Was Well Paid ally for them to gather their evi did not want to involve me in insists that that information was correct for that Avoiding an attack against the of the National Guard in his spare Pivert Letter dence. He often invited the Chris crimes.
time. Furthermore, have received direct word real fountain head of the Chris time, by profession a junior civil For his services, the FBI pala tian Fronters to his home where from France substantiating that same informa tian Front, Father Coughlin and engineer of the New York Cen: him expense money (about 25 a he served wine and food paid for Defendants Red Baiting The Socialist Appeal tion. Should you persist in denying that the inci his financial backers, the FBI is tral Railroad. He was born in week) and 75 every two weeks by the government while he en have attempted to link Healy The lawyers for the defendants 116 University Place dent occurred, shall furnish adequate evidence. cunningly making a bid for fav. Ireland 36 years ago, came to this during his leave of absence, New York City gaged them in leading conversaThe expulsion of the Freemasons and yourselelorable publicity for its infamous country in 1926. His father, he paid his wife 34 a week to com tions as FBI agents listened with the Stalinists. They have April 16, 1940 Comrades: was later revoked. Just how. that was done and use of that most perverted and has admitted, was sergeant in pensate her for taking a leave of through dictaphones and made ple, whether or not his sister inpersistently demanded, for examhow the Right Wing in your party resumed con agent provocateur. Thus the FBI en assigned to do secret service Queens Electric Light and Power FBI agent Wacks testified that he wife, a person named Minnie Kazdegenerate of human beings the the Irish Royal Constabulary oft. absence from her job with the recordings of the conversations. law who lives with him and his Once again, in your issue of April 6, you make such a fantastic presentation of events in regard trol is not as yet clear to me. Under the condicis laying the basis for similar use for the British Government. Company in all avowedly about was hidden in the attic of Healy nowski, was not employed by the to the Socialist Workers and Peasants Party of tions under which our correspondence with of proyocateurs in the trade union Healy himself has ten or fifteen 1, 300.
France (P. that a simple comparison of France which, let me assure you, is quite ample movement, where it has doubt friends in the Royal Canadian house listening through a device Daily Worker. They have asked and quite regular in other respects is being car lessly already planted them by Mounted Police.
Healy, however bought himself called the detectaphone while him if he is acquainted or related this article with that of December 2nd suffices to ried on, it is impossible to check on every detail the hundreds, as indicated by a Packard and later Mercury Healy talked in the basement to Michael Quill, head of the characterize your method. Yesterday, you an.
at once. But we will get around to clearing that their use in the WPA strikes in joined the Christian Front is not new house for 5, 960.
The story as to how Healy automobile. He is also buying a with Claus Ernecke. On another Transport Workers Union. Healy nounced that your friends had captured the leadup, too, in good time.
occasion, testified Wacks, he and denied both imputations. Since ership of the today, you are obliged to Special Agent Charles Gannon the lawyers failed to introduce confess that this leadership was struck by the Next, you say in your letter: faithful to the party program. Allow me to the column mentioned have said that these two as a contact mike to a meeting cate there was anything back of listened through a device known any evidence which would indisuppression. You use this occasion to slander the Today you are obliged to confess that this imprisoned militant revolutionists. You accuse correct you. In the same issue of the Appeal leadership (the Right Wing of the was specific persons are among those actually named of the Christian Fronters in the their questions, it may be asthem, in a word, of having capitulated at a time that you refer to, my column says: You use this occasion to as expelled. do not know whether they are, in dining room of Healy home.
when they have remained faithful to their Party, struck by surprisoned militant revolutionists. In fact they (the leaders) had fact.
cribed to an attempt of the Christo its program, and when they are brutally conYou accuse them, in a word, of having capituvoted to expel the revolutionary minority beIt may be that your friends who are left in Joined Target Practice tian Front to cry persecution demned for having courageously carried out ita lated at a time when they have remained faithful from Communists and Reds, cause the minority (demanded that the party charge of the party are attempting a sorry man. When Healy went with the in line with the familiar Coughdecisions in time war. You find in that an to their party and its program, etc.
carry out in action its resolution for revolueuver to split these two excellent militants from Christian Fronters to Narrows lin thesis that the Roosevelt goyoccasion for irony. Nevertheless, you cannot be tionary struggle against war (revolutionary the rest of the minority. But in vain that shabby burg, New York, for target pracernment is Jewish and commununaware of the terrible conditions in which they Let me remind you of the actual facts: defeatism. adopted at the last convention of maneuver will not succeed. The fact is that the tise with rifles, FBI agents hid istic.
are placed, as, for instance, the tubercular Emile In the April issue of the Appeal we called the minority, including Guerin and Weitz den in the shrubbery of a nearby Rouaix, former general secretary of the Party attention to the arrests of three of the leaders Do you deny that the St. Ouen Congress of have, as stated in that column joined in a body hill made motion pictures of the Agents In Unions. Enough said! We merely register our opinion that of the To my knowledge, that is the your party officially made revolutionary dewith the Committees of the Fourth International defendants with the aid of a cam One other aspect of the use of your incurable pretentions to the monopoly of first publicity given to these arrests in the featism the party position. our French section) for joint work in the buildera equipped with a six inch tele provocateurs by the FBI is of inrevolutionary action leads you to the use of the United States. We consider that kind of pubsame methods as Staliniam in relation to other ing of a united party on the program of the phota lens. Wacks testified also terest: In September of 1939 imlicity a duty inspired by international working Do you deny that, instead, the leadership Fourth International. Let me assure you that that they had made sound record mediately after war broke out in sectors of the working class movement which of your party carried out a social pacifist polclass solidarity.
have word from Guerin himself to this effect and ings of the conversations at Europe, President Roosevelt isare not subservient to your exigencies. But bluff icy? Who was it, then, that remained faithful In this respect, it seems to me that, instead and lies can last only a limited time. Before the to the program of the party. Are you going am ready, if you oblige me, to substantiate that which Healy talked with his sued an order requiring investigaof complaining, you should commend us for also.
French proletariat, all accounts will some day be to oblige me to republish the well known docu. friends about a campaign of tion of subversive activities by reacting more quickly and with greater effiments in this matter also? am quite ready to Your reference to the condition of comrade sabotage in the event the United the FBI. The FBI began paying reckoned.
ciency than others.
With socialist greetings, do so.
Rouaix and others of your comrades now under States should enter the war.
Healy 25 a week (the amount arrest is, of course, in spite of the fact that you At meetings of the Christian admitted in court) for expense Solidarity with our co fighters against French Marceau Pivert In any case, regard it as the highest duty manipuated this imperialism in the Jeadership cannot of a revolutionist, while maintaining complete money as a provocateur on Ocuation very crudely against us Fronters where the FBI wer Because of a discretion (which you will and must not blind us, however, to mistakes solidarity with those struck down by imperialin place of an argument, of deepest concern to apparently unable to install their tober 10. It would be interesting no doubt be incapable of understanding) will remade by them, some almost fatal. Such blindist suppression, to state the real facts. That is us. We are prepared, let me assure you, in spite listening and recording devices, to see the secret files of the FBI.
frain from discussing your information in regard ness, to our mind, could only nullify that all have done.
of the deep going differences existing between Healy took down notes on his. How many provocateurs, folto Lucien Weitz and Daniel Guerin. One thing, solidarity.
us, to join with you at once in a close collabora cuffs as to the names of those lowing the order of President however, is certain; that is, that they have not We sald about the imprisoned leaders arrests) an occasion for irony. Let me set you Finally, you object that we find in that the tion to bring immediate aid to all of our French present, the subject discussed. Roosevelt, were sent into the labeen expelled from the Party.
in the April Appeal that they refused to straight on this also. What we find ironical, as class war prisoners, as well as to the comrades These notes he transferred to a bor movement? How many appliprepare for illegal work and insisted on carry: any objective reader will attest, is not the action now hit by the spasmodic spread of the war in notebook to which he referred cations of would be provocateurs ing on as if the war had not broken out. of the bourgeois government. Not that. but the other countries. We are prepared to discuss this constantly during the heavy were officially approved by the with you, and others of the International cross examination from the attor FBI during this period and their Our Reply Is that slander, comrade vert? Do you criminally stupid policies of kowtowing to the Workers Front Against War. either informally neys of the defendants. names added to the government deny this fact? If you do, am quite ready legality of that same government policies pur or formally, and await word from you at your The extent to which Healy pay roll?
Marceau Pivert to furnish undisputed evidence in this respect, sued by your friends who, by refusing to prepare earliest convenience.
inveigled the Christian Front During the coming period April 18, 1940 which am sure you have at hand also, by now. for illegal work, thereby not only endangered the ers into incriminating actions is Assuring you of my most cordial respect, shown by the note which Erntrade unionists must watch Dear Comrade: You say of the leadership of the re lives of the revolutionary militants in the rank with the utmost caution for remain, ecke left in the basement ferring, of course, to those who have the for and file, but eventually fell as victims themselves.
Your letter of April is at hand and has been these wolves in the pay of mal leadership and have expelled the militants One last point with regard to my information Fraternally yours, turned over to me for reply.
where he banged himself. Ac those out to crush the labor of the minority) that they have remained on Lucien Weitz and Daniel Guerin. Nowhere in cording to the police, this note First of all, am sorry that the first occasion movement as an obstacle in the (signed) Paul Stevens mentioned that Healy had gly path of the war machine.
slander the The Struggle for a Proletarian Party with exceptional force and virulence, while the proletarian centers geois elements. These sentiments found authentic expression in a of the party remained virtually unaffected. The tendency of the section of the leadership. They began to translate their own petty bourgeois elements to flee from our program and to repudi nervousness into exaggerated criticism of the party and demands ate our tradition is counterposed to a remarkable demonstration upon it which could not be fulfilled in the circumstances. After of loyalty to the program and to the party on the part of the pro the signing of the Stalin Hitler pact, the opposition became more By JAMES CANNON letarian membership. One must indeed be blind not to understand articulate. It began to express itself in the form of a fight against National Secretary, the meaning of this differentiation. The more our party revealed our program and, eventually, in a revolt against the whole docitself as a genuine proletarian party, the more It stood firmly by trine, tradition and method of Marxism and Bolshevism.
principle and penetrated into the workers mass movement, the (The following article is the second chapter of a pamphlet most unfailing in times of crisis, war, and revolutionary struggle.
It would be utterly absurd, however, to characterize the party better it has withstood the shock of the crisis. To the extent written by comrade Cannon to sum up the seven months Those who have assimilated the program, the doctrine, the method crisis as the result merely of political differences of opinion. We that our party has sunk its roots in proletarian soil it has gained, discussion in the party on the question of the Soviet Union and the tradition into their flesh and blood, as the guiding line of and the organization question. The pamphlet was pub struggle, cling all the more firmly to the movement under the not lost, during this recent period. The noise we hear around and would not touch the core of the problem if we confined ourselves to a political characterization of the fantastic proposals and about our movement is simply the rustling of the leaves at the lished in the Internal Bulletin. Now that the Third National pressure of the crisis.
top of the tree. The roots are not shaking.
flip flops of the opposition. Serious political struggles, such as Convention of the party has settled the disputes by a deIt is only those who took Bolshevism as a set of literary formuthese, are an expression of the struggle of classes; that is the cisive majority, this article will acquaint our readers with las, espousal of which gave one a certain distinction in radical The evolution and development of American Trotskyism did only way to understand them. The leaders of the opposition, the party estimate of the dispute. In the next issues of the circles without incurring any serious responsibilities, those who not procede raccording to preconceived plan. It was conditioned APPEAL we shall publish other chapters of comrade Canand a very large percentage of their followers, have shown that adopted Trotskyism as a form of extreme radicalism which by a number of exceptional historical circumstances beyond our they are capable of changing their opinions on all fundamental non pamphlet Editors. control. After the initial cadres had accustomed themselves to never went beyond the bounds of sophisticated debate it is such questions of theory and politics over night. This only demonstrates people who are most inclined to falter and to lose their heads withstand the attacks and pressure of the Stalinists, the movement quite forcibly that their opinions in general are not to be taken 11.
under the pressure of the crisis, and even to blame their panic on began to take shape as an isolated propaganda society. Of neces too seriously.
sity it devoted an inordinate amount of its energy to the literary that same Trotskyism which simply remains true to itself.
struggle against Stalinism. World events, one after another, conThe driving impulses behind the opposition as a whole are New Stage in the Development of Everybody knows the crisis has dealt heavy blows to the im firmed our criticisms and prognoses. After the collapse of the petty bourgeois nervousness at the prospect of impending strugposing movement of Stalinism. With the signing of the SovietComintern in Germany, the failure of the successive year plans gles, difficulties and sacrifices, and the unconscious desire to American Trotskyism Nazi pact the flight of the Stalinist fellow travellers began. They to bring socialism in Russia, the monstrous excesses of the against our program and our tradition is simply a device to mask avoid them at all costs. For some, no doubt, frenzied struggle could stomach the Moscow Trials but not the prospect of coming forced collectivization and the man made famine, the murderous The body of doctrine and methods known as Trotskyism is into collision with the democratic government of imperialism.
indubitably the genuine Marxism of our time, the heir and con capitulatory desertion of the revolutionary movement in a cloud purges and the trials after all this, which Trotsky alone had After the Soviet invasion of Poland and then of Finland the flight explained and analyzed in advance, Trotskyism became more popuof dust and controversy. For others, their newly discovered potinuator of the Bolshevism of Lenin and the Russian revolution of the fellow travellers became a rout. This wild migration attract lar in petty bourgeois intellectual and half intellectual circles. For litical position, and their endless talk about it and around it and the early Comintern. It is the movement known as Trotskyism ed wide attention and comment. We ourselves contributed our ob a time it even became the fashion. Party membership conferred are an unconscious rationalization of the same inner compulsion.
and no other that has developed Bolshevism in analyzing and in servations and witticisms on this ludicrous spectacle. Up to now, a certain distinction and imposed no serious hardships. Internal In such cases it is not sufficient to stop at a political characterizaterpreting all the great events of the post Lenin period and in however, we have remained silent on an analogous phenomenon democracy was exaggerated to the point of looseness. Centralism tion of the outlandish propositions of the oppositionists. It is formulating the program for the proletarian struggle and victory, in our own periphery. The flight of the more sophisticated, but and discipline existed only in the program, not in practice. The necessary to expose their class basis.
There is no other movement, there is no other school that has hardly more courageous, intellectual fellow travellers of American party in New York answered anything. There is no other school that is worthy of a Trotskyism has been scarcely less precipitate and catastrophic.
more like a sophisticated discussion club The present crisis in the party is no mere episode. It is than a combat party of the proletariat.
not to be explained by simple differences of opinion such as have moment consideration by the proletarian revolutionists. Trotsky ism, embodied in the Fourth International, is the only revolutionary With the approach of the war Trotskyism as a doctrine and as The fusion with the Muste organization, and later the entry occurred at times in the past, and will always occur in a free movement. movement began to lose its respectability. Many of the in into the Socialist Party, were carried out with the deliberate aim and democratie party. The crisis is the direct reflection of allen tellectuals, sniffing danger, arranged a somewhat hasty and un of breaking out of propagandistic isolation and stagnation and But the road from the elaboration of the program to the organclass pressure upon the party. Under this pressure the bulk of the finding a road to wider circles. These actions brought hundreds their heads completely, while the proletarian sections of the party petty bourgeois elements, and the petty bourgeois leaders, lost ization of firm cadres, and from that to the building of mass parties dignified departure. In truth, there is not much left of that conof new recruits to the party, and gave us the possibility of exof the Fourth International, is difficult and complicated. It proceeds Trotsky literary style and confound the less intelligent periphery panding our activities. But the successes also brought their own stand frm, and rally around the program with a virtual unanimity.
through various stages of evolution and development as a continuous process of selection, attracting new forces and discarding othof Stalinism with nuggets of wisdom mined from Trotsky writ. contradictions. The membership of the Socialist Party in New From this we can and must draw certain conclusions: ers who fail to keep step. The American section of the Fourth Interings. The collapse of the Trotskyist cultural front was taken by York, including its left wing and its youth organization, was prisome people, especially the ex fronters themselves, to signify a marily petty bourgeois in composition; and, despite their good will. 1) It is not sufficient for the party to have a proletarian pronational is right now in the midst of a crisis in this evolutionary were not easy to assimilate. If our party organization in New gram; it also requires a proletarian composition. Otherwise the process. If, as all signs indicate, we are moving toward a radical collapse of our movement. In the journals of the class enemy to solution of the crisis, it is to be accounted for by the speed at which they promptly attached themselves some of them have al york had been much larger, and predominantly proletarian in program can be turned into a scrap of paper over night.
ready worked up courage to write about Trotskyism as an out composition, the task would have been much easier. As it was. 2) The crisis cannot be resolved simply by taking a vote at which world events are marching and the immensity of their scope moded sectarian tendency. However, it is they who are out some of the new forces from the complicated the problem the convention and reaffirming the program by majority vote. The and the sensitivity of our party to their impact.
moded, not the movement of the proletarian vanguard, Trotskyism. of proletarianizing the party and contributed fresh recruits to party must proceed from there to a real proletarianization of its The second world war, no less than the first, strikes all organthe petty bourgeois clique of Abern.
ranks. It must become obligatory for the petty bourgeois memizations and tendencies in the labor movement with cataclysmic The petty bourgeois intellectuals are introspective by nature.
bers of the party to connect themselves in one way or another They mistake their own emotions, their uncertainties, their fears, At the same time, thanks to our deliberate orientation toward with the workers movement and to reshape their activities and force. Our own organization is no exception. Like all others, it is and their egotistic concern about their personal fate for the senti trade union work, the party in ers of being shaken to its foundations and compelled to reveal its real country was even their lives accordingly. Those who are incapable of doing ments and movements of the great masses. They measure the developing in a proletarian direction. Penetration into the trade this in a definite and limited period of time must be transferred nature. Weaknesses which remained undisclosed in time of peace are rapidly laid bare with the approach of war. Numerous inworld agony by their own inconsequential aches and pains. Inso unions was bringing into the party fresh elements of proletarian to the rank of sympathizers.
far as our party membership consists in part of petty bourgeois fighters, and the contrast between the proletarian centers and the dividuals and whole groupings, whether formally members of the elements completely disconnected from the proletarian class strug New York organization flared up in numerous skirmishes before Trotskyism from a loosely organized propaganda circle and disWe stand at a decisive stage in the evolution of American Fourth International or sympathizers, are being submitted to the gle, the crisis which overtook the periphery of our movement is it finally exploded in the present party crisis.
same tests. There will be casualties, which may seem to indicate a transferred, or rather, extended, into the party.
cuasion club to a centralized and disciplined proletarian party weakening of the movement. But that is rather the appearance of The approach of the war, with its forewarning of heavy dim rooted in the workers mass movement. This transformation is things than the reality. Trotskyism is the veritable doctrine and It is noteworthy that the crisis struck the New York organiza culties and sacrifices for members of the party, brought with it being forced rapidly under pressure of the approaching war.
method of proletarian revolution; it reveals its true substance tion of the party, thanks to its unfavorable social composition, restlessness and dissatisfaction among many of the petty bour. This is the real meaning of the present party struggle.