AUGUST 3, 1940 SOCIALIST APPEAL LABOR WITH WHITE SKIN CANNOT EMANCIPATE ITSELF WHERE LABOR WITH BLACK SKIN IS BRANDED KARL MARX.
Negro Struggle by Robert Birchman On the French Capitulation THAT WAS THE DAY WHEN THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL FIRST DELIVERED THE WORKERS TO THE WAR MAKERS, LENIN TAUGHT US THE LESSONS OF THAT DAY Behind the Lines By WILLIAMS Anyone interested in the Negro question will be eager to study and learn the contents of the Tomorrow is August 4th of the Czarist regime in the war, war protest meetings, demonstra war on Russia and mobllization day with those of 1914, the com30th annual report of the National Association that date probably does not evoke among them the founder of the tions and strikes. The Sarajevo began in France.
parison is all in favor of today.
for the Advancement of Colored People, for 1939, an immediate response from the Marxist movement in Russia. incident was branded by the soIn Germany in 1914 the revolujust issued. However, after reading the forty should learn to feel as deeply younger generation; but they Plekhanov.
cialist leaders in Austria and Cer THE COLLAPSE OF THE tionists had no party. The first page document, one must surely be struck by its The masses of Europe, tens of many as well as in France and SECOND INTERNATIONAL public voice to be raised was old about it as did the war and post millions of whom were directly England, for the mere pretext The next day, August. when Franz Mehring s, and all he was almost pathetic futility a record almost barren war generations of revolutionists, enrolled under the leadership of that it was.
the German ultimatum came to able to do that first time. Septemof successes.
For on that day. 26 years ago, the the Labor and Socialist Interna The real causes of the war, the Belgium, the first gaping hole in der 14. 1914, was to protest in a Readers of the report have the right to ex Reichstag fraction of the Social tional, in the parties, the unions. conflicts between the great pow. the proletarian dike against war letter to the press against the pect to learn of some definite achievements of Democratic Party of Germany, the the fraternal Organizations, the ers over control world markets. was revealed. The General Coun distortion by Social Democratie the association. The NAACP, one must rememleading party of the Second In consumers and sports organiza sources of raw materials and cil of the Belgian Labor Party di papers of Engels views on prole ber, is a respectable organization, supported by ternational, cast its votes in favor tions, were thus delivered over to fields for capital investment, were rected the socialist members of tarian tactics in war time. Liebof the war budget presented by the war makers. These masses well understood by tens of mil Parliament to vote for approknecht first public act against such notables as the Hon. Frank Murphy, Hon. the Kaiser.
could not but have been bewild lions. The events of that summer priations required for mobiliza the war within Germany was at Arthur Capper, and the Hon. Charles Poletti, and It was a day of great rejoicingered at the turn of events. For of 1914 were merely corroborating tion. The next day, August 3, the December 2, 1914 Reichstag is able to report an annual income of more than for the ruling class. do not during that same week the soc! al down to the last detail the an the German Social Democratie de session when he made a statement 60, 000.
know parties anymore. orated ist leaders of Europe had appar alysis of the coming war which puties met to discuss thelr stand against war appropriations. On the Kaiser in his joy. know ently been making all prepara had been unanimously adopted as on war appropriations and a ma. May 31, 1915 ten months after The first section of the report describes the now only Germans. The same tions to stand up against the war. Its Manifesto by the International jority of 78 against 14 decided the war began there appeared for activities of the NAACP to stop lynching. The horrible scene was repeated, in Socialist Congress at Basle in No to vote for the appropriations. The the first time to be circulated ilGavagan Fish anti lynching bill introduced in Paris by the French Socialist par APPARENTLY ANTI WAR UP vember, 1912. That Manifesto had next day Haase read their chau legally. Liebknecht famous apCongress at the beginning of 1989, still had not ty, and in London by the British TO THE LAST MOMENT warned: The Congress views as vinist statement to a wildly cheer peal, The Main Enemy Is in your been acted on by the end of the year. As no pro Socialists: even in the prison The weeks since June 28, when the greatest danger to the peace Ing Reichstag and the 14. includown Country. Only by ones and gram, other than further conferences with legis house of Czarist Russia there the assassination of Austria of Europe the artificially cultivating Liebknecht, remained silent. two dia the revolutionists begin lators, are contemplated in the report, there does were men who called themselves Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo ed hostility between Great Bri obeying party discipline. That to gather together, and it was not seem to be much ground for optimism for Marxists who called for support occurred, had been weeks of anti tain and the German Empire. same day the war bills were voted long, still, before they had a par And it had reiterated the stand unanimously in the chamber of ty. In France. Britain and the the passage of the bill.
previously taken by the Stuttgart ceputies. The Socialist Interna rest of Europe, it was the same The report lists four lynchings for 1939. In Congress (1907) and that at Cotional had collapsed in national story.
none of them, were the lynchers apprehended, or penhagen (1930. that the prole chauvinism.
In Switzerland, in September any serious investigation made. However, the tariat would not be content merely Even the Russian Bolshevik 1915, the Zimmerwald conference report does not tell the full story, since lynchings with opposing war in time of Party did not remain untouched of anti war socialists seemed path peace. In ense the war should by the terrific force of the presetie in its lack of representative in the South are done now in the new manneri. e. without any fanfare or mobilization of the Embargo Move Against Japan break out anyway. said the three sure of bourgeois public opinion character: and only its left wing Manifestos, than it is the duty The Bolshevik group in the Car was revolutionist. There was no whole county. We can be quite sure therefore, Bargaining Move For Indies Tin of the working class and their ist Duma joined with the Menah international organization of the that far more than four lynchings took place. In parliamentary representatives eviks in a joint declaration which revolutionary socialists until after addition, the report makes no mention of the by GEORGE STERN with all their powers to utilise was nothing more than patriotism the February and October revolubeatings and lynchings handed out to labor orBy its embargo on oil and Some of the newspaper comthe economic and political crists alluted with pink pacifist internations in Russia, and after the Ger ganizers in the south.
scrap metal proclaimed on July mentators have also seen in created by the war to arouse the tonalism. And though they soon man and Austrian revolutions of The second section tells of the efforts of 25, the government served the embargo move a reflectior people and thereby to hasten the took a more revolutionary Dori 1918! Yet it was those revolutdownfall of capitalist class ruletion, they relapsed again at their tions, and the gathering elements the Association to secure equal educational rights notice on Japan that it still had of a changing attitude in WashThis formulation dictated by trial, when four out of the five of revolution in the other war.
for the Negro people in the South. In this field weapons to use in the Far East ington toward the perspectives too, the NAACP can report only dubious success.
stringent press laws is not a per Bolshevik deputies categorically ring countries, that really put even if it can no longer contem of the war in Europe. It is plate use of its fleet to enforce claimed now that there is more fect one; but it clearly means differentiated themselves from an end to the war.
In the best known case, that of Lloyd Gaines only one thing: answer the war the defeatist theory of Lenin.
vs. the University of Missouri, the Supreme American Far Eastern policies. confidence in British ability to And when the Cxar fell and WE STAND ON THE of the bosses with the war of the hold off the German assault, workers against the bosses.
It indicated that Washington is Court ruled that Gaines was to be given equal Russia became a democracy. In SHOULDERS OF 1914!
embarking upon a policy now de that the war may last longer At least for seven years, then. February, 1917, a large part of comparison between the antiopportunity to attend the state law school with than was expected, and that white students whereupon, the state legislatura bargaining position with respect signed primarily to improve its the nature of the coming war had the Bolshevik party looked like therefore the can afford war forces of 1914 and those of countered with the appropriation of 200, 000 for to coming Japanese moves in the to take a stronger attitude strategy to the working class there were fustons of Bolshevik future of the revolutionary strug graduate study for Negroes at Lincoln Univer Orient. The embargo was the toward Japan. This interpreta movement had been indicated. And and Menshevik organizations in cle against the war. Today we sity, a Negro college.
first reply to the formation of tion, at any rate, will soon it seemed during the weeks pre many cities, the central party or have a world party of revolution The NAACP gain took this Jim action the Konoye government, whose subjected to the test of events. ceding the outbreak of war that can under Stalin and Kamener the Manifesto of the Fourth to court, but Gaines, the subject of the case, disannounced policy is the exploitaEven relatively more success the socialist leaders were cotiti took a social patriotic direction. International has said: appeared and the case was dropped. No mention tion to the fullest of the prime ful British resistance to the Ger nuing the course set during those etc. Only after Lenin returned The Fourth International in of an investigation into Gaines disappearance is made in the report.
by the development of the Euro greatly change Britain own sit: The arrival of President Poin outlook recovered. And this in numbers and especially in preparThis case represented the high point of uation in the Far East at the care of France in St. Petersburg the best, most revolutionary and ation possesses Infinite advantages over its predecessors at the bementary imperialist inter present time The Konaxe a ton of France nfl musstenentnettsastot showed that all pre Pourth International is the dtrect NAACP action for equal educational rights and ernment is greatly increasing the Germany was appropriately ans vious analyses of the terrific pow.
was typical of the manner in which these cases national relations that such an pressure on British even arheir of Bolshevism in its flower are fought almost solely through court action.
embargo comes after years of resting leading British businege Wered, July 19 25, by strikes ofer of bourgeois pressure upon the The Fourth International has ab a combined policy of diplomaLittle About the Fight For Jobs tie opposition to Japan and of men in Japan and quite obvious tersburg, by barricades, by street inadequate. That is best indicated sorbed the tradition of the Octoeconomie aid in the form of ly does not intend to permit any tiots, and the spread of the strike by the fact that Lenin, then in ber Revolution and has transmutThe third section, Economic Opportunity.
virtually unlimited supplies of stalling on the part of the Britlers to Baku and other elties.
Austria, at first believed that the ed into theory the experiences of which should logically be the most important vital metals and fuels. Last Before that on July 14, the August 4th issue of the central the richest historical period be phase of the Association activities, is given less the vital British spheres in the French Socialist party had met in organ of the German party, vor year the supplied 65 pertween the two imperialist wars space in the report than any other section. It cent of all of Japan oil imOrient, in China particularly.
convention and pronounced in waerts, was a forgery. He could It has faith in itself and its fu.
merely reports: ports and 85 percent of its In this situation the in favor of a general strike for the not believe the evidence of his scrap metal. In 1938 the per terests there come equally un(1) Unsuccessful efforts were made to have prevention of war.
eyes!
We recall the black day of Au.
centages were similar. Busider attack. The embargo forms some responsible agency conduct a survey on On July 29 in Brussels the In. Thanks to Lenin, we have been gust 4, 1914, therefore, only to ness, after all, is business.
part of the preparation to the relative costs of living in various parts of ternational Socialist Bureau met forewarned during these yeary make clear that the process of But now the prospect of early meet that attack as best posand issued an appeal to the in since 1918. Thanks to his analyslel anti war fighters turning into the particularly with respect to alleged. establishment of Japanese con sīble in the present tireum ternational working class to inten of the way in which the capitalist betrayers and faint hearts, a procdifferences between the North and the South.
trol over the vital rubber and tinstances. It may be quite signi. Hify the demonstrations for ponce class exerts its pressure to force less now being repeated. Is in real (2) Investigation by the association econo supplies of the Dutch East In ficant in this regard that while Symbolizing International solidar the masses into line, we have no ity part and parcel of the process mic committee revealed the fact that Negro dies, at a time when the blasting Moscow for the ab ty, a great mass meeting was been taken by surprise. He taught of capitalist war. It is part of workers in Fayetteville, and Cheriton, Va.
cannot offer forceful resistance sorption of Latvia, Estonia, held on July 30 in Brussels, at us to understand the various tyder the capitalist machinery and will to such a move, has led to the and Lithuania, the State De.
which the principal leaders of all of left socialists, labor leader extat so long as capitalism is per factories, were being paid less than white drastie embargo policy. As the partment granted a permit for the big socialist parties in Europe and pacifists who inevitably eluted to exist. Their present ar workers.
New York Times frankly stated an oil shipment over to the side of the war makers suments, war for democracy. 3) The rest of the section reports a few in on July 26: With power over right after refusing like perOn that day and the next, the the Norman Thomases and John for civilization, etc are but a effective protests by the association against dis petroleum and scrap exports now mits for shipments to Japan appeal of the Bureau was answer. Lewises not to speak of the stale rehash of the stuff their 1914.
crimination in Civil Service, discrimination in executive control, the United and to Spain. Washington willed by protest meetings and demon cruder varieties like the William precedensors peddled against Negro policemen, etc.
States is in a position to bargain more and more seek to prestrations of the proletariat against Greens. Lenin taught 118 to un. Lenin coined a word to name oil and scrap against rubber and serve what it can of a trial cities of Europe.
the war in all important indusderstand that those who are not those of 1914, and the name still The fourth section deals with legal defense.
tin should the Administration be Soviet Chinese tie up in the irreconeillable, revolutionary enholds: social patriots. socialists in most cases growing out of false confessions face of further Japanese moves. Mueller, And the next day August emies of capitalism in peacetime in words, patriots, chauvinists in so disposed.
extorted from Negroes. Unfortu the Asso nember of the Presi cannot possibly oppose war, which beds.
ciation cannot report much success in its atatum of the German Social De is an integral part of capitalism. If they seem strong, today, so tempts to secure justice for the Negroes through mocratic Party, arrived in Paris We live in days very similar to did their precedessors in 1914. But to open negotiations with the lead. those following August 4th, 1914. in the crucible of war apparent the courts.
ers of the French Socialist Party The situation seems even more strength melted away, and the The report concludes with a summary of orfor joint action against the war. complicated, for now the degener isolated handful of internationalganizational progress. The NAACP consists of That day, too, the Kaiser declared sted Third International plays a ists ended the war hy revolution.
324 active branches, as of Dec. 31, 1939. No indireactionary role even more cles. We stand today on the shoulders. cation is given is to how many members this reerly than the Second Interna of those revolutionists of 1917 and presents, or how many states are covered. The 1918. That is why we shall do PRIVATE ARMIES ARE Lional.
The Attempted Assassination, 19 the publication of the complete fact that the Detroit branch is reported as hav, rev what must be done so much beting enrolled more than 5, 000 members in 1939, live report and analysis of the of resignation from the Workers SAYS JERSEY COV.
or Leon Trotsky. an authorita: text of James Burnham Wetter GROWING TOO FAST, olutionary anti war Forces of tol ter and enduringly!
would indicate that the Association is to some attack of May 24th on Trotsky Party. the group which he led extent a mass organization.
house and the murder of Robert into a split from our movement The NAACP supports a total of 137 youth Sheldon Harte, is the main feaHis letter makes clear that he has TRENTON, The rapid ture of the Ang issue of Fourth now drawn the final conclusions growth in the number of private groups in different cities, with a full time youth director, the Rev. James Robinson.
International, the monthly ma. from the petty bourgeois live in military training groups in New gazine of the Socialist Workers which he indoctrinated his group Jersey caused Governor Harry The report omissions define the character of Party, just off the press. This of splitters, and has therefore des Moore this week to caution that the NAACP. One might imagine that in the article is written from Mexico by erted the movement openly and they were becoming too numeryear 1939, Negroes were not suffering from un Joseph Hansen.
altogether. An analytic comment ous for effective coordination in MEXICO CITY, July 25 El legal and extra legal, civil and employment, starvation, disease or the threat The latest issue of the Fourth on Burnham letter is provided the hothe defense plans of the popular. Stalinist controlled dai armed struggle of the revolutionof war International is noteworthy for by Jack Weber.
State.
ly, yesterday published a peculiar ary people against a reactionary These vital problems are not mentioned by so its informational articles and This is the first time that Burn Though many of these outfits item, ostensibly a statement recoup.
much as a syllable. This is not surprising, since analyses of the most important ham letter is published. His have been formed by hysterical celved by mail from David Alfaro When became clear that the aspects of the American situation group, which used to cry for con individuals who expect German Siqueiros, who is being sought by evidence against Siquieiros was to seriously raise these questions means imme.
Farrell Dobbs writes on Labor ducting all discussion before the parachutists to descend on New the authorities as one of the lead complete the Stalinists abandoned diately to come into conflict with the capitalist and the Elections. Carl Shea public, developed an under Jersey in the next twenty fourers of the attempted assassination defending him, and sought to pic class and the capitalist government. The NAACP covers recent union activity (and ground complex when they got hours, some of the larger ones of Trotsky and the murderer of ture him a man associated with attempts to restrict itself to the smaller issues lack of it) in National Defense his letter.
have a more serious and sinister Trotsky secretary, Sheld on them for fifteen years, a colonel and ignore the great fundamental problems that Hits Labor. William Warde Other articles in this issue of motive. These are aimed at sup. Harte.
in their armed forces in Spain, face the Negro masses.
analyses the reorientation of the the Fourth International in pressing labor and combating The statement says: head of their Spanish veterans government recently in an article clude an editorial analysing the strikes under the slogan of op When shall be sure that al organization in Mexico. ctc. as Unfortunately for them, however, these mazan (reactionary presidential in no way associated with them.
entitled, Roosevelt After the Bat way in which the Manifesto of the posing industrial sabotage. smaller questions are also full of dynamitetle of France.
Fourth International has stood The formation of private mill candidate) is not plunging the in line with this, the statement a serious struggle against lynching, and for The new developments in Asia the test of events subsequent to tary associations under the lead country into civil war nor assault would have the function of lay.
equal educational opportunities means a fight not tic waters provide the subject its publication; and the first of ership of safe businessmen and in the of the Republic, ing the attempt to kill Trotsky only against certain reactionary Bourbons, but matter of an authoritative article a new series on Elements of professional patriots has had the shall publicly explain my attito a question of Mexican politics against the entire capitalist system which must by George Stern on Changes in Dialectical Materialism. unofficial blessing of govern ude in the very justified assault instead of being the work of Stakeep up discrimination against the Negro as one the Pacific.
This 32 page issue is an excel mental officials who have often at Trotsky house. pointing out in GPU.
of the methods to separate the black and white lent introduction to our move supplied them with arms and in the grave political responsibilities 18 Siqueiros perhaps already Burnham Resignation Letter ment and should be used parti structors. Significantly, not that made it possible and inevit dead, executed by the CPU? It workers and maintain the rule of the capitalist class.
An interesting item in this Aug. cularly to secure new subscribers single one of these private army able. do not wish to nullify in seems difficult to believe that he issue of the Fourth International to the Fourth International. Joutfits is pro labor.
a jail my humble support of the himself sent the statement.
Louis Levy, a leading member of the French Socialist Party, diplomatic correspondent of its daily Populaire, sends a message to the worker of America. as one of the few French Socialists who have managed to reach London since the capitulation. His article published in the New Leader of July 27, makes very interesting reading, indeed. In May it was clear that important tactical mistakes had been committed, he points out. Why, then, between May 10 and the month of June, were concrete works not erected in front of the Seine and the Loire? Why was the Maginot Line not cvacuated and its defending forces withdrawn intact toward the Southwest. But it would have been necessary to galvanize the country, to have appealed for complete cooperation. An appeal could have been made to the mass of the population to put antitank obstacles in the streets and to mine the roads. bugle call was needed to stir the spirit of a great people which did not want to die. But this, General Staff, which did not wish to defend Paris, the great city of revolutions, was no doubt frightened of anything that looked like a people war. call on the revolutionary spirit could not be expected to appeal to General Weygand, a Fascist of foreign origin. The truth which all should know is that there were many French capitalists who preferred Hitler to that which they call Communism but which is in fact nothing more than democracy. Fascist propaganda had completely un.
dermined everything. One may safely assume that these French Fascists were not without contact with their counterparts abroad. And German and Italian Fascism did not flourish only in the press. It was active in Parliament and in the governments. Everywhere it had conscious or unconscious accomplices. Of course, it is difficult to distinguish between the real traitors and the dupes. What is unbelievable is that good Frenchmen, good So.
cial Democrats, did not understand their danger. have no wish to reproach friends for the past. But one may well ask why it was thought necessary to introduce into the Reynaud Cabinet men who were bound to show their hands at the very moment when defeat began to assume catastrophic proportions. What faith could anyone have Jean Ybarnegaray, one of the leaders of the Croix de Feu and an intimate friend of Fascism? In Paul Baudouin, representative of the banks who never hid his hatred for democracy, his sympathies for Fascism, and who only last year was employed as an emissary to the Duce. The workers of France, you can be sure, learned with shame and pain of the armistice conditions which, until the last minute, were hidden from them. Their anger is now great.
France Mirrors All Democracy Levy testimony, it is plain, is very useful.
Not that he himself understands it. That is plain from one preposterous sentence: Persons in a country (he means America) where all classes of society are united against the Nazi aggressor cannot understand how far the Fifth Column had penetrated into the French bourgeoisie.
Even now, this incorrigible reformist thinks that what happened in France is somehow a chain of circumstances peculiar to France.
He cannot for the life of him understand that what happened in France was merely the unfolding of the class struggle; that if the socialist and trade union leaders were successful in stifling the class struggle of the workers, the bourgeoisie nevertheless continued the class struggle on its part; that when the bourgeoisie chose to capitulate to Hitler rather than to risk being overcome by the aroused workers, they were merely doing what the capitalists in any democracy will do in the same circumstances.
Now Levy remembers that General Weygand was really a fascist, and Ybarnegaray, and Baudouin. All that was, however, sufficiently well known to Blum and the other socialist leaders when they consented to sit in the same cabinet with these men. Levy is absolutely wrong when he says that good Social Democrats did not understand their danger. that danger was pointed out by the Trotskyists, not as advice to Blum but as a warning to the workers, and for pointing it out the Trotskyists were clapped into jail. with the approval of the socialist cabinet ministers.
The Social Democrats committed no mis, takes in France. mistake imples something which can be rectified if detected in time. Something, that is, which is not organically part of one entire outlook. But national unity with Ybarnegaray, Weygand and Baudoin was a fundamental tenet of the theory of the Social Democrats. That is why Levy testimony does not cause the American Blums and Levys to change a word of their howls for unity of all classes of society against the Nazi aggressor. There is a grotesque instance of this in the same issue of the New Leader that carries Levy article.
In it Ross Wills says. The Government calls in a Stettinius and a Knudsen. to coordinate our industrial mobilization for defense. They are brought in because they are proven industrial experts, and not because of their political beliefs. But what happens? great roar goes up on the Left. They!
Capitalists! War mongers! They! They. No matter, of course, that the fortunes and destinies of the Knudsens and Stettiniuses are bound up inextricably with those of us all, in a crisis that menaces the whole nation, the obscure as well as the well known.
ture.
Vladivostok participatet.
in Fourth International Out For Aug. Features Story of Attempt on Trotsky ATTACKER OF TROTSKY, HIDING SENDS STATEMENT TO PRESS