OCTOBER 26, 1940 SOCIALIST APPEAL LABOR WITH WHITE SKIN CANNOT EMANCIPATE ITSELF SKIN 18 BRANDED KARL MARX The SLANGEPARA Negro Struggle Natalia Trotsky Answers Foul Slander Negro Labor Head Jailed By Britain (Natalia Sedoff Trotsky, and invited them into the din ferred negatively to the draft: widow of Leon Trotskay, has ing room for tea. Very muddled. only a few sent the following letter to phrases. and without wish.
By ALBERT PARKER Johnson. who wrote an ar.
ABOUT TO LEAVE MEXICO ing to dwell on it, he added. ticle about Trotsky constitut This w8 the first and the last offered a few suggestions, we shall Recently, Rosene Dunjee, editor of The Black ing the bulk of the September ocrasion on which a political con. understood that this Dispatch, made the keynote address before the issue of the New Interna.
versation took place. Sylvia Age time had seen another side National Colored Democratie Association, in the tional. a magazine published loft defended the position of the of Jacson. He was somewhat News has finally reached this country of the course of which he said the following: by the petty bourgeois revi.
Minority heatedly and excitedly. surprised by Jacson conduct arrest of the well known labor leader, Alexander want to insist here and now that as Amer.
sionists led by Max SchachtL. D, answered her calmly and in while in the study, but shall Bustamente, in Jamaica, British West Indies on ican citizens we demand the right to be inteman. friendly way. Her husband in speak of this at greater length Sept.
grated into every branch of the American Army.
terjected a few not very astute elsewhere During this same visit and jocular comments. All this he talked to The English governor of the island ordered Recently appeared before the resolutions com about French My Dear Comrade Johnson: did not take more than 15 min. statistics which he claimed to him seized and placed in a concentration camp mittee of the Oklahoma Democratie State Con.
Permit me to give you some utes. excused himself; he know. The conversation lasted 10 for the duration of the war on the charge of vention.
facts pertaining to that part of had to do his chores, feed the minutes at the most. In connec breach of defense regulations through his When did get an opportunity to talk told your article in the September isanimals. All of us got up. The tion with French statistics, speeches and writings in wartime.
that committee about the obvious discrimination sue of the New International Jacsons bade us farewell, and mentioned to Joe Hansen that our When broke out, Bustamente declared his in the American Army. told them how Pat where you proceed to analyze hurried away. stating, as usual, New York organization could perloyalty to British imperialism. This was all right Hurely, from my state, when Secretary of War with such impermissible haste and that they had some urgent busi haps make use of his knowledge with the British. But Bustamente also continued under Herber Hoover, had practically demobil such utter irresponsibility the ness. We did not detain them. in this field.
ized all of the Negro comoat troops of the Army. causes underlying the tragedy his efforts to keep the workers organized and not even out of politeness. We For six months you say, com told them that at Fort Sili, in my state, and that befell us at 5:30 on knew that these visits were rade Johnson, he discussed poli his fight for better conditions. The British overAugust 20. 1940; and where you at Fort Riley in Kansas. Negroes were nothing about to be terminated, since Jacles with the greatest living mas. lords of the island didn like this. And so he has also presume in this connection son was leaving Mexico. it ter of politics and Trotsky never been sent a concentration camp.
more than manure handlers. told them that to elucidate, without first ascer not today, then tomorrow, and detected a false note. beif Hitler was going to come over here, Negros Bustamente won international prominence as taining the facts, certain traits in mentally we said to ourselves, cause Trotsky was blinded factionwanted to be armed with something else other the leader of the strike struggles of 1938 in which the character of who fell Let him go, the sooner, the bet ally. This is a lle. Why didn than a mop and a broom.
victim to the assassin. This lightter. Not because we had begun you ascertain the facts, if only by many workers were massacred when they pro The Republican Party under Herbert Hoover minded carelessness and disres to suspect him as an agent of the asking his wife, Sylvia Agelor?
tested against low wages, averaging 26c a day, struck at the Negro right to fight for this coun pect on your part toward the Vie GPU unfortunately not. but be. It is an insufferable shame to and horrible working conditions.
try and we want to ask our party convention this tim force me to make the follow cause in the long run we did not place a lie at the very threshold Since Bustamente arrest, a number of other ing declaration: year to put a gun in the black man hands. We know what to do with this hus of what happened It is insuffer.
hand of Sylvia Ageloft.
people have been seized on the same charge for able to read this shameless lie.
Our first meeting with Sylvia want the right to fight in the Army, Navy, the You have been so carried away by daring to organize a protest demonstration Ageloft husband, Jacson, took alr, and the National Guard.
THE PROJECTED ARTICLE against his arrest.
place on May 28, o clock in the your factionalism that you have Dunjee correctly puts part of the blame for morning, and not in March as This visit before the last one lost your moral equilibrium and Protests should be sent to the British em.
the Jim Crow conditions in the armed forces on you so freely assert. Of those 83 different from the others in this, this is a dangerous symptom both bassy in Washington, demanding the immediate the Republicans, who today are promising the days of our acquaintance. Sylthat Jacson suddenly proposed for a revolutionist and the party release of all those arrested.
Negroes everything they can think of. that may via Ageloll husband spent some An unposed photograph of Natalia Sedov Trotsky, taken before that look over his draft of to which he belongs.
possibly win them a vote.
27 to 30 days outside of Mexico.
the assassination of Trotsky.
a projected article. And this time NATALIA SEDOV TROTSKY But how he prostitutes himself when he pre In the course of the remaining 50. for the first time he was ad. October 17, 1940 mitted into study. To. Coyoacan, Mexico tends that the Democrats are any better in this to 53 days be paid us alltold respect! Assume for a minute that the Republl to visits. He was received by affairs of his boss. Later unstood that political discussions Some More Southern Chivalry recent WPA ruling, according to the Y, The Democrats have had eight years now to corhand of Sylvia Ageloff, who Sylvia Ageloftshe too der. He had familiarize him Amsterdam News, states that Negro women eyes was completely trustworthy. now realizes what was involved. self with our general habits, inrect them, haven they?
must work out of doors with shovels and wheel on every one of his visits, he Sylvia Ageloft was not her hus corporate them in the very mar Admits Close Connections Talking about that reminds us about the comwas received (1) by both of us band conscious accomplice, but row of his bones, adapt himself barrows or quit.
mittee of Frank Crosswaith, William Pickens and and myself. 2) on each oc unconsciously she undoubtedly to them, take into account each The ruling, reassigning colored women to hard Alfred Baker Lewis, who signed that rotten ar casion it was in the patio. He used to visit us on the most over and over again that was his aided him.
minute detail, check and re check outside labor at 11. 10 a week and telling them ticle, Colored Americans Have a Stake In The each time it was when the ani MEXICO CITY David Alfaro Siqueiros, the Stalinist who led they can quit if they don like it, was brought War, issued as war propaganda by the Com.
mals were fed, that is. 4) during insignificant pretexts: To tell us task. That is why he began in the machine gun band which assaulted Trotsky house and mur to light following a protest of the Charlotte (N. mittee to Defend America By Alding the Allies. s rest period; and (5) each that his boas was liquidating his the last period to visit us more dered Trotsky secretary. Robert Sheldon Harte, was indicted Oct. Labor League, affiliate of Labor Non Partisan We ll discuss that article again in future weeks, visit took place in passing and affairs and that they were leav and more often, always at the 12, after having been brought face to face with his accomplices, who League: Here we ll limit ourselves to George Schuyler was very brief, from to 10 min. ing. that, since he was gotes, not more, except for the last ing away, he should like to leave rod Mour during rest pe confirmed their earlier testimony which first incriminated him.
always made his visits Common labor for Negro women, light work comment on it in the Pittsburgh Courier of Oct.
The most important testimony two visits.
for white women, has no place in 1940. Such 12: They speak of the Hitler menace to freedom his automobile with us for two brief. In this was his strategy, was that of Alvarez Lopez and and to an individual named Pe weeks until his return. or that and not in factional political dis Sanchez Hernandez Lopez, one of her that the money is provided conditions are like slavery days. Organized labor of speech. press and assemblage, forgetting all TRIVIAL PRETEXTS he came to bring ine a box of cussion, the chauffeurs for the machine by the Communist Party.
must fight such violations of Negro rights. Women about Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama. They say The topic brought up for discus. candy from Sylvia Ageloff which was not at all inclined to gun band, states that Siqueiros should not be forced to do the work of strong the NAACP would be illegal under Hitler, forget sion during these visits by Jac. he had forgotten to bring before. sacrifice his rest period for Jacown car, a large La Salle, was men. We demand decent conditions on WPA for ting how dangerous is membership therein in the Admits Ties on was his patron, the latter or that his wife, Sylvia had arcon. It was very well known used in the attack, that the Deep all workers regardless of color, creed or political outh few tles, one member business genius and how it rived. and Anally with a re that for a serious discuss on the machine guns, revolvers Siqueiros states that he was a baffled the imagination of his quest that we set the time and day and the hour had to bear bombs were transported to the from 1922 to 1929 and a member and member of the Communist Party belief. This shameful condition is a disgrace to having recently been lynched outside of Brownsemployee, his fantastic successes the day when his wife could visit ranged with in advance. Jac scene in this car.
Charlotte.
ville, Tenn.
in speculation and so forth and us.
son never asked for this. He of its National Committee for the Ironically enough, in proof of the fact that And it is Southern chivalry that so often so on, all of like nature. LD always arrived without prior no.
Hernandez confirma Lopez de last six years: in 1929 he was does its lynching in the name of protecting our British Imperialism is softening. they boast that listened, forcing himself from ASSASSIN STRATEGY tice, always at the same hour. The clarations, and that Siqueiros him expelled for disciplinary reasons fair womanhood. In Jamaica, Bustamente, a prominent Negro trade time to time to make some casual All this you do not understand, one and only political discussion selt entered the house: and for differences of procedure.
unionist and radical, has had freedom to organizeremark, out of politeness used comrade Johnom As you ima which did take place occurred Ana Lopez Chavez states that He admits that since then: The and agitate even under British Imperialists. In wonder why he talked to us so gine it, the political assassin had for your information week be she was engaged and paid by SI. Communist Party has me as a Germany or Italy. Bustamente would have been insistently each time about his to engage his victim in prelimi fore the crime. He had arranged queiros to spy on the movements sympathizer of confidence: as a UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE WEEK put in a concentration camp or perhaps executed. boss and the latter shady ma nary and lengthy political discus with me for a visit of his wife, of members of the Trotsky house, man incapable of following a funIt is announced that those who enlist will have Here the laugh on that. Last week a. set the very She was paid five and later ton damentally contrary political line.
were precisely worried by the fact You are mistaken had be done same hour, namely o clock, as pesos a day for this work. At first for this reason have been ad the first choice of the new opportunities for spesevaral Negro newspapers announced that Busta.
cialization that will arise. But, the article warns, ment HAS been thrown into a concentration that with them Jacson was perso, he could have hardly achleved the most convenient. But Sylvia he made her reports to Siquormitted and taken part with a sistently uncommunicative, de his aim. No, Jacson was much came not alone but with her hus. ros, later to Antonio Pujol, at voice many of its privale or remember that the services are not organized to camp.
spite his garrulousness, about the more clever than you; he underland: we met them in the patio, present a fugitive from justice, public meetings.
suit your convenience of Our Military Policy James Cannon Summary (Continued from page 2)
dination of the workers to the bourgeoisie. We have seen the results of this treacherous polley. Well, we answered in a gen.
eral way, the workers will first overthrow the bourgeoisie at home and then they will take care of invaders. That was a good program, but the workers did not make the revolution in time.
Now the two tasks must be telescoped and carried out simultaneously.
The main thing is that we must operate not under the old conditions of peace, but under the new conditions of universal militarism and war. We cannot avoid the new circumstances; we must adapt our tactics to them. In times of strike, we urge the workers to stay out of a plant. But when the majority de cides to go back, we have to go back with them and accept with them, for the time being, the exploitation of the bosses. Sometimes the defeat of a strike goes so far as not only to smash a legitimate union but to drive the workers into the bosses company union. We are against company unions; but if the workers are driven into them we go along and try to work there in the interests of the proletariat. Analogous tactics must be applied also in questions of war and militarism.
We had a great Marxist for a teacher, and a part of his genius was his never failing application of Marxist tactics. He always took the existing situation. In its totality, as the point of departure. The Bolsheviks set out in 1917 to overthrow the whole capitalist world. They did overthrow the Russian bour geoisie, but the other countries remained under the domination of the International capitalist class. So, at a certain point, the Bolsheviks drew the balance and said: Here is the situation as it exists in reality. We cannot overthrow the other imperialist bandits at present. The workers are not yet ready. Therefore, let us open trade relations with the imperialist countries, gain a little breathing space and overthrow them tomorrow. Comrade Trotsky was prompted to elaborate and extend our tacties by the new situation in the world. party which fails to adapt itself to this situation, to existing war, can play no role whatsoever.
WE ARE PROLETARIAN MILITARISTS One comrade here tried to justify a policy of anti militarism.
His remarks were, to my opinion, a reminiscence of departed days. Anti militarism was all right when we were fighting against war in times of peace. But here you have a new situation of universal militarism It is obvious that all over the world, everything is going to be settled not by mass meetings, not by petitions, not by strikes, not even by mass demonstrations in the streets.
Everything is going to be settled by military means, with arms in hand. So, can we now be anti militarists? By no means! Just the contrary. We must say: All right, the situation, not of our making is that military force decides. There is only one thing left for the workers to do. That is to learn how to be good fighters with modern weapons. So we antimilitarists of yesterday become positive militarists today. The comrade who tries to represent our position today as still anti.
militarist is, in my opinion, decidedly wrong. raised this question in our conversations with comrade Trotsky. After he had elaborated his ideas, put the question to him and asked him to make his answer as sharp and categorie as possible. asked: Can we call ourselves militarists? And he said, Yes. It might not be tactically advisable to begin with such a proclamation, but if the pacifists accuse you of it, if you are accused of being a militarist, you take the platform and say. Yes, am a proletarian revolutionary militarist. This doesn contradict the somewhat different attitude we took in somewhat different times when the possibility of preventing war by revolution could not be excluded.
Was the fight of the social pacifist elements against conscrip.
tion right in this last period? No, it was not right. It overlooked realities and sowed illusions. The workers were for conscription.
The conscription bill was carried without any serious opposition whatsoever. The fight as we conducted it, for workers control, was 100 correct. We are positively for conscription, but we do not want conscription of the workers by the bosses. We want conscription of the workers by a workers organization. If some horrified muddle head of a pacifist asks: Do you really mean 1L Do you want to compel every worker to take up arms and learn how to use arms? We answer, Yes, that is exactly what we mean. How do we justity such compulsion? By the necessities the class struggle which justify everything. There is. nothing new in such an attitude. certain amount of compulsion has always been invoked by the labor movement against the backward, the slackers, For example, trade unions always strive to make membership compulsory. The intelligent, loyal and serious workers join the union voluntarily. Then they say to the backward, to the ignorant and to the scab hearted: Join if you will, peacefully, but join this union or else stay out of that factory. That compulsion for you, my boy. We cannot allow your ignorance or mistaken conception of individual interest to interfere with the class interests as a whole. What is a picket line? Well, some that have seen at least, had aspects of extraordinary persuasion. have seen picket lines of such a nature that if anyone wanted to argue about it, he didn even get a chance to argue. He either stayed out or got knocked out. Compulsion in the class war is a class necessity. We didn invent it. It must be applied also to military training Some of our leading people will be taken out and in their places women comrades will come forward. We already have indications that we are not without resources in this field. And don forget we have a few old codgers who are beyond the draft age.
Maybe the party can make use of them. Lenin once said, and always sympathized with him, that when a revolutionist reaches the age of 50 he should be shot. When men get older they usually get tired and conservative. But there are execptions to all laws, and we come in under the execptions. If we have the correct policy, and if we have the conception that every member of our party is potentially a leader, potentially a general in the army of the revolution, we will not lack leadership.
Comrade Birchman mentioned the question of the Negro workers in the militarization. Our attitude toward the Negroes in war, like our attitude toward all other questions, is the same as in times of peace. Our line is the class line. We stand for absolutely unconditional equality for every race and nationality.
That a cardinal principle of Communism. We have to fight for and defend this principle under all conditions, including the conditions of militarism.
the problem of leadership in the workers regiments as well as in the unions.
We always take the workers organizations as they are. We join them as they are support them as they are, try to remodel them from within. Of course, the very idea of a Lewis or a Groen heading the military instruction of workers is far fetched. Cor rectly understood, our fight for military training under trade union control is a mortal struggle against the reformist, non fighting bureaucracy. The adoption of our policy, or even a strong movement in favor of it would spell the doom of the present leaders. Nobody would believe these scoundrels are fit for such a serious enterprise as the Instruction of workers for military action.
In 1917, following February, the Soviets of Petrograd and Moscow were in control of the Social Democrats and the Social Revolutionaries, that is, men of the stripe of Lewis and Green Hillman and Dubinsky: no better and no worse. In spite of that, because the Soviets embraced the workers, Lenin raised the slogan: All power to the Soviets. In the course of that fight for all power to the Soviets, the Bolsheviks won to their side the majority of the workers. And almost coincidentally with the uprising, the workers threw out the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries and placed the Bolsheviks at their head. That the way things have to be conceived in this question also.
The question of the referendum on war in connection with compulsory military training was raised by one of the comrades.
This question was propounded to the Old Man in a letter from Goldman, and answered by him. The Old Man said: don see why we should drop the demand for a referendum on war. Before they actually enter the war, an agitation for a people referendum is an excellent means of showing up their fake democracy. It is a means of agitation against them. It is not so simple and automatic; one does not exclude the other.
Comrade Trotsky also answered the question whether our slogan of Workers Defense Guards is superseded by our military policy. He said he did not see why. He thought they were interrelated. Of course, at the present time, the emphasis is entirely on the question of penetrating the military organizations.
But, as the crisis develops, all kinds of reactionary attacks will be made on the unions. Gangs will be organized to break them up. The union members will be under the constant necessity to protect themselves. The workers must be on guard to protect their unions. The slogan of Workers Defense Guards can be raised at an appropriate time, not in contradiction to our military policy, but in correlation with it.
army.
METHODS OF WORK IN THE ARMY How do we work in a conscript army? someone asked. We work the same way as in shop. Indeed, the main purpose of industry now is supplying the army. Where would you draw the line! There is hardly an industry that won be mobilized either for the manufacture or transportation of materials for the The masses are in the army, or working to supply the army The workers are subjected to military exploitation. We go in and defend the interests of the slaves of military exploitation, just as we go into the factory and fight against capitalist exploitation there. Our basic line everywhere is the class line.
The second point is to be careful, cautious. Make no putsches, make no premature moves that expose us and separate us from the masses. Go with the masses. Be with the masses, just as the Bolsheviks were in Kerensky army, Why can we do that here? And how otherwise can we do it? How otherwise, in a world dominated by militarism, can wo see our way to world salvation except through military means?
And how can we get these military means except by penetrating the army as it exists?
We have one great assurance. repeat what said at the mass meeting. We have our opportunity before us in this country. Even if war is declared and a military dictatorship is instituted, even if all kinds of repressive measures are decreed we must always remember that a dictatorship of the police and military forces, instituted by fiat, cannot be the same thing as a fascist dietatorship based on a mass movement mobilized over years of time after the workers have muffed their chance to take power. Before fascism can come in this country on a mass basis, according to the historical law elucidated by Comrade Trotsky, the great mass radicalization of the workers will take place. The workers here, as everywhere, will have the first chance to take power. That is all we need. We will have our chance, and we will not miss it.
THE DYNAMICS OF THIS STRUGGLE An interesting question, asked by some workers, was reported here: How can you tell the workers to put themselves under the control of the unions for military training when the unions are controlled by people like Lewis and Green and Hillman?
Well, if we wait until the unions are led by the Fourth International, we lose all sense of the dynamics of their development.
Green and Lewis and their similars the whole upper bureau.
cracy of the labor movement at present are agents of the capi.
talists in the labor movement, but they are not the same thing as the bosses. Their sole base of existence is the labor movement: and in spite of all the bureaucratism of the unions, they are subject to certain pressures, certain controls from below. When the worsening of conditions, supplemented by our agitation, raises wave of radicalization in the masses, the workers will solve THE ROLE OF WOMEN COMRADES On the question of the role of women in the party after conscription. We must not get the idea that all our people will be in the army. Roughly speaking, the same percentage of our party will be in the army as the percentage of their class of the same generation. We have a young party. You will learn from Com.
rade Dobbs comprehensive organization report that the average age of our party is 29 years. This means that perhaps a majority of our men comrades are going to be in the army sooner or later.