SOCIALIST APPEAL DECEMBER 7, 1940 cently resigned as District organizer after holding the posl.
tion for a number of years.
TWORKERS FORUM Progressive Stand of the CIO Convention Its Defense of Industrial Unionism Must Be Backed Wholeheartedly AFL Convention.
Lenin, Trotsky and the First World War wing movement should know a bont Wolle resignation and the accompanying situation even though he has not seen fit 10 pubRicize it nor has the Worker App deemed it necessary to announce it as yet.
By FELIX MORROW gotten. and had to come on the Lewis Murray think primarily in The methods of class collaboraN. Nov. 26 (This is the second of a series of articles on the cio Con floor the last day by unanimous terms of handouts from Wash. tion, of currying favor with the Write to us tell us what going on in your part of the For REVOLUTIONARY vention. consent of the delegates ap ington, are preoccupied with aid Bosses and Washington have labor movement what are the workers thinking about! tell Socialist Unity. think it is worth dwelling again, as in my first article, on the parently the UAW delegation hat from the NLRB and the govern. brought no results. Their bankus what the bosses are up to and the men and the local copsfrom a group who will and the Stalinists send us that story the capitalist press didn great significance of the stand taken by the CIO convention on labor forgotten to hand in any resolumental agencies in general. ruptey becomes increasingly evicontinue to seek it, print and that story they buried or distorted one pages are open (Upon being informed by us unity. have described the dramatic sequence of speeches, culminat tions on the Ford issue before rather than in leading the ordent with every passing day.
ganized workers to win their de In this epoch of the death to you. Letters must carry name and address, but indicate if you of the receipt of the above leting with that of John Lewis, affirming the continuance of the It must be reported that, desmands by their own independent agony of capitalism the workers ter. Comrade Wolfe confirmed fight for the victory of industrial unionism in the mass production pite some perfunctory speeches strength.
do not want your name printed.
are literally driven to struggle the fact of his resignation industries. It is worth repeating that Lewis was so effective prewhich may look well in the print. All this is unfortunately true for very preservation of their Bertram Wolfe Has ally since the minority has but from the Lovestone group. He cisely because he told the whole truth when he told the CIO unions: ed record, the entire psychology But by the very decision to con lives against the war machine of one member left on the leading states that he does not plan at There is no peace because you are not yet strong enough to com of the convention leade ship, was tinue the fight for industrial the government and the bosses.
Resigned From the political buro. Jim Cork.
present to join another organ mand peace upon honorable terms.
that of people on the defensive unionism, the convention com. Fight or die! Increasingly, those Herman directed slanderous ac ization. EDITORS. One can hardly exaggerate the who fear the consequences of mitted itself to a road which will become the only alternatives. The Lovestone Group cusations against the chief min.
cumulative effect of the speeches siz other kinds of pressure fron: turning the title toward an offen lead many a labor leader who decision of the CIO convention Dear Comrades: of the pro CIO forces. It was the same sources they have been ive against the bosses and their now thinks in Murray and Lewis assures the workers of a powermarizing of the Independent la of his accusations were to accuse At Whitney Muscertainly devastating to the Hillcowed by the national unity political agents in Washington. terms into realms he never ex. nl weapon in the coming great Wednesday, Nov. 13. at the sum Stewart, Kone and Symonds. Pat Portrait of Trotsky man supporters. The corridors bullyhoo to the point of well nigh That means that the gap bet pected to tread.
battles.
bor League of America pre con minority spokesmen of echoing Included in the Whitney Mu had been full of talk a vout de surrendering the strike weapon. ween Lewis, Murray and their The road of industrial union That is what the convention. vention discussion on the war is the Daily Worker, Herbert Hoover seum annual exhibition of confections Hillman among the have retreated or stood still on associates on the one hand, and ism has a Ingic of its own, which will be remembered for, that is sue, Bertram Wolte, reporter and Lindbers and of acting in a temporary American painting Rubber Workers, the Auto Work all the major fronts, and as a the Hillman breed on the other. Is not the present logic of Lewis what will be recorded in history for the minority, resigned from manner that will please Hitler, of current until Jannary 8, is a porers, etc.
the organization.
betug liars and fakers. These tac: trait of eon Trotsky by Harola wavered. it was not apparent hearteningly few gains during assure the future of the cio tant struggle for the great maes. when all the patriotic and concil Reporting for the majority tics aroused the anger of most of Weston. Although the picture at when the debate on unity took the past year.
Hillman is satisfied by Washing s, of class struggle, though iatory speeches of Lewis and (Lovestone. Herberg, Herman ct the general membership but most tracts attention more because of place! When it came time to vote, Fortunately, the convention ton handouts; Lewis and Mur. Lewis and Murray deny the real Murray will have been long foral) which represents pro Allied of them can be counted on to fol its subject matter than as an out not even the Amalgamated dele delegations understood that on ray aren But both Hillman and ity of that class struggle. gotten.
views ranging from demands for low Lovestone.
standing work of art, It is well gates chose to record themselves the question of labor unity limited aid, to support of the re in Wolfe resigning without painted and expresses appropriate in opposition.
there could be no retreat; that if cent battleship gift and calls for Peeling it necessary dignify the forcefulness. Comrades will take more, was Herman, who holds minority stand by presenting a pleasare in seeing it. The Whitney victory is best realized it were there would be no industrial The importance of this great they capitulated on this question, an extreme pro British view, resolution or attempting to form Museum is on Eighth Street, near call the atmosphere in which the union movement at all. And they Wolfe reported for the minority, a minority faction to fight for an Fifth Ave. New York City.
convention met. For months, the stood firmly by their guns.
which supports an anti war posi anti war position at the conven.
tion containing variations from tion in late December, the delegates had been under governIt is all too true, that (Continued from Page 1)
the orthodox leninist position to makes its final bow and will Note For Wall St mental and employer pressure to ternal Ladies Garment Workers pacifism. Wolfe resignation left shortly, after the convention give The semi official Infantry Jour effect unity with the AFL the convention did not take younger elements the ben preparing competenses at betne a pol na for September October 1940. That pressure had increased ten them este pot necessary to im. Choose teritor causpehe international whicon deserted the Cio industria Negro Delegates principles of industrial unionism matfonal and international unions ed would be greener pastures in Jim Crowed by AFL of his experienced assistance and nue solely as a discussion and beat the Germans in 1918 and we vietory. Would the delegates re ist all that pressure?
and organizing the unorganized. unite and conspire to create and side the AFL attempted to oppose prestige, will not be able to bring publication society. statement can do it again just as then. Get Central Labor Body launch an organization for any this resolution. Dubinsky comany sort of forceful opposition amounting to this was made at ready for another 1918, brys! Re. Unfortunately they, and es. It was not accidental, for in purpose dual to the American Fed. plained that this resolution was an Philip Randolph and Mil.
etort to skirt around a promise against the seasoned maneuver the meeting after Wolte resig member those billions in war pro pecially their chief figures, had stance, that the key problem of eration of labor.
ton Webster, the lone Negro ings of Lovestone and Co. Especi. nation by Benjamin, who refits?
shown themselves unable to reorganizing Ford was almost for David Dubinsky, head of the in which he alleges the Executive delegates at the AFL convenCouncil made to him as a condi tion at New Orleans, in the tion for his return to the AFL midst of their vain fight to fold, that no international union wipe out the Rily white would be suspended from the AFL policy of the AFL crafts, without the majority approval of found themselves Jim Crowed convention out of an entertainment for One indication of how the in the convention delegates ar dustrial unions would be cut to ranged by the New Orleans ribbons if the CIO unions should Central Labor Council.
By JAMES CANNON can be helped. It is a simple task mainly work decade. The context of my published speech, which make Lenin real meaning even clearer. return to the AFL was given dur Then the New Orleans cen111 with a shovel His own confusion and instinct to from which the sentences were extracted, makes To top off his exercise in literary skalldug ing the session of November 26. tral body had the gall to send in advancing our military transitional pro sow confusion. two qualities always happily mar it even clearer that the references to Lenin were Randolph and Webster a check gery Shachtman refers to the outlived Lenin. Representatives of several local federal unions, which have a gram, we proceed from the point of view that ried in Shachtman factional polemics plus concerned not at all with differences of program, asing quotation marks to convey the impression semi industrial character, caused providing for their separate permanent war and universal militarism have be his unfailing twisting, falsifying and misrepresentertainment. Needless to but only with the immediate perspectives of the that he is quoting me. That is an outright litera minor storm in the convention come the dominant characteristics of our epoch, say. Randolph and Webster enting the words of others and the events of the revolutionary Marxists in this war and in the ary forgery. never used such an expression by charging the craft unions with sent the check back.
and we visualize the social revolution as the imme. past are all piled together here also. It is simply first World War. don see how anyone can and could not do so; it is not my opinion. raiding their membership diate outcome of the imperialist war. We begin, necessary to dig this sturi uway, and then to seriously dispute our contentions on this point as did Lenin, with a declaration of irreconcilable unwind the quotations and replace the historical because the words of Lenin himself constitute the HIS ATTACK AIMED AT TROTSKY CRAFT RAIDS PROTESTED Michael Gorman, representing der and by preventing the Inter class opposition to the imperialists and their war. incidents in their true nosition. Then nothing basis for the reference. The October Fourth in All this literary fakery and forgery in de a federal union of 2800 members ruption of production through It is only by means of this principled standpoint will be left of the dirty mess that Shachtman has ternational cites two exact quotations on the point fense of Lenin has a fundamental aim which at the Midvale Steel Co. in Phila stoppages for any trivial reason of class opposition that the cadres of modern made of our alleged attack on Lenin and Shacht. to which referred without directly quoting. is not frankly avowed, but only thinly disguised. delphia, attacked the craft anions or for any reason.
Bolshevism are formed and clearly delimited from man brief as attorney for the defense. It is possible, however, that five, ten and Against whom is Shachtman really defending Le on this score and pleaded with the The next day, it is true, Green all other parties, groups and tendencies, which even more years will pass before the beginning nin! To be sure, he mentions only Cannon, craft internationals to leave us track watered on this extreme asto one degree or another, tend toward conciliation WHAT LENIN REALLY SAID! of the socialist revolution. From an article but it is perfectly obvious that Cannon in this alone. Morris Pratt, speaking sertion by excitedly informing the or collaboration with their national ruling class The defense of Lenin is the second point written in March 1916, Lenin Collected works, case is only serving Shachtman as a pseudonym union of East St. Louis, charged Giving up the right to strike in the war.
in Shachtman indictment of our military policy vol. XIX, 45. Third Russian Edition. But the situation which confronts us today is We, the older men, will perhaps not live long about Lenin perspective during the first world ton was trying to take over his ng up tribunals or other machinThe occasion for it was the publication of my not an exact duplication of that which confronted speech to our Chicago Conference which adopted enough to see the decisive battles of the im war were no more and no less than a simple rep. organization Other delegates cry to safeguard scainst the nec the revolutionary Marxists at the outbreak of the our resolution. Shachtman made a blg case pending revolution. Report on 1905 Revolution etition of what Trotsky said on the subject. It from federal unions made the essity for strikes. No doubt first World War in 1914. For one thing, the delivered to Swiss students, January, 1917, idem, was he who called our attention to the relevant same plaint.
out of what said about Lenin, or rather, what capitalist order has reached a far more advanced lot of heat had been turned on page 357. didn say. Here are the sentences which quotations and explained their precise signifi Even Dubinsky, making a viol Green by some of the delegates stage of decay and is more susceptible to revolaThat is not all. The main quotation from Lenin cance.
Shachtman quoted from my speech: We said and ent denunciation of the Cio and between the two statements.
tionary overthrow. In addition, we have the benLewis on the question of unity those before us said that capitalism had outlived which Shachtman cites in his polemic against us In the October number of our magazine Fourth negotiations. was forced to all THE RACKETEERING efit of twenty six years of the richest historical its usefulness. World eccnomy is ready for so a quotation which he also mutilates to twist the International which Shachtman had at hand when attention in his own cowardly ISSUE experiences which have been generalized by the meaning shows that Lenin was not speaking of cialism. But when the World War started in 1914 he wrote his article in Lahor Action of November and feeble way to be sure to the The sorriest spectacle at the great Marxist, Trotsky. These circumstances enthe revolution as an immediate perspective; that none of the parties had the idea that on the 4th he refers to the Goldman Trotsky correspon real hostility toward Industrial convention was Dubinsky.
able us to go farther, with more concretely worked agenda stood the struggle for power. The stand is, the quotation acill show it when we restore dence contained therein Trotsky wrote: Prior organization still burning fiercely ont slogans of agitation to advance the class of the best of them was essentially a protest the words which Shachtman cut off in the middle He introduced a resolution to to the February Revolution and even afterward, among the AFL tops. During the struggle under conditions of war and militarism, against the war. It did not occur even to the of a sentence. He quotes from the article of Octhe revolutionary elements felt themselves to be session of November 28, Dubinsky sive the AFL executive council than was possible for the revolutionary Marxists power to oust any union official pleaded with the craft chiefs, deetober 11, 1915, which appears on page 347 of the best Marxists that the time had come when the at the beginning of the first World War.
English edition of Lenin works, Volume XVIII: not contendere for power, but the extreme lellaring. There is no need for dir. found guilty of any offense inpower must be seized by the workers in order opposition. Even Lenin, relegated the socialist Cerences between labor. But therevolving moral turpitude.
Trotsky, the author of our program, contrito save civilization from degeneration. Even Lenin. It is our bounden duty to explain to the revolution to a more or less distant future. It must be a broader attitude toward All Dubinsky received for his buted extremely important thoughts to the work.
did not visualize the victory of the proletarian masses the necessity of a revolution, to appeal for that is how Lenin viewed the situation, then there those who favor Industrial organ efforts was a good sock in the ers vanguard facing the second World War: the revolution as the immediate outcome of the war.
it, to create the fitting organizations, to speak is hardly any need of talking about the others. ization. He admitted sadly that mouth and the enmity of all his immediacy of the revolutionary perspective in con Shachtman characterized this as a monstrous fearlessly and in the most concrete manner of Here is the real nub of the matter. Shacht le would prefer a more progress friends among the AFL officialnection with the present war, and the necessity falsehood, and as a complete misrepresentation the various methods of forceful struggle and of man attack on Cannon in behalf of Lenin ive attitude in the AFL toward dom.
for transitional slogans which can serve to mo.
of the views and traditions of the Bolsheviks in its technique. There Shachtman ended the is in reality armed against Trotsky in a cowardly the problem of organizing the un. The officialdom, in turn, pres.
bilize the masses for independent class action the last war. He offers a number of quotations quotation, breaking Lenin sentence off at a and indirect manner. He wants to set Lenin organized and the industrial form ented a cowardly front on the leading up to it. It is precisely this immediacy of union.
comma.
to prove that Lenin and the Bolsheviks advocated against Trotsky, to make a division in the minds whole matter. Instead of telling of the revolutionary perspective that makes the revolution during the war, he implies that Lenin of the radical workers between the bosses to go to hell and keep JIM CROW CONTINUES Tre transitional program a burning necessity.
expected revolution as the war immediate outWHAT SHACHTMAN LEFT OUT!
their snouts out of the internal sky, to set himself up as a Leninist with the In striking contrast with the affairs of the unions; denouncing CONTINUING, NOT REPEATING, come, and finally asks: And above all, what in Here are the immediately following words sly intimation that Leninism is not the same brotherhood with which the many the smear campaign to help La.
heaven name was the meaning of Lenin slogan, which he left out: This bounden duty of ours be thing as Trotskyism. There is a monstrous crt. Negro delegates were treated at bor for its own good as nothing LENIN WORK repeated thousand times during the last war, ing independent of whether the revolution will minality in this procedure. The names of Lenin the CIO convention, and the vari but an attempt by tire bosses to Our policy. Trotsky wrote, the policy of the Turn the imperialist war into a civil war be strong enough and whether it will come in and Trotsky are inseparably united in the Russian ous progressive steps taken by the get their fingers into the union revolutionary proletariat toward the second imOur quoter undoubtedly establishes the fact connection with the first OR SECOND IMPER Revolution, its achievements, its doctrins and CIO to unite the Negro and white afairs; and instructing the bank.
perialist war is a continuation of the policy ela that Lenin was in favor of revolution, that he IALIST WAR, etc. Lenin viously was not ar traditions, and in the great struggle for bolshev afirmed its traditional Jhun Crow mind for their own racketeering workers, the AFL convention reers and industrialists to have a borated during the last imperialist war, primarily had a program of revolution. And he tries to guing about the immediacy of the revolution as ism waged by Trotsky since the death of Lenin. polley. The modest proposal of which takes billions for the thou under Lenin leadership. But a continuation does make it appear that denied it, or didn know it.
we visualize it in connection with the present Lenin Trotsky those two immortal names are Philip Randolph, President of sands taken by the relatively few not signify a repetition. In this case too, con Shachtman whole case rests upon this false conwar, but about the necessity of advocating it and one. Nobody yet has tried to separate them; that the Sleeping Car Porters, for the labor racketeers; the AFL leaders tinuation signifies a development, a deepening and struction. Lenin advocated the program of revol preparing for it.
is, nobody but scoundrels and traitors.
setting up of an interracial com passed a feeble resolution con a sharpening. Fourth International, October, ution not only during the World War but before If any further proof is needed one only has to Shachtman article in Lador Action serves the mittee within the Federation to demning racketeering in general 1940. He reminded us, and we repeated after it, before 1905, from the very beginning of bread the rest of Lenin article! In the very same same aim as the special Trotsky Memorial Issue remedy discrimination by uptons as a concession to this boss preshim, that not even Lenin had visualized the activity as a revolutionary Marxist. Shachtman article, on page 349 of the same volume, Lenin of their magazine which was published only to ed. The convention merely revictory of the proletarian revolution as the im. entire argument is directed against a contention continued: As to the untimeliness of preaching defame the memory of Trotsky, to belittle him, peated the hands off formula it of the entire conduct of this con Nothing is more condemnatory mediate outcome of the first World War.
which did not make revolution, this objection rests on a confusion of to justify themselves against him and, at the same has used so often before, merely vention than the fact that a major At this point Lenin suddenly acquired an ad He makes his argument appear superficially terms customary with the Romance Socialists: time like any shopkeeper looking for a little ex asking the international unions share of its time was spent in vocate in a camp which hitherto las not been plausible by the use of two well known devices They confuse the beginning of a revolution with tra profit to claim his heritage.
to give most sincere considera fighting and fumbling over the is.
distinguished by its fidelity to Leninism. Shacht of literary charlatans. First, he mutilated the its open and direct propaganda. In Russia, no Trotsky, as if anticipating such attempts. gave ton to the problem carefully sue of racketeering.
man, comrade in arms of the avowed anti Bolshe quotation from my speech, breaking it off short body places the beginning of the 1905 Revolution this answer in advance. Here is what he wrote eroiding the setting up of any ma to add spice to the mess con.
vik Burnham, and the present leader of the Work and eliminating immediately following sentences before January 22, 1905, whereas the revolutionary in the Socialist Appeal: Only the other day something on the matter. The accócted at the convention by the chinery which might actually do ers Party (the Burnham group minus Burnham. in the same paragraph which made my meaning propaganda, in the narrow sense of the word, the Shachtman referred to himself in the press as ation of the convention brought a Milo Warner, head of the Americraft chiefs comes to the defense of Lenin against us.
Madame Perkins, The more clear and precise. wrote: Even Lenin propaganda and the preparation of mass action, Trotskyist. If this be Trotskyism then at least hitter and merited rebuke from can Legion, and Sir Walter Cit floating kidney, as Trotsky denominated Shacht did not visualize the victory of the proletarian redemonstrations, strikes, barricades, had been conam no Trotskyist. With the present ideas of man, hobs up in the most unexpected places! volution as the immediate outcome of the war.
ducted for years before that. The old Iskra, for Shachtman, not to mention Burnham, have nothainly sought justice for his peo ilar types, whooped it up for war, However, we have committed no assault on Shachtman twisted it and distorted it into a denial instance, preached this from the end of 1900, as ing in common. Towards their new magazineple from the crai moguls.
Lenin, and he is in no way in need of the dubious that Lenin had a program of revolution, during did Marx from 1847 when there could have been my attitude can only be the same as toward all FAWNING UPON ROOSEVELT administration and its anti labor unlimited support to the Roosevelt defense of this attorney. It is necessary to the war. But think it is thoroughly clear to no thought as yet about the beginning of a revoli other petty bourgeois counterfeits of Marxism. As take a little time out to prove this, because the disinterested reader that was speaking of sometion in Europe.
for thelr organizational methods and political pects of the convention was the One of the most disgusting as pro war program, and for more sacrifices from the workers. It authority of Lenin is one of the greatest treas thing else, namely, Lenin expectations as to the Shachtman took my remarks about the imme. morality. these evoke in me nothing but con manner in which Green and Co.
rine, who was knighted by the ures of the revolutionary movement. His name 18 immediate outcome of the war, and not at all of diate perspectives of Lenin during the first World tempt.
British monarchy and not with written beside that of Trotsky on the banner of what he wanted and what he advocated.
War, lifted them out of their context, mutilated The literary manners and morals of petty boursoverninent and its representa out cause, described with pride the Russian revolution. We proclaim the exten.
the paragraph from which they were extracted, geois dabblers in politics are no better than their tives. While graciously accepting the voluntary surrender by Britsion of this revolution throughout the world in LENIN OWN WORDS QUOTED twisted them into an attack on the program and theses. With such people, as Trotsky once re an 38000 increase bringing his ish labor of the right to strike and the name of Lenin Trotsky. We must not permit My meaning was made more precise by the traditions of the Bolsheviks which was not in marked. It is not sufficient to check their theses: searly salary to 20. 000. Green limited working hours in the in the slightest confusion as to how we regard Lenin; Bentence which immediately followed: Just a tended or implied in any way by me, and then it is necessary to watch their fingers too! If we was eager to offer the sacrifices and it is a matter of simple respect to his mem short time before the outbreak of the February Shachtman attempted to bolster his thesis by quo keep this salutary warning in mind the theses of the workers for the sake of terests of British imperialism.
ory to protect him from the hypocritical support revolution in Russia, Lenin wrote in Switzerland tations from Lenin which In reality prove the op of Shachtman directed against our military transi national defense.
In every respect this AFL con of an advocate who is known among Leninists only that his generation would most probably not see posite when they are honestly quoted without tional program can be disposed of without difs here are a number of ways in is still the basic and progressive Green went so far as to state: vention demonstrated that the CIO as a betrayer of Leninism.
the socialist revolution. Even Lenin had post breaking of sentences in the middle, and without cutly. As said before, it is mainly work with which we. can sacrifice by union organization of American It will take a little time and space, but this poned the revolution to the future, lo a later suppressing other sentences in the same article a shovel.
giving service of the highest or labor.