SOCIALIST APPEAL Tuesday, March 21, 1939 On the Causes for the Defeat Of the Spanish Revolution SOCIALIST APPEAL VOL 101, No. 17 March 21, 1989 Published twice a week by the BOCIALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASS at 116 University Place, New York, Telephone: Algonquin 8547 Subscriptions: 00 per year: 00 for six months.
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IN THIS CORNER copy in Editor: MAX SHACHTMAN Associate Editors: HAROLD ROBERTS FELIX MORROW Staff Members: EMANUEL GARRETT JOSEPH HANSEN Business Manager: STANLEY FIGHT WITH THE SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY FOR: job and a decent wage for every worker. Open the idle factories. operate them under workers control. Twenty Billion dollar Federal public works and housing program Thirty thirty! 30 weekly minimum wage. 30hour weekly maximum for all workers on all jobs. Thirty dollar weekly old age and disability pension. Expropriate the Sixty Families. All war funds to the unemployed. people referendum on any and all wars. No secret diplomacy.
10. An independent Labor party.
11. Workers Defense Guards against Vigilante and Fascist attacks.
Hitler Answers Stalin Supreme Court Aftermath On Friday, March 10, Stalin addressed the opening session of the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Stripped of its heavy overload of incredibly dull verbiage, of its bluff and bombast.
the central point of the speech boiled down to a whining, cringing bid for a deal with Hitler.
Stalin begged only that the borders of the Soviet Union should not be crossed; that and nothing more.
If that were granted, he promised the peaceful development of all business relations. If that were granted, he promised, in virtually so many words, a free hand for Hitler so far as Russia and the Comintern are concerned in the rest of the world.
He promised to alibi Hitler in all his aggressive acts; indeed he stated the alibi by stating that every thing Hitler has done has in actuality been provoked and caused by England and France.
He promised, if his plea were granted, to do nothing, nothing whatever, to hinder Hitler plans for taking over colonies. Go west, go west, young man, he kept repeating.
Echoing the speech, the entire Stalinist press now shouts with one voice: Hitler next moves will be to the west, will be against England and France and their satellites and colonies.
This theory is, from one point of view, simply an invitation to Hitler: turn west, turn against England and France, and there will be no trouble from us.
But at the same time it is a desperate and tragic attempt to turn a wish into a reality.
The reality was indicated, in a manner no sober man can mistake, by Hitler answer to Stalin.
Hitler did not answer by another speech. He answered in blunter fashion, by moving his troops and tanks and airplanes into what was left Czecho slovakia. He answered by advancing his front line to within less than two hundred miles of the border of the Ukraine.
One hundred forty of these miles are within Carpatho Ukraine. Eve if Hungary retains nominal control of this region, Hitler troops are already also there, and his overlordship is sure. In effect, therefore, Hitler guns now point at the Soviet border from a distance of only sixty miles.
It is not yet certain what Hitler next major drive will be. He may well take some further time to consolidate his position in central Europe. It is not yet by any means excluded that he will then turn directly against Holland, England, France and their colonies.
But this much is certain: in the light of the present situation and the present evidence, the main danger is that the drive to the East will continue, the main danger is to the Soviet Union.
And bow does Stalin propose to meet that danger?
As utopian as he is contemptible, Stalin proposes to tries to adopt policy of appeasement which he himself declares has been Hitler chief supportat the same time that even Chamberlain and Daladier are getting a little sceptical about appeasing the never satiated Nazi cannibal Defense of the Soviet Union dramatically forges into the front of the immediate tasks of the workers of the world. The Soviet Union is in terrible, mortal, close danger.
And once again, for the thousandth time, history is making clear: The Soviet Union cannot, will not be defended by the degenerate and counter revolutionary Stalin and his gang.
The Soviet Union can be defended not by appeasing any imperialism, democratic or fascist, but by overtbrowing every imperialism, democratic and fascist.
To struggle against every imperialism, above all their own imperialist states, this is the task of the workers of the world in defense of the Soviet Union.
And to carry through this task they must cast from their backs the hangman of the Kremlin who last Friday drove one more nail deep into the coffin which he has designed for the October Revolution They Must Eat!
President Roosevelt in asking for an additional relief appropriation of 150, 000, 000 from Congress last Tuesday revealed a few facts about the dire situation of the unemployed which make startling reading THE INVENTORS OF THE to say the least.
lutionary struggle and above all ner class mechanism have been UMBRELLA the struggle of the peasants for subjected to analysis. It is obvious After pointing out that employment has decreased An old French humorist once land. The exploiters and the Stal that they never read the basic since the end of December and that the number of wrote an account of how a petty inists say: Now is not the time documents of the first four Con By Max Shachtman persons now certified as being in need and eligible bourgol come to invent the um. to solve the agrarian question. gresses of the Communist Interbrella. Walking the street in the Now it is a question of a common national, nor the theoretical refor employment actually higher than it was a The intricacies of the social democratic mind are rain he began pondering how fine struggle against the Mikado. searches of the Fourth Internaoften dificult to follow. Take, for example, the commonth ago, the President gave out some of the recent it would be if the streets were Yet, it is self evident that were tional which prove and explain ment of the New Leader (March 11) on the situation figures which have just been made available concerning covered with roofs. But that the Chinese me ante of angest the one that the struggle Loyalt senerals in Madrid who ousted the Negrin relief.
If 150, 000, 000 is not appropriated immediately, culation of alr. It would have the land, they would defend it against Faschem is unthinkable in regime and set up their own Defense Council.
stated the President, 400, 000 now on various projects person but how move it? Of ne ese imperialists. Need we recall by the methods of the proletarian There can be no doubt of the loyalty to the Spanwill be dismissed during the first week of May, consity it would have to be moved once again that if the October class struggle for power.
ish people of the Defense Council. The Communist uprising, which was smashed by Minja, is a revolt 600, 000 during the first week of June, and 200, 000 by the pedestrian, holding some revolution was able to triumph in These gentlemen picture history against the legitimate Spanish government.
more before the end of June.
sort of lever in his hands, etc. etc. a war of three years duration as painstakingly preparing the Now, leaving aside for the moment the more than In addition to these, 850, 000 now certified as Finally, our inventor exclaimed, over countless enemies, including conditions for the socialist revolu dubious assertion that the Council loyalty to the Bab! Why, that an umbrella! the expeditionary forces of the tion, apportioning roles, inscribing Spanish people is indubitable, it would be interesting needing relief will be eliminated from all further Inventors of the umbrella can mightlest imperialist powers, it in large letters on a triumphal to learn from the New Leader writer just what criconsideration. That means more than 2, 000, 000 people nowadays be encountered at every was only because this victory was arch: ENTRANCE TO THE SOterion he employed in designating the Council as the will be thrown off the relief rolls by the end of June. step among the leftists. In its assured above all by this, that CIALIST REVOLUTION, guar legitimate Spanish government.
The reduction, says the President, including the time Bolshevism discredited re during the war the peasants had anteeing victory, and then polite Just what makes it legitimate. Is it, perhaps, the formist politics for a number of gained possession of the land ty inviting the Messrs. Leaders to number of dependents, will affect 5, 000, 000 people.
legal product of the democratie suffrage of the Spanyears. But with the coming of while the workers held the mills assume the prominent posts of ish masses? Was it voted into office in an electionThe President own plan when he asked for only reaction Stalinists together and factories. Only fusion of ministers, ambassadors, etc. No. 875, 000, 000 in any kind of election? Was it designated as the sucoriginal estimate relief need: with all the sub Stalinists have the socialist overturn with the The question stands somewhat cessor by a previously existing government?
was to cut off 300, 000 from the present relief rolls.
begun inventing anew the umbrel civil war made the Russian revo differently; it is far more complex, difficult, and dangerous. Oppor Obviously, none of these is the case.
la of reformism: The People lution unconquerable.
These together with the 850, 000 on the waiting Front (coalition with the bourge Gentlemen like Mr. Leon deter tunists, reactionary blockheads, Where the Difference Lies list who would be eliminated from further considera oisle. the duty of the proletariat mine the character of a revolution and petty bourgeois poltroons nev.
The Minja Casado Besteiro gang came into power tion would bring the total to 1, 115, 000 people whom to defend the democratic father by the name given it by bourgeois er have recognized and never will purely and simply by means of an armed seizure of land (social patriotism. and so liberals and not by the manner in recognize the situation when it the President proposes be doomed to starvation. Conon. And they do it with all the which it is expressed in the actual places the socialist overturn on power by a conspiratorial group of military men. It overturned by force the Negrin government which the gress wants to make it more than 2, 000, 000 vigor of ignorance!
class struggle, nor by how it is the order of the day. To do so New Leader itself, along with all other Popular FrontThe President own message thus gives a faint ANOTHER NEWLY sensed even if not always clearly one must be a revolutionary Marxist organs, sald up to yesterday was the legitimate picture of the real relief needs of the unemployed. INVENTED UMBRELLA Spanish government.
If there are 850, 000 who have been passed by Admin In the Mexican newspaper El maests. But we look upon the be able to despise the public opinAgain, what makes Miaja regime legitimate in the istration bureaucrats as needing relief, as admitted popular, which has achieved at the eyes of the liberal philistine geoisie, which reflect pe only the eyes of the social democrats?
We know that although more than two decades have by Roosevelt himself now starving on waiting ity of its erudition, its honesty of the workers of Barcelona and AS THE PROLETARIAT eyes of egotistic class fears of capitalism.
elapsed, the social democrats have continued to be lists then the President own demand for 150, 000, thought and the revolutionary turia, and the peasants of Seville WAS STRONG ENOUGH unrelenting in their condemnation of the Bolshevika 000 additional does not even achieve the status of for dispersing the Constituent Assembly in Russia.
a temporary sop.
With undiluted bitterness they tax the Bolsheviks with Vegas Leon, who is not altogether factories, for land, for better themselves declared after having overthrown by force of arms the legitimate unknown to our readers, comes future and not at all for the old the uprising of May, 1937: Had The callousness of the President and Congress in to the defense of the policies of parliamentary umbrella of the we wished we could have seized Spanish government although the Negrin regime arguing over whether one million or two million the Spanish People Front, with of March 1939 was more representative, alaa! of the the aid of a newly invented um THE EMPTY ABSTRACTION People Front.
power at any time, because all the should face immediate starvation, and especially the masses than was the vastly discredited Constituent forces were on our side, but we Assembly of January 1918.
hypocrisy of the President in posing as the champion brella: The war in Spain, you see, is not a war for socialism but OF ANTI FASCISM did not want any dictatorship. The only conceivable basis for the social democratic of the unemployed when he actually plans to doom rather a war against Fascism. In cism and anti Fascist are a vitors of the bourgeoisie did or The very concepts of anti Fas etc. etc. What the anarchist ser legitimation of the Miaja regime must therefore be more than one million unemployed to starvation no war against Fascism it is imper fiction and a lie Marxism ap did not want is in the long runa sought in the fact that it has smashed the communist matter what Congress does deserves only one reply. missible to engage in such advenACTION!
Lures as the seizure or Factores proaches all phenomena from a secondary issue. They did, how referring to the masses of workers of all political class standpoint. Azana is anti ever, admit that the insurrection. opinions who were ready to fight From California to Maine the unemployed must the end against Fascism are capable of proposing Fascism hinders bourgeois intel to have conquered power. Had it fascist slavery rather than capitulate ignominiously mass at local relief headquarters in militant protest. such plans. And so forth and so lectuals from carving out parlia possessed a revolutionary and not contending groupe, the social democrats, true to their under the direction of Miaja. In estimating the two The unemployed cannot be plowed under like a on. Historical events obviously ex mentary or other careers Con treacherous leadership, it would nature, rally instantaneously to the legitimate Span surplus crop. They are human beings. If Congressercise no way over people who fronted with the necessity of have purged the state apparatus live in the kingdom of cheap news ish government legitimate by virtue of the simple and the President deny them the right to eat, they paper copy.
choosing between Fascism and the of all the Azanas, instituted the fact that it is led by capitulators. For where would must fight for that right!
proletarian revolution, Azana power of the Soviets, given land Oneal, Lee, Waldman and Co. feel more at home than Mr. Leon is unaware that the will always prove to be on the to the peasants, the mills and among the capitulators to fascism, with whom they self same umbrella was used in side of the Fascists. His entire factories to the workers and the have now been intimately associated for the past 17 their operations by the Russian policy during the seven years of Spanish revolution would have beyears at least?
Mensheviks and Social Revolu revolution proves this.
come Socialist and unconquerable.
And in their enthusiasm for Maja latest move, they tionaries (the party of Keren On the other hand, the slogan But because there was no revo are even prepared to forgive him for his membership sky. They never tired of repent. Against Fascism, For Democ lutionary party in Spain and be in the Stalinist party. He is more than making up for One of the first results of the Supreme Court deci ing that the Russian revolution racy! cannot attract millions cause there was instead a multithat error by the energy he displays in shooting down was democratie and not social and tens of millions of the popu. tude of reactionaries imagining sion outlawing sit down strikes is the suit instituted revolutionary workers.
ist; that in a war with Germany, lace if only because during war themselves as socialists and anarin Philadelphia against the American Federation of which was menacing the young time there was not and is not chists they succeeded under the Hosiery Workers by the Apex Hosiery Company.
democratic republic, any attempt any democracy in the camp of the label of the People Front in When Violence is Permissible The company is demanding no less than 3, 500, 000 to engage in such adventures as Republicans. Both with Franco strangling the socialist revolution Which brings to mind another couple of social damages for harm allegedly done to its plant during the expropriation of the means of and with Azana there have been and assuring Franco victory. democratie peculiarities.
the sit down strike in May 1937.
The abhorrence which the good people of the New production was to give aid to military dictatorship. censorship. It is simply ridiculous to justify Hohenzollern. And inasmuch as forced mobilization, hunger, blood the defeat by references to the Leader feel towards revolutionary Marxlats is based in The long delay in bringing the case to court there were not a few scoundrels and death. The abstract slogan: military intervention of Italian large measure on the accusation that the latter emshows that the suit and the Supreme Court decision among them, they also asserted For Democracy! suffices for lib Fascists and German Nazis, and ploy violence in fighting to replace capitalism by that the Bolsheviks did all this eral journalists but not for the to the perfidious conduct of the immediately preceding it, are more than coincidental.
cialism. No violence is permissible in the struggle!
for some secret reason. oppressed workers and peasants. French and British democracies. they say.
The reactionary decision of the Nine Old Men in They have nothing to defend ex. Enemies will always remain eneTHE CLASS CHARACTER Violence is reprehensible when used by the workers Washington was rendered at a time when the ruling OF THE REVOLUTION cept slavery and poverty. They mies. Reaction will always inter cither to defend themselves from reaction or to estabclass of this country thought that it had labor in an Whether a revolution is anti will direct all their forces to vene whenever it can. Imperialist Hsh rule of the proletariat.
apathetic mood quite different from the militancy fascist or proletarian, bourgeois same time they are able to realize This means that the victory of But violence is perfectly all right when it is used that characterized it during the dramatic and effective to suppress the working class. Noske was not one whit more tender than Misja when, in 1919, he used the political labels but by the class new and better conditions of ex. the proletariat is impossible in period of the big sit down strikes. Then the capital.
structure of a given nation. For istence. In consequence, the strug. general! But what about the vicmachine guns and bayonets of the monarchist troope ists quaked with fear. Now they have grown impu Leon, the development of society gle of the proletariat and the tory of Fascism in Italy and Ger to exterminate the Berlin Spartacans who were fightdent to the point of trying to cripple the trade union approximately from the middle of poorest peasants against Fascism many itself? No intervention there. ing for the Soviet power.
imovement with suits for fantastic sums of money, the Nineteenth century has passed cannot in the social sense be do. Instead we had there a powerful for the mutual slaughter of the workers to an im And violence is perfectly all right when is used based on the Supreme Court decision.
perialist war. In that case, the New Lender has al The only answer labor can give to such insolent, bas washed away in capitalist is why Leon goes way wide of cialist party and, in the case of countries the petty and the middle the mark when, following the Germany, a large communist par ready guaranteed in advance Its support of one immore authoritative philistines, ty as well. Why then was there no perialist band against the other.
but dangerous, attacks, is one that the economic over bourgeoisie, pushing them into In a word, for the pacifistic social democrati, violords of the land understand: a renewal of united, the background, degrading and he lectures us that Marxism re victory gained over Fascism? Prelence is legitimate when the capitalist class 11868 it militant action on such a scale that the Supreme Court lowering them. The principal jects Utopias, and the idea of a cisely because the leading parties against the workers, but entirely impermissible the in modern society includ socialist revolution during a tried to reduce the question in decision, and such preposterous suits as the Apex ing Spain are the bourgeoisie aan. In point of fact, the worst against Fascism when only a other way around Hosiery Company has now instituted, will go no and the proletariat. The petty and most reactionary form of socialist revolution can defeat further than the paper they are written on.
Not Like the Bolsheviks!
is Faset: The workers wielded, with great success and greater for any lengthy period. wiela Utoplanism is the idea that Among the heads of the New Leader legitimate justification, the invaluable weapon of the sit down power: the latter must be either possible to struggle against Fas The Spanish revolution was the Spanish government is Julian Besteiro. He is now in the hands of the bourgeoisie or cism without overthrowing caplstrike and they never stopped to ask the permission in the hands of the proletariat. In talist economy supreme school. It is impermisengaged in shooting down and imprisoning all sup VICTORY WAS POSSIBLE porters of Juan Negrin, whose government be helped of the private property defending Courts. They don Spain, the bourgeoisie driven by sible to allow the slightest frivTruly astonishing is the total olousness towards its dearly overturn. Almost two years ago, Negrin himself overneed that permission today any more than they did fear for its property went comturned the government of Francisco Largo Caballero, pletely over into the camp of Fas ignorance of these people. They bought lessons. Down with charand devoted himself in the intervening period to shoot yesterday cism. The only class capable of have no inkling of the fact that latanism, phrasemongering, smug ing and imprisoning the supporters of the latter.
United fighting labor is so invincible that it can waging a serious struggle against there is, beginning with Marx and ignorance and intellectual paraLook at the terrible Bolsheviks, the New Leader easily teach the courts and their capitalist masters a says with horrification from time to time, all they do lesson that the latter will not quickly forget.
alone could have rallled the op which the very concept of the and honestly and prepare for the is kill each other under their one party dictatorship.
pressed masses, above all the democratic revolution and its in future Thank God we social democrats are not like the Spanish peasantry. But the work(7) reduce payments to private Bolsheviks!
ers power could only be the soBut this is the pay off! Caballero and Negrin and clalist power. Besteiro are, singly and severally, members and lead THE EXAMPLE OF CHINA rs of the same organization, the Socialist Party of AND RUSSIA While Congressmen argue with President Roosevelt 9) give no supplementary Spain, Praise be to Allah, they too are not Bolsheviks, But, objects Mr. Leon, the imthat 1, 000, 000 unemployed should be thrown off the relief to private incomes of fami sut social democrats. Yet, befingly enough, these the struggle mediate goal is lies of six or less where there are good social democratic comrades settle their differrelief rolls immediately in place of 150, 000 a month against Fasciam. All our forces no health problems.
ences by overturning each other governments by as proposed by the President in order to appease must be centered on this immediSpecial to the Socratist Appeal)
Under Plan B, Malady would armed force and putting each other partisans in big business with an economy measure, various ate goal, etc, etc. Of course, of NEWARK, NJ. Continuing his include all the above items and prison or in front of a firing squad.
senators are working out a formula whereby they during a struggle against Fasciam miserable low living standards of ary relief to all private incomes, All of them together are, along with the editors of the New Leader, members of the Second International, would receive a pension of 5, 000 to 10, 000 for must the land belong to the land relief clients and workers cimintae relief to all able bodied life upon their retirement from Congress.
lords and the factories and mills Owen Malady, Overseer of the single So. of course, is comrade ex Premier Leon Blum. They all belong to it, you understand, because they are deAt the present time a Congressman or Senator gets to the capitalists all of whom Poor, recommended to the New he persons, eliminate relief to of two, where both are vout believers in international socialist solidarity.
only 10, 000 a year, barely above a relief allowance are in Franco camp? Is it per, ark Municipal Assistance Board able bodied. In addition Malady Fine International! Fine comrades! Fine socialists!
so to speak.
haps because the peor duced. Two plans for retrench all unemployables, on the assumpand that direct relief in Newark be re would remove from the relief rolls Thank God, again, they are not Bolsheviks.
workers have not Those members of Congress advocating the plan the seizure of land and factories? ment were submitted to the Assistion that care of unemployables Immediate wholesale deportation of at least 30, argue that it would make members independent of But they proved their maturity tance Board for consideration, one is a state function and perhaps 000 unemployed aliens from the United States is degroup pressure. That is, make all Congressmen by this, that on their own initia calling for reductions totaling the state would take care of them. manded by Senator Robert Reynolds. North independent of the voters who had put them in office tive they seized lands and facto 1, 475, 181. 77 and the other provid.
ries, Reactionaries, who call them ing at Malady proposals for a more Carolina. Calling the dislodged workers perAny Congressman, naturally, would consider this a of 2, 901, 052. 95, both than 60 cut in rellet made in selves Republicans, under the lead plans to be effective as of April accordance to his promise to State fect public charges who must be deported in the same real economy measure.
ership of the Stalinists were able to December 31.
Senate President Hendrickson to manner as criminal aliens are deported, he stated For a Congressman whom the voters have retired that he couldn see why the American taxpayer to smash this powerful movement Under Plan 1, 475, 184. 77) Ma help relieve the tax situation by should be called upon to support the citizens of other and who is faced with the somewhat uncertain grati allegedly in the name of anti lady would (1) eliminate special relief retrenchments, are being countries. And a lot of us workers can see why we tude of big business for future income in recognition fascism. but in reality in the alets. 2) reduce milk allowance to seriously considered by the New should support citizens of our own country, ake the interest of bourgeois proprietors. children to pint dally. 3) ark Municipal Assistance Board, of past services, a pension would provide a welcome Senator, for instance and his paymasters Let us take another example. eliminate a store clothing pur which Board, incidentally, was apaddition to whatever windfall he has managed to lay At present China is engaged in chases except shoes. 4) stop pointed by liberal mayor. The by out of his 10, 000 a year.
a war against Japan, a just, de ment for electric and gas except unemployed are also seriously conA bill is introduced in the Minnesota senato proBesides it can easily be financed. It won even fensive war against plunderers in cases of illness or where there sidering Malady proposals and viding 1000 for the visit to this state in June of Crown and oppressors. With this war as are no other facilities for cook extensive plans are being made Prince Olay and Crown Prince Martha of Norway be necessary to touch the 2, 000, 000, 000 appropria a pretext, the government of Chl ing. 5) eliminate surgient appli for vigorous protests against the Non royal burns. those whose ancestors were not bants tion for war. Just lop off a few million unemployed ang Kas Shek, alded by Stalin ances and glasses. 8) eliminate Inhuman policies advocated by before them) will, however, receive the customsry from the relief rolls.
government has crushed all revol purchases of household goods, the Overecer of the Poor. treatment Economy in the Senate Sub human Relief Hospitales formesyre or topdiente Standards Is Aim supplementary relief to those on Of Newark Head et toe byl opresing