TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1939 SOCIALIST APPEAL By Max Shachtman. LABOR WITH WHITE SKIN CANNOT EMANCIPATE ITSELF WHERE LABOR WITH BLACK SKIN 18 BRANDED KARL MARX.
Behind the Stalin Hitler Pact THE NEGRO QUESTION By JOHNSON What It Is and What It Isn Negroes and the Hitler Stalin Pact THE HITLER STALIN pact is the most sensational news to come out of Moscow in many years.
Up to yesterday, it was the general belief that Stalin was moving heaven and earth in an earnest attempt to establish a peace front of the democracies against the fascist aggressors, especially against Fascist Germany. Most people thought that Stalin only complaint against statesmen like Chamberlain and Daladier was that they favored negotiations and pacts with Hitler instead of uniting with Russia in an uncompromising and militant front against the Nazis. The friends and supporters of the Stalin régime said this repeatedly, and in so many plain words.
None So Stunned as Stalinists Suddomly, right in the midst of the Anglo French Russian military discussions in Moscow, came the news that Hitler sud Stalin had made a very important trade agreement. And before the surprise over this announcement reached its height, came the news that a non aggression pact had been negotiated between the two countries. Fortyeight lours later, the Nazi Minister of Foreign Affairs and author of the Anti Comintern Pact, had flown to Moscow where he was greeted with swastika flags, and the pact was promptly signed.
The newspapers which reported that the pact had staggered and stunned and stupefied most of the world did not exaggerate in the least. Most bewildered and shocked of all were the members and sympathizers of the Communist Party, whom the news hit over the head like metal studded club. On the day the report arrived, the Daily Worker, official voice in this country of Stalin and the Communist Party, was so taken aback that it refused to print the news or a single word of comment on it. The party leaders and spokesmen could not even be found for an interview. To this day, despite the official explanations given in the Daily Worker after it got word from Moscow, most party members do not yet know what to say or how to explain what happened.
We Were Not Caught Off Guard One organization, however, was not caught off guard and shocked by the news of the Stalinazi pact the Socialist Workers Party, and the Fourth International with which it is affiliated, the so called Trotskyist movement. This is simply a matter of fact and it is not stated in a boastful vein. Our movement foresaw the alliance and predicted it as early as a year ago.
In the Socialist Appeal of October 8, 1938, Leon Trotsky wrote: We may now expect with certainty Soviet diplomacy to attempt rapprochement with Hitler at the cost of new retreats and capitulations which in their turn can only bring nearer the collapse of the Stalinist oligarchy.
In the same paper of March 1939, the present writer said: The democratic front which all Stalinist policy hinged the united front of the democracies against the fascist aggressors and war mongers. Stalin has dropped overboard without a splash. In its place is something so new that it must have had a stunning effect upon the Stalinist parrots all over the world. Stalin holds out the olive branch to the fascist powers, to Germany primarily.
Our foresight was not a product of crystal gazing but of Marxian political analysis. While others were taking people in, or being taken in by cleverly inspired propaganda from Moscow, Berlin and London, we continued our critical examination of Soviet and international realities. Outdated Marxism has once again demonstrated its unrivalled superiority as social and political science! Our clear and timely predictions entitle us to an attentive hearing as we proceed to explain what the pact is and what it isn If we first dispose of the latter, we shall have cleared away the pile of rubbish beneath which lies the true significance of the pact. And the best way to tackle the rubbish clearing work is to deal with the arguments in favor of the Stalinazi pact given by Communist Party spokesmen who finally broke their embarrassed silence in the Daily Worker.
The Stalinists Explain think, said Mr. Earl Browder, secretary of the Communist Party, in an interview published in the Daily Worker of August 24, 1939, that what strikes one the most forcefully in the newspaper discussion of the announcement of the negotiations for a non aggression agreement between the Soviet Union and Germany, is the excitement with which this announcement was greeted; although its execution it is now in the preliminary stages is in the line of a long declared and established policy which every one who wanted to could be fully familiar with.
Nothing unusual! Nothing out of the ordinary! Nothing to be surprised at or get excited about! Browder was for it all the time because it corresponds to the long declared and established policy of the Soviet Union. Now, you might explain away the reactions of the ruling circles in Paris, London and Washington by saying that they are merely pretending to be surprised. Goodi But what about the masses of the people throughout the world?
The Stalinist press kept assuring us that the millions of workers, farmers and middle class people understood and supported enthusiastically the Stalinist peace policy and would have nothing to do with Daladier the Municheers. Obviously, they must have understood and supported something entirely different, for it was the masses of the people who were most staggered of all by the news of the pact. That is why there were no spontaneous mass celebrations of the pact, but rather spontaneous mass condemnation of it and just as spontaneous mass resignations from the Communist Parties!
They Sang a Different Tune Secondly, if the pact was produced by a long declared and established policy, why didn the Stalinists openly and insistently demand a Hitler Stalin pact in the past year or more? When they said that their policy was a peace front of England, France and the Soviet Union, they agitated at the top of their lungs for an agreement among these three Powers. They introduced resolutions favoring the alliance in every union, in every organization.
Their spokesmen in the European Parliaments clamored for it continuously. Why, then, didn they introduce resolutions anywhere in favor of a Soviet German pact? Why didn they agitate for it openly? Why didn they condemn Hitler for failing to negotiate such a pact?
And, above all, why did they denounce as slanderers the Trotskyists, or anybody who even hinted a year, or a month or as little as two weeks ago that Stalin and Hitler would come to terms. The reactionaries openly speculate that the Soviet Union may try to beat Chamberlain at his own game by joining hands with Hitler, wrote Mr. Browder in a book published just a short time ago. But even those who hate the land of socialism cannot believe it, when they see the Soviet Union alone rounds up the traitorous agents of Hitler within its own land, and puts them beyond all possibility of doing any more of their wrecking, spying and diversions for fascism. Fighting for Peace, pp. 183184. On May 13, 1939, the Daily Worker quoted with editorial approval a dispatch which said: Rapid spreading rumors of an impending German Soviet reconciliation, circulating with obvious consent of the German government, tonight were regarded as a Nazi attempt to thwart a peace front. Dirty Insinuation Changes Character On March 13, 1939, Mr. Harry Gannes, Daily Worker columnist, wrote: The press apologizers of the Munich treachery make the dirty insinuations that the Soviet Union is considering rapprochement with the fascists. Eight days later, Gannes called a similar report one of the slimiest examples of an extended vicious campaign.
Now, according to Browder, the extended vicious campaign plus the dirty insinuations of the Munich traitors plus the open speculations of the reactionaries equals nothing more or less than the long declared and established policy of Stalinism!
The Soviet Union Pre Pact Policy What really was the long declared and established policy of the Kremlin? It was expressed in unmistakable terms by the official representative of the Soviet Union to the League of Nations, Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov. In his speech at the League of Nations Assembly on September 21, 1938, only a year ago, Litvinov stated just what was and just what was not the long declared and established policy of his government. The reader will pardon us the long quotation, but he will surely feel repaid by the fact that it so damningly reveals the complete fraudulence and hypocrisy of the present Stalinist endorsement of the pact. There are inside and outside the League two tendencies, two conceptions of how best to preserve peace. There exists an opinion that when some State announces a foreign policy based on og. annexation of other people possessions, on the enslavement of other nations, on domination over entire continents, the League of Nations has not only the right, but also the duty of declaring, loudly and clearly, that it has been set up to preserve universal peace; that it will not permit the realization of such a program; and that it will fight that program by every means at its disposal. Within the framework of such declarations, individual Members of the League can and must constitute special groups for the joint defense of individual sectors of the threatened peace front. It is presumed that States which openly denounce the principles underlying the League Covenant and the Briand Kellog Pact, which extol aggression and ridicule international obligations, are inaccessible to persuasion or argument save the argument of force and that there is no room for bargaining or compromise with them. They can be restrained from carrying their evil designs into effect only by a demonstration of the force which they will encounter, should they make the attempt.
That policy Stalin therefore calls for no futile attempts to persuade or negotiate with the aggressor like Germany but favors the argument of force. Litvinov then continues. There is, however, another conception, which recommends as the height of human wisdom under cover of imaginary pacifism that the aggressor be treated with consideration, and his vanity be not wounded. It recommends that conversations and negotiations be carried on with him, that he be assured that no collective action will be undertaken against him, and no groups or blocs formed against him even though he himself enters into aggressive blocs with other aggressors that compromise agreements be concluded with him, and breaches of those very agreements overlooked; that his demands, even the most illegal, be fulfilled; that journeys be undertaken, if necessary, to receive his dictates and ultimatums; that the vital interests of one State or another be sacrificed to him; and that, if possible, no question of his activity be raised at the League of Nations because the aggressor does not like that, takes offense, sulks. Unfortunately, this is just the policy that so far has been pursued towards the aggressors; and it has had as its consequence three wars, and threatens to bring down on us a fourth. Four nations have already been sacrificed, and a fifth is next on the list. Against Aggression, pp. 121 122. This second policy, presumably, was the policy of Chamberlain and Daladier, Halifax and Bonnet the Municheers. It was precisely contrary to the long declared and established policy of Stalin, Litvinov and Browder. But The Stalin Hitler pact has come as a tremendous shock to the it is precisely identical with the policy that resulted in the Stalinists instilled into the masses of the people everywhere workers everywhere. And to the Negro workers not least. The Stalinasi pact! And the arguments made in its defense within the last five years the hope that Stalin and Russia would differ in no important particular from the self justifying lead all peoples in the struggle for democracy, freedom and speeches made by Chamberlain after Munich.
peace. The Hitler Stalin agreement has blown all that ballyhoo sky high. Stalin and the Stalinists are seen today for what they How the Pact Aids Peace really are. Not internationalists, not concerned with leading the working class in every country against their oppressors, but in It is a great contribution to the cause of world peace, reality mere horse traders with the imperialist nations. Most Browder says now. It helps the cause of democracy and today in one direction, tomorrow in another, ready to bargain the Democratic Front. It helps Poland! Let us see.
for the sake of their own skin. year ago, when Chamberlain claimed that the Munich Yet in all the confusion, the Negro people among all others have been quickest to realize the fraud and hypocrisy that is Pact was a great contribution to the cause of world stalinism. The Negroes remember that all through the Ethiopian peace, Browder effectively replied: The direct lie was struggle, Stalin continued to sell oil to Italy. They know that by given to all protestations that the Munich Pact was an no sort of reasoning and by no amount of eloquence from Litvixov at Geneva, could this oil selling be passed off as support of achievement for peace when, directly afterward, all gov Ethiopia against aggression. Already stalin had shown, to all ernments announced vast expansions of their armed forces who wanted to see that all this talk about the Soviet Union being as their first response. Fighting for Peace, 203. the leader of the democratic movements against the fascists was Alle and nothing more.
What happened directly after the Stalin Hitler pact? Who Oppresses the Negro?
Not only vast expansions of the armed forces of all governments, but mobilization of troops and marching orders supposed to be the leaders in the struggle for democracy, peace Negroes know that the democratic imperialisms, which were on a scale unknown since the World War broke out in and freedom are the greatest oppressors of Negroes in the world.
1914. Measured by Browder own yardstick of a year ago, Great Britain controls and squeezes the life out of some sixty.
the Moscow Berlin pact is exactly the opposite of a conmillion Negroes in Africa, France grinds the life out of another forty million, Belgium is engaged in the daily torture of another tribution to the cause of peace.
twelve million. America has long set an example to the whole Furthermore, if the pact is of such decisive aid to cistern ethods had been rampant in the southern states long be Poland, why did the Stalinists denounce Chamberlain and fore Adolph Hitler or Benito Mussolini were born. Yet Stalin, Co. for acting in substantially the same way a year ago Browder and Ford summoned Negroes in all parts of the world when Czechoslovakia was on the chopping block? And why to join Britain, France, America, and Belglum in the demodidn Stalin conclude a pact with Hitler a year ago, and are thico fronte Negleland the Democratie Front When anyone. save imperilled Czechoslovakia in the same way he is white or Negro, pointed out that this, for the Negroes, was sulnow saving Poland? If Stalin was able to force his cide, that it was the Negroes business to form a united front pact on Hitler in 1939 because the Führer is so weak and with all workers and farmers, yellow, brown, and white, to strugterrified at the might of the Soviet Union, why didn he sides, the stalinists had one word for him Trotskylst.
gle against all the imperialists in all countries and not to take force a similar pact on Hitler in 1938, when the Nazis James Ford had spent many years of his life in the Commuwere still weaker, before they had swallowed up Czechonist Party, repeating the slogan of Turn the Imperialist War into Civil War. and calling upon all the workers to fight slovakia? This argument, too, will not stand up for a against capitalism everywhere, now he suddenly discovered that minute.
It was the duty and interest of the Negroes in the democratic countries to support their own government.
The Escape Clause Escapes In January, 1938, the Afro American of Baltimore supported the criminal and unwarranted Invasion of China by Japan. This But what about the escape clause. Doesn that guarwas, of course, a very stupid thing to do. But it was an honest antee that the Soviet Union will denounce the pact and Stupidity. Many Negroes are bitter against the apparently nevercome to the aid of Poland if Germany commits an act of ending domination of the white race. They therefore clutch at the idea of Japan being the leader of the colored races and, as aggression. It must be stressed, said the very first editorsuch, driving the whites out of the East. They are wrong. What ial statement of Daily Worker on the pact, on August 1s wanted in the East is not a strong Japan, that is to say a 23, 1939, that in each and every non aggression pact strong imperialist nation, but a strong China. free, and indewhich the Soviet Union concludes there is a basic clause pendent China will drive out Japanese, British and Americans and be one of the great leaders of oppressed peoples all over the of Soviet peace policy which provides that in the event one world. This mistake however, of supporting Japan is, as we of the parties to the pact invades or commits an act of have said, an honest mistake. But James Ford, in his justified criticism of this mistake went on to say the following: aggression against a third nation, that the other party (the You say that you do not approve of Japan alliance with Soviet Union) is not bound to the treaty, is free to act in Hitler and Mussolini, the Negro peoples worst enemies. You defense of peace.
may not approve. But the alliance is a undeniable fact.
That is more or less true. In the 1932 Treaty of NonNow there are 120, 000, 000 people in Africa today who could tell Ford that Hitler is not their worst enemy for Hitler does not Aggression between Russia and Finland, Article pro Tule over one of them. Their worst enemies are the British, vides. French and Belgians, these democratic imperialists who are Should either High Contracting Party resort to sitting on their backs. But James Ford says no word about this.
Instead he goes on: Hitler applauds the lynching of Negroes in aggression against a third Power, the other High Contract America.
ing Party may denounce the present Treaty without This is undoubtedly very bad of Hitler, but surely that is no reason why the Negroes should join these American democrats In the Russo Latvian treaty of 1932, it is provided that plauds. But Ford, aping his master Browder (who of course is who lynch them, to go to fight against Hitler who merely ap Each of the High Contracting Parties shall be entitled to merely the ape of Stalin. gets quite eloquent on the evils of the denounce the Treaty by giving notice six months before the Berlin Rome Tokyo military alliance. He says: expiry of this period, or without giving notice if the other Rome Tokyo military alliance mortal enemy of the democratic And who is so blind to this that he cannot see in the BerlinContracting Party commits an aggression upon any third forces of the world?
State.
He ends his letter by once more shouting at Hitler. My earnest opinion is that we would make a tragle error in Similar explicit escape clauses are contained in a numgiving our support to any member of the Berlin Rome Tokyo ber of other treaties signed by the Soviet Union, as in the alliance.
case of Poland, Esthonia and France.
Now Stalin, pursuing the interests of himself and his bureauBUT NO SUCH CLAUSE, OR ANYTHING LIKE crats and not caring two damns about white workers, black workers or any sort of workers, except insofar as he could use IT, IS CONTAINED IN THE SEVEN ARTICLES OF them for his own policy, signs this pact with Hitler, and by his THE STALIN HITLER PACT!
trade agreement promises to let Hitler have the supplies that Unlike the Soviet treaty with Finland, France, Latvia, are so necessary for Germany, that strengthen Germany enormously, and enable Hitler at once to precipitate a new and most Poland or Esthonia, so far as the Stalinazi pact is con dangerous crisis. Comrade Earl Browder says that this pact is cerned Hitler can commit an aggression upon any third a pact of peace and that it helps the workers in every country State to his heart content objections from the Kremlin in their fight against fascism. And comrade Ford, as ready to there will be none. And this brings us right to the heart of Negro boss, immediately forgets what a crime it was to make the pact: an alliance or give support to any member of the RomeBerlin Tokyo axis and hails this pact as a great step forward Free Hand to Hitler for promoting peace and democratic government.
In exchange for a Hitlerite promise not to attack the This he does in a statement published in the Daily Worker of Aug. 31, 1939 and submitted to the Amsterdam News. In our Soviet Union, Stalin has given Hitler a free hand in press, meetings and pamphlets, etc. we submit the monstrous Poland! Poland has been ruthlessly sacrificed to the brutal deception, that Stalin and the stalinists have practiced on the imperialistic ambitions of Nazi Germany in the hope of international working class movement, to a searching analysis, and in this column we shall analyse specifically the reaction of saving the hides of the Kremlin autocrats.
the Negro people and the Negro press. In the next issue we shall There cannot be the slightest doubt on this score. If there begin a series of articles relating to the Negro and the war.
is, the following considerations should dispel it completely: this: Are they to carry on a policy of consistent struggle against Meanwhile, however, we shall merely ask the Negro people Why was the pact signed just at this moment just when all Imperialisms, fascist or democratic, in common with the opHitler has declared in the most insolent manner that he pressed workers and colonial peoples of all the world, or are demands the absorption of Poland into Nazidom, just when like a cat on hot bricks from one side to the other, and being France and England threatened to take armed action merely the pawn in the hands of the most unscrupulous and against Germany? Was it just a routine non aggression shameless hypocrites and betrayers that the working class move pact, such as Moscow signs every day in the week, so to ment has ever harbored within its bosom? To ask the question is to answer it. Down with the Stalinist Hes and contradictions.
say? But it so happens that a non aggression pact between For a policy of the united front of workers black and white Germany and the Soviet Union has been in existence for against Ford death traps of a democratic front or a Stalin13 years, signed in 1926 by Foreign Minister Gustav Hitler front.
Stresemann and Soviet Ambassador Nikolai Krestinsky. WINDOW DRESSERS tageous. The Nation, SepThis pact is still formally in force. It has never been tember 2, 1939.
denounced by Stalin. It has never been denounced by Hitler PLY THEIR TRADE In plain English: keep the at any time in his six years of power, as he did denounce Socialist window dressing for the moment when the the German Polish pact, for example, a short time ago.
masses, tiring of naked capi LONDON In the event of Why was it necessary to have another non aggression talist rule the Labor Party war there is a probability of flunkies of the capitalists will pact at this particular time?
immediate Socialist particibe most useful.
pation in the government deIn order to deliver a demonstrative blow against Poland!
In order to explode, as publicly, as sensationally, as norspite the doubts in progresDaniel Luttinger wishsive circles of the wisdom of oughly as possible, any Polish hope that a Hitlerite invasion es to announce that he will such a step. They consider continue to care for the pawould encounter not only the Polish army, but the joint, that if British experience in tients of his brother, the late armed resistance of England and France on the one side, the early stages of the war 18 not favorable, the alternative Dr. Paul Luttinger at his of and the Soviet Union on the other.
of Socialist leadership fice, 1684 Grand Concourse.
Bronx, New York. To be continued in next issue)
might be nationally advannotice.