SOCIALIST APPEAL WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1939 By Max ShachtmanAPPEAL ARMY Behind the Stalin Hitler Pact What It Is and What It Isn 1 1919.
WORKERS FORUM SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE Patrick of San Pedro, and ComGATHERS SPEED rade Patrick expects to be able The drive for new and renew to increase this quota shortly.
al subscriptions to the Socialist In the past week Los Angeles, Appeal in conjunction with the St. Paul and Minneapolis did Wa Referendum Campaign the best work in obtaining new now being carried on by the and renewal subscriptions, and (Continued from Last Issue)
Socialist Workers Party and at the same time are making The Soviet republic, it thay however be said, is much the upper crust is stupendous and on the rise. So is the the Young People Socialist effective distribution of their New Munich under the Stalin Imprint stronger today than it was in 1918. That is unquestionably disparity between the income and conditions of the poor League (Fourth International bundle quotas.
Publicly, the Stalinist patriots from Moscow to New true, in more than one sense. But the Stalin règime is much peasants and the bosses of the collective farms. Science, ists. cathered speed in the past weaker.
art, and culture are prostituted to the power interests of Scriptions and fourteen renew week. Thirty seven new sub NEW ORDERS SHOW York and back again have shouted for a united military INTENSIFIED ACTIVITY The Lenin Trotsky règime of 1917 1918 was then at the front of England, France and the Soviet Union against the narrowminded gang in power. Conditions in the nonThe Germany and the Axis. Not with Germany, we repeat, but bottom of a rising curve in its history. It had a broad basis Russian national republics Ukrainian, Georgian, White The subscription record to date Los Angeles, Harry Baker, apagainst her. They insisted that it was more than ever of enthusiastic mass support, which grew by leaps and Russian, Uzbekstan, etc. are a replica of the relations is as follows: pears to have gotten the Los New Renew Angeles comrades working in a urgent, following the tragic Czechoslovakian experience, that existed between the Czarist imperial Russians in Mosbounds every month. It had the support abroad of a rapidLos Angeles. more coordinated fashion than ly increasing and very militant revolutionary movement. cow and the national minorities at the periphery of the San Francisco. in order to save Poland. Now, as the clock starts striking ever before.
New Haven the twelfth hour for Poland, Stalin declares publicly in year after the Bolshevik revolution, this regime faced a empire. The secret police (G. and the army machine Several cities ordered extra Washington, bundles of the war issues of the Article IV of his pact with Hitler: capitalist world in the throes of revolution, paralyzed, de keep Stalin in power with the aid of jail keys, pistols and Chicago Socialist Appeal, as well as inmoralized, disintegrating.
bayonets.
Kansas creasing in some instances Neither of the contracting parties will participate in Stalin rules and can rule only by means of terror. As the Detroit their regular bundle orders.
Masses Hate the Stalin Regime any grouping of Powers which is either directly or indiSt. Paul country moves closer to the monstrosity which he misnames Minneapolis rectly aimed against the other party to this agreement.
order from to 15, Ro.
The Stalin régime enjoys only the bitter hatred of the socialism the purges and the terror increase in intensity.
bundle Penn. increased its St. Louis chester from 25 to 50. St. Louis Suppose Hitler invades Poland, and Poland then enSoviet masses. Its basis continues to narrow every day. Everywhere about him, Stalin sees plots and conspiracies, Newark placed a special order for 200 gages in armed, military struggle, either offensive or defenNew York City.
It has the support of the upper crust bureaucrats, the bigcopies for sale at Communist real and alleged, against his domination. The reign of ter Toledo sive, against Germany, Stalin has declared publicly and in shot factory managers, the aristocrats of labor, the rich Party meetings. Flint placed ror during which millions, literally millions, have either Cleveland an extra order of 30 copies for advance in Article II of his pact with Hitler: farmers, the police and army officialdom; all of them put Akron been deported, imprisoned or murdered, is Stalin own In the event that either of the contracting parties (Ger together amount to a small percentage of the population, the Labor Day Picnic, and from San Diego far off Denver, Colorado came Newcastle many, for exampleM. should be subjected to military confession to immense unpopularity. The rule by terror and even among them there is a mounting hostility to the a telegram asking for 100 extra means that Stalin and the bureaucracy he personifies, are Lynn copies of the war edition to be action on the part of a third power Poland, for example supreme Kremlin oligarchy. Abroad, the official commun themselves terrified. What do they fear? War! The fear of Boston rushed. the other contracting party (Russia, in that case Texas ist parties are dead or dying, undermined disrupted or war, in this case as in so many others, is the fear of mobilAs we go to press extra or will not lend that power Poland) support in any Philadelphia sent to their doom by the Stalin machine at the head of the ization. The fear of mobilization is the fear of arming the Miscellaneous ders for the tri weekly are coming in steadily. It is expected form.
Communist International. And the capitalist world, largely masses of people. The fear of arming the masses is the fear that New York, particularly, Read over again, in the light of this pact, Litvinov Total 119 thanks to Stalinism criminal policies, is far more sure of 29 of revolution.
will endeaver to make a special quoted attack on the Chamberlain conception. It recom itself as it faces the working class in 1939 than it was in new order of ten copies reg drive for mass circulation of Deserted Cause Internationalism ularly has been placed by John the tri weekly.
mends that conversations and negotiations be carried on with him (that is, with the aggressor. that he be In a word, scratch beneath the surface of the optimistic The reasons behind the Stalinazi pact cannot be fully assured that no collective action will be undertaken against fairy tales told in the Stalinist press and you find that, understood, however, unless the reader grasps the fundahim, and no groups or blocs formed against him even under Stalin rule, the Soviet Union is in an advanced mental standpoint of the Kremlin régime, and grasps, furthough he himself enters into aggressive blocs with other state of degeneration. Stalin clique is at once the product ther, the fact that it is in irreconcilable opposition to the aggressors. that the vital interests of one State be sacand the producer of this degeneration.
fundamental standpoint of the original Lenin Trotsky ré WHO WINS THE In the meantime, we see the rificed to him; and that, if possible, no question of his gime which Stalin and Co, finally succeeded in overthrow JUDAS CROWN?
utter moral decay of the capactivity be raised in the League of Nations.
Stalin Has Piled up a Record of Defeats ing in the course of a running fight that began as early as Editor: italist world. Within the realm Isn that a perfect description of Stalin Munich?
Now we are in a position to deal with the question. 1923.
Stalin and Hitler sign a non of a dying property system, in The Polish Masses Were Betrayed Which of the two partners in the Stalinazi pact was the Lenin, Trotsky and the real Bolshevik party led the agression pact and both are face of the unemployment of Accord human and material resources stronger, which is in the better position to gain from the masses to victory in 1917 on the basis of the proposition ing to the branded as betray Japanese and the stagnation of the proNow we Trotskyists, like revolutionary socialists everypact. that the Russian Revolution was only one part of an inter circles accused Germany of ductive apparatus, the ruling where, never agreed with the chauvinistic campaign of the It is a bitter truth for us to observe, but we must not national working class revolution. The Bolshevik leaders There is no denying that Ger and fasciếm. Only the working Stalinists for the defense of Poor Little Poland. Their see that in the past six years Hitler has not only repeated a thousand times to the Russian and world masses many has ringe the anti class can build a new economy agitation meant, in reality, the commission of two crimes: that Red Russia could not establish socialism by itself, with Comintern pact and broken that will run and a new moral the recruiting of cannon fodder for one gang of imperial consolidated but has vastly expanded his power. This was ist bandits (the slave holding democracies of England no accomplished because he is a genius, and he cannot its own forces, and unaided by the triumphant workers of faith with Japan.
Indignant it that will stand up. Orily the continue indefinitely; but the fact of his successes cannot other, more advanced countries. This was not only in con at Stalin from London and diplomacy: only the working and France) as against another, and the meek submission be ignored. He took power in Germany without meeting formity with Marxian theory, but with modern world real Paris. That arch betrayer of class can end war by setzing of the Polish workers, peasants and national minorities to the rule of the reactionary Polish autocracy. The primary with the slightest resistance by the Social Democrats or ities. Russia might hold out for a time, and even lay the the naive Czecho Slovak Repub state power and building worldfoundations of socialism, but it could not keep going for a disturbed to learn that while lic, Chamberlain, was highly wide socialism.
the Stalinists (1933 marked Stalin first capitulation to Fraternally, and principal task of the Polish masses was and remains Hitler. He denounced the Versailles Treaty limitations long period of time without help from revolutionary states these discussions (between HAROLD CLENDENAN the overturn of the clique of Generals and Colonels who on German armaments in 1935, and nobody stopped him.
rule the land, who club down the workers, squeeze the in the other lands. As for achieving a classless socialist soci Britain and Russia) were pro. Columblaville, Mich.
He reintroduced conscription without opposition. He re cty, with security and plenty for all, that was out of the crust, the Soviets were secretly FORCE LYNN PARTY TO peasants to the bone, keep the Ukrainian and other national militarized the Rhineland and nobody stopped him. He won question entirely if revolutionary Russia remained isolated negotiating a pact wth Ger MEET ON DEAD CORNER minorities in an inferno of persecution and discrimination, the Saar territory in a plebiscite. He succeeded in smashing in a capitalist world.
znany.
and practice a vicious anti Semitism which is second only to bits the whole labor and revolutionary movement. In In 1924, however, when the European revolutionary Prime Minister poses as a The regular weekly Thursday Above this morass the British Editor: to Hitler Counterparts of the ruling crew of independ March 1938 he annexed Austria without firing a shot. Six wave subsided for a while, Stalin coined the theory of maranty. He promises the last Lynn branch of the Socialist ent democrats in Czechoslovakia last year, they are always months later, Czechoslovakia was raked in. Another six socialism in a single country. Russia, he argued, could drop of workers blood for the Workers Party, formerly held prepared to sell their people into Nazi slavery if they can months passed, and he took Memel, without a fight. He establish socialism by itself provided only there was no save their own precious skins or, better yet, if they are alwon his fight in Spain. By the time this appears, he may armed intervention from abroad.
and British obligations to Po nehan Square, on the corners of lowed to retain a little of their power and pelf under a have Danzig and the Corridor, if not all of Poland.
land. The British Govern Willow St. and Central Ave. Hitlerite protectorate.
Consequences Have Been Disastrous ment case is so obviously have been moved, per order of Yet, while we did not join in the Stalinist cattle herding Against this indubitable strengthening of the Nazi rè Now this theory, while totally unsuited to the interests honorable that the British La the police, to the dead and isogime, Stalin has only defeats to record. He lost the German for war, we were not and are not indifferent to the fate of and Czechoslovakian Communist Parties each with hunof the Russian and international revolutions, was ideally bor Party can unanimously vote lated corner of state and Marthe Polish people or even of the Polish nation and we suited to the interests of the growing Soviet bureaucracy. cluding power to conduct secret It is perhaps coincidence dreds of thousands of members in two Hitlerite blows.
mean the Polish nation, not the Polish Empire in which the The officials corrupted oldsters and upstart youngsters urials. Yet, for fear Germany that the action of the police fol The Polish Communist Party he himself suppressed while old and upstart Polish aristocracy rules by military force he wooed the Polish Colonels. Ethiopia, despite Litvinov had lost all faith in the power of the world working class might misinterpret the honor lowed upon the indignation ex over millions of people of other nationalities, tearful pleas to the League of Nations, fell to Mussolini, to free itself from capitalist misrule at least not for an her potential enemy, the British holding of these meetings in a The hope for aid which the Polish masses threatened by other hundred years. Meanwhile, they argued, let hold on embassy in Berlin finds it ex square named after one of the whose airplanes flew with Russian oil and whose soldiers to what we have in Russia.
pedient to burn all its official town world war heroes. Thus Nazi subjection could rightfully and not vainly place in a fed on Russian wheat. His whole policy in Spain cracked That sounded plausible to many people, especially those London Daily Express documents, according to the do they honor the memory of revolutionary workers government, if that existed in Rusthose who gave their lives that up. Czechoslovakia, ditto. His policy in the Orient lost him sia today, was betrayed by the perfidious Bonapartist gang who had grown weary and discouraged and didn see Question of the hour: Who is the world might be made safe the Chinese Eastern Railway and is ding with ally that new and stormier waves of revolution would break Chamberlain. Stalin or Hitler. world leading Judas? for Democracy.
in the Kremlin when it capitulated to Hitler.
Chiang Kai shek driven further and further into the inComradely Stalin capitulated to Hitler? Exactly! And that brings throughout the world in the years to come. Only, the offici we would give the prize to stalJOHN TRAVIS us to the question of why Stalin felt obliged to sign the terior. His big Popular Front in France breathed its als really meant: Let hold on to what WE have in Russia in. It must be counted among last when it produced Daladier and Bonnet, voted into ofshameful pact. and to what we can get. As for the rest of the world, the glories of his Peoples Front REQUEST fice by the Communist Party. The League of Nations, the task of the working class is confined primarily (later it tray both the British Empire It Is Necessary to Dispel some Illusions publicly blessed by Stalin himself as an obstacle to war.
All available coples of Vol.
became exclusively) to preventing foreign intervention. In and the world proletariat in one No. of this year Appeal The confusion and bewilderment created among people isn even summoned to talk about the present crisis; and other words, instead of concentrating on getting rid of fell swoop, to say nothing of the are needed for purposes of by the twists and turns of Soviet policy can most easily be what would it say it were summoned; and who would their own capitalist despots at home, the workers in other Jewry, and the generals whom eliminated if they first rid themselves of some very popu care what it did say? All of Stalin foreign policies have We would appreciate it if countries were to be limited to acting as border patrols for he shot for advocating collaboAppeal readers would send lar illusions and misconceptions which the Stalinist press proved bankrupt; all his foreign enterprises have suffered the Soviet bureaucracy.
ration with Germany. But Hit in as many copies of this is shipwreck have been particularly zealous in sowing. The first one is Leaving aside for the moment the theoretical aspects of crown by double crossing Stalin ler may yet win the Judas sue as they may have available.
that the Stalin règime is strong and popular among the Wages Civil War against the Masses the question, it suffices to point out that the practical re to take the Ukraine.
masses, and getting stronger every day, both in its domestic At home, his position is no better. The last six years in sults of this policy were disastrous both for the official and its international position. How great an illusion this particular have seen Stalin rule in a state of almost un Communist International and that section of the labor is will be seen after a few moments reflection.
interrupted crisis, each convulsion more violent than the movement that followed it, and for the Soviet Union itself.
Once before, a government of the Soviet republic was forced to capitulate All that a labor skate or capitalist political shyster had to do German imperialism. That was in one before it. The overwhelming majority of the people, the simple people, the small people, the toiling people to get the unqualified support of the Communist movement Come to the Anti War Fighters 1918, when Lenin urged the signing of the Brest Litovsk hate Stalin as bitterly as Czar Nicholas the Bloody was for some shady enterprise or a downright sell out, was to Treaty with the Kaiser government, and finally did sign hated, and with just as good reason. How else explain the take a cheap oath in favor of defending the Soviet DANCE and ENTERTAINMENT it. Russia was compelled to swallow the humiliating peace continual purges, the imprisonments, the exilings, the exeUnion. As Stalinism went from bad to worse, and the SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16th at P.
treaty, to surrender vast territories to the enemy, because cutions, the endless mass terror? What truly popular govKremlin went in for super clever diplomatic tie ups with it was terribly weak and in no position to continue the ernment has ever had to resort to anything like it outside imperialist Powers, the official Communist International, Irving Plaza Ballroom war. The young republic was beset by numerous and powa period of civil war? And that exactly what Stalin is from which every critical, honest revolutionist was ex(Newly Redecorated)
erful reactionary foes, at home and abroad. The masses engaged in: a civil war of the bureaucratic caste against pelled, was changed from a militant fighter against world 15th Street and Irving Place were exhausted after four years of a devastating war.
the masses of the people.
capitalism into an anti revolutionary instrument, a cheap ON THE PROGRAM Acted Differently in Lenin Day Stalin has wiped out the whole Old Guard of the Ruspawn in the hands of Stalin Foreign Office.
Archie Savage (Continued in Next Issue)
sian Revolution, except Trotsky who has been sought by In Afro American version of Cuban dances But Lenin, who was an honest and upright revolutionist, did not attempt to deceive anyone. He did not call the more than one assassin bullet. The prisons, the Dewey Johnson Famous Negro Baritone in some old and new favorite defeat a victory for Russia or for peace; he did not call God forsaken corners of exile, the vast concentration Socialist Appeal 116 University Place Trinidad Calypso Singers the capitulation a sign of Russian strength and power; he camps are chock full of Stalin victims. There are more New York City.
In a presentation of topical and intimate songs did not call upon the workers to acclaim the treaty. He political prisoners in some provinces of the country today would like to get better acquainted with your paper, L. said, We have won a breathing spell at a heavy cost. We than there were in the whole empire under the Czar. All the Socialist Appeal. Please send me sample copies for In several jazz versions of the modern dance the next few weeks.
will use it to strengthen our forces and the revolutionary the liberties won by labor blood and rifle in the revolution, etc. etc. etc.
forces abroad and when we are strong enough, the in have been abolished by the bureaucracy. The worker is tied Tickets 75c On Sale at: famous treaty imposed upon us will be abrogated. Less to his job and cannot shift to another job or another city Address than a year later, the thunderbolt of revolution struck the without being granted permission, duly recorded in the SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY Kaiser dynasty, and Soviet Russia kicked the foul treaty internal passport he is compelled to carry. The disparity be116 University Place into the sewer where it belonged.
tween the wages of the low paid worker and the salaries of Fall Frolic Name City