SOCIALIST APPEAL DECEMBER 16, 1939 SOCIALIST APPEAL Vol. III, No. 93 Saturday, December 16, 1989 Published Weekly by the SOCIALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASSN.
at 116 University Place, New York, NY Telephone: Algonquin 8547 SPARKS IN THE NEWS Their by James Burnham Government Editor: FELIX MORROW MAX SHACHTMAN General Manager: Assistant Manager MARTIN ABERN SHERMAN STANLEY Subscriptions: 00 per year; 00 for six months.
Foreign: 00 per year, 50 for six months. Bundle orders: cents per copy in the United States: cents per copy in all foreign countries. Single copies: cents. Reentered a second class matter December 4, 1939, at the post office at New York, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
FIGHT WITH THE SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY FOR: Job and a decent llying for every worker, Open the Idle factories operate under workers control. Twenty Billion dollar Federal public works and housing program. Thirty thirty 80 weekly minimum wage 80hour 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. WorkersDefense Guards against vigilante and Fascist attacks.
22. Full social, political and economic equality for the Negro people.
FDR On Minneapolis Trotsky and Dies contained some careless formulations from which it could be deduced that we are opposed By Dwight Macdonald to any revolutionary appearing before the committee. We did not distinguish in a sufficiently clear manner the appearance of ex revolutionaries before the committee with the appearance of a revolutionary. But in an editorial written as a reply to a letter received from Joseph Zack The Annual Congress. published in the Oct. 20 issue of the Appeal Not Fit to Print outbreak of war, the Bank of England is accepting German paper as collateral for loans to Briwe corrected whatever incorrect formulations Those who read the midnight edition of the tish banks. Since Britain still regards German Of American Industry occurred in a previous issue. Times for Friday, December 8, found on credits as sound, it is quite possible that she may page a story headlined, ANTI WAR SENTI Revolutionists, we then wrote, have not sell German paper to neutrals for example, to MENT IN RISES, GALLUP SURVEY Swiss bankers who have already made credit only appeared in the past, either voluntarily or FINDS. Readers of later editions found this agreements with the Germans and thus help Anthropologists have carried out many interesting under compulsion, before governmental bodies, news story still listed in the index, but, on turnpromote a lively trade with Germany. It is an studies of a widespread historical phenomenon which ing to page 5, they discovered the story had been but even in capitalist courts. In every such case, especially confusing twist, in this most perplex they sometimes call cultural lag. cultural lag ocremoved. Nor was it to be found elsewhere in ing of all wars, that the great New York banks what was decisive was the capacity in which they the issue.
curs, to take a simple instance, when a set of ideas, refuse to accept German notes and securities as relevant to a particular social context, persist as beappeared and the attitude they took when they The Times is famous for its boast, All the collateral for loans, and in fact have been trying Hefs in the minds and words of men when that conspoke.
News That Fit to Print. The anti war story desperately to liquidate the 50, 000, 000 worth of text has disappeared. In the new context, the ideas apparently was judged by the editors less fit to German paper they held at the outbreak of war. are a carry over from an earlier cultural situation.
The important thing to consider is not the apprint than the following items, all of which appearance before a reactionary committee but peared in the later editions on page 1)
PrinThus the bankers of belligerent England show No group in society is altogether exempt from such more confidence in and friendship towards the cultural lags. As read, last week, the reports of the what one purpose is in appearing and the concess Hohenloe leaves England after losing her Hitler regime than do the bankers of neutral proceedings of the annual Congress of American Insuit against Lord Rothermere. 2) the first death America.
tent of one testimony.
dustry, sponsored by the National Association of of a woman in the Royal Air Force is recorded; To expose and discredit Stalinism before the Manufacturers, regretted that no anthropologist has (3) a lengthy story headlined, LONDON DOCKS Stalin Automata as yet taken as his subject for examination this auworking masses is the sacred duty of every rev. HUM DESPITE NAZI MINES.
thoritative group of American business men, to place olutionist, and not to take advantage of the To Make the World Safe Something have thought a good deal about, especially in the last few months, is the effect in his textbook alongside the examples he gives from forum offered even by a reactionary committee on individuals like Browder and Molotov and oththe life of primitive tribes.
would constitute a violation of that duty.
for Kaiserism er Stalinist mouthpieces of having to give expres These men, so practical, ruthless and flexible in The last war was fought to get rid of the sion continually to lies and lies, furthermore, their business conduct, We are confident that any worker reading the t, are in a true sense of the word Kaiser. This war according to certain conserva which any child can see are in contradiction to primitive in their entire ideology. Their sytem of gentestimony of comrade Trotsky (if he should tive statesmen now in the British cabinet who other lies they have uttered a few weeks earlier. eral ideas continues to be merely a re hash of the cortactually be permitted to appear before the com are talking of setting up again the imperial It is notable that Stalin is no orator, that he cepts of the classical economics of a century ago, rarely breaks his sllence, at least not for publicamittee. will be freed of all doubts as to the wis throne of the Hohenzollerns is being fought to referring to the early stages of Industrial capitalism, tion. Shrewdly, he leaves to his puppets the dom of his appearance there from the standpoint le meme chose, say the French, which means, spirit destroying task of formally justifying in porary society. Not a single one of them is capable of of the interests of the international working The more things change, the more they remain public the cynically opportunist twists of the giving any scientific or philosophie Illumination to the the same. Or, American style, No matter how general line.
class which he has always served.
problems of today, not even to their own problems.
you slice it, it always baloney.
The recent public utterances of Molotov and Their ideas are as outmoded as would be a chemist Browder would make one ashamed of the human who talked about phlogiston or electro physicist Perfidious Albion species were it not clear that such politicians by who argued about an electrical Auld. Their ideal is, The same British ruling class circles which now can hardly be considered men. century ago in their own words, that of normal economic pronow are fighting the war to restore the Hohen French nobleman named De Custine travelled cesses, unhampered by artificial restraints. the ideal, On Friday, July 14, in the midst of the nazollers, not so long ago were the loyal allies of widely in Czarist Russia and wrote a perceptive that is, of the immediate followers of Ricardo.
tionwide WPA strike, Roosevelt permitted the the Nazi regime. The Bank of England, for ex book about it. His description of the human The Wisdom of our Masters parts of the grand machine of state applies also press to quote him directly, a rare event. He said, ample was for years notoriously friendly to the This year Congress of American Industry adopted, to their successors of present day Russia with a unanimous flourish, a grandiose Platform of addressing the WPA workers: You cannot strike Nazis, taking the lead in extending to Hitler the vast credits he needed to complete his rearma Such parts, writes De Custine, acting under against the government. Emboldened by the ment program. Then Hitler marched into Czechan influence which is not in themselves, like the Charta, presumably, of the Few recorded docthe Congress of American Industry, the Magna wheel work of a clock, are called men in Russia!
most direct possible support from the president, slovakia, and the British ruling class suddenly uments have ever been emptier.
The sight of these voluntary automata inspires There is no lack, of course, of self confidence: It the police everywhere proceeded to clamp down awoke to the fact that his plans for expansion me with a kind of fear: there is something supermust be made clear to the public that Industry en.
on the strikers. The evening of the day Roose tish Empire, and that the real threat to their natural in an individual reduced to the state of lightened self interest is linked inextricably with the velt made his statement, police aided by FBI class interests came from Nazi Germany and not a mere machine. If, in lands where the mechanicwelfare of all of these other elements and with the al arts flourish, wood and metal seem almost huwelfare of the nation of the whole.
agents scattered among the pickets and disguised from Stalinist Russia. There followed the moman. under despotisme, human beings seem to Nor any absence of tried and trusted phrases: inas strikers attacked a Minneapolis WPA pick minated in the outbreak of the war.
become as instruments of wood. We ask ourselves dustrial management must continue to do all in its et line, killing unemployed Emil Bergstrom and The rupture between the Nazis and the bank what can have become of their superfluity of power to keep alive the faith of the public in the thought? And we feel ill at ease to think of the wounding a score of others. Then followed At ers of London, however, is not as complete as traditional American principles of free enterprise, as pressure that must have been exerted on inteltorney General Murphy order to his Minneapo Churchill speeches. According to a recent issue the guarantor of individual opportunity and security.
lectual creatures before they could have been But, incredible as it might seem, the entire platform lis office to initiate prosecutions of the WPA of Uncensored: Today, three months after the reduced to mere things.
does not mention in a single word or phrase either unstrikers, resulting in the indictment of 162 and employment or the war! Nor, indeed, is there any concrete analysis of anything so far three trials and 33 convictions on the Yet, from another point of view, this Platform is charge of conspiracy against the government Stalin Real Crime not without a purpose, and this purpose at the same and its laws.
time explains why it cannot be other than stupid.
Eight requisites for achieving the goal of indusOn Tuesday of this week a reporter at the In Finland try are listed. The first two of the requisites are as president press conference made a reference to (Continued from Page Continued from Page 1)
follows. Maintenance of individual initiative and free enthe Minneapolis events, and to proposed march the Soviet ambassador and withdrawal of Soviet recognition, could not be replaced by Japan.
cs, in Ohio and elsewhere, in protest against the the immediate preliminaries of war.
ese Soviet friendship. Recognition of the social value of the profit moBut alongside these familiar warriors, many new ones have cutting off of relief. Whereupon the president been lined up in these last few days, for with the imperialist support It becomes clear that Wash tive as a powerful incentive to all productive efrepeated his prohibition of strikes of WPA fort and of the economic need for profits in industo Finland goes a tidal wave of chauvinist pressure here at home ington has now definitely inworkers and went further. Workers on WPA to line everybody up for the war. Yesterday pacifists and anti formed the Japanese that they try sufficient to maintain and expand existing enterprise.
relief projects have no right to strike against the specimens came out there side by side with Hoover and Roosevelt Ing the American game against These are the polite words in which business men Federal Government, nor to create a disturbance yelling for their side. This is the inevitable prologue to the big push Russia or facing American na refer to capitalism. Placing these two requisites as first in achieving their goal means simply: for us, or disrupt the peace, President Roosevelt said to on all fronts: the collapse into democratic patriotism of all the val might in the Pacific. For high minded radicals and liberals of the stripe of the Keep Amer Japanese cooperation in a capitalist private property rights come first, and evday. New York Times, Dec. 13)
ica Out of War Committees war against the Soviet Union, erything else is subordinated to them, everything else That means: you can strike, you can march, the Americans are apparently will be sacrificed to them.
you can hold demonstrations, you can arouse ready to pay a fairly stift price With this as their central purpose, they could not at China expense, to recog possibly go on to any scientific analysis of the econpublic attention to the plight of the WPA and Don Cross the Picket Line!
omy. If they did, they would only be able to prove The Soviet Union, in the last analysis, is a great trade union nize Japan special position relief workers, if you re a WPA worker. You which went further than any other trade union; it actually got rid in East Asia.
and international chaos are what follow from their that unemployment, starvation, misery, war, national can organize, said the president; but you can do of the Russian capitalists altogether, but not of the international During the last two months purpose; they would have to expose themselves to the any of the things which labor organization capitalist class. But like so many unions, it has fallen into the the Japanese government has hands of agents of the class enemy, the world imperialists. Our been divided on which course to public, and what is painful for many of them also means.
attitude toward it is like our attitude toward unions in this country follow with Russia and Gerto themselves. Therefore, they can only fall back on vague generalities and the slogans of Adam Smith.
After his July 14 statement, strikers were kill which have degenerated at the hands of agents of the class enemy. many against Britain and the John Lewis and Bill Green are agents, lackeys of the capital. or with the latter against The cultural lag in the ideas of these men symboled and wounded and others railroaded to jail.
ist class. The only way to regenerate the unions they bureaucratic Russia. Powerful elements among izes accurately the fact that the men themselves and What will happen after this new statement? ally dominate so ruthlessly, is to drive them out of the unions and the militarists have favored the the purposes which they try to fulfill in the world have come into insurmountable conflict with any sane More repressions and persecutions are in pros put in a clean, militant leadership. We want to clean out Lewis former policy, as giving the army and decent plan for the re organization of society in and Green here, and Stalin there.
pect against the labor movement.
a powerful lever in dislodging the interests of mankind as a whole.
It has become thoroughly clear that every But meanwhile? Meanwhile, in spite of their corruption, these Britain from its entrenched pounions get into big struggles with the bosses. Because we hate and positions in China.
The and Washington of the Roosevelt administratio abhor John Lewis and all that he ands for, we don efore There is anothe notable feature of the Platform The orientation toward Russia against the labor movement must be fought back. it and cross the picket lines of the United Mine Workers! If we has already moved quite far. As and, for the most part of the speeches at the ConAbove all this is true of the Minneapolis cases.
did, the miners would call us scabs, and they would be right. That we know the truce ending the gress. As compared with former years, the tone is exgoes for the Soviet Union too. We want to clean out Stalin, and tremely mild. From 1935 until last year there were Labor can permit the convictions in the three under the most fearful conditions of repression our comrades in the border warfare in the Far East always a number of bitter attacks on the Roosevelt WPA trials to stand only at its peril.
Soviet Union are working with might and main to that end. But was signed the day before Russia administration and its policies. This year, the administration was hardly mentioned, and objections to its Every labor organization in the country can meanwhile! Against the bosses the imperialists they support the invaded Poland. Since then neunion in spite of its leadership, in spite of their irreconcilable hostit for broader accord and last policies took the form usually of friendly advice rathand should participate in the fight against the ity to stalin annexation of Finland and the whole degenerate Friday border demarcation er than sharp criticism.
Minneapolis frameups. Get the facts presented Kremlin scheme of things from which this latest crime flows.
commission met at Chita, in Far There seem to be two chief reasons for this important change. In the first place, these men, so stupid in Here in America our chief task is to prevent the war makers Eastern Siberia.
on every union meeting floor; adopt resolutions general ideas but shrewd in practical affairs, know denouncing the prosecution, and send copies to from utilizing the Finnish events to plunge this country into war However, the Russian invasion that the New Deal is buried. They do not like DubinRoosevelt and Murphy and to the AFL WPA explain what is happening and rim ek at se atinism before the work factor in the situation. For the against the Soviet Union. To carry out that task we have to clearly sky or Hillman or the New Leader, bury their heads in a dream of the past, when it comes to a problem of dollars and cents. They are well satisfied with the 18 Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota. See to ing class. But all that we say and do about Finland has this funda first time the Japanese milita Roosevelt reaction of the last year, so far as it has mental purpose today: to fight against the war makers here at rists as provided with an op it that every union paper tells the story. Do ev home.
portunity to see the Red Army gone to date. Naturally they still have their demands: erything you can to make workers understand in action on a scale larger than one of the planks in their platform is their way of the Japanese ever dared provoke calling for abolition of the closed shop. But the bogeythat the Minneapolis prosecutions are a foretaste JUST OPENED!
JUST OPENED!
in the Far Eastern border fight man of Roosevelt as a serious threat to business, of the war time oppressions which are planned ing. Military men all over the which haunted some of them, is by now dispelled.
Lower Lexington Avenue latest and most original against the labor movement.
world are narrowly watching the ARMENIAN Restaurant. Our delicious food and naAnd, secondly, they are, in their own way, worried tive unsurpassed pastries are prepared daily on our Russian military performance in about the war. Their fears were expressed by Ernest Finland, but none more attentively than the Japanese.
sions during recent months. Dimly they grasp their Weir, who has spoken similarly several OCCAYour first visit will sure your return visits.
POOR MANNERHEIM!
The taste of the food and prices of the food both will satisfy And the Russians are not exterrible dilemma: that they, the rulers of America. The White Guardist generals, including MannerYou are welcome with your friends any day at heim, were deprived of virtually all economic and actly giving an impressive decannot live without plunging the nation into the war; and yet that they may not find themselves and their political power when their estates were confiscated Anmah Armenian Restaurant monstration of their military effectiveness. Instead the world is 110 Lexington Avenue system still living when the war is know how to solve this dilemma, ther. They do not and divided. Mannerheim has played no role whatis in fact in ever in politics for many years. The Socialist Call, Between 27th 28th Sta. Take IRT Local to 28th St.
getting a glimpse of the extent soluble. And many of them are beginning to believe to which the purges and the disMUrray Hill 7826 Dec. 16.
that they will have to turn the war job over to Yes, Mannerheim has been reduced to comanderOperated by: ANMAHIAN AND SINAMIAN location of Soviet economy has Roosevelt, who seems so confident that he can handle in chief of the Finnish armies.
affected its military strength. it.
Behind the Lines The announcement in the press that Leon Trotsky accepted an invitation to appear before the Dies Committee has caused a good deal of comment. The Stalinists, who in the persons of Browder and Foster, voluntarily appeared before the Dies Committee to slander the Trotsky ites. are piously objecting to Trotsky appearing to reply. In addition, however, more honest people have written us asking for an explanation as to how it is possible for a representative of revolutionary Marxism to appear before a reactionary committee. There are also complaints that to condone the appearance of Trotsky before the Dies Committee would constitute a reversal of policy on our part.
In the first place it should be understood that the reports in the press as to the contents of Trotsky projected testimony are ninety per cent false. Elsewhere in this issue we publish Trotsky own statement to the press, which makes it quite clear that the sensational stories published by the American press were invented in their home offices. He will offer neither secrets nor documents. nor will he have a word to say about the situation in Mexico or the rest of Latin America. He will speak only under the proposed conditions: in reply to references made to him by witnesses before the Dies Committee, and in answer to questions submitted in advance about the history of Stalinism.
Now what possible objections can there be to taking advantage of the platform of the Dies Committee in order to expose and discredit the most malignant disease the labor movement has ever been infected with?
Because Dies is a reactionary and wants to utilize his committee for reactionary purposes We of course insist that he is one of the most reactionary figures in the political life of this country, and we shall continue our struggle against his committee and its reactionary purposes. But since when is a revolutionary Marxist prohibited from appearing before any parliamentary committee, no matter how reactionary, in order to explain things to the public from his own point of view? Only a sterile radicalism that is afraid of itself would dictate opposition to such a policy Would we refuse to send representatives to Congress because we recognize Congress is a reactionary body? And is there any difference between a Congressional investigating committee and Congress itself? If we representa tvie of our party in Congress he would make a serious attempt to become a member of such a committee in order to bring his own point of view into the investigations.
It is true that on some occasions the Socialist Appeal contained articles, dealing with the appearance of renegades before the committee, that terprise premises MEETING!
Stalin Invasion of Finland Speaker: James Cannon WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20th, P. at Hotel Diplomat. 108 West 43rd St.
Auspices: SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY. Fourth International)
Admission: TWENTY FIVE CENTS