4th International - Lenin Memorial Edition 1945

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January 1945

LENINMEMORALNUMBER

V.I. Lenin

His Life and Work

By G. ZINOVIEV

The United States And

The SecondWorldWarR esol u t i onof E l ev en t h Conven t i on

O f t h e Amer ica n T r ot sk yi st

V. 10Lenin Movemen t

Apr i l 2 2, 1 87 0- J an ua ry 2 1, 1 92 4

Discussion Article On Europe by DanielLogan

Tw en ty Cen t s



Manager’sColumnI,

The importance of placingURTH INTERNATIONAL

n news st a nd s ca nnot be over -mpha sized . Ou r r ecords s howa t d ur in g t he pa st yea r n ews-a nd s ale s have r is en con t inu -u sly. N ew Yor k, Det roit , S an

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over Milwaukee’s expand ing

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fir s t month we placed th ree

FOURTH INTERNATIONAL

VOLUME 6 J anuary 1945 No. 1 (Whole No. SO)

Published monthly by the

Fourth International Publishing Association

116Universi ty Place , New York 3, N. Y. Telephone:Algon-

quin 4-8547.Subscript ion rates: $2.00per year; bundles,16cfor 5 cop ies a n d up. Ca n ad a a nd For eign : $2.60 per yea r;

bundles , 16c for 5 cop ies a nd up.

Ent ered a s second-cla s sma t t er May 20, 1940, a t t he pos t

office a t N ew Yor k, N . Y., u nd er t he Act of Ma rch 3, 1879.

Editor: FELIX MORROW

CONTENTS

V. 1, Lenin. . . .By G. Zinoviev. . . . . . . .. . . . ........5

The Heritage of Lenin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .By The Ed~~5

Resolutionof the Socialist Workers Party on“The U. S. and the SecondWorId War”.....,.. 17

Leninism in Practice. . . .By George Collins . . . . . . .23

On the European Situation and

Our Tasks. . . .By Daniel Logan.. .... ........27

- 2?,

an d they a ll sold; n ext we scr ibe to THE MILITANT. If I had not been sa t isfied with

a ced five — and t hey a ll s old ;

d n ow I h ave been in formedt t h e cu r ren t is sue, of wh ich

n wer e p la ced , is complet elyd out!”J . Mille n of Ph ila de lph ia r e-s t ed an increa se of e ight co-

ies a mon th in Novem ber . Ine cember he wrot e a ga in : “SO

ar this month we have sold

elve copies of t he F . I. on t heca l st aid, a s com pa red wit hee or fou r cop ies in p r eviou s

Ou r su pply h as lon g

in ce been gon e, so we h er ebyive you not ice t o in cr ea se ou r

n t h ly order by t en cop ies .”

***

A let ter from our Toledogent , A. West , repor ts aood beginning in selling

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t he pub lica t ion dur ing t he fir st

year I have been a reader , Idoub tle ss would not have both-er ed abou t a r enewa l, s o r es ult aspeak for th emselves. I maysay tha t my preconce ived op in-ion s of wh at wickedn ess wasgoing on inh igh places (re ligion,polit ical and commercial) werequ it e cor rect , a s is so well a ndfactua lly brough t out in the

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“I wa s ver y m uch im pr eswit h t h e in forma tion on J aa nd In dia . So m uch r ea l nregarding the oppressedthese two nat ions i s never forcom ing fr om s o many of t h eca lled wr it er s a nd commen

t or s. Th ey know on wh ich st heir br ea d is bu tt er ed. T

mess in China is just as bThe Chiang-Kai Sheks a re vwea lt hy a nd wor se st ill, tar e qu it e r eligiou s. Wh en

sea rch sa cr ed h ist or y, we f

tha t J esus was an ordinwor kin g ma n a nd h is fa ithfew follower s wer e lik ewWe can a lso see th at it wa srel igious and polit ica l b igw(the Scr ibesan d Phar i sees) wh ad t hose fr ien ds of t he comon p eop le p ut t o d ea th . Lat t he bu nch of wor ld leadof t oda y — all p rofe ss one rgiou s fa ith or an other . Nh owever seek to approachd eed t h e id ea ls t ha t t he mansor r ow d ied for . H ist or ypea t a it self a nd how!

4Now t hen , en ou gh for tt ime. Enclos ed is money orfor two-years’ subscriptWish in g t he p ublis her s connu ed a ucces s, knowing quwell t hey will ca ll ever yt hby its rea l name and be haby t h e common foe of t h emaes for so doing. The truth

so damning.”***

Sheffield , E ngla nd : “1 hmuch p lea su r e in wr it ing t hfew lin es t o t ell you h ow mI look forwa rd to rece iving ecopy of FOURTH INTE RNTIONAL and THE MILITAin wh ich I fin d mu ch m at efor lect ur es a nd discu ssionr eceive t hes e r egu la rly fr omfr ien d in t his t own .

~@f Coume, I get in to a f

r owa if I happen to lend th

t o on e per son befor e a notper son h as h ad t hem , bu t I nlend one THE MILITANT wthe other has FOURTH

TERNATIONAL and swt hem bot h t o secr ecy fr omother. This i s popular i ty .

“1 found ext ra specia l enment in reading Felix Morroa rt icle in t he J u ne 1944 isent i t led,Social Role of Relig

“H er e’s wish in g a qu ick

turn to th e par ty work of

18 im pr ison ed comr ades

success “tot he SOeialiatWorkParty!”



FOURTHINTERNATIONAVOLUME6 J ANUA RY 1945 NUMBE

THEHERITAGEOFLENINByHE EDITORS

Victor Serge relates in his pamphlet “From Lenin toStalin” how he described Lenin to Segui, one of the leadersof the C.N.T. (Spanish Anarchist Trade Unions): “Bolshev-ism,” I said, “is the unity of word and deed. Lenin’sentiremerit consists in his will to carry out his program. . . Landto the peasants, factories to the working class, power to thosewho toil. These words have often been spoken, but no onehas ever thought seriouslyof passing from theory to practice.Lenin seemsto be on the way. . .“

“You mean,” said Segui, bantering and incredulous,“that socialists are going to apply their program? Such athing has never been seen. . .“

“I explained that just this was going to happen inRussia.”

Victor Serge was right. Lenin meant business. Othersonly talked; but Lenin was in dead earnest all his politicallife about building a combat revolutionary organization thatcould and WOUMead the revolution. Lenin was the supremearchitect of the proletarian revolution, the pioneerof Bolshev-ism, the founder and builder of the Bolshevik Party — thatindispensableinstrumentality without which the October 1917revolution could never have triumphed.

At a time when the whole Socialist movement consisted

of loose, sprawling, easy-goingparties, with an accommodatingattitude toward every perversion of the Marxist program;in the period when the whole of Social Democracy wasbeginning to fall victim to opportunism; when party workwas designedprimarily for the winning of electoral successesand conducting loyal oppositions in the various bourgeoisparliaments and legislative assemblies, Lenin came forwardand pioneered an entirely new type of revolutionary Marxistparty, never before seen in history. Lenin’s party was tight-knit, compact, bound by an iron discipline, based uponunyielding adherence to Marxism— the scienceof the pro-letarian revolution. Lenin’sparty was built for revolutionarycombat. It was designed specifically to launch the revolu-

tionary offensive against the citadel of capitalism. HoweIoquent are Zinoviev’s words in his speech on Lenin andhowmuch they tell us of the real Lenin when he says: Leninnever permitted anybody to insult Marx. No! Howcould he?Lenin was no dabbler, no dilettante. Lenin was deadly seriousabout the proletarian revolution. How could he thereforetolerate any Iightmindednessor playfulness toward the theoryof scientificsocialism?

Lenin was not the only left-winger in the Second Inter-national. The Socialistmovement had many other great revo-lutionary leaders. Some like Rosa Luxemburg had a master-ful understanding of Marxism and possessedsuperb talents.But they did not comprehendthe indispensabilityof a Lenin-

ist-type party. Only Lenin fully understood, fully grasped

what kind o~party the proletariat neededin order to triuAnd he had the iron will to drive through despite all osition and calumny and create tbat kind of a revolutioparty. Just as the Paris Commune revealed to the woclass the form of its rule, the form under which the Dicship of the Proletariat would be exercised,so Lenin’s Bvik Party showed in practice the type of organizatioproletariat must have in order to make the revolutionsecure its victory.

The German proletariat paid dearly for this lack, foabsence of a Leninist party. In 1918,the revolution roGermany and the whole country was coveredwith a netof Soviets. But the revolutionary vanguard, the Spartawere unprepared. They had not yet forged a genuine retionary party, closely tied to the working class and caof leading it in action. The revolution inevitably rolledtheir heads and the Social Democratic traitors w’ereabdeflect and abort the revolution. It was different in RA year before in 1917,when revolutionary conditions ripLenin was ready. The Bolsheviks under Lenin seizefavorable opportunity and led the greatest revolution ihistory of mankind. Marxism found its highest histexpression and vindication in Bolshevism.

L eni n a nd Ma rx

Lenin stands on an equal plane of eminencewith Mbut his main contribution to the cause of Socialism isdifferent character. Marx, that awe-inspiring geniusthe father, the creator of ScientificSocialism. No one,his time, has been his equal in the fieldof social thougoriginality, in the breadth-taking sweep of his ideas, ipowers of analysis. Lenin always prided himself onan orthodox Marxist. Lenin defended Marxism on all fagainst all comers, against all its traducers. Lenin, witinsight of genius, took the Marxist theory and enrichimmeasurably in practice. He vindicated it in action.

sky oncegavevoiceto this thought: “AI]of Marx,” he w“is contained in the ‘CommunistManifesto’, in the foreof his ‘Critique’ and in ‘Capital’. Even if he had notthe founder of the First International, he would have alremained what he is. Lenin, on the contrary, lives entirerevolutionary attion. Had he not published a single bothe past, he would none the less appear in history that whe is now, as the leader of the proletarian revolution, afounder of the Third International.”

Above all else, above all his other contributions —they are immense — Lenin looms as the supreme woclass leader of action, who showedby example what kina party the working class needs to make the revolution

showed in action how to build that kind of a revolutio



Page4 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL January 194

party and how to win the masses to its banner. Lenin is themaster builder of socialism,the master strategist, the mastertactician of the proletarian revolution, of the application ofMarxism in this epoch of wars and revolutions,

And today, on the 21st anniversary of his death, thethoughts of all revolutionary militants turn again to theteachings and heritageof our great revolutionary master. Fortoday, as the war grinds towards its sixth year, as humanity

is crushed beneath the burdens of famine and cruel death,it is once more becomingclear that there is no answer to theendless horrors of decaying capitalism, but Lenin’s programof 1917.All signs point moreover, that as in 1917, a newgigantic revolutionary explosion is approaching. We alreadysee in Europe the vindication once again of Lenin’s sloganof the first world war: Turn the imperialist’war into civil war.After twenty years of unexampled defeats and reaction on aworld-wide scale, the working class is lifting its head andgirding its loins for struggle. The class struggle is reassertingitself above the din and roar of the cannon.

Trotsky wrote in The Death Agony of Capitalism andthe Tasks of theFour#hInternationalthat “the historicalcrisis

of mankind s reduced to the crisisof the revolutionary Leader-ship,” that the working class again and again has movedontothe road of revolution but each time finds itself blocked andthwarted by its own opportunist leaders. The crisis of theproletarian leadership has led to the numerous tragic defeatsprior to the outbreak of the present war and it opened theroad to the capitalists’plunging mankind into the bloodbathof this newworld war. The crisisof the proletarian leadershiphas becomethe crisis of western civilization itself. Mankindwill find no other road of salvation, no other way to put anend to the bestialities and horrors of war than the road ofLenin in October 1917. For the revolutionary vanguard thereis also no other program and method than that of Lenin. The

revolutionary vanguard therefore is duty-bound to prepareitself more thoroughly for the tasks that lie ahead by ab-sorbing more fully the nwtbod employed by Lenin to forgethe Bolshevikparty. The revolutionary vanguard must at-tempt to recapture his firmness, his unyielding struggle forprinciple, his iron determination to build the party, his in-destructible conviction of the triumph of the workers’ revo-lution and the Socialist future of mankind. Thus and onlythus will the gap be bridged and the revolutionary vanguardbecome the acknowledged leader, the acknowledged spokes-man of the rnillionedmasses.

Returning to Lenin doesnot mean to divorceoneselffromthe present struggle and retiring to read his CollectedWorks.

Such an approach to Lenin would be utterly pedantic, utterlyundia]ectical, utterly un-Lenin like. To really study Lenin,,one must study his literary works in connection with hisactivities, and this must be linked up with the present-daystruggles. Bolshevism as a tendency of the working classmovement was founded and pioneered by Lenin, but it hasby no means died with Lenin. Bolshevism,a quarter of acentury ago, crossed the borders of Russia and extended it-self on an international scale, with the foundation of theThird International. After the victory of the Thermidorianreaction in the Soviet Union in 1923, Bolshevism, in theform of Trotsky’s Left Opposition, broke with the Kremlinbureaucracy and its degeneratingComintern. In every respect,the Trotskyist movement,represents the continuation of Len-in’s work and struggle, the movement of living Bolshevism.

Throughout twenty years of bitter reaction and cruel workclass defeats, it has held the banner, the proud banner ofOctober revolution, aloft. In this period of sweepine wreaction, the small band of Bolshevik-Leninists,the ~rotsists, could not prevent, because of their weakness, theof positions previously won by the working class, couldprevent because of the unfavorable relationship of forthe defeats of revolutions. But it could and did prevent

lossof the ideologicalpositions. It swam-against the currHounded, jeered at from all sides, persecuted, it continits work with calmness,with assurance and with faith incoming upsurge, in the spirit of Lenin during bis daysemigration. Under the leadership and guidance of its genleader, Leon Trotsky, it studied closely all the working cdefeats, analyzed the causes and mistakes, exposedthe criand betrayals, and prepared the ground for the new revtionary offensive once the historical tide rose again.

And after twenty years of hard work, of study, of strgle, the Fourth International, the movementof living Bolsism, has hammered out a finished program, has weldedgether a tested cadre, has created a firm organizational str

ture. It stands today, just as Lenin’ssmall band of Bolsheinternationalists during the last war, unyielding, intrsigent, confident of its destiny to lead the working cin the next great revolutionary offensive, confident offuture successes and its final triumph.

But the Fourth International s~andson higher grouthan did the Bolshevikcadre of the last war. First, the caof the Fourth International exists on a truly internatioscale. It is also stronger, more firm. Because the FouInternational has the advantage not only of its ownperiences of twenty years of struggle, but stands alsothe shoulders of Lenin, the Bolsheviks, and the greattober 1917 revolution. It is impossible to be a Lenitoday and circumvent or skip over this movement ofing Leninism, the Fourth International, just as it ispossibleto “return” to Marxism, in the manner of the SoDem@rats and philistines, by skipping over LeninBolshevism,by skipping over the October revolution.

Lenin, the individual, the working class leader of genis dead. And dead also is his co-worker Leon Trotsky,founder and builder of the Fourth International, whosenathe October revolution linked indissolubly and for all twith that, of Lenin. But the Bolshevikmovement they blived on and will in due coursetriumph throughout the wo

RESOLUTIONON LENIN’S REPORTOn the basis of th ese theses and the repor t s of th

delega t es from the d iffe ren t coun t r ie s t he Congres s of t hCommunis t In t erna t iona ldecla res t ha t t he ch ie f t a sk of t h

CommunistPar t ies in a l l count r ies where Sovie t power doenot yet exis t, con sis ts in t h e following:

1. Th e exp la n at ion t o t he wid e mass es of t h e wor kincla s s of t he h is t or ica l s ign ificance and of t he polit ica l anh is t or ica l inevit abilit y of t he new prole ta r ian democracywhich must be pu t in t he p lace of bourgeois democracy anof par liamentar iauism.

2 . The spr ea ding and ,or gan iza t ion of Soviet s amont he worker s in a ll s ect ion s of indu st r y a nd among t he soldier s of a rm y a nd fleet , a nd a lso a mon g t he a gr icu lt ur alabore rs and poor pea san t s .

3. Th e for mat ion in side t he Soviets of a fir m com

munist major i ty . (Founding Conference , March 1919. )



Ian uary 1945 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page

V. I. LENINBy. Z INOVIEV

Gr egor y Zin oviev wa s on e of t h e impor ta nt lea der s of t h eRussianrevolut ion. For many years he was one of Lenin’s closes ts tuden t s a nd colla bor a tor s. He worked t oget her wit h Len in in

Swit zer la ndand r et u rned wit h h im t o Rus sia in Ap ril 1917. Hewa s a m em ber of t he P olit ica l Bu rea u of t he Bolsh evik pa rt y.I n 1918h e wa s elect ed Cha irma no f t h e P et rogr ad Soviet . Th efollowin g yea r h e wa s elect ed Chairm an of t he Th ir d I nt er n a-tional.

The following documen t is a s tenogr a ph ic r ecord of t h e r e-ma rkable s peech he deliver ed Sep tember 6 , 1918a t a s es sion oft he Pet rograd Sovie t.

The young Sovie t Republic faced some of i ts grea test dangersin t h is per iod . I n J u ly a nd August 1918, th e fam ine be camemorea cu t e. The Czecho-S lovak t r oop s in S iber ia a id ed by t he Allieslaunched milit a ry act ion aga ins t t he Sovie t gove rnment . Othercoun ter -r evolu t iona ry r ebellion s b roke ou t in va r iou s par t s oft h e coun tr y. Trot sky depar t ed for t h e Kazan fr on t . At t h is timethe left Socia l Revolut ionist s began a pol icy of te rror i sm agains tt he Sovie t gove rnment . In Ju ly, t hey organ ized a conspiracy andk illed Count Mirbaeh , t he German Ambassador , in order t o force

t he Soviet Union in to wa r wit h Germa ny. On Augu st 30, Len inwhile le av ing a worker s ’meet ing a t t he Michel son factory, wass eve rely wounded f rom a shot fir ed by t he t er r or is t F a nny Kap-la n, a m em ber of t he Socia l Revolu tion ist s. Len in ’s life wa sin danger but t h ank s t o h is power fu l con st it u tion he r ecover edfr om h is wound s. On S ept ember 17 h e r es umed a ct ive wor k.

The presen t t r ansla t ion was checked aga ins t t he Russ ian and

r evis ed by John G. Wr igh t .—Ed.

Comrades! Last week may be ca lled th e Len in week. I

think 1 sha ll not in any way exaggera te if I say that every

h on est wor ker in P et rogr ad, in t he wh ole of E ur ope, in deed,

in the whole world, so far as he may have heard the newsof the attempt on Comrade Lenin, had in the course ofthese anxious days no other thought than the one question,will the wounded leader of the International Commune re-cover? And 1, comrades, am happy to share with you thegood news: today we may — at last — count the recovery ofComrade Lenin as entirely assured. (Thunderous applause).

Comrades, I have in my hands a telegram, written al-ready by Comrade Lenin himself. (Thunderous applause).This telegram was handed in today at 1:IO P.M., from theKremlin. This is, apparently, the first telegram of ComradeLenin since he began to recover. Comrade Lenin gives uscertain official instructions and finishes the telegram withthe following words: “Affairs at the front are going well;I have no doubt that they will go still better.” (Applause.)Thus, comrades,one thing is clear, that Comrade Lenin willlive (applause, ovation) to the terror of the enemiesof Com-munism and to the joy of the proletarian Communists.

Comrades! It goes without saying, that in this hallthere is not one single man who does not know, in generalor in particular, who Lenin is. Every worker has heard ofLenin, knows that this is a titanic figure in the history ofthe world labor movement. Everyone is so much accustomedto the word “Lenin,” that he does not stop to think what,after all, he has done for the international and Russian labormovement. Every proletarian knows that Lenin is the leader,Lenin is the apostle of world Communism. (Applause.) But

I think, comrades, that we cannot pay a greater honoour teacher and leader today than if 1, who am acquainwith the biography of Comrade Lenin somewhat intima

— I have had the good fortune to work side by side wComrade Lenin in the closest collaboration for more thanyears — if I take advantage of the present occasion in oto share, though it be only in brief, with younger frieand older comrades,who have never had the opportunityobservingso closelythe work of Comrade Lenin, my autheknowledgeof the life of Comrade Lenin. (Numerous voiPlease do!)

*+*

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin-Ulianov is now 48 years old.was born in 1870,on the IOth of April, at Simbirsk. Aout of the 48 years of his life, Comrade Lenin has devonearly 30years work to the cause of proletarian emancipat

The father of Comrade Lenin, by birth a peasant,director of the elementary schools in the Volga provinand enjoyed great popularity among the teachers of the tand village schoolsin his district.

The mother of Comrade Lenin 1 knew personally.died in the year 1913. Czar Alexander 11I had executedeldest son, Alexander Ulianov. From that time she contrated her maternal tenderness on Vladimir llyich. AComrade Lenin, in his turn, tenderly loved his broken-healittle mother.

Living in emigration, hunted by the Czar’sGovernmComrade Lenin would.tear himself away from the most urgwork in order to make a special trip to Sweden to visitmother and to brighten for her the last days of her life

Lenin ’sLegalCareerAfter graduating from the “gymnasium,” Lenin ent

the faculty of Laws at Kazan University. The universitiethe capitals were closed to him as the brother of an execterrorist. A student, however,Vladimir Ilyich remaineda very short while. Within a month he was expelledfromUniversity for taking part in the students’ revolutiomovement. Only after the lapse of four years was it posfor him to take his final examinations.

The legal career, however, had no attractions for C

rade Lenin, Vladimir llyich always spoke in very humoterms of his few days of “practice” at the bar. ComLenin’spredilectionslay in an entirely different direction.yearned after revolutionary activities.

***

Comrade Lenin stands, as it were, on the borderlandtween the old generationof Narodnik [Populist]revolutioand the new schoolof Marxist revolutionists. Comrade Lhimselftook part in the student Narodnik circles,but alreeven at that time, he stood with one foot in the campthe Marxists.

Vladimir Ilyich, howe~er, is bound by ties of blood w}he early generation of revolutionary terrorists, those glor



6 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL jan%ary 1945

ters,whosenames to this day shine like dazzling stars —causethey laid low not the friends of the people, like theetched cretins, the Right Socialist Revolutionists, but therants and hangmen. Vladimir Ilyich is related by bloodthis generation of fighters, He is connected with them

rough his brother Alexander IIyichUlianov,whowas a pro-nent figure in the Narodnaya Volya, (People’sWill), andowas on that account hanged by the Czar’sGovernment in

e year 1887.Comrade Lenin himself was never a member of thatrty. But he has always inculcated into us the most ardentspect for this cluster of brilliant revolutionary fighters, thet generation of Populist revolutionists. Lenin, since thewhen he awakenedto a consciouspolitical life, has never

ared the Populist theories. He first becameprominent whenbegan to fight against revolutionary Populism. IHewas thery antithesis of Mikhailovsky. He gained his first laurelsa Socialist preciselythrough the struggle against Populism.ut nobody had so great a respect, no one ever taught therkers to respect these first fighters against Czarism, as Vla-ir llyich.

In the eyesof Comrade Lenin, suchworkers as ZhelyabovSophie Perovskaya stood transcendently high — peopleo raised the flag of revolt and went forward with bombd revolver against the Czar at the end of the ‘seventiesand‘thebeginning of the ‘eighties,when Russia was a prison-use of nations, when every friend of freedom drew breathpain, when the workersof Russia werestill only beginningform themselvesinto a class. Vladimir llyich well under-d how truly great and immeasurablewere the servicesof

e first heralds of the Russian revolution.And Comrade Lenin did not renounce this heritage. He

id: This heritage belongs to us, and to us only. Our taskto carry further that work which was begun by Zhelyabov.e most prominent leader of Narodnaya Vo2ya; executed

r the assassinationof Czar Alexander 11in 1881.]Zhelyabov, who established ties with the working class

d who put the question of the Socialist revolution on theder of the day was, in fact, a Bolshevik,a Communist. Inder to continue the work of Zhelyabov under new socialditionswemust becomerevolutionary Marxists, our heartsst beat as one with the working class, the only revolution-y class of our time, that class which cannot emancipatelf without emancipating the whole world.

i rs tGreatWork ing ClassLeaderVladimir llyich specially loved and was proud of there of the first great working-class leader, the carpenter

epan Khalturin. Lenin did not know him personally, heew him by hearsay and books,as we all do. You know thegraphy of this proletarian of genius, who not only blewthe Winter Palace, but achieved something greater — hes the first to unfurl the banner of political struggle againstarism in the name of the working class. Comrade Lenined to say: When we have hundreds of such proletariansKhalturin, when they are no longer solitary figures,goingth bombor revolveragainst this or that individual Minister,n they take their pIace at the head of the many-millionedrking class— then we shall be invincible; then will comeend to Czarism, and subsequently an end also to the rulethe bourgeoisie.

Comrade Lenin’s affection for proletarians who in any

way show capacity is especially striking. A figh t er whom

Len in m ost va lu ed a nd loved wa s t he wor ker Iva n Va ssilye

vich Babushkin, with whom Comrade Lenin here, in Petrograd began his work in the nineties, together startinthe first worker circles, together leading the first workerstrikes, together taking their part in the organization of thlskra. This comrade played a prominent part in the revoltion “of1905,and it was only by accident that in 1907Vlad

mir Ilyich learned from friends among the Siberian exilthat Babushkin had been shot by General Rennenkampf iSiberia.

I. V. Babushkin and Shelgunov,who is still living, anwho is known to the Petrograd proletarians (he has nogrown blind) — these renowned fighters, coming out of thworkingclass, Comrade Lenin loved like brothers, placed bfore us as models, saw in them the real forerunners, the truleaders of the dawning workers’ revolution.

* **

The first period of activity of Comrade Lenin,as of manother revolutionistswho came from the ranks of the intelgentsia, was passed in student circles. When Comrade Len

was expelled from Kazan University he went to PetrograAnd he used to “tellus how, having already been slightly infectedwith Marxist ideas in Samara, he walked about Petrograd searching for a Marxist. Vivo VOCO!But the “breed” oMarxists was at that time extremely rare. There was nMarxist in Petrograd; one had to go looking for h im lam

in hand in day time. The Populists monopolized the mindof the intellectuals,and the working class was just awakeninto political life.

And now there comes this young Comrade Lenin, buildup, after a year or two, in Petrograd the first working-clacircle and rallies around himself the first Marxist intellectuaVery soon Lenin is already crossing swords in the literararena with the old leader of the Populists, N. K. MikhaIovsky.

Lenin (under the pseudonym of Ilyin) comes forwarwith a seriesof brilliant economicarticles which at once wfor him a name. And immediately in the ranks of thPopulist intelligentsiathere could be observed a certain alarmSomebodypowerful and strong has disturbed the petty bougeois swamp. The movement of the water begins. On thhorizon a new figure has appeared. Someone is stirring uthe stagnant air, and there is a breath of newness,freshnes

In Petrograd, Comrade Lenin togetherwith other Marxiactivists and together with the first workers of whom I havspoken, founds the “Union of the Struggle for the Emancipation of Labor.” He was entrusted by this organizatio

with the conduct of the first strikes, and wrote the first simplunassuming, hectographed leaflets, in which were formulatethe economic demands of the Petrograd workers. It was athis time that Lenin published his first illegal pamphlet “OFines” — a pamphlet today forgotten, but which for lucand popular expositionis a classicexampleof the populariztion of Marxism.

At that time th”s was precisely the nub oj the who

situution: to agitate against the system of *s, to excieconomic conflicts, TO RAISE EVERY ECONOMISTRIKE TO THE LEVEL OF A POLITICAL EVENTAnd Vladimir Ilyich, with all his passionate nature, gavhimself up to this work. He spends his days and nights i

the workingdass quarters. He is hunted by the police. H



n uary 1945 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page

s only a tiny circle of friends. Nearly all so-called revo-ionary intellectuals of that time meet him with hostility.t so many years had elapsed since the Populists burnedfirst Marxist writingsof Plekhanov, on which Lenin him-

lf was brought up.

eni nOpeneda New Pa t hComrade Lenin opened up here a new path. Throughoutwhole activity of Comrade Lenin one can notice that he

always an innovator, that he goes against the stream, thatploughs a new furrow m the political and social life. In‘nineties, too, at Petrograd, it fell to his share to trace

t a new path, to form, to rally the first detachments ofrkers, the first detachments of a genuine working-class in-igentsia, from which more than one leader of the presentkers’revolution has come.

It happens very often at the present time that frommewhereout of far Siberia or the Urals there come to thencil of People’sCommissary,to the All-Russian CongressSoviets,workerswho are today presidentsof local Soviets,leaders of the local movements.They go up to Comrade

nin and begin to call up old memories: “Do you remem-

r in the early ‘nineties,at such and such a place, how werred up an agitation for the supply of hot water for teath a certain illegal leaflet, or organized such and such aike?” Comrade Lenin does not always remember them;many people have crossed his path. But they all re-

mber him. They know that he was their teacher, that hest let fall within them the spark ‘of Communism. Theyow that he was their real friend and leader.Towards the end of the ‘nineties Comrade Lenin, after

long confinementin prison, was sent into Siberian exile.re he developed an immense scientific and literary act-ty. There he wrote several works, out of which I willell upon two only. The first work was a little pamphlet,

roblems of the Russian social Democrats.” This pamphletnow hardly read. But it remains a masterpieceof Marxistatment of the question as to the destinies of the Socialistement in an economically backward country. At thate no one had finally settled the question: what should beconnection between the political struggle of the workers

ainst Czarism and the struggle of the proletariat againstbourgeoisiefor economicdemands and Socialism?

At the present time, comrades, all this seems as simpleABC. But in those days this questionwas.far from beingclear, The celebrated “Economists,” the predecessors ofr Mensheviks, contended that the political struggle mustleft to the Liberal bourgeoisie, and the only concern of

working class must be the struggle for an extra kopekthe rouble. Comrade Lenin, following the late Plekhanovre it is necessary to say that he took a great deal fromkhanov) gave a magnificent analysis of the contendingial forces in Russia. We must not defer, Lenin argued,formation of the working-classparty in Russia until wee won political freedom. No, we have not lagged behindrope a hundred years in order to hang back with the or-ization of the workers party until our bourgeoisie hasen to power. No, now is the time, under the leaden lidyoke of Czardom, to build up in spite of these des-tely difficult conditions, an independent Socialist classty of the workers, fighting from the outset both against

ardom and against the bourgeoisie.

The manuscript of this pamphlet was transmitted abroato the “Emancipation of Labor Group.” In Switzerland therworked at this time a little circIe consisting of PlekhanoAxehod, and Zassulich, the first founders of Social Democracy in Russia. They had lived abroad already 15 yearWhen this manuscript of Lenin’s came to them it was thfirst tidings of the coming spring. And it was none othethan Paul Axelrod, who was at that time a Socialist, anwas able to discern the true leaders of the working clas

who, on the receipt of this manuscript, went into raptureHe said then to his circle of friends that a prodigious forchad appeared in the ranks of our Social Democracy, thathere had arisen a new star of the first magnitude. Axelrowrote a preface to Lenin’s pamphlet, in which he could nofind enough laudatory words with which to overwhelmComrade Lenin. He said that for the first time since Plekhanothere had appeared a leader, a practical expert of the working-classmovement, that Lenin was a force to which a grefuture was assured.

And Axeh-od,in the present case— one must give himhis due — was not mistaken.

A Truly Sc ien t i fi cWorkStill in exile, Comrade Lenin wrote a truly scientifwork, “The Developmentof Capitalism in Russia”— a boowhich is bound to become, and in a great measure has become, a handbook for every worker. In this book ComradLenin settled accounts with the Populists, who then reignesupreme in the minds of the whole generation of our intellgentsia. He brilliantly proved in this work that Plekhanowas right in asserting that Russia also would not escape thstage of capitalism. By means of statistics he showed thaour country has since the ‘ninetiesentered upon the capitalisstage. He gave a profound an-dsubtle analysis of the development of agriculture in Russia and the invasion of it b

capitalism. With the aid of a mighty array offacts, ComradLenin analysed the whole economicstructure of the countryboth urban and rural; and out of this dispassionate,objectivanalysis he brought out the revolutionary conclusions regarding the problems and tasks of the working class.

This book of Lenin’s was acknowledged by bourgeoprofessorsas a great scientificachievement. In 1902,whenwas still a student in Paris, in the School of Social Sciencefounded by Professor Kovalevsky and others, 1 heard fromProfessorMaxim Kovalevskythe greatest eulogyof VladimiIlyich from his point of view, He said: “What a fine professor might have been made out of Lenin!“ This in thmouth of Professor Kovalevskywas the very highest praise

Yes! out of Comrade Lenin there might have been madefineprofessor,but out of him came the leader of the workerCommune, and this, I think is something greater than thmost gifted professors. (Applause.)

During the same period of exile, and on the eve of hideparture into exile, Comrade Lenin launched a struggle othe other front as well. Fighting with one hand against thPopulists in the person of Mikhailovskyand others, he at thsame time began a theoretical struggle against the so-calle“legal” Marxism. At its head stood P. Struve, Tugan-Baranovsky and others who at present are leaders of the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie. This movement had a profounsocial foundation. The Liberals of the day were seeking a

stratum of society on which they could lean in their struggl



FOURTH INTERNATIONAL January 1945

against Czarism for bourgeoisfreedom. And they saw thatoutside the working class there was none at all. They sawthat the Populists,with their old fashioned“theory,” assertingthat we should never have capitalism, were clearly in thewrong. And they began to set their cap at Marxism, emascu-lating it of its revolutionary spirit and turning it into a“legal,” tame “Marxism.”

In the struggle against the Populists the legal Marxistswere for a time our allies. They also, like ourselves, fought

against Mikhailovsky. And-at one time we were united withthem in a definite bloc. But the sharp ear of Comrade Leninhad already discoveredfalse notes in the very first writingsof P. Struve and Co. Lenin immediately said that this wasan ally only for an hour, that they would in the end betray us.

The Figh tAgains tSt ruveNoteworthy is the criticism by which Comrade Lenin

exposed the well-known book of P. Struve, “Critical Re-marks.” Struve had for a long time been regarded as a SocialDemocrat. He publisheda very sensationalbook, “Critical Re-marks” directed against Mikhailovsky. This book wascriticisedby both Plekhanov and Lenin. Plekhanov criticizedit with the brilliance, peculiar to him, of a literary acade-

mician; Lenin criticized it differently. 1 feel and know, saidLeninpthat in a year or two Struve will leave the workingclass and betray us to the bourgeoisie.Struve’s book endedwith the words: “Let us acknowledgeour want of cultureand place ourselves as apprentices under capitalism.” Thesewords need thinking over, said Comrade Lenin. See if this!Mruvedoes not end in becoming an apprentice, not of capi-talism, but of capitalists. And though Struve was the com-rade of Lenin, and rendered priceless services both to himand to the then existing Social Democracy, yet VladimirIlyich, with his characteristic firmness and consistency, nosooner heard a false note in Struve’s words than he soundedthe alarm. He began to fight against Struve, and under the

pseudonymof Tulin came out with an article in a magazinewhich was burnt by the censor, in which he elucidated Mr.Struve in detail, taking to piecesevery one of his phrases andevery one of his propositions, and showing that Mr. PeterStruve perhaps did not even realize it himself, and regardedhimself as a genuine partisan of the labor movement, butthat in his innovations one could detect the very old tunesof the bourgeoisie. You are a bourgeois ideologist, Leninargued, you will inevitably go over to the camp of the bour-geoisie and break with the working class. You yourself bearthe guilt of this, because you look upon the working class asa means and not as an end. It is only important to you as aforce against the Czar, and you wish to make use of it, with-

out giving it anything in return. Allow us not to allow youto do this. We have up till now fought against the Czar andthe bourgeoisie,but we proclaim yet another front: we willfight against ““legal”Marxism. We stand for genuine revo-lutionary Marxism, and reject your emasculated “legal”Marxism.

Thus said Comrade Lenin.***

Thus was completed the work of Comrade Lenin beforehis exile to Siberia and during that exile. In the beginningof the ‘nineties Comrade Lenin for the first time left thecountry.

Lenin was twice in emigration. He lived abroad several

years. His secondperiod of emigration 1 and other comradshared with him. And when we were heavy-hearted ahomesick,especially in the last period, during the war, whwe becamediscouraged (those comradeswho were in emigtion know what it means when for years you do not hethe Russian speech,when you are homesickfor a native Rusian word), Comrade Lenin used to say: why do you coplain, what kind of foreign exile is this? Now, Plekhanand Axelrod were really in foreign exile when for the spaof twenty-five years they strained in vain their eyesightcatch a glimpse of the first working-class revolutionist.

1n point of fact, Vladimir Ilyich himself pined in emgration literally like a lion in a cage. He had nothingwhich to expend his immense, inexhaustible energy, andfound salvation only through leading the life of a scholHe did that which had been done by Marx during his emgration. He spent about fifteen hours a day in the libraand at books, and it is not for nothing that he stands otoday as one of the most educated Marxists, and generaone of the most educated persons of our time.

But let us return to his first emigration.In 1901 Lenin, together with a group of then kindr

persons (Martov, Potresov), entered upon the publicationthe paper lskra (The Spark). This Zskrais an historicalpapclosely interwoven with the name of Comrade Lenin. Bofriends and enemies spoke of the Leninist lskra. This woften the case. Everywhere, whenever and wherever Lenworked, in organizations, as an editor, in the Central Comittee, or, finally,now in the Councilof People’sCommissato all these organizations inevitably struck the appellatLeninist. Yes, “Iskra” was Leninist, and it did not loby this, it only gained. (Applause.) The first important articof Lenin in the lskra was called “Where to Begin.” In tharticle Lenin outlined the immediate program for the labmovement and the Russian revolution. He outlined in it,their entirety, the foundations of, our program and revo

tionary tactics.

“What Is t o BeDone”Already in this first article of Lenin you will practica

find virtually the whole quintessenceof Bolshevism. But tharticle served merely as a synopsis to the remarkable boof Lenin which was called “What is to Be Done.”

Round everything that Lenin wrote there is alwaseethingstrife. Nobody can remain indifferent to his writinYou can hate Lenin, you can love Lenin to distraction, byou cannot remain neutral. In the book “What is ToDone,” Lenin stated and solved in a revolutionary spiritthe vexatious questionsof the movementof that epoch. A

for many “monthsand years this bookwaschallengingthougwas the center of raging passions,was the subject of contversy, and ultimately led to the formation of a split into twirreconcilable camps.

The lskra declared a fight to the finish against the scalled “Economist.” It fought with every variety of oportunism, including,Economism, i.e. future Menshevism.conducted a most energetic fight against the adventurismthe Social-Revolutionists,and never yet has it been so plahow clear-sighted in his attitude towards the Social-Revotionists was Comrade Lenin, who predicted as far back1902-3 the fate of the Social-Revolutionary Party. Onthink ! Fifteen years ago, when the party of the Social-Re



J 1945 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page9

Iutionists had only just been born, when it had in its rankswell-known members of the former “People’s Will,” whenwehad not yet that great political experiencewhich was givento us by the revolution — what was the situation like atthe time? There comes forward the party of the Social-Revolutionists,asserting that it is fighting for Socialism,say-ing that it is more to the left than the lskra. And there getsup Comrade Lenin still quite young, and in the face of the

holeworld dares throw at them the scornful words: “revo-lutionary adventurists.” Lenin declared: “You, Messrs.ocial-Revolutionists,are representatives of the petty bour-eoisie,and nothing more.” (Applause.)

When Lenin said that the party of the Social-Revolu-onists was a party of the petty bourgeoisiethere descendedpon him thunder and lightning. It was said that Lenin hadbad character, that he was a misanthrope,.and so forth.ow, indeed you can see that it was a prophetic anticipationf that which is. (Applause.) Now we know that there areo two more fatal letters in the Russian alphabet than theetters: S and R. Why was this party so doomed? Because,lling itself Socialist, in reality it is a petty bourgeoisparty.

omrade Lenin was right when he said that these were noocialists, but representatives of the petty bourgeoisie,thatbest they were only revolutionary romantics, fantasts, andingmore

Pr op he t ic Gi ft

Now .we have an immense and irreplaceable experiencea decadeand a half, the experienceof the 1905revolution,e experienceof the 1917-1918revolution. But to have pre-icted the real truth fifteen years ago, to have determinedhe real value of the party of the Social-Revolutionists athat time — this required almost a prophetic gift. For thiswas necessary to have an immense revolutionary Marxist

tuition, for th,is,in a word, it was necessary to be a Lenin.

Lenin’sZshracarried on not merely a political struggle,t also carried on an immense work of organization. Thekra was gathering the scattered segmentsof our party. Onlythe beginning of the ‘ninetiesarose a situation in which itas possible to think of the formation of a workers’ party.omrade Lenin placed himself also at the head of this prac-cal organizing work, and formed the Organization Com-ttee Attached to the ldzra. And Comrade Lenin, who bore

he chief brunt of the literary labor in the Jshra and in theal journal Zarya (The Dawn), at the same time be-

me the soul of the Organization Committee.

The wife of Comrade Lenin, Nadezhda Konstantinovnaupskaya-Ulyanova, was the secretary of the lskra, andecretary of the Organization Committee. How much ourarty is indebted to her; of this one might and ought to speakeparately. Here I will only say that, in all the work ofomrade Lenin as organizer of our party, a good deal of theedit is due to Nadezhda Konstantinovna. All written inter-ursefellon her. At one time she carried on a correspondenceith the whole of Russia.

Who among the older underground workers did notnowNadezhda Konstantinovna? To whom did not the re-eipt of a letter from her mean joy? Who among us thoughther otherwise than with boundless confidence and most

nder love?Martov in one of his spiteful polemics against Lenin once

calledNadezhda Konstantinovna “The secretary of the supcenter, Lenin.” Well, the whole Russian proletariat is nproud both of its “super-center” and of his “secretary.”

Lenin, assiduously, step by step, collected the undground organization, and in 1903 we reached already%cond Party Congress. Already in that historic congrwhen the party was still united, when in its ranks stood Plhanov, Zassulich,Axelrod, Martov, Potressov and others,

ready it became clear from the first minute of its labors tthe true leader of our young party was Comrade Lenin.

Comrade Lenin is often represented as a man who ccarves, uses nothing but the surgeon’s knife, who doesspare the unity of the proletarian ranks. But when the fsignsof a fundamental split became apparent at the SecCongressit was Comrade Lenin who at first used his influeto prevent a rupture. Lenin as a matter of fact placeshighest value on the unity of the labor movement. Butone condition— provided this unity is a unity for the strugfor Socialism. The ideasof Socialismare to him dearest aball. And so at the Second Congress,as soon as he saw this divergencefrom Martov, Axehcl and the others was

a slight casual divergence; that there was a resurrectionthe old opportunist tendency under a new flag; that thwas rising again that same “legal” ‘MarxismwhichLenin hfought at the end of the ‘nineties, that his former frieMartov, with whom he had been intimate, his bosom friewith whom he had been together in exile, that this Martbegan to sing flat; that Plekhanov, whom until that tihe had highly valued, began to surrender the principlesMarxism; that this Plekhanov was already extending a finto opportunism and opportunism would soon have his whhand; when Lenin saw all this, then the questionwas decidfor him irrevocably. He said: “1 shall stand alone, buraise the standard of revolutionary Marxism.” And he s

arated from Plekhanov.Pl ek h on ov a nd Len in

I happened at the time to be abroad. I as a young SocDemocrat, and two of my friends, were introduced to Plhanov. We were still young, quite fledglings, but we sypathized with all our heart with Comrade Lenin. We rehis “What ISTo Be Done?” and knew that it was the gosof the adherents of the ls)tra. In the face of this, Plekhanattempted, in his conversationswith us, to pour ridicule upLenin. He would say: “You are following him, but he htaken up such a line that in a few weeks he will only beto be put up as a scare-crowin the orchards. Lenin has rai

the banner of struggle against me, Plekhanov, against Zsulich, and Deutch. Don’t you see that this is an uneqstruggle? Lenin is practically finished. He was done formoment that he broke with us, the old timers, with‘Emancipation of Labor Group.’ He is coming to the eof his tether.” Such were Plekhanov’s words, and they dmake a certain impression upon us, the youngsters. Plhanov, while speaking, kept severely moving his eye-broand we felt very frightened. We would go to Comrade Leand innocently complain to him: “This and that is whPlekhanov says.” Then hewould laugh and would consoleu“We’ll count our chickenswhen they are hatched; the fistill lies ahead, weshall seewhom the workerswill follow.

“One step forward, two steps backward” - such was tcharacterization, which Lenin gave”of the evolution of t



age lO FOURTH INTERNATIONAL January 194

enshevikwing of the party. One step forward — that wase advance from Economismto Iskraism; two steps back —at was the retrogression from Iskraism to the liberal ideasf “legal Marxism” which had found their resurrection innshevism. No wonderComrade Lenin took up a merciless

ight against this relapse into the opportunist disease. As aounter-weight to the new “Iskra,” which passed into theands of the Mensheviks, and of which Lenin ceased to be

-editor, he established the first Bolshevik paper VperiodForward). It was at first a very small sheet which was pub-shedon the penniescollectedabroad. At that time the Men-eviks had in their hands a tremendous machinery, as wellthe whole authority of Plekhanov and other “ikons,” innu-erable papers and pamphlets as well as the Central Com-ttee, the Central Organ and the Councilof the party. Com-

ade Lenin began to. blast this Menshevik fortress with hisittle machine-gun called Vperiod. He fired so far, and heimed so well, that in a pretty short time not a trace wasft of Plekhanov’s heavy artillery, and by 1905,it becameite obvious that all that was alive in the Russian proletariatuld follow the Bolsheviks.

In the summerof 1905the first congressof the Bolsheviksits official name was the Third Congress of the Russian,ocial Democratic Labor Party) took place, the first his-orical meeting which laid the foundations of the presentommunist Party. It was then that Lenin for the first timebserved that in the forthcoming revolution we would notop at and with a bourgeoisrepublic. Already,at that timenin spoke of the rottennessof the European Social Demo-

ratic parliamentarianism. Already at that time Comradeenin expressed the view that our revolution would standthe border between the bourgeois and Socialist revolution.

It was hard in those days to be a Bolshevik. Not onlye Russian, but also the international conditions, pressed

eavily upon us. Bebel, for instance, who was respected byenin as a working class leader of genius, would use everyitable and unsuitable occasion to reproach Lenin for beinggainst Plekhanov. How’could Plekhanov ever be an op-rtunist? At the same time Axelrod was busy telling every-dy whowas inclinedto listen that Lenin was a secondedi-n of Netchayev. (Netchayevwas an early Russian anarchistho organized a conspiracy at the end of the ‘sixtiesby un-rupulous means, which included dealings with the Czar’sice and fraudulent practice upon N’s own comrades, osten-

ibly for the good of the movement.) And that Lenin in hisght against the “elder statesmen” was only pursuing ambi-ious aims. The entire atmosphere of international Socialmocracy was hostile to Bolshevism.

e land the BolsheviksOn the eve of the Third Congress (that is the first con-ss of the Bolsheviks),Bebel rendered the followingservice

o the Mensheviks. When our congress met, he sent us aetter in the name of the Central Committee of the Germancial Democracy,in which he saidthe following: “Children,

on’t you want to make peace? I, Bebel, offer you and thensheviks arbitration. Why this split? Submit your dis-te to our court of arbitration.” Such was the letter address-

d by Bebel to Comrade Lenin, who brought it to the con-ress, and the congress declared: “We highly respect ouromrade Bebel, but on the question as to how to carry one fight in our country against the Czar and the bourgeoisie,

we must ask permission to hold our own view. Permitalso to deal with the Mensheviks in a way which agentsthe bourgeoisie deserve.” Bebel was much amazed by“impertinence” of our congress, but there was nothing~;m to do, except to shrug his shoulders.

I quote this incident in order to show the kind ofmosphere, Russian and international, in which Lenin wfightingat the head of the then still small army of the Soc

ist revolution. ***

Already in the revolution of 1905Lenin was playinleading part. This, to the outward gaze, was not so notiable at that time, as it has been in the present revolutiYou are aware that the first Petrograd Soviet of the Woers’ Delegates in 1905was formed by the Mensheviks,bin all its practical actions it followed,on the whole, the leof the Bolsheviks. When the tide rose and the waters floodthe banks, the working class became aware that to foSoviets was virtually the same thing as to fight for powThereby the working class became Bolshevik.

After the 1905revolution was defeated and the count

revolution set in, whenwe began summingup our experienMartov and his friends sat down by the waters of Babyand started bemoaning the courseof the first revolution. TMensheviksthemselvesthen had to admit that, alas, the relution had been proceedingaccording to Bolshevik precepthat the working class had unfortunately followed the Bsheviks.

The Moscow armed insurrection, though defeated acrushed, had neverthelessbeen the apotheosisof the Bolshetactics during the revolution. We were defeated, and P1hanov’sonly commenton the event was the Philistinephra“These people ought not to have taken up arms.” Leniattitude towards the Moscowinsurrection was different.

him there was no nobler and more honorable page in the htory of the revolution than the Moscowarmed insurrectiThe first thing he did was to collect all the material relatito it. He wanted to elucidate all its features, down to tvery smallest, and all its technical details. He wantedascertain the biography of every participant in the insurrtion. He endeavored to interrogate every military man whad taken part in it. He invited all those who took partit to come forward and to explain to the working class ato the world at large, how the Moscowinsurrection had beprepared and what had been the reasons for its defeat. FLenin realized that the Moscow insurrection was the foutpost skirmish with the bourgeois world. He realized tworld-historicsignificanceof the Moscowinsurrection,crushand drowned in the blood of the workers, yet the first gloous working class revolt against Czarism and the bourgeoin a most backward country.

The Moscow Insur rec t i onI repeat that the part played by Lenin in the revolut

of 1905was colossal. He only attended the sessionsofPetrograd Soviet once or twice, and he would often tellhow he sat high up in the balcony, looking down on tworker’s delegates assembled in the hall of the Free Enomic Society, unperceived by the public. He lived at thtime in Petrograd illegally; the party forbade him to coout too much in the open. Our official representative‘ontSoviet Central Committee was A. A. Bogdanov.When it b



January 1945 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Pagell

came known that the Soviet was going to be arrested, weforbade Lenin to attend the last historical session in orderthat he might not be arrested. He only saw the Soviet in1905once or twice, but I am firmly of the opinion that eventhen, when he was looking down from his seat in the balconyupon this first labor parliament, the idea of the Soviet Statemust have already been dawning upon his mind. Perhaps,in those days he already foresaw, in a dream as it were, the

time when there would be a Soviet State; when the Soviets,thatprototype of a Socia]ist proletarian state, would becomethe sole power in the country.

Already in those days of 1905Lenin was teaching thatthe Soviets were not a fortuitous organization which hadsprung up the day beforeyesterday and would vanish the dayafter tomorrow; that they were not a common everydayorganization somewhatsimilar to a trade union, but an organ-ization which was opening a new page in the history of theinternational proletariat, in the history of the entire humanrace. (Applause.)

No one was more interested in the history of the Petro-grad Soviet than Comrade Lenin. Though he formally had

taken the least direct part in its labors, he, nevertheless,ap-preciated better than any of uswhat it meant. For that reasonhe treated the slogan of the Soviet with the utmost circum-spection. Thus, in 1916,during the war, when we in Switzer-land receivedword that a revolutionary revival was beginninghere at Petrograd, and that our comrades had begun to ad-vance the sloganof organizingSoviets,Comrade Lenin wrote,in articles and letters, that the organization of a Soviet wasa great slogan, and must not be frivolously played with. Itmust only be raised when the workers were determined togo to the end; to stake their heads on victory and to proclaimthat the momentof a real proletarian revolution, the momentto capture power, had arrived. Then, and then only, was it

permissible to speak about Soviets, since Soviets could onlyexist if they assumed alI power into their own hands, sincethe Soviets were the form of a proletarian state, since theSovietswere the undivided rule of the working class.

What Lenin meant to convey was that the Sovietswerenot the ordinary class organization, whose purpose, ac-cording to the Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionists,wasto tight only for the economicdemands of the working classwithin the framework of bourgeois society. In his opinionsuch Sovietswould be doomed in advance. In fact, no Sovietswere needed for such a purpose. In his view, the Sovietswere organizations for the seizure of state power, and fortransforming the workers into the ruling class. That is whyhe again and again told the Petrograd workers in the courseof 1916: “Ask yourselvesa thousand times whether you areprepared, whether you are strong enough; measure yourcloth nine times before you cut. To organize Sovietsmeansto declarea war to a finish,to declare civil war upon the bour-geoisie,to begin the proletarian revolution.” And ComradeLenin has remained true to his views to the end.

* **

But let us go back. The year 1906 was followed by aperiod of stagnation, by the dark era of the counter-revolu-tion. The working class was digesting the lessonsof the firstrevolution. In reply to the Menshevik philosophyof the firstrevolution and the causes of its defeat, we gave our own

philosophy of the revolution. We ,wereobliged to give it inur underground papers, leaflets, and pamphlets. We were

not in a position to publish, with the sanction of the cenship, fivebig volumes,as the Mensheviksdid. We wouldhave found any publisher; we were boycotted by the enlegal press, and, in fact, we were not allowed to say a siword by the Czar’s censorship. Lenin at that time waspicted as a sort of monster who had no place in respectsociety. We Bolshevikswere at that time not permittedpublish “legal” literature. We could only carry on by me

of the free printing press abroad.The Mensheviks represented the entire 1905 revolu

as a wholesaleerror, as a wholesalechaos, and elementalmness. The workers, forsooth, were themselves responsiblethe defeat, because they had gone “too far” in theirmands. Lenin’s reply was: “You have failed to graspmeaning of this movement! It was a great revolution,by no means a chaos. It was a great revolution, not becthere was the Manifesto of October 30th, (The Czar’s pclamation of a constitution) not because the bourgebegan to stir, but because there was, albeit unsuccessfuarmed insurrection of the workers in Moscow, becausethe space of one month the Petrograd Soviet shone brig

before the eyes of the world proletariat. And the revoluwill yet arise once more; the Soviets‘will be reborn andwin.”

In connectionwith Lenin’s views on what constitutgreat revolution, I recall a little incident. Last year, wwe came here, we at first were overwhelmed by the coloswingof the movement, and extolledeven the February relution sometimesas a great one. 1 remember how in an acle in May 1917,1,out of inertia again called the Februrevolution “great.” Comrade Lenin, who was at that twith Comrade Kamenev and myself, a joint editor of Pravbegan vehemently to strike out this word. When I asjestingly why this ruthlessness against this particular w

Comrade Lenin severely took me to task. “What sort‘great’revolutionwas that? It will becomea great one wwe shall have expelled this counter-revolutionary canaKerensky, and wrested all power from the hands of the bogeoisie, and the Petrograd Soviet shall no longer be a ting-shop, but the sole power in the capital. Then, indour revolution will be a ‘great’ one; then, indeed, you meven write the ‘greatestrevolutionof all times.’“ (Applau

Yearsof Counter -Revo lu t ionI have dwelt but little on the work of Lenin in the ye

of the counter-revolution; yet this period was one ofmost brilliant in his activity. One had to live through th

hard times in distant emigration in order to appreciatethe services rendered by Lenin to the cause. Think fomoment of the foul atmosphere, our emigration in the ye1908-10. Lenin went into his second emigration in 1while I and other comrades were summoned abroad inautumn of 1908,after we had been released from prison.was mainly owing to the efforts of Lenin that we establisour underground papers, first at Geneva, and then in Pathe Proletarian and the Social Democrat. All round there wa complete debacle. There was gangrene in all emigrcircles. The old leaderswho had grown grey under the relutionary banner no longer believed in anything. Porgraphy captured our entire literature, and a spirit of apostpervaded politics. The notorious liquidation movementmovement predominant among the Mensheviks to aband



age 12 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL January 194

all illegal revolutionary activity) was raising its head, andtolypin was celebrating his orgies. It seemed as if therewould be no end of that!

The Per iodo f Emig ra t ionAt such times true leaders are recognized for what they

are worth. Lenin was at that time (as throughout his exile)suffering great personal privations and living in poverty;

was ill, undernourished — particularly during his stay inParis; but he remained as cheerful as anybody could be.He stood steadfastly and bravely at his glorious post. Helone contrived to collect a close and intimate circle of fight-rs, whom he would cheer up by saying: “Don’t be dis-eartened; these dark days will pass, the muddy wavewill ebbway; a few years will pass and we shall be borne on theest of the wave, and the proletarian revolutionwill be borngain.” The emigres of that time, more particularly theMenshevik intellectuals,who formed the prevailing element,reated us with marked hostility, declaring that we were amall sect, the members of which couId be counted on theive fingers of one hand. There was a special comic paper

blished in Paris, which jeered at Bolshevismand exercisedts humor on such subjects as that “a reward would beffered of half a kingdom to the person who could name aourth Bolshevik in addition to Lenin, Zinoviev and Kame-.”The Bolshevikswere forsooth,a setof bears suckingtheir

wn paws while Iife was moving past them. The coopera-ves, the trade unions, the legal press, were all opposed toe Bolsheviks,while Lenin and his disciples were sitting incontemplativemood, attaching their faith to the advent ofnew Messiah and a new revolution which would never

In those difficult years Lenin rendered to the workingass servicesperhaps even greater than ever before. At pre-

ent, in our own days, a tremendous flood had risen andorne millions of individuals, ready to fight and to die. Inose days everything was asleep, like in a cemetery. Stoly-n’s regime was weighing upon the working class like thed of a coffin. The “elder statesmen,” like Axelrod and CO.,

ere chanting the dirges of the revolution and of the oldllegal workers party. It was, indeed, a great merit to haveaised the banner of the revolution in such times, to haveught all revisionism and opportunism, to have preservedis faith in triumph, and awaited its moment; to haverked and worked without rest or haste.

Lenin was fighting for the party, but at the same timee secluded himself in the library. It is needlessto say that

rx is the favorite writer of Lenin, just as his favorite Rus-ian author is Chernyshevsky. Lenin knows his Marx andngels from the first to the last letter. He knows them in aay as only two or three persons, 1 think, know them in theorld. And Lenin is one of the very few who have advancede theory of Marx and have been able to fructify it by someew elements and to apply it under the conditions of a newra fraught with the greatest consequences. How proudarx would have been of Lenin, if he lived today! Leninver allowed Marx to be insulted by anybody. The Russiano-called “critics” of Marx invariably came up in theirrary exercisesagainst the impregnablefortresscalled Lenin,

nd would invariably suffer damage from his guns. Lenin

ully sustained his reputation even when the philosophicalews of Marx began to be subjected to’“criticism.”

In those days Comrade Lenin carried out a tremendpieceof theoretical work. Those days weremarked by a sof literary spoliation of the dead, by an unprecedentedliary demoralization. Attempts were made to smuggle,unthe flag of Marxism, the rotted ideas of bourgais philosointo working class audiences. Lenin spent two years inParis National Library, and carried out such a mass of wthat even bourgeoisprofessorswho attempted to sneer at

philosophicals~udies-ofLenin, themselves-admitted that th&uld ~ot understand how one man contrived to read sa mass of books in the course of two years. How, indecould Lenin succeed in this domain when “we,” who hstudied at our fathers’ expense,who had spent thirty yearsour scientificcareers, who had worn out so many arm-chawho had perused such truck-loads of books, had understnothing at all in them?. . .

A Sc ien t i fi cWork on Ph il osophyIn those two years Comrade Lenin was able to writ

serious work on philosophy, which will occupy an honoraplace in the history of the struggle for revolutionary Ma

ism. He fought as passionately for communism in the mabstract domain of theory as he fights now in the fieldpractical politics. Perhaps but few amongst the Petrogworkers have read this philosophicalwork of Lenin, but knyou all that in this book too, the foundationsof Communwere laid. He fought in this book all the bourgeoisinfluenin their most subtle and elusive forms, and succeededinfending the materialist conceptionof history against the beducated representativesof the bourgeoisie,and those writamong the Social Democrats who had succumbed to thinfluences.

Then came the year 1910-11. A fresh wind beganblow, and it becameevident in 1911that the labor movem

was being reborn. The Lena days [The wholesalemassaof strikers at the Lena gold mines in 1910]opened a npage in the history of our movement. At that time we halready at Petrograd a legal paper called Zve~da (Star),Moscowa monthly periodical, Afysl (Thought) and a smlabor fraction in the Duma. The principal worker in thpapers and behind the Duma fraction was Lenin.

Lenin managed to teach a few worker deputies ofDuma the methodsof revolutionary parliamentarianism. Yought to have heard the conversations between Lenin aour young deputies when he was propounding to themlessonsof this kind of parliamentarianism. Simple Petrogproletarians (Badayev and others) would come to us abro

and say: “We want to engage in serious legislative wowe want to consult you about the budget, about such asuch Bill, about certain amendments to certain Billstroduced by the Cadets,” etc. In reply Comrade Lelaughed heartily, and when they, somewhat abashed, woask what was the matter, Comrade Lenin would replyBadayev: “What do you want, a budget, an amendmentBill for? You are workers, and the Duma exists forruling classes. You simply step forward and tell aIl Rusin simple language about the life and toil of the workclass. Describe the horrors of capitalist slavery, summonworkers to make a revolution, and fling into the face of treactionary Duma that its members are scoundrels and

ploiters!” (Applause.) “You had better introduce a ‘Bstating that in three years’time we shall take you all, BIa



uary 1945 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL

dred landlords and hang you on the lamp-posts. Thatuld be a real Bill!~’ (Applause.) Such were the lessonsinrliamentarianism” which Comrade Lenin would propoundthe deputies. At first Comrade Badayev and others usedfind them rather queer. The entire parliamentary sur-ndings were weighing upon our comrades. Here, in thisy hall of the Tauride Palace, where we now meet, thema used to sit in session,all sitting in magnificent frock

ts, with the Ministers, in places of honor — and theser &puties should break out all of a sudden in such nasty! Later on, however,our deputies assimilated the lessons,Lenin’senjoyment was boundlesswhen he saw our depu-the simple mechanic Badayev, come out on the rostrumthe Tauride Palace and tell all those Rodziankos,Volkon-s, and Purishkeviches all that he had been counseled toby the teacher of the working class. Comrade Lenin.

In 1912a new life began. As soon as it became possiblepublish here in Petrograd a legal paper, we migrated fromris to Galicia in order to be nearer to Petrograd. At theary (1912) Conference,which took place at Prague, the

sheviksconsolidated the ranks which had been brokenthe counter-revolution. The party came back to lifein, and, of oxwse, Lenin played a leading part. At theistenceof the new Central Committee, Comrade Lenin andself went to stay at Cracow. There we began to receivets from comrades from Petrograd, Moscow, and otheres. Communication was established with Petrograd, andarrangementswere soon so perfected that it was very sel-that the Pravda would appear without some contribu-from Lenin. You have been brought up on those articles,you knowwhat those papers, Zvezda and Pravda meant

the working class. Those were the first swallows of theng Communist spring. Right and left Comrade Lenin

our enemiesin the columnsof those papers, and it is owinghis articles, counsels,and private letters to Petrograd thatPravda soon became a sounding board for all questionsthe day. Our machinery became so perfect that we fre-ently managed to have a conferenceof the Petrograd andcow Bureaus of the Central Committee before every im-rtant meeting of trade unions or other labor organizations.

e Meta l Worke rsMeet ingI remember the first large membership meeting of the

trograd metal workers in 1913.Two hours after the slateour candidates to the Union committee was adopted bymeeting (whichwas at that time an extraordinary succriss)mrade Leninwas already in possessionof a congratulatorygram from the metal workers on the matter. Comradenin was living at that time thousands of miles away, butwas the very soul of proletarian Petrograd. The sameg was happening as in 1906-7,when Comrade Lenin re-ed in Finland, at Kuokalla, and we undertook weeklygrimages in order to receive his advice. He was actuallyding the labor movement at Petrograd from this littlelage in Finland. He was now doing the same thing fromcow, guiding not only the Petrograd, but the whole Rus-Bolshevikmovement. . .

***

I should like to add a few words about Lenin’s attitudethe war. He had long ceased to believe in the Europeanl Demacracy; he knew well that something was rotten

in Denmark. He had long bem saying about official European Social Democrats that they were carrying on a contraband trade in rotten opportunist goods. When the warbroke out we were living in a god-forsaken little mountainvillage in Galicia. I remember having had a bet with him1 said: “You will see, the German Social Democratswill nodare vote against the war, but will abstain in the vote on thewar credits.” Comrade Lenin replied:““No, they are not such

scoundrelsas all that. They will not, of course,fight the warbut they will, to ease their conscience, vote against thecredits, lest the working class rise up against them.” In thiscase Lenin was wrong, and so was I. Neither of us had takenthe full measure of the flunkeyism of the social patriotsThe European Social Democrats proved complete bankruptsThey all voted )or the war credits. When the first number ofthe Vorwaerts, the organ of the German Social Democratsarrived with the news that they had voted the war creditsLenin at first refused to believe. “It cannot be,” he said, “imust be a forged number. Those scoundrels, the Germanbourgeoisie,have specially published such a number of theVorwaerts in order to compel us also to go against the in-

ternational.” Alas, it was not so. It turned out that thesacial patriots really had voted the war credits. When Leninsaw it, his first word was: “The Second International idead.”

At that time those words had the effect of a burstingbomb. At presentwe all see clearly that this is so,the SeconInternational is dead. It is nowas obviousto us as the ABCbut think only how great the prestige of this Internationahatt been before the war. On paper, at least, it had countedseveral million members and contained in its ranks suchauthorities as Kautsky, Vandervelde, Valliant, Guesde, Plekhanov. And all of a sudden a Russian Marxist gets up andannounces to the whole word, “The Second International idead, and let it rest in peace.” The howling and the protestof the acknowledged“leaders” of the Second Internationaagainst the impertinent Bolsheviksknew no bounds. It wamonstrous, they declared, that Lenin should so insult theentire Socialist world. Herr Scheidemann says so even nowRecently at Berlin the Imperial Chancellormet with the leaders of all parties over the supplementary treaty betweeRussia and Germany. Herr Ebert, Scheidemann’shenchmanwas the only one to vote against this treaty, becauseforsoothLenin and his friends were disgracing the banner of Socialism in Russia. Scheidemann knows very well that he has aseriousenemy in the person of Lenin. He knows well that ihe is one day to hang on a lamp-post — it will cometo thisI assure you (Applause) — he will be owing it, to a verylarge extent, to .Comrade Lenin.

Lenin was one of the authors of the main thesis of theresolution of the Stuttgart Congress of the Second International. Jointly with Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin offered theStuttgart Congress a resolution to the effect that should animperialist war begin, our business would be to organize arevolution, that is, a civil war. After protracted argumentsthe commissionof the Congress adopted his resolution, buin different words. Lenin told us at the time how he hadbeen arguing with Bebel about the formulation. Accordinto Lenin, Bebel had accepted the idea, but demanded greacare in formulating it in order not to prematurely “get althe geesein a dither.”

Then the imperialist war actually came, but when Lenin



FOURTH INTERNATIONAL ]anuary 1945

w repeated the Stuttgart resolution,when he now submittedthe leaders of the Second International Bebel’sI.O.U., theaders only waved it impatiently aside and passed to therder of the day, that is, to their respective capitalist gov-

1 remember the first manifesto of our party onthe war.aturally, it was drawn up principally by Lenin, as were allur most important party documents. When we translated

into various European languages and when it was read byious comrades, even the Swissinternationalist Grimm ande Rumanian revolutionist Rakovsky, who is now in ournks, were very indignant. They were almost horror-struckhen they read the words that the imperialist war must beansformed into a civil war.

Today, it is ABC. We are all doing it, we are all trans-rming the imperialist war in action into a civil war, butt that time it seemed monstrous. We were told that onlyn anarchist could preach such things and war was virtuallyclared upon us. Even at Zimmerwald not only moderateen, but also men like Rakovsky and the Italian Serratiere bitterly opposed to us, so that very fierce conflicts en-

ed at various stages. I well remember how the hot-headedakovsky nearly took off his coat to fight Lenin and mer our opinion that Martov was an agent of the bourgeoisie.How dare you say such things,” they shouted at US; “we

ave known Martov for the last twenty years.” But we re-“We know Martov as welI as you and we are certain

at all that is honest among the Russian workers will followand will opposethe war, while Martov is defending bour-

anSoc ialDemoc rac ySta gnan tBut, of course, all these petty incidents are of no par-

ular importance. I only mention them to show you how

ad, how stagnant was the European Social Democracy ate beginning of the war. No one was prepared to fight. Allad become habituated to the old grooves of legalism andrliamentarianism; all the old leaders had faith in “law,”nd made a fetish of it. Tremendous efforts were needed toake an impression even among the Zimmerwaldians. I re-mbera clash at Zimmerwald betweenLenin and Ledebour.

ebebour argued: “lt is all right for you here living abroadissue appeals for a civil war, I should liked to see howu do it, living in Russia.” If Ledebour still remembersose words, I think he must feel very much ashamed ofem now. But Comrade Lenin cooly replied to him: “Whenarx was drawing up his Communist Manifesto he also was

ving abroad, and only narrow minded philistines could re-oach him for that. I now live abroad, because 1 was sentre by the Russian workers, but when the time arrives, weall know how to stand at our posts. . .” And our Comradenin kept his word.

Yes, at the beginningof the war Lenin found very littlempathy even among those Socialistswho were opposed toe war. But how is it now?At presentwecan say without exaggerationthat all that is

nest in the International regards Lenin as its leader andnner-bearer. Lazzari, the leader of the Italian workers, whos grown grey under the Red banner, and who at Zimmer-ald opposed Lenin, is now going to prison for three years

r circulating Lenin’s appeals in Italy. Mehring, Claraetkin, the best among the German internationalists, who

used to fight Lenin in the old days, now render him the tibuteof their greatest respect. Or listen to what has been saabout Lenin by men like Gorter, Hoeglund, Blagoev, Lorand Serrati. There can be no greater satisfaction for ComraLenin than the knowledgethat he, by his work, has captivatthe minds and hearts of such prominent leaders of labin various countries.

Comrade Lenin became the leader of the Third Inte

national, which is now being born. At first many virtuoself-styled Socialistsridiculed the idea that Lenin should pforward his candidature for the leadershipof the Third Intnational, saying that he is aspiring to the honor of being tsuccessorof Bakunin. But who will laugh now when we sthat the leader of the Third International is none other thLenin? The Conciliationists have no inclination to launow. They would rather cry, because they know that tThird International is a living fact, although owing to tstate of siege it has not come into existenceformally. Athey also know that the new International has in the persof Lenin a sufficiently strong leader, far-seeing, courageosuch as the working class International properly needs.

***The part played by Comrade Lenin from the beginniof the war has been absolutely exceptional. He was the fito begin collecting circles of Internationalists, and it wasremarkable sight how he was devoting his inexhaustibleenegy to this work in Switzerland. He lived first at Berne anthen Zurich. The Swiss Social Democratic Party was at thtime infected by opportunism and defensism, and onlysmall group of workers rallied round us. Comrade Lenwould spend much time and strength in order to organisome ten or twenty individuals among the Zurich workinclass youth. J lived at that time in another Swiss town, bI well remember the enthusiasm which Comrade Lenin d

voted to this work so small in its scope. He used to writenumberless letters, urging us all to work among the Swiand rejoiced like a child when he was able to announce that Zurich he had succeeded in getting into the organizatiof the Left Social Democrats seven young proletarians, anmight, perhaps, succeed in getting an eighth.

Sw issSoc ia lDemoc rac y -Of course the official Swiss Social Democratic Par

looked askance on this work of Lenin’s. Gruelich and Cwould declare that Lenin was corrupting the entire workiclassmovementby his Russian “anarchism.” IndeedComraLenin was “corrupting” it as much as he could. (Applau

and laughter.) The Philistine Swiss Government was thready to expel Lenin as an undesirable alien, but now whear from our SwissSocialist Comrade Moor that the SwGovernment has placed in the museum as an historical docment the paper which it exacted from us as a guarantee thwe would behave “decently” in Switzerland. I shall notsurprised if the Swiss bourgeoisie, who are showing thelakes and mountains for a franc per head, shouIdsoon charfwe francs for showing the autograph signature of Lenin.

At that time, in the years 1915-17,he led a rather scluded life in Switzerland. The war and the collapse of th[Second]International had deeply affected him, and manwho knew him before, were surprised at the change whihad taken place in him since the war. He never was vetender towards the bourgeoisie,but since the war his hatre



nuary 1945 FOURTI1 INTERNATI ONAL

the bourgeoisie became concentrated and sharp like agger. He seemedto have changed even in his appearance.He then lived at Zurich, in the poorest quarter, in the

use of a shoemaker, in a sort of garret. He chased, as itre, after every proletarian in order to proclaim to him thatpresent war was an imperialist slaughter, that the honorthe proletariat demanded that a war against this war beught to a finish,that the arms must not be laid down until

e working class had risen and destroyed the imperialistndits. (Prolonged applause.)

The Bureau of the Zimmerwaid Left, in which Leninyed the principal part, issued in German and French sev-al leaflets, pamphlets, and three numbers of the periodical,rbofe. It goeswithout saying that Lenin’spropaganda wast to the taste of the International bourgeoisie. The Germanurgeois professors would write entire books to announceat a certain lunatic had arisen, who was preaching a madpagandisticdoctrine. But we laughed and said, “Why thenyou write books and articles, why concern yourselveswithe ravings of a lunatic?”

Comrade Lenin quietly pursued his labors, and now

ings have reached such a pass that the German bourgeoisies had to sign a treaty with Comrade Lenin as representingndreds of millionsof peasantsand workersof entire Russia.shall yet, comrades, see the moment when our proletariat

rough its leader Lenin wiil dictate its will to old Europe,en Comrade Lenin will make treaties with the governmentKarl Liebknecht, and when Lenin will help the German

orkers to draw up the first Socialist decree in Germany.

In March 1917,Comrade Lenin returned to Russia. Youmember, comrades, the witches’ sabbath which broke outen Lenin and we, his disciples,came from abroad through

What a howl there was about the celebratedealed train.” As a matter of fact, Lenin entertained towards

erman imperialism a hatred as fierce as towards the otherperialisms. At the beginning of the war the Austrian gov-nment had arrested Lenin, and he spent two weeks in alician house of detention. When a prominent member ofheidemann’sparty wanted to enter our carriage (which,a matter of fact, was not sealed) in order to welcomeus,e told him unequivocally, on Lenin’s suggestion, that wever discusswith traitors, and would give him a thrashinghe came to us.

The Mensheviks and Social Revolutionistswho at firstoudly resisted, afterwards used the same means of gettingto Russia as we did. So far as Lenin was concerned, thetter was simple; all bourgeois governments are bandits;

have no choice,wecan’t go to Russia in any other way.

e Ju l y DaysI shall not dwell here in detail on the part which Lenin

s played here at Petrograd from the beginningof our revo-tion. You have seen his work, you have watched it asselyas 1. You know the part played by Lenin in the Julyys of 1917. For him the question of the necessity of theizure of power by the proletariat had been settled frome first moment of our revolution, and the questionwas onlyout the choiceof a suitable opportunity. In the July daysr entire CentraI Committee was opposed to the immediatezure of power, Lenin was of the same opinion. But when

July 16 the wave of popular revolt rose high, Lenimbe-

came alert, and here, upstairs in the refreshment room othe Tauride Palace, a small conference took place at whicTrotsky, Lenin, and myself were present. Lenin laughinglasked us, “Shall we not attempt now?” and he added: “Noit would not do to take powernow, as nothing will come ouof it, the soldiersat the front being largely on the other sideand would comeas the dupes of the Lieber-Dans to massacrthe Petrograd workers.” As a matter of fact, you will re

member in those July days Kerensky did succeedin bringingover soldiersfrom the front against us. What was to becomripe two or three months later is still immature in July, anda premature seizure of power at that time might have beenfatal. Lenin realized this before everybody else. At anyrate, Lenin never hesitated for a moment on the question asto whether the proletariat, in our revolution, ought to seizthe reins of power, or not. All his hesitations turned roundthe question as to whether it could not be done earlier.

You know how things developedsubsequently. We passed through a time when it seemed that everything was lostComrade Lenin for a moment even doubted whether theSoviets, corrupted by the conciliationists, could play a decisive part, and he gave the warning that we might perhaps

have to seize power without the Soviets. But he never fora moment doubted that sooner or later the power would bein our hands, and that it was necessaryto hurl the Menshevikand the Social Revolutionistsinto the abyss.

At first, during the July days, we could not realise whatwas occurring. One night, on July 16, Comrade Lenin alonecame into the editorial officesof the Pravda to hand over amanuscript. Half an hour afterwards, the junkers were al-ready sacking those offices.On the morning of July 18Lieber(Menshevik leader) took me to the military staff of the district to obtain redress in the matter of the sacking of the of-ficesof Pravda. General Polovtsev,the head of the Staff, re-ceived me with great respect. At that time he also did not

know what to do with us. But an hour later the Bolshevikwere being arrested and killed.

Then the persecutions started. Lenin and 1 went intohiding. We had firmly decided to be arrested — such wasstill our faith in the Mensheviks and the Right SociaRevolutionists. But the party did not permit us to do soWe, therefore, decided to go on hiding ourselves. A weeklater Comrade Lenin told me: “How could we have been sosilly as to think for one moment of trusting this gang andgetting ourselves arrested? There is no other way but tofight this gang ruthlessly.” (Applause.)

In the same way as Comrade Lenin in July 1917,wiselydtdared that it was impermissible to seize power, so after

the Kornilovdays — especiallyby the end of September 1917Lenin began urging the workers to seize power, or else itwould be too late.

When, followingthe Kornilov days, the so-called Democratic Conferenceassembledat Petrograd, Lenin at first cameout with an article on “Compromises.” He invited for thelast time the Mensheviksand Social Revolutioniststo breakwith the bourgeoisie, to renounce their policy of treasonand to make a compromisewith the working class against theKornilovists. But these two parties were rotten to the coreThey had already sold their souls to the devil and could notacceptLenin’sinvitation. Thereupon Lenin sent a letter fromhis Finnish exile to the Central Committeeof our party say-

ing that the time had come to drop all procrastination, that



16 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL january 1945

was necessary to surround the Alexandra Theatre (wheree Democratic Conferencewas holding its sessions), to dis-erse all this scum, and to seize power.

Our Central Committee at that time did not agree withomrade Lenin. Almost everybody thought that it was stillo early, and that the Mensheviks and Social Revolution-ts still had a large following. Lenin then, without hesitatingg, left his hide-out, and without consultinganybody, with-

t consideringthe fears of his friends, came to Petrograd inrder to preach an immediate rising. Kerensky and Avxen-ev were at that time issuing writs for the arrest of Lenin,hile Lenin, from his underground hiding place, was pre-aring the insurrection, arguing with those who hesitated,astigating those who vacillated and writing and agitatingr an early rising. And he got it.

At present everybody sees that Lenin was right. It wasll a matter of touch and go. If we had not taken power intor hands in October, Savinkov and Palchinsky would haveushed us in November. The questionwas posed by historyno ambiguousmanner. Either we or they. Either the dic-torship of the bourgeoisie,mad with fear and hatred to-

rds the workers, or the dictatorship of the proletariat piti-sly sweeping away the bourgeoisie.

Now, of course, it is all clear, but at that time, amidstwhirlpool of events it required the exact eye of a Lenin,

is genius and intuition, in order to declare: “Not a weekter, now or never.” And it also required the unbending,ength of will of a Lenin to surmount all the obstacles andstart at the appointed time the greatest revolution ever

nown in history, It is not that Comrade Lenin did notalise the tremendous difficulties with which the workingasswould be confronted after the conquestof power. Leninew all this to perfection. From the very first days of hisrival at Petrograd he had been carefully watching the pro-

essiveeconomicruin. He valued the acquaintance of everynk clerk, trying to penetrate into the details of the banksiness. He knew well the food and other difficulties. In

hismost remarkable books.“Will the BolsheviksRetaintate Power?” Comrade Lenin dwelt in detail on these dif-culties. It is true that the latter proved more formidablean even Lenin had anticipated, But no other way was openthe working class than the one trodden in October.

ess ,Prec isi on,Concre tenessBoth on the question of the nationalization of the banks

d on that of our food policy, as well as military policy,e decisive word was said by Lenin. He alone drew up in

l its details the scheme of practical measures in all thesemains long before October 25. Clearness, precision, con-eteness— such are the chief features in Lenin’swork, andalone has generalized all these individual measures in his

ork on the State, (“State And Revolution”) which, to myind, is the most important one after Marx’s “Capital.” Theviet State has found in Lenin not only its chief politicalader, practical organizer, ardent propagandist, poet andnger, but also its principal theoretician, its KarI Marx. Thetober revolution— insofar as even in a revolutionone may,d indeed, must speak of the role played by the individualthe October revolution and the part played in connectionith it by our party are to the extent of nine-tenths the workLenin. If anybody could bring into line all those whoubted or hesitated, it was Lenin.

I can say this for myself, that if 1 shalI repent in mlife of anything, it will not be of the fifteen years that 1 habeen working under the leadership of Comrade Lenin, bof those few October days when 1 thought that Lenin was tmuch in a hurry, was forcing events, was committing a mtake, and that I would have to oppose him. IZinoviev tgether with Kamenev — and abetted behind the scenesStalin — opposed the Bolshevik seizure of power in Octob

1917. They publicly denounced, in a non-party paper, tBolshevikpolicy as “’adventurism.”Lenin caI]ed them stri~breaker~ and demanded their expulsion from the party.]is now as clear as noonday that if the working class, und~nin’s leadership, had not seized power in time, we shoua fewweekslater, have had the dictatorship of the most rutless, mmt unscrupulous bourgeois rascals. (Loud and cotinued applause.) It is known now that it had been decidto massacre all of us by the time of the convening of tConstituent Assembly, and if the generals had had mosoldiers at their disposal, they would have done so. Evafter October 25 the Right Social Revolutionists intendto massacre us, and one of their members, Masslov, ev

recruited soldiersfor the purpose. He admitted very recenhimself,that he had succeededin scraping together only 5,0champions of ii very doubtfuI quality. There was the wibut there was not the way.

Comrade Lenin calculated the moment to perfection. Hdid not want to delay even for a week, and knew howraise the question to a direct issue. He wrote article aftarticle, publicly, over his signature, in a paper which everbody could read, openly appealing for an armed rising, anfixing a definite date. And all this, while Kerensky was stin power and seemed to many to be still very,strong. Lenchallenged the entire bourgeoisieand all conciliationists,teing them that tomorrow he and his friends would overthrothem. And everybody knew that on the lips of Lenin thwas not an empty threat, that it would be followed by deeThis could have been done only by Lenin.

***

And what about thosememorable days of Brest, the daof bitter disappointment! How difficult, how painfully dficult was it at that time to make a decision! I cannot evimagine what would have happened if we had not had Lenwith us at the time. Who elsecould have assumed this terrifresponsibility of acting against the overwhelming majoriof the Soviets, against a considerable portion of our partand at one time against even a majority of the Central Committee of the party? Only Lenin could lift this burden o

his shoulders,and only he could have been followedby thowho were hesitating. It was Lenin who was fated to saPetrograd, Russia, our party, our revolution. Today theare but few clever persons who would attempt to ridicuLenin’stheory of a “breathing-spell.” It is nowclear to everbody that it was the only right thing to do, to yield spato the enemies in order to gain time. . .

That is why the man who has accomplishedsuch wois entitled to immortality. That is why a blow directagainst him is received by everybody as a blow directagainst themselves. Comrade Trotsky was right when he sain Moscow: “When Comrade Lenin lay cruelly wounded anstruggling with death, our own lives seemed so superfluoso unimportant. . .“

Comrade Lenin has been frequently compared wi



uary 1945 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL

arat , but fa te was kinder to him than to Marat , who be-

dear to his people after h is death. Our teacher Len in ’

e wit hin h air ’s br ea dt h of dea th . H e wa s dear en ou gh t o

people even before the attempt, but now, after thatcherous attempt, he will becomea thousand times dearerthe hearts of the working class. tiarat lived still in themory of his people a long time after his physical life hadn cut, but Lenin will live long yet, not only in our mindsd hearts, but also in our ranks, in order to fight with usto carry to a triumphant conclusion the first Workers’alist Revolution. (Storm of applause.)Yes, a Marat closely connected with the millions of thean and rural proletariat. That is Lenin. Take the fana-l devotion to the peoplewhich distinguished Marat; takeintegrity, his simplicity, his intimate knowledge of theof the people, take his elemental faith in the inexhaust-

e strength of the “lowest of the lowly,” take aIl this andto it the first-classeducationof a Marxist, an iron will, ante analytical mind, and you will get Lenin such as weow him now. A revolutionary Social Democrat is just aobin who had tied up his fate with the most advancedssof modem times, with the proletariat.— suchwas Lenin’sy in 1904to the Mensheviks who were accusing him of

binism. The figure of the proletarian “Jacobin,” Lenin,ll yet throw into shade the glory of the most glorious ofJacobins of the time of the Great French Revolution.August Bebel was never forgiven by the German bour-isie for having once declared in the Reichstag: “1 hateur bourgeois order; yes, 1 am a deadly enemy of yourre bourgeoissociety.” And the same Bebel used to say:

‘When I am praised by the bourgeoisie, I ask myself, ‘Yoold fellow, what folly have you committed to have meritedthe praises of these cannibals?’“ But Comrade Lmin nevehad to put to himselfsuch a question. He is quite guaranteeagainst that. He has never been praised by the bourgmisiwho had been persecuting him with a wild hatred all duringthe long years of his activity, and he is proud of it. At thetensest moment of struggle, Lenin is fond of repeating, as hdid on the eve of the October Revolution, the poet’s words“We get our approbation not in the sweet murmur of praisebut in our enemy’swild shoutsof rage.” This is characteristiof Lenin. These words are Lenin himself. Lenin quotespoetrybut seldom,but in this case he used it with goodreason. Thewild shouts of rage of the enemiesof the working class havever been the best music to Lenin’sear. The greater the ragof the enemies,the more calm and assured Lenin is.

Again, Lenin is fond of comparing our revolution witha rushing railway engine. Indeed, our railway engine rushewith a dizzy swiftness, but then our driver manages thengine, as no one else can. His eye is sharp, and his handis firm and will not tremble for one secondeven at the mosdangerous culverts.

At this momentour leader is lying wounded. For severadays he struggled with death, but he has vanquished it, andhe still lives. This is symbolical. At one time it looked as i

our revolution had been mortally wounded. It is at presen

coming round again, as our leader ~mrade Lenin is comin

round; the clouds will scatter, and we shall vanquish all ou

enemies. (Storm of applause.)

TheU.S.AndTheSecondWorldWarRe sol u tw n un an im ou s l ya dop ted b y t h e E l ev en t h Con v en t i on of t h e

Amer ica n T r ot sk y ist Mov em e n t - N ov emb er 16-19, 1944

When the United States entered the secondWorld War,sevelt, chief spokesman of American capitalism pro-

imed that this war was a crusade for democracy, for ther Freedoms,” for the destruction of fascism and totali-nism. The labor bureaucrats, recruiting sergeants forwar machine, volunteeredtheir servicesto sell the war asnflict between “free labor” and “slave labor.”After three years of America’sparticipation in the war,demagogicslogansunder which the peoplewere dragoonedthe slaughter have been stripped bare. Democracy anddomare among the first casualtiesof the war. The slogans

“national unity” and “equality of sacrifice” are a snare.e pledgesto take the profits out of war to prevent a newof wartime millionaires, are proved a monstrous hoax.The capitalist government logicallybegan its reactionaryaign by striking its first blowsat the class-tonsciousvan-

rd of the American working class. On the very day wars declared, December8, 1941,sentence was passed on theders of the SocialistWorkers Party. They were convictedr the anti-labor Smith “Gag” Act for their uncompro-ing and outspoken opposition to the war program andause of their firm adherence to the principles of revolu-ary Socialism. The conviction and imprisonment of thewas accompanied by a whole series of measures designed

to throttle the unions and paralyze labor’s resistance to theonslaught of Big Business.

The right to strike, basic to the freedom of the labomovement, has been virtually outlawed. Workers have beefrozen to their jobs at frozen wages while the cost of livingcontinues to rise. A “modified” version of forced labor habeen imposed by executive decree. An increasing weight otaxes is being saddled on those least able to pay while”corporation profits soar to the highest levels in history.

The war immediately strengthened the most reactionarygroups and institutions. The surge of reaction, especiallythe

persecutionof minorities and the spread of race-hatred, is awartime continuation of tendencies inherent in capitalisdecay. Brutal discrimination and humiliating segregation othe Negro people in the armed forces as well as in civilianlife reduce the slogans of “democracy and freedom” to ahideousmockery for 13-millionAmerican citizens. The wavof anti-Semitism unloosed by capitalist reaction has alreadyrisen to alarming proportions. Jim Crowismand anti-Semitismmarch hand in hand with the assault against the organizations of the working class. This is the reality behind the demagogic facade of the “Four Freedoms.”

Prior to America’s entry into the war, this reactionarytrend was analyzed and forecast in the Manifesto of the



18 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL January 1945

urth International on The Imperialist War and tbe Prole-Revolution which stated:

“Seekingto gain the advantagesof a totalitarian regime,e imperialist democracies luunch their own dejense withredoubled drive against the working class and the persecu-on of revolutionary organizations. The war danger andow the war itsell is utilized by them first and foremost toush internal’enemies. The bourgeoisieinvariably and un-ervingly follows the ru4e: ‘The win enemy is in one’s

country.’”One of the consequencesof the war is the emergenceofhe Military Staff as the spearhead of reaction. The rulingpitalist circles demand unquestioning subservience to theilitary caste. The intervention of the brass hats in variousheresof civilian life is an integral part of the growing regi-ntation of the American people. It is part of the enormousengthening of reactionary tendencies in American life andlitics and the unmistakable trend toward totalitarianism.

Th e Cap i ta l i s tWar ProgramThe American capitalist class is coining fabulous profits

ut of the second World War. Corporation profits in 1942

unted to $19-billion or twice what they were in 1929andur times the average of the prewar period 1936-39. In hisold-the-line” report, April 1944, Roosevelt boasted that:Corporation profits; both before and after taxes, rose in943even above the record-breaking levels of 1942.” Theame report emphasized that: “The level of basic factoryage rates has been raised Iess than 1+42cents an hour bytions of the War Labor Board. Wages have been stabilized

Soaring profits, frozen wages,taxing the poor in-tead of the rich — that is the real content of Roosevelt’s

dulent “equality-of-sacrifice”slogan.

The war has brought the direct representatives of Bigsinessto Washington. The war agencies are staffed withoration lawyers and executives,bankers, stockjobbersand

peculators. Wall Street is represented in all key positionsf the war administration. Thus the war servesto acceleratee fusion of monopoly capitalismwith the state.

The American capitalist class stands united in pursuitf its imperialist program to establish its hegemony overe world. Its aim is to make Wall Street the center of worldibute. To secure its domination American capitalism planso maintain armies of occupation in Europe and Asia. Itsst authoritative spokesmenspeak of establishingnaval andlitary bases all over the world, bui!ding a five-oceannavy,licingthe world for 100years, establishingan era of “peacey force,” etc. The plans of US imperialism call for main-ining a military machine before which all previous world

litarisms pale into insignificance.Let none imagine that imperialist domination will spell

ell-being for the American masses. On the contrary theintenance of a gigantic military establishment will meane impositionof back-breaking taxes on the working masses.he creation of a powerful military caste can only lead tohe Prussianization of American life and the further regi-entation of the American people. This program of regi-entation aims to clear the road for Big Business; It streng-ens the forcesof reaction which seek to imposetheir open-opprogram by crushingthe unions and instituting a regimef hunger and repression for the many and wealth and priv-ege for the few.

War is inevitable as long as capitalism continuesto exisA society free from exploitation, oppression and profits caalone put an end to war. Only the abolition of capitalismand the establishment of a Socialist society wilI spare thAmerican people the horror of continuing war.

As part of their military program the ruling capitaliscircles have projectedthe plan of conscripting the youth focompulsory peacetimemilitary “training. We have nothing icommon with pacifists and muddleheads who are “against

military training. In this epoch of wars and revolutions agreat questions will be decided arms in hand. In order tfulfill their historic mission the workers must becomeskillein the use of arms. Against the capitalist program of placinthe military training of the workers under the control ofreactionary military caste, we advocate our proletarian miltary policy: military training of workers, financed by t h

government, but under the control of the trade unionspecial officers’training camps, financed by the governmebut controlled by the trade unions, to train workers to becomeofficers.

The trade unionshave been in retreat since Pearl HarboThey have been unable to maintain their positions againthe unrelenting pressure of the employers. The surrender otheir most effective economic weapon — the strike — ifavor of compukory arbitration through the employerdominated War Labor Board has deprived the unions of theiindependenceof action and has inexorably led to their sub

servience to the capitalist state. The capitalist governmenhas carried through the program of the exploitingclass,undethe cover of the lying slogan of “national unity.”

The tripartite labor board is an instrument of class colaboration whereby the interests of the working class arsubordinated to those of the capitalist class. TO create aillusionof impartiality the personnelof such tripartite bodieas the WLB is composedof an equal number of represenatives of the unions, the employers, and the “public,” that i

the government. But in a capitalist society the governmefunctions as the executive arm of the ruling class. As aimpotent minority the labor representativeson the War Labor Board, therefore, serve only to perpetuate the fraud thathe WLB is an “impartial” agency.

With the connivanceof the labor bureaucrats the ?VLhas assumed the role of super-arbiter of the labor movment. Following the promulgation of his “seven-poinstabilization” program on which the wage freezing LittSteel formula is based and the adoption by Congressof thSmith-Connally Act, Roosevelt issued his sanctions decreempoweringthe WLB to take punitive measures against “recalcitrant” unions. The War Labor Board has become a

agency for policing the unions, enforcing the wage freezhog-tying and housebreaking the union movement for thbenefit of the bosses. With the collaboration of union oficials,WLB decisions are imposed by threats, intimidatioand force; the use of troops has becomepart of the “arbitration” procedure of disciplining the workers and keeping thunions subservient to the war machine.

wages are kept fromn while rising prices and soarin

profits enrich the exploiters. Workers are frozen to their jobto prevent “competition” between employers in a tight labomarket. Labor conscription, as imposed by executive decreunder the Roosevelt-McNutt “Labor Referral Plan,”. placthe workers at the mercy of the dollar patriots. While th



1945 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page

use of troops to break strikes has becomea regular procedure,the rabid labor baiters in Congress and State Legislaturesvie with one another in sponsoring repressive anti-labor leg-islation. Such are the products of the policy of class col-laboration.

It has become impossible for the unions to cope withtheir problems, defend their interests or preserve their exist-ence by the outworn methods of “pure and simple” trade

unionism. The capitalist state intervenes and acts as theoutright agent of the employers even where the most ele-mentary “economic” demands are involved, Therefore, thefight for the most elementary demands entails a direct con-flict with the capitalist state. The traditional “non-partisan”political policy of the trade union bureaucracy dooms theworking class to impotence. The trade unions can surviveonly by breaking with the bankrupt policy of class collabo-ration, by regaining and strengthening their independenceofaction on the economicfield, by formulating labor’s own pol-itical”program and organizing labor’s own political partywith the goal of establishing a Workers and Farmers Gov-ernment.

Ro leo f t he Labor Bureauc racyFrom the outset the labor bureaucrats proceededto prove,

by word and deed, how indispensablethey are in harnessingthe workers to the chariot of war. They declared a mora-torium on labor’s right to strike. They espoused the policyof compulsory arbitration. They installed labor represent-atives on the employer-dominatedWar Labor Board—therebyIending their prestige to the anti-labor actions of the WLB.hey accepted and circulated Roosevelt’scounterfeit “stabil-

ization” promises as good coin; they acquiescedin the freez-ing of wages; and as part of the War Manpower Commis-ion’s“labor-management”committee,they shared the respon-

ibility for the job freeze. They remained on the WLB aftere passage of the infamous Smith-Connally “anti-strike”law, and even after Roosevelt’sexecutive decree authorizingnctioqs against the unions. They continued to participaten the WLB even after this body emerged as an outrightrikebreaking agency in the service of the employers.

The labor bureaucracy has joined in a conspiracy withooseveltagainst their own rank and file. They strive withht and main to refurbish the tarnished “liberal” reputation

f their “friend” in the White House, whitewash his crimesainst the labor movement and screen his responsibility forwhole seriesof anti-labor measuresby focusing their vapiditicism upon his hirelings. They disarmed the unions andcrificedtheir independenceon the altar of “national unity.”nctioning as obedient agents of the capitalist administrat-n, the CIO-AFL and other labor bureaucrats have renderedoman’sservice in propping up the structure of deceit andpression upon which Roosevelt’slabor policy rests,

These outright labor lieutenants of the war administra-ion have taken on the job of policing the trade union mem-ership. Workers’ democracy in the trade unions is incom-tible with their policy of betrayal. The bureaucrats there-re utilize the no-strike pledge as a pretext for depriving thembership of their democratic rights; they install dictator-

eceivers over locaIs; victimize and purge union militantsho resist employer provocation. The employers and theirovernment use all means at their disposal to further theork of the labor lieutenants in bureaucratizing the unions.

As a reward for their services,the Roosevelt administion has granted the labor bureaucrats, not cabinet postsin Great Britain, but “maintenance of membership” and“check-off”— through the War Labor Board.

The treacherous role played by the labor bureaucris paving the way for capitalist reaction. Roosevelt’spnounced swing to reaction has served notice that the era“New Deal” reforms is over. The capitalist rulers not o

oppose new concessionsbut aim to cancel out those gamade by labor in the past decade. The bureaucrats are cfronted with insoluble contradictions. As reaction deepthe workers grow more restive, increasing their pressurethe leaders. Any show of resistance by the top bureaucprovokes a stormy movement of the working masses whthreatens to topple the Rooseveltian labor structure. Tbureaucrats whine and complain of their increasing inabito “hold the line” against their membership; and plead wtheir “friend” for concessions.

The resistance to the onslaught of reaction is growdespite and against the top union leadership. The strugagainst the no-strike pledge, that is, the struggle to reg

the unions’ independenceof action, is “gatheringmomentThe plans of the labor bureaucrats to convert the unions iauxiliary tools of American imperialism are meeting withcreasing opposition from the ranks.

Since Pearl Harbor, “unauthorized” strikes havecreased each year in number. The strike curve reachenew peak in the months prior to the European invasion, Ju1944. After a slight recession in June, the strike curvesumed its upward spiral. Betrayed by their top union leers, the workers have been attempting, through direct enomic action on the job, to break out of the straitjacketthe no-strike pledge.

These sporadic strikes, usually lasting only adays, have been in the majority of cases unable to achithe objectivesfor which they were called. The striking woers lacked leadership and were immediately subjected tocombined pressure and intimidation of the government,employers, and their own union officialdom.

The most advanced workers, as in the auto union, hcome to realize that labor cannot break out of the strjacket of class collaboration simply by engaging incoordinated departmental or plant strikes. In increasingnubers they are realizing that this is a national as well apolitical problem. These advanced workers, drawing the lsons of their struggles, have formed a progressive winglead the fight to rescind the no-strike pledge. This marksignificant step toward the adoption of a militant progrand the developmentof a new union leadership.

The Americanworkingclass is today strongly trade unconscious. The lessonsof the 1929economiccrisis, the trations of the heroic strike struggles of the last period athe emergence of the CIO have penetrated deeply intoconsciousnessof the working class. Despite the uninterrupretreat of the trade union movement since the outbreakthe war; despite the lossof its former independenceandcynical betrayal of the labor movement by. its whole offileadership, the trade union movement remains a migpower. In the past decade the trade union membership halmost tripled. The membership rolls stand today at an atime high of 13-,millionand are still growing. Oncethis giof a labor movement arms itself with a correct program a



FOURTH INTERNATIONAL january 1945

milit a nt le ader sh ip it w ill r evea l it s unconquer a ble power .

The trade union policy of the Socialist Workers Partynce Pearl Harbor has been confirmed’by the experienceofe past three years. It retains all its validity today. Weught and continue to fight for the following program:

For the Independence of the Trade Unions! F ree t he

ion s fr om a ll dom in at ion or con tr ol by t he ca pit alist gov-

r nmen t a nd it s a gen cies . Th e fir st st ep in r ega in in g t he in de-

endence of the un ions is to demand that the labor repre-

en ta tives r esign fr om t he em ployer dom in at ed Wa r La bor

Rescind the N*Strike Pledge! In the face of an inten-ve campaign of repression it is suicidal to surrender labor’s,st effective weapon of defense against the employer-gov-nment assault on the unions.

Scrap the LittZeSteel Formula! For a nation-wide con-erence of all trade unions regardless of affiliation to drawa program of independent action against the wage freeze.e central slogan in the fight against the wage freezeshoukd

e the demand for:

A Rising Scale of Wagesto Meet the Rising Cost of Liv-

For an escalator clause in all union contracts. Roose-

lt’s promises to stabilize the cost of living have proven agantic fraud. Only the escalator clausecan afford the work-rs a measure of protection against the worst effects of in-

For Democracy Within the Unions! There can be nofective independent action without the fullest internal de-ocracy. The subservienceof the labor bureaucrats to theogramof the exploitingclass inexorably leads to the attemptcrush the democratic rights of the rank and file.For an Independent Labor Party Based on the Trade

Labor must break decisivelywith the program, par-es and candidatesof the capitalist ruling class. Only throughs own independent class action on both the economic and

litical field will the trade union movement be able to saveself from destruction at the hands of Big Businessand itslitical deputies in the government.

IO Po l it i ca lAc t i on Commi t t eeThe formation of jhe C1O Political Action Committee isattempt by Hillman-Murray to duplicate John L. Lewis’s

chnique (Labor’s Non-Partisan League) of perverting thentiment for labor’s independentpolitical action into supportr Roosevelt.In organizing the workers in the basic mass production

ustries, the CIO found itself involved from the outset intter struggles with the ‘most powerful monopoly interests

the country. The epoch of imperialism is characterized byfusion of monopoly capitalismwith the state. The govern-nt’s role as a strikebreaking agency of monopoly capital-

m and the growing recognition of the inadequacy of “pured simple” trade unionism, impelled the CIO mass produc-on workers along the road of independent political action.e organization by John L. Lewis of Labor’s Non-Partisanague, represented a systematic attempt on a national scalemobilizethe political strength of the workingclass,separated apart from the existing apparatus of the two capitalist

In 1938 the Socialist Workers Party correctly charac-rized the LNPL as “a stage in the development of the Zabor

complete subservienceto tbe political parties

of big capital to an independent labor party.” The Cbureaucrats, headed by John L. Lewis,frustrated the politiaspirations of the workers by supporting Roosevelt for tsecond-term. Their purpose? To mobilize the workers aspolitical forceindependentof the Wall-street-controlledDemcratic and Republican parties in order to wean Roosevaway from his dependenwon Big Business. A utopian dreamShortly after his reelection in 1936with the aid of LaboNon-Partisan League, Roosevelt issued his infamous “plagu

on-both-your-houses”statement at a time when the steel brons unleashed a murderous attack on the steel workersthe 1937Little Steel strike.

The development toward an independent labor parwas thus retarded by the false policiesof the leadership aabove all by the mitigation of the economiccrisis attendaon Wall Street’s feverish preparations for war.

The hypnosis of “national unity” is being dispelleda sharpening of class conflicts in the courseof the war itseThe 1943strikes of the coal miners, which evoked a seriesstrikes in the automobile, rubber and other industries, threaened to topple Roosevelt’slabor relations edifice. The wor

ers, more and more disillusionedwith Roosevelt’s“equaliof-sacrifice”fraud, began pressing for wage increases. Tpassage of the Smith-Connally Act; the unrestrained labbaiting in Congress;the increasinginterventionof the govenmenton the side of the employers in labor disputes; tdisarming of the unions by the no-strike pledge; the inadquacy of relying on trade union methods in an essentiapolitical struggle— all this gave added impetus to the movment for an independent labor party.

It was during this period of labor struggle that the C1Political Action Committee was organized. Its formatiwas announced one week after the Michigan CIO State covention wenton record for the organizationof an independe

labor party. The CIO-PAC was formed for the express pupose of heading-off the growing sentiment for labor’s indpendent political action. But so discredited are the capitalpoliticians and parties, that Hillman-Murray had to plip-serviceto the idea of labor’s independent political actiin order to divert the movement into the channel of the twparty system.,

Despite a superficialresemblanceto the traditional “nopartisan” policy of the labor bureaucracy, the C1O-PAC,liits predecessorLabor’sNon-Partisan League, representsa dparture from the Gompers school of politics. The essen~the Gompers policy consisted in keeping the working clapolitically atomized and wholly subordinate to the politic

bossesof the Democraticand Republicanmachines. The CIOPAC attempts, on the other hand, to organize the workersa Political unit. Inherent in ,this attempted political mobiliztion of the workers by the CIO-PAC is a tacit threat to thpolitical monopoly of America’sSixty Families. That is whit calls forth the venomousopposition of agents of Big Buness. By singlingout the CIO-PAC for specialattack, reactiis in actuality waging war against labor’s right to organion the political field.

All the factors which gave rise to the movement for aindependent labor party will becomemore and more compling in the next period.The need for a solutionto the problemof the labor movement will become more acute. The pe

fidious Hillman-Murray policy of converting the CIO-PA



nuary 1945 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL

to an auxiliary of either of the two capitalist parties canly lead the unionsfurther into a blind alley.Despite the bitter oppositionof the top labor bureaucrats

e movementfor a labor party is gathering adherents amonge more advanced sections of the labor movement. Theergence of the Michigan Commonwealth Federation, theoption of resolutions by a number of local unions callingr the formation of an independent labor party, the growth

labor party sentiment among the more conscious unionlitants, testify to the dynamic character of this movement.’hegenuine left wing in the trade unions will crystallizeound the struggle for a labor party, and lead the move-nt forward to a decisivebreak with the political parties ofe capitalist class.

In the period of the Hitler-Stalin Pact the Communistrty conducted a pseudo-radical, essentially pacifisticagita-n from the “left” against the imperialist war. Large sec-s of the labor movementwereduped by the leftist colora-which served to camouflage the reactionary character of

alinism. After Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union ande Kremlin’s shift in foreign policy, the Stalinists becamee most vociferous warmongers . The imperialist war ofsterday was metamorphosedinto a “war of liberation.” Fol-wing Stalin’s dissolution of the Comintem, the Stalinistsnouncedthe formal dissolutionof the AmericanCommunistrty, disavowingall Socialist aims and objectives. Throughe “Communist Political Association”they step forward ase avoweddefenders of the capitalist status quo.That the Communist Party is an agency of Stalin’s

reign policy, that the Stalinists change their program over-ght in compliancewith the demands and.needsof the Krem-bureaucracy, was in the past understood only by the classnsciousworkers. Today this is widely recognizedby largectionsof the labor movement. Thus great sections-of ttiee union movement, from a trade union standpoint, oppose

e Stalinists today from the left.Today the Stalinists operate as a strikebreaking agency

the serviceof the employers. While the entire labor move-ent opposed Roosevelt’s proposal for labor conscription,e Stalinists rushed forward to endorse this measure. In thentgomeryWard Strike the labor movement lined up solid-behind the union with the notabIe exceptionof the Stalin-s who proclaimed their readiness to scab and break theike. Their latest campaign, ballyhooed by the Daily

for a permanent no-strike pledge, their unremittingitation for the speedup,their lynch incitation against unionitants who resist the employer-governmentunion bustingve, their organization of a vigilante assault on a pacifist

aker group in Seattle, etc., etc., expose the Stalinists ase spearhead of reaction inside the labor movement.

Eager to convince the ruling circles that they are thest dependable agents of the employing class, the StaIinistnkeys have not hesitated to come into conflict with thenservative.union bureaucracy. it must be recognizedthatStalinists are on an increasingscale addressing themselves

rectly to the capitalist class. They are trying to demon-ate how indispensablethey are in ferreting out the mili-ts and keeping the’trade unions firmly in the vise of ther machine. The capitalists remain cautious toward thealinists today. Tomorrow, when the crisis of capitalism be-esmore,intense,they may decide to utilize the servicesof

StaIinist strikebreakers more directly.

Despite growing opposition the Stalinists still remaina power in the American labor movement. They still remainthe greatest single obstacle in the path of the revolutionaryparty. They have an effective,well-organizednational appa-ratus. They control a number of International unions in theC/O, numerousCIO local unions and central labor bodiesaswell as many AFL locals. Corrupted to their very marrowthe cynical agents of the Kremlin bureaucracy are ready for

anything,The SocialistWorkers Party will continue to mercilesslyexpose the traitorous program of Stalinism. The Trotskyistswill work indefatigably to destroy Stalinist influence withinthe labor movement, both by propaganda and organizationwork, as well as by timely appeals to the worker elementwithin the Stalinist ranks.

Capitalist‘CPost-Wa#’Program

Deriving from the Baruch-Hancock report, the “postwar” plans of the capitalist class have taken legislative formand are being administered by Big Business tycoons. TheBaruch-Hancock report was drawn up by Wall Street bank-

ers, endorsedby Rooseveltand supported by both the Republican and Democratic parties. This plan is based on the pre-servation of the “free enterprise” system; that is, on the per-petuation of monopolycontrol of production, distribution andexchange. It envisagesa return to the era of planned sabotageof production and monopoly prices, the era of mass unem-ployment and mass poverty. The Baruch plan is a Bourbonplan — its authors have learned nothing and forgottennothing.

In addition to untold millions amassed from war con-tracts, the cost-plus patriots are planning a gigantic steal ofbillions-worth of government-owned land, industrial plantsequipment and “surplus” commodities. This govemmentowned propthly is valued at approximately $100-billion

Comprisingone-quarter of the country’s productive capacitythe government-ownedp!ants alone are valued at 20 to 25-billion dollars and represent 20 percent of all capital investedin American manufacture. Under the Baruch-plan, “free en-terprise” disposal of government-ownedproperty, for whichlegislationhas already been adopted, most of these plants wilgo to a smaIl group of some25 corporate giants, to enormousy strengthen the financial oligarchy’s strangle hold on theeconomicand political life of the nation.

The monopolistsview the industrial empire newly createdby the governmentas a sourceof “over-production”and there-fore as a potential threat to their monopoly control. Underthe Baruch plan, the sabotage of production, planned and

practised by the “New Deal,” when premiums were paid forpIowing under cotton, corn, livestock and so on, is to be re-peated on a gigantic scale with the plowing under of plantand equipment.

Under a rational economicsystem,the resourcesand pro-ductive capacity of American industry would be capable ofassuring an economyof abundance for all. The govemmentowned land, plants, and other productive facilities can becomthe key to the future. If utilized for the benefitof the peoplethis government-ownedindustrial empire is capable of feed-ing, clothing and housingmillions. This new productive cap-acity will be so utilized only if the producers themselves,i.ethe workers establish their own control over these vast means

of production.



22 F O U R ‘r H I N T E

With the military collapseof Germany there will be anicially-estimatedcutback in war production of 40 to 70 per-nt with a correspondingdecline in employment. The Fed-ral Reserve Bulletin for May 1944 asserts that a return torewar level .of production of 1939— a relatively “pros-rous” year — willmean from 15to 20-millionunemployed.Reconversion”to civilian production under monopoly con-ol will yield the largest army of unemployed pariahs in his-

ry. Congresslegislatesgenerous cash payments to war con-actors and insures the profits of the corporationsduring thereconversion” period; but the only provision made toushion the shock of unemployment is the “states rights”arvation-Bill which provides “relief” for workers as low as00a week.

Labor Prog ramTo the capitalist breadline-and-soup-kitchen plan the

rkers must counterpoisetheir own plan for the “post-war”eriod. Such a plan, if meant seriously, must be advancedthe form of a political program. To solve the problems of.ost-war” security this transitional program must provide:For the full utilization of all productive capacity. To the

botage of production for the sake of monopoly profits therkers must counterpoisethe slogan of continued operation

f all government-owned plants and equipment under theontrol of workers’ committees. This must be the first stepward the expropriation of all industry and its operationder workers’ control. No plant should remain idle whilerkers are unemployed.For full employment and job security. Against the plague

f unemployment the workers’ program must advance theogan of a sliding scale of wages and hours. The 30-houreek at no reduction in pay. For each increase in the costliving a corresponding increase in wages. As the produc-ity of labor increasesthe hours of work must be reduced

ith no reduction in wages.For the political instrument to advance the program.ainst the Democratic and Republican parties, both repre-nting the interests of the monopolists, the workers mustrganize their own Independent Labor Paity. Against thelf-styled “free enterprise” system— a system of plannedonomy. Against a governmentof America’sSixty Familiesthe Workers and Farmers Government.The essenceof capitalist “planning” is to artificially cre-an economyof scarcity. The parasitic capitalist class has

st all justification for its continued existence. It can nonger advance the productive forces, it can only retard andbotage production as a whole. It is the task of the Amer-an working class to free the productive forces from theangle hold of private ownership and institute a plannedonomyunder the Workers and Farmers Government.The crowning slogan of the Trotskyist transitional pro-

am is the Workers and Farmers Government. Each of ouransitional demands leads to one and the same poIitical con-usion: the workersmust break with the political parties ofe capitalist class and organize their own political partyorder, jointly with the working farmers, to establish theirn power. Through the program of transitional demandsborated by the Socialist Workers Party the Workers andrmers Government can assure the transition from capital-m to socialism.The Socialist Workers Party strives to mobilize the

orking class around its transitional program as the only

RN AT ION AL “ January 194

way out of the morass of unemployment and hunger, of arficial scarcity in the midst of abundance.

The colossalwar expenditureswill raise the national dof the United States above the astronomical figure of $3billion. This unprecedented debt is accelerating the procof inflation. The cost of living continues to rise, additioand more burdensome taxes are imposed on the masses, tworkers’standard of living is depressed to ever lower lev

Despite the favored positionof the United States the war whave a ruinous effect on American economiclife. Unemplment, that capitalist-bred socialplague, will scourgethe lanThe arch-reactionary measures of repression against thebor movement adopted under the pretext of war necesswill be extended to the “post-war” period. The drive towatotalitarian rule will continueunder the demand for a “strongovernment in Washington.

The United States, the very nerve center of the wocapitalist order, is sensitive to every dislocation and shockthe social system. The contradictions and growing antagoisms breaking through the “unity” surface of the ‘{UnNations”; the clash of imperialist interests and the fund

mental antagonismbetweenworld imperialismand the SovUnion; the intensificationof class conflicts within each ntion; the tremendoussocial convulsionsshaking the Europecontinent, all have profound repercussionswithin the UnitStates. Trotsky wrote:

“We must not for a moment lose sight of the fact ththe might of Anwican capitalismrestsmoreand more uponfoundation of world economy with contradictionsand crismilitary and revolutionary. This mans that a socialcrisisthe United States may arrive a good deal sooner than mathink, and have a f~erish development jrom the beginniHence the conclusion: it is necessary to prepare.”

The war, which in the beginning hindered the radicaliztion of the masses, is giving a tremendous impulse to thradicalization. The indignation of the working masses wrise in a tidal-wave of revulsion against those parties anleaders who deceived them. The need for a solution to theproblems will impel the workers along the road of revoltionary struggle. Our transitional program will meet wian increasingresponsefrom ever broader layers of the Ameican working class.

We already see the first signs of this awakening in thgrowingsentiment for labor’s independentpolitical action anthe increasing opposition of union militants to the no-stripledge. In many instances union militants have adoptparts of our transitional program and advanced our slogain the struggle against the labor bureaucrats. These manfestationsdemonstrate that our transitional program conforfto the workers’needs and, when properly applied, is the idispensable medium for carrying out our political tasksthe mass movement.

Only the Socialist Workers Party has advanced suchprogram and can provide the necessary leadership. Manythe best, most intelligent and most politically consciousthe union militants will draw the proper conclusionsfrotheir experiencesand will join the ranks of our party in thcomingperiod. Only on the basis of our transitional progracan the trade unions break out of the impasse into which thehave been led by the labor bureaucrats and really becomepowerful lever for advancing the interests of the workin

class.



1945 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page23

It is our task to penetrate more deeply into the unions,tendour influence in the massmovement, reach those mili-ts groping their way toward a revolutionary solution, rallye vanguard round our banner. Our program has met thet of experience,our banner is unsullied,our cadre is pre-red. We can look forward with complete confidenceto aid growth of our party in the period ahead.The profound crisisof the social systemand the sharpen-

g of the class strugglewill pose before the American peoplee alternative: Either fascism or socialism. There is noird” alternative. Confronted with a threat to their priv-es and profits, monopoly capitalists will call upon their

scist gangs to preserve capitalist “law and order.” Func-ning as the agents of Big Business,the fascists get theircruits from sections of the population rendered desperatethe economic impasse into which capitalism has driven

ciety, The dissatisfaction, indignation and despair of thethe disillusionment of war veterans and the

nzy of the lower middle classes ruined by big capital, areverted by the fascistsaway from their real sourceof miseryd against the workers.The SocialistWorkers Party teaches that the labor move-

ent can combat the fascist menace only by organizing the

unemployed in alliance with the trade unions and champion-ing their struggle; that the labor movement must unite thewar veterans in organizations allied with the uqions andfjght for their demands; that the 1abormovementmust elabo.

rate a bold program which provides a solutionto the burningneeds of the working farmers and ruined urban lower middleclass. Only by putting itself at the head of all those sectionsof the population, exploited and oppressed by monopoly

capitalism and by fighting for the fundamental solution em-bodied in our transition program can the working classdestroy fascism and lead the people to a society of peace,security and plenty.

It has been established as an historic law that fascismcannot come to power unless and until the working classparty fails to provide a correct leadership in the revolu-tionary struggle for power. The American working cIass hasdemonstrated its fighting capacity in numerous class battles.It is relatively free from the Social Democratic and Stalinisttraditions that paralyzed the will of the European workersbefore the fascist onslaught. The initiative lies with theAmerican working class. Our party, the only revolutionaryparty on the political arena, will have its chance. We shall

not fail!

L en z n z s m f n Pra c t iceBy GEORGE COLLINS

E HISTORY OF AMERICAN TROTSKYISM(Rep or t of a P a rt icip an t).

By James P . Cannon .268.xvi pages. C loth $2.75,pape r $2.00.P ion ee r Publis he rs , New York, 1944.

***

The publication of The History oj American TrotskyismJames P. Cannon is a proud achievement for the revolu-nary Marxist movement. The story of how a tiny andunded group, stubbornly fighting for principles, battledugh isolation, persecution and a hostile environment to

ild the first Bolshevikparty on the American continent willain a constant source of inspiration and instruction forveteran member and the newcomeralike. The reader whouslyundertakes to assimilate the political essenceof this

ok will find himself equipped with a key to the under-ding of the complex development of events and the con-on that characterized the labor movement in the decade1928to 1938. Knowledgeof the problemsof that period,

d of how the Trotskyists analyzed and solved them, is aequisite for successful leadership in the great strugglesead. Cannon’sbook is more than a chronicle of the eventsyesterday. It was deliberately designedas a sharp weaponpresent and future combat.The History of American Trotskyism is a vindication ofaims and principlesof the foundinggroup. If Trotskyismds unchallenged today in the workers movement as therepresentative of revolutionary socialism, it enjoyed noadvantage at its inceptiqn and for many ensuing years.

e Stalinist bureaucracy— in the first stages of its degen-ion still covering itself with the mantle of Lenin’s Inter-tional — employed different methods of political warfarethat time than they do at present. Althoughslander, frame-

up and lieswere already a part of their arsenal, they attackedthe young Trotskyist movement from the ‘left.” A “Rightdeviation” from Leninism, a descent to “Menshevism,” a“counter-revolutionary tendency” — these were the dailyepithets flung at the young Trotskyist group.

Lovestone, Stalin’s American purveyor of these slan-derous accusations and also executor of the first expulsionswhile he was in the leadership of the American CommunistParty, did not cease his opposition to the Trotskyists afterhis ownexpulsionfrom the CP. He only changed his tune. Ifyesterday principled adherenceto the internationalist programof the RussianOppositionwas designated as “counter-revolu-tionary,” this suddenly became politically inexpedient whenLovestonewas forced into an independentexistence. Trotsky-ism became a “sectarian” doctrine and its insistenceon dis-cussing Stalin’s revisionist theory of “socialismin one coun-try” and the world-important lessons of the debacle of theChinese revolution was dubbed a hairsplitting preoccupationwith dead issues. Others like Weisbord and Field madehaughty references to the ineptness of the Trotskyists in“mass work.” The centrists of the SP sneeredat the “splinter”group and its small following. All the wiseacresand sidelinecritics found it easy to agree that the Trotskyists were lack-ing in “realism”; and prophesied for it a dismal and tem-porary sojourn on the political stage.

History has treated these transient figureswith the con-tempt they so richly deserved. The names of Lovestone,Git-10W,Wolfe, Weisbord, Field, Tyler, Zam et d are virtualIyunknown today to a new recruit to revolutionary socialismTheir pompous, boastful parties and groups have disappearedwithout leaving a trace. It remained for Cannon, sixteenyears




fter Trotskyism made its debut on the American politicalene, amidst a chorus of derision and calumny, to conjureese ghosts from their political purgatory in order to submiteir past to critical examination. In the doubtful event thatsterity accords them any recognitionat all, it will be foundly in the case-historytreatment they are given in the pagesCannon’s book.

By and large, these gentlemen— once so articulate and

olific— have been loath to utter a syllableor write a wordevaluation of the past, when they assayed no less a rolean leadershipof the proletarian revolution in America. Thess said the better — that seems to be the motto of thesenegades. In fact their present activities as flunkeys of theerialist war machine, apologists for capitalism, scribblersthe hire of the labor bureaucracy, are a far more eloquentmmentary on their evaluation of the past than any wordseymight set downon paper. Where any of them are proddeduneasy conscience,as in the caseof Gitlow, to reviewtheir

wn role in history, it is only to repudiate the past and tonfess the most abject repentance for ever having been as-ciated with the communist movement.

Unprincipled politics and a cavalier attitude to the pro-ammatic questions of Marxism doomed aIl the groups andrties outside the Trotskyist movement to impotence andentual extinction. By the same token, the rigorous concernr principles and the intransigent refusal to compromiseitsogram has permanently established the Trotskyist party assole’representativeof revolutionary socialismin the United

tates. lt is no accident therefore that James P. Cannon, thetstanding leader of this movement, should have writtene only authentic account of AmericanCommunism. He ex-lains where the others apologized. He defends where thehers repudiated and confessed. He demonstrates how theotskyists inherited the best traditions from the old Com-unist Party and howthey evolved into the vanguard of the

st class consciousworkers in the United States.Cannon describes his book as the “Report of a Partici-

nt.” An amendment should be added: “The Report ofs MostConsciousParticipant.” The main lines in the build-g of a Bolshevik party in the United States were clearlyfined in Cannon’smind from the first, after the expulsionom the Communist Party in 1928. The primary task of therotskyist group was the struggle for principles, i.e. theinciples of Lenin and Trotsky, against their deformationd corruption by the Stalinist leaders of the Comintem.erything elsemust be subordinated to principles— in thed only the correct program will prevail. Pursuit of thell-o’-the-wispof large mass following on the basis of op-

rtunist adaptations and the watering down of programuld ultimately lead to disaster. The form of organizationalthough the organization itself operates at all times

rough the mechanismof democratic centralism— must bebordinated to the requirements of the struggle for pro-

Year in, year out, Cannon hammered these fundamentalsto the very fabric of the Trotskyist movement. If he appearsday as the historian of a movement that has swept the fieldrevolutionary politics clear of all rivaIs, it is a tribute toe viability of his teachings and their adoption and appli-tion in life by the group itself. In the history of the build-g of a Bolshevikparty in the United States, Cannon brings

e sameelement of consciousMarxism that Trotsky broughl

into the History o/ the Russian Revolution. The road wsurveyed long in advance, the methodswereclearly defined—it remains only for the historian who is also a participantreport the trends of development.

Cannon makes no pretense of giving the same comprhensive allsided treatment to his subject matter that Trotskgave to his exhaustive study of the Russian Revolution. Hclearly informs his auditors of the limitations — and al

the possibilities— of his lectures.“Someof you”, he s ays , “may perhaps have the ambit i

t o be come h is tor ia n s of t h e movemen t , or a t lea st s tuden t st he h ia t ory of the movement . I f SO, t hese in forma l le et u rof m in e can m mve as gu idepost s for a fu rth er stu dy of tmost important ques t ions and turning points. ’)

The “Gu idepos ts ”These self-imposed limitations in no way deprive T

History o~ American Trotskyism of its exceptional signifance. What are the “guideposts”?

(1) The genesisof AmericanTrotskyism— an appraisof the Communist Party from the split in the Socialist Par

in 1919up to the expulsion of the first Trotskyist group1928.(2) lntemationalism.(3) The relationship between faction and party.(4) How a small group survives isolation and cuts

path into the massmovement.(5) The struggle against sectarianism.(6) The questionof trade union tactics.(7) .The questionof unity and fusion with other group(8) Strategy and tactics towards centrism.Cannon’s “guideposts” are no less indispensable for th

building of a Bolshevik party than are Trotsky’s in thmaking of a proletarian revolution. And in his book Cannoacknowledgesmany times his great debt to Leon Trotskwhoseadvice and assistancecontributed immeasurably to thaccuracy of these “guideposts” in the road travelled by thAmerican party.

Like a red thread through all Trotsky’s writings ruhis constant iteration that the problem of our epoch is thproblem of leadership. There has been no lack of revoltionary situations, the proletariat has not been wantingfighting qualities but unlike the Russiqn situation in 19there have been no BoIshevikparties armed with a correprogram and capable, courageousleadership. The buildingsuch a party, indispensable for victory, is the first taskMarxist politics. This aim distinguishes the American Troskyists from all movements in the United States which pr

ceded it and from all movements contemporary with it.discussionof the progress of this aim constitutes the centrthesis of Cannon’s work. Trotskyism has raised the factof consciousnessto a higher plane than ever before in thpast of American socialism.

The old Socialist Party had no clear conception of thtransformation of capitalism into socialism. It lacked Marxthemy. Electoral activity assumed far more importance thathe revolutionary struggle or the moulding of the partyserve that struggle. Asa consequence,the party was convertinto a parliamentary machine and its spurious internal demcracy was only a screento hide the real controls,which restefirmly in the hands of self-seekingpetty-bourgeoispoliticia

of the stripe of Morris I-iillquitand Victor Berger.



an uary I 945 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL

The IWW, born in revolt against the reformism of thecialist Party and the class collaboration of the AFL, bent

he stick far back in the other direction, thus diverting theroic actions and revolutionary energy of its militants intosyndicalistopposition to politics. The courageousleadershipsuch men as Haywoodwas not in itself sufficientto over-

ome the deep structural faults that resulted from the aqti-litical lineof the IWW. The epoch of wars and revolutionsewthe reformist Socialist Party to bits. The Russian Revo-tion like an X-ray machine exposed all the internal weak-esses of syndicalism and in the ensuing year the IWWeveloped a case of reactionary senility from which it has

recovered.’

If the CommunistParty saw the need for a party model-d on the Bolshevikpattern but neverthelessfailed to realizee high hopesof thousandsof revolutionary workers and wastimately distorted into a reactionary caricature of its earlyims, it was not at all the resuIt of Lenin’s methods or theeat influenceand authority of the Communist Internationalthe American party. The author says:

“The in fluence of Moscow was a per fect ly na tu r al th ing.Th e con fiden ce a nd expect a tion s wh ich t he you ng pa rt y ofAmer ica put in the Russ ian leade r sh ip were comple tely ju s t i-

fied , be cau se t h e Ru ss ia n s h ad made a r evolu t ion . Na tu r allyt h e in flu en ce and au th or it y of t h e Ru ss ia n p ar t y wa s gr ea t erin t h e in t er n a tion a lmovemen t t h an any ot h er . Th e w is er andmor e exper ien ced lea d t he n eoph yt es . So it will be a nd s o itmust be in any in ternat ionalorganizat ion .”

enes iso f Our MovementThe American Communist Party was strangled to death

y Stalinism before it had a chance to grow out of itswaddling clothes. Cannon has once and for alI set at restose specious theories which saw the germs of ultimategeneration in the interminable factional struggles whichvaged the CP from the time it was born.

It is worthwhile repeating the two basic factors Cannontes in analyzing the causes of the internal schisms. First:e predominantly foreign-languagemembership” with no

es to or understanding of the native labor movement wastempting to artificially transpose the methods and tacticsthe Russian Bolsheviksto the American scene. Ultra-left-

sectarianismwerethe issuesthat kindled this factionalnflict. Second: “the lack of experienced, awtboritative

This poverty’was the legacy of the antecedents ofe CP and it could only be surmounted by a processof strug-e and selectionnatural to any virile political organization.

“An authoritativebodyof leaders”,Cannonwrites, “able

t o m ain ta in t heir con tinu it y wit h t he firm suppor t of t hepa r ty — I don ’t k now how’or wher e any such leader ship wasever consol idated except through in ternal s t ruggles.”

Th at t his pr ocess of select ion wa s a br upt ly cu t sh or t by

puls ion s and t h e appoin tmen t of t h e leader sh ip by fia t fr om

oscow doe s not n ega t e Cannon ’s an alys is bu t only confirmse reasons for the degenerationof the American Communistarty and its domination by cynical men without principles,tegrity or backbone.

Trotskyism began its existencefrom higher summits thany previous movements because it stood on their historicaloulders. It did not begin with any anarchistic denial ofe past — it traced its own genesisto the work and programits predecessors.Cannon writes:

“We a re r oot ed in t he pa st . Ou r movemen twhich we ca lTrot skyism, now crys ta ll ized in the Socia lis t Worker s Pa r tydid not spr ing fu l l-b lown from nowhere . I t arose direct ly from

t he Communis t P a r ty of t he Unit ed St at es . Th e CommunisPa r ty it self gr ew ou t of the p receding movemen t , the Socia lisP ar ty, a nd, in pa rt , t he In du st ria l Wor ker s of t he Wor ld.”

Th e Tr ot sk yis ts lea rn ed fr om t he m is ta kes , fa ilu res a nd

bet ra ya ls of t hos e wh o came befor e t hem . An d a ga in :

“Tr ot sk yism is not a n ew movemen t , a n ew doct r in e, but he r est cm at on ,t he r eviva l, of gen uin e Ma rxism a s it wa sexpoundedand p ract ised in the Russ ian Revolu t ion and in theear ly days of the Commun is t In te rna t iona l.”

Wit h ou t t h is gr ea t p olit ica l capit a l t h e p ion ee r Tr ot sk yis ts

could never have survived the terrible test that faced themfrom the beginning. Isolation, slander, poverty, persecutio— this was the only world the Left Oppositionistsknew foralmost five years. Cannon’s description of this period willeave an unforgettable impressionon the mind of the readerNever before in history had revolutionary Marxists faced amore hostile environment. Official state persecutionhas oftenbeen more severe. General disillusionmentand reaction suchas in the period followingthe defeated 1905revolution in Russia was more widespread.The isolation that hemmed in the

European anti-war socialists after 1914 was probably farmore constricting. But the political lines were clearly drawnMarxists were persecutedbecausethey were Marxists, isolatedbecause reaction had cast their ideas in disfavor and in thegeneral disillusionmentfair-weather friends had deserted formore popular nostrums. It took fortitude to hold out, butthere was this in their favor that no one undertook to disputethe rights of the Marxist minority to its despisedposition—no one else wanted any part of it.

The Trotskyists enjoyed no such advantage. They werechallenged — challenged by an opponent with state powe— for every inch of the political ground on which they stoodStalinismhad usurped the great banner of the OctoberRevolu

tion. In a daily press and in hundredsof books and pamphletsTrotskyism was described as a doctrine hostile to LeninismFrom a formal officialpoint of viewthe Stalinist bureaucracyspoke in the name of internationalism and the struggle forSovietpower. To the superficialobserver,it appeared that theCommunist Party was translating this program into actionduring its adventurist “Third Period.” The great majority ofcommunist-minded workers either accepted the charge thatthe Trotskyist opposition was a counter-revolutionary ten-dency or dismissedit as a tiny group with obscure theoreticaldifferenceswith the officialparty.

Here is the incomparable record of the heroism of thosewho struggled against the stream. How did the Trotsky’istsurvive? The reader will be richly rewarded to study again

and again the story of this period in the words of ComradeCannon who more than any other single individual was res-ponsiblefor holding the group together. How to overcomethediscouragement and pessimism that was creeping, into thegroup? There was no magic formula. Cannon writes:

“One defeat a ft er another descendedupon the heads of thevangu a rdof t h evangu a rd . Manybegan t o qu es t ion . Wha tt ido? Is it p os sible t o do a nyt h in g? I sn ’t it bet ter t o let t hin gs

s lide a l it t le? Trot sky wrote an a r t icle , “Tenaci ty! Tenaci ty!Tenaci ty!’ Tha t was h is answer to the wave of d iscou ragementh at followed t h e capit u la t ion of Radek and ot h er s. Hold ona nd figh t it ou t — th at is wha t t h e r evolu t ion is t smu st lea r n,n o m at ter h ow small t h eir n nmber s, n o ma tt er h ow isola t ed




t hey m ay be. H old on a nd figh t it ou t u nt il t he br ea k com es,t hen t ake advan t age of eve ry oppor t un it y.”

Sim ple wor ds. Bu t wit hou t t hat a dvice a nd t he ir on de-

rm ina tion beh ind it t h er e wou ld be no Trot skyis t movemen t

Subsequent events proved this formula entirely correctnd realistic. The opportunities did present themselves and

e Trotskyists were prepared to utilize them to the full toash the wall of isolation that so long separated them fromhe revolutionary militants and from the great masses ofakening workers. But here again the road was devious ande problems complicated. It was not a simple matter ofoing to the workers and appealing to them to join the onlyvolutionary party and, by virtue of persistent agitation andard work, establishing it as a force in the working classovement. Without a correct policy — above all a correcttimation of the relationshipof forces— and without correctctics, i.e. knowingwhen and how to act, Trotskyism wouldill be an unknown sect crying in the wilderness.

The turn from exclusivelypropaganda activities as a fa c-

on of the Communist Party to mass work and the buildinga new party coincidedwith the first strike movement thatept through the country after the proclamation of the Na-onal RecoveryAct in 1933. And here again was illustrated

a revolutionary group needs more than a correct policy,ore than the will to struggle in order to gain influence andadership in the mass movement. There is no substitute forn organization that is rooted in the mass movement, whosembershave earned the right to leadership through commonperiencewith the workers and by correct policiesvindicatedthe test of events. Those who think that they can establisheir influenceby a dramatic appearance at the eleventh houry showering “misguided” workers with leaflets have noowledgeof the mechanismof the struggle and usually findmselveson the outside looking in.The Trotskyists were unable to influence the most im-

ortant struggles of the NRA days — the great waterfrontrikes on the west coast, the general strike in San Francisco,e nationwidetextile strike, the strikes in auto, the insurgentvement in steel.The Communist Leaguewas too small, itsdres too inexperienced,and above all it still had to demon-rate that it and not the Communist Party or the numerousher dissident groups had the only rightful claim to the rolethe revolutionary vanguard of the class.

The great Trotskyist victory in the Minneapolis strikesf 1934 was the first vindication of this claim in the classruggle. Here were an experienced group of revolutionistsith a long record of activity in the local trade union move-ent. They were loyal and disciplined party members andcted in complete harmony and collaboration with the party

ership. Under these conditionswhat wouldotherwisehaveen an isolated strike was raised to national importance ande contributions of Trotskyism in Minneapolis became anual of trade union policyand tactics for militant and pro-essive unionists all over the country. The Minneapolis

was one of the great landmarks on the road to buildinge revolutionary party because as \he author so correctly

“In Minneapol iswe saw the na t ive milit ancy of t he work-

ers fused with a pol it i ca l ly conscious leadership. Minneapol is

s howed how gr ea t ca n h e t he r ole of s uch lea der sh ip . It gagr ea t pr om ise for t he pa rt y fou nded on CORCCtpolit ip rin cip les a nd fu sed gnd un it ed wit h t he mas s of Amer icworker a . I n t h at combina tionone can s ee t he power t h at wconquer the whole world.”

Tr ot sk yism had d emon st ra ted “m a ct ion ” by it s p ar ti

pa tion in t he Min nea polis st rik e t ha t it wa s n ot “a m ovem e

of good -for -n ot hin g s ect ar ia n h air split ter s” bu t “a d yn am

political force capable of participating effectively in the m

movementof the workers.” But the main political task wstill before it — the task of building a mass revolutionparty of the American working class. Cannon’s accountthe twistsand turfis, of the splitswith unassimilablesectariathe unification with organizations of Ieftward moving woers and the penetration and umquest of centrist strongho— these constitute a demonstration in practice of the artrevolutionary politics in the life-time of our own generatio

In the process described by Cannon are expressed tlaws of the dialectic as applied to politics. Unification wthe American Workers Party was preceded by a bitter strugle with the Oehlerite sectarians that eventually led tosplit. The struggle and split with the sectarians over t“French Turn” underminedthe ideologicalbasisof the MusAbern coalition and deprived them of the power to obstruthe entry of the Trotskyist forces into the Socialist PartThe years of struggle in complete isolation as a propagangroup fighting for principles,and the rejectionof innumeraappeals and temptations to try easier but unprinciplmethods, insured the programmatic integrity of the Trotskists under the most unfavorable conditionsforced upon theby the centrist leaders of the SP.

What werethe results of this period of splits, fusion aentry into the SP? Cannon puts it succinctly:

“The pr oblem is n ot m er ely on e of bu ildin g a r evotionary p ar ty bu t of clea rin g obst acles fr om it s p at h. E veot her pa rt y is a r iva l. E ver y ot her pa rt y is a n obs ta cle.”

A survey of the political field today will showhow reistically the Trotskyists faced this problem and how succefully they solved it.

The History o) American Trotsky”sm is in reality a prhistory of the Bolshevik Party of the United States. In tperiod that is described the main task was primarily internahammering out a fundamental program, defending that prgram against all other tendenciesand building a cadre of rvolutionists. This work was preparatory but indispensablethe great task that is assigned the revolutionary party: tstruggleto influencethe majority of the workers and to lethem in the battle for the conquest of political power whicin turn, will inaugurate the socialist societyon the Americcontinent.

Only the Philistine can object to the informal stylethe book. It was designed for workers not for pedants. Canon views the past not as material for sedentary contemption by the old and the tired but as a guide for present-dparticipants in the struggle, preparing the worker-Bolshevfor their tasks by an understanding of the methods that weused in answering the problems of the previous period. THistory of American Trotskya”sms a companion volume“The Struggle for a Proletarian Party’’—togethert h ey m ig

appropriately beentitled: BolshevisminPractice.PioneerPulishers are to be congratulated for adding one more importaMarxist book to its already imposing list.



FOURTH INTERNATIONAL uary 1945

heEuropeanSituationAndOurTasksCon t ri bu t ion t o a Cr it ici sm of t lw D ra ft R esol u ti on of t h e

N a t ion u lComm i tt ee of t h e S .W .P .

B y DANIEL LOGAN .Weare cont inu ing in th is issue the publ ica t ion of documentst h e E leven th Nat ion al Con ven t ion of t he Tr ot sk yis t move-

The fol lowing documen t is a cr it icism of the fir s t d ra ft r eso-n of the Na t iona l Commit t ee on “The European Revolut ionTasks of t h e Revolu t ion a r y Pa rt y.” Logan ’s cr it icisms andt ion a re a con t inua t ion of the cr it ici sms and pos it ion e labor -

d by Fe lix MOROWn his cr it icism of the In terna t iona lRJssolu-n of the Fifteen th AnniversaryPlenum of the Socia list Workers

. See “The Eleven th Conven t ion of the American Trot sky-

Movemen t ” by t h e Edit or s and “The Eu rop ean Revolu t ion ”E . R. F ra nk in t he Dem ber 1944 F ou rt h In ter na tion al forconvention’s position on this question.

The Pol it ica l Commit tee in t roduced ta the convent ion , in theof t h e p re-convent ion d is cu ss ion , a number of cla r ifyin g

and li te ra ry cor r ect ions to i ta fir s t d ra ft r e solut ion .e convent ion adop ted t h e r esolu t ion in it s amended form byvot e of 51 t o 5. Th e r es olu tion wa s pr in ted in t he December4F ourth International,

By t h e s ame vot e of 51 t o 6, t h e E leven t h con ven tion of t hean Trotakyists rejected Logan’s crit icism and amendment

con tr ar y t o t he gen er al lin e of t he r esolu tion .

Wewill p rin t in me next is su e a s ect ion of t h e I nt er n a tion a lor t t o t he con ven tion by E . F . F ra nk — E d.

Wh en t he dr aft r es olu t ion is a na lyzed, it a ppea rs t o con -

n two in gr edien ts . On t h e on e h an d, we h a ve in forma t ion

ut the condit ions in Europe, or ra ther in It aly, for , ac-ding to t he method followed by t he writ ers of the draft

olu tion , t he sit ua tion in t ha t cou nt ry on ly is exa min ed.

ese information are quite minute and the parts of thet resolution that contain them are often textual reprintsarticles published in The Militant or Fourth Internationalew weeks or a few months ago. Some of these detailsly have a place in a resolutionfor a national convention,would have room only in a much more expanded thesis.the other hand, we have reiterations of our Socialist posi-n, which could have been written one, two, five or ten

ago.

But somehow, between these two component parts of

draft resolution, it seemsthat the concrete reality of theod we are now entering, with its specificproblems, needstasks, is not grasped. Some attempts have been made in

t direction, but they remain quite limited and, on theole, unsuccessful. The draft resolution does not seem toexactly focused. The focus is either too close and tooted, or too remote.,

This defect is closelyconnectedto a seriesof false politi-appreciations, concerning the coming regimes in Europed the present one in Italy), the nature of the democraticerludes, etc. These political errors throw out of balancesolution which, of course, contains many correct points.

e first thing to do is to examine these errors.

Point 73 of the draft resolution states:

Fas cism ber eft in it s la st da ys of a ll m as s s uppor t, cou ld

ru le on ly as a naked mili ta ry-pol ice d ict a tor ship . The Al li esa nd t heir n at ive a ccom plices a re t oda y r ulin g It aly in vir -t ua lly t h e s ame man ner .

Th e wr it er s of t he dr aft r es olu tion deem ed it pr uden t t o

put in the last sen t ence the word “virt ually”, which canprovide ground for a great deal of casuistry. However,eitherthe manner is the same — then the word “virtually” is use-less — or it is not the same, then the first obligation of thewriters was to state what the differenceis. Since they did not,we will consider the little word merely as an involuntary

symptom of uneasinessin the mind of the writers when theyput on paper their astonishing affirmation. i

What does the draft resolution mean by the “native ac-complices” of the Allies? Apparently, the Bonomi gover-nmentand the parties that participate in it. The two mostimportant of these parties are the Communist and Socialistparties. These two parties have, — as the draft resolutionsays in point 16 (and rightly so), — the “support and allegi-ance” of the masses. As far as I know, Fascismdid not have,“in its last days”, “support and allegiance” of the masses.Thus, it appears clearly enoughthat Italy is not at the presenttime ruled in the same manner, — as the draft claims it is, —as under Fascism “in its Iast days”.

The draft resolution in point 20 explains— correctly —that, after the Allies entered Rome, the Badogliogovernment“simply melted away under the hostility of the masses.” Anew government, headed by the liberal Bonomi, had to beformed. Why such a move, if the Alliesrule by “naked mili-tary dictatorship”? Moreover, according to -the draft re-solution:the Stalinists,Social-Democratsand their liberal alliesdirect-ly tookoverthe task of keepingthe Italianmassessubservientto the Alliedinvaders.

If the Allies use the Stalinist and Socialist leaders tomaintain their rule, it means that their dictatorship is riot“naked,” but covered with something,and not merely “mili-tary,” for, as far as I know, the Stalinist and Socialist parties

do not hold the “support and allegiance” of the masseswithnaked military force. The draft resolution is clearly incorrectin identifying the present rule in Italy with Fascism, be it “inits last days” or at any other time, and by doing so falls intoinsolublecontradictions.

These two sentencesquoted from point 73 reveal how farthe writers of the draft are from understanding the real pre-sent political situation in Italy, the mechanismof Allied ruleand consequently how ill-prepared they must be to outlinethe present revolutionary tasks. Suppose that tomorrow theBonomi government falls and that the Allies call Badoglio,so carefully kept in reserve by Churchill, to “clear the mess,”or even attempt to do this themselves. Accordingto the draft



28 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL January 1945.

olution,there would be no political change, for there wouldafter as before, the same “naked military dictatorship.”

ow far is the draft from our tradition of careful and precisearacterization of political regimes, or vigilant observationevery move, and how dangerously close it comes to thealinist method of sweeping identifications and generaliza-s (social-Fascism)!

d M il it a r y Di c t a t or sh ip ”Point 73, already quoted, declares: *

Fascismbereft in its last days of all mass support,couldrule only as a naked military-policedictatorship. The Alliesand their nativeaccomplicesre today ruling Italy in virtuallythe same manner. This is the pattern of their intendedrulein all E’urope.

And point 75 states:The Anglo-Americanmperialistsand the native capital-

ists do not intend voluntarilyto grant the slightest demo-cracy to the peoplesof Europe.

Let us note how the problem is put by the draft resolu-on: the intentions of the imperialist masters are considered.is, of course, indispensable, to examine the plans of theemy. This, however,isonly a part of revolutionary politics.nother necessary part of it is a careful investigation of

and how these plans can be carried out. The im-rialist overlords do not fulfill their intentions in a vacuum.eir intentions clash with those of other classes. The resultthis conflict is a concrete political situation, in which wee to act.However, the draft resolution does not go through this

rt of the inquiry and, therefore, the impe@ist intentionse given as the coming reality. The discussionof politicalrspectives thus threatens to take a subjective characterhat the imperialists want or do not want to do), which isien to Marxist method.

Nothing reveals the error of the draft resolution moreearly than the word “voluntarily.” Point 75; as we have

declares:The Anglo-Americanmperialistsand the native capital-

ists do not intend voluntarilyto grant the slightest demo-cr acy to the peop les of Eu rope.

But has the bourgeoisie ever granted any democracyoluntarily”? Even in the 19th century universal suffraged to be conquered in many European countries on barri-des. Classes never “intend voluntarily” to grant anything.ey act under the impact of the action of other classes. This,least, is the Marxist way of analyzing politicalmoves. Ande draft resolutionpresents this fact — that the imperialists

not intend voluntarily to grant the slightest democracy --a profound revelation about the character of the post war

With the investigationof the European political situationerroneously switched on the plane of intentions, we arerced, in order to proceed with the criticism, to temporarilyopt the assumption the draft resolution implicitly makes,ely, that the imperialist intentions wilI coincide with

ality, and we must examine the question: will the rule ofe Allies and their native accomplicesover Europe be aaked military-police dictatorship,” similar t. Fascism “inlast days”?To that question we must answer “no” for many Euro-

an countries. We must answer “no” even for Italy today,

as we have seen. Of course, there is no enthusiastic supportof the Allies in that country — far from that. But until nowand for sometime to comethe massesgive“support and allegi-ance” to the Stalinist and Socialist parties and these, in turn,are cogs in the mechanismof Anglo-Americandomination—which means that this domination is not a “naked militarydictatorship.”

How will the situation be in other countries? We have

had in the last few weeks the experience of France andBelgium. Thousands of Parisians shouted to the Americantroops “Thank you!” These are petty-bourgeors crowds?Probably, although there must be many young workersamong them. But there is no doubt that the Parisian work-ers are mightilyglad to befreedfromGerman thralldom. Thus,the Allieshave accumulated a capital of illusions,which theymay quickly exhaust by their reactionary policy, but whichneverthelessexists for a certain periodj and when a rule istolerated because of certain illusions, it is not a naked mili-tary dictatorship.

Let us even supposefor a moment that the French work-ers today see no difference at all between the Germans andthe Anglo-Americans(and I do not think that is true). Thereis, however,the petty bourgeoisie. Aren’t tbere any illusionabout the Allies? Won’t they find any support there? If so— and 1do not think it can bedenied— then the dictatorshipwill not be “naked,” it will find “covers” and the existenceof these “covers” raise many important tactical problems forthe revolutionary party. But these questions simply do notexist for the draft resolution. It is based upon a false theory(“naked military dictatorship”) and, in accordancewith thattheory, ignores the real problems.of the real revolution.

In many European countries the situation will be similarto the present one in France. The theory of the “naked mili-tary dictatorship”may have immediatereality in one country,Germany. Strangely enough, for that country the draft reso-

lution speaks of a Badoglio-typeof government as a definiteplan of the Allies (point 70):

Th es e m ea su res (t ak en by t he Allies) a re deliber at elydes ign ed t o pin d own t he German peop le unde r a Badogl io-type d ict a tor ship subservien t to the conqueror s .

Even such a government would be a kind of “national”cover for the Allied military dictatorship. In reality, such agovernment does not appear to be at the present time themost likely perspective and the Allies seem prepared to ruleGermany even without a national government, through HighCommissioners. This is one out of two or three historicavariants. However, probably because the writers of the draftresolution do.not like to outline possible variants but prefersweepingaffirmations,they failed to see the one case to whichtheir theory of the “naked military dictatorship” would im-mediately apply. An editorial in the August 1944Fourth In-ternational, directly contradicting the draft resolution, de-clares:

They (the Allies) have no intention of repeating thepattern of the precariousnativeBonapartistregime tr ied withDa r Ia n in Nor th Afr ica a nd Badoglio in It aly.

A resolution adopted by a national conventiondoes nothave to be as categorical as an article on concrete questions.While giving the general perspective, it can outline variouspossibilities. If, however we want to choose between thevariant given by the draft resolution and the one sketched



1945 FOURTH 1NTERNATIONAL Page29

n the Fourth International editorial, we must say that thetter seemsat the present time much closerto reality.

If the Allies’ rule over Europe were to last, it wouldevitably degenerate into a “naked military dictatorship.”t we must consider the problem dynamically. Today at

he start the Allies have in many countries a certain capitaldemocratic and patriotic illusions to cover their rule. Thispital will be gradually spent? The illusionswill disappear?f course. But that will be a certain process— preciselythe

ocessof revolutionary maturation of the masses, and ourctic must be adapted to the different stages of this process.or the draft resolution there is only the end, no beginningnd, consequently, no process. No troublesome questionsout tactic either!

What political moves have we witnessed during the lastnths in countries which are in the Allied military sphere?see three important ones: the shift from Darlan-Giraud toGaulle, from Badoglio to Bonomi, from Mikhailovich to

ito. All of these moves are from the right to the left. Theypresent, in a very limited and very distorted way, the resultthe pressure of the masses. Can we expect more shifts of

he same kind in the future? 1 think we can, and they will

o much farther to the left. Of course,they will interminglethe most motley way with “naked military dictatorship.”it is precisely w heresuch shiftsW -lloccur that perspectives

open up for the pro letarian revo lu t ion. The caseswheree will jump from an Allied “naked military dictatorship”the dictatorship of the proletariat will be exceptions, note rule.

The draft resolution speaks of possible bourgeois demo-ratic regimes in Europe as “a brief episode in the unfold-ent of the revolutionary struggle” (point 77). This is in-ontestably true, if we call “brief” interludes that may lastom a fewmonthsto a fewyears. But from this indisputablect the draft resolution draws a wrong conclusion,namely,

at such regimesdo not deservemuch attention. As a matterf fact, they deserve just six lines of the draft resolution.re, however,the time element doesnot exhaust the problem.om the February revolution in Russia to the October revo-

ution barely eight months elapsed. In the passage fromzarist society to the workers’ state this period is indeed a

But these eight months were packed withore sharp political turns, more tactical moves by Lenin’sarty than eight years of illegality under Czarist despotism.at is why today we study these eight months so carefully.bourgeoisdemocratic“episode,”however“brief” it may be,a period of tremendous political responsibility,of which weave had great historical experiences. We will enter suchepisodes”in many European countries. At what tempo? Weo not know,but it is precisely during such episodesthat theoletarian revolution ha; the greatest chances to prepare foruccess. It is precisely di]ring such episodes that the mostmerous and importan~problemsof tactics rise. That is whyresolution of the national convention of the SWP shouldevote more than six lines to them. To limit our attentionward such “episodes” under the pretext that they arebrief,” of a “transitional” character, mere exceptions in aneral “pattern,“ is utter pedantism.Finally, let us note that the theory of the “naked mili-

ry dictatorship” implies a complete revision of our concep-n of the role played by the Stalinist and Socialist partiesby bourgeois-democratictendencies. If the military dic-

tatorship is “naked,” none of these groups has any role tplay. That these groups are not heading toward a brighhistorical future for decades, we may well agree. Howevethey may and will play an important role during a period—preciselythe period we are now entering— as brakes on threvolutionary locomotive. In fact, the draft resolution sayso in another point. But it contradicts itself when later on iputs forward the theory of the “naked military dictatorshipand thus showsthat it rests on a theoretical basis which is fafrom being clearly and thoroughly thought out. We shall nowsee another exampleof that.

A New Type of Bourgeois Democracy?

Oneof the most perplexingparts of the resolutionis poin76. Let us try to disentangleit, although it won’t be any easjob. The draft resolution tries to establish a fundamentadifference between the democratic regimes which existed ithe period between the two World Wars (1918-1939) anthose that may appear in the future.

The coming democratic regimes in Europe will be moranemic, less stable, m or e pr om pt t o becom e dict at or sh ips

tha n those of the past — there is no discussion a bout t hat

But that is not enough for the draft resolution. It intends testablish a kind of essential distinction between the past anthe future based upon “economicand political conditions.”

Point 74 declares:

Bou rgeois d emocr acy, wh ich flower ed in t h e p er iod ot he r is e a nd exp an sion of ca pit a lism a nd t h e mod er at ion ocla s s con flict s wh ich fu r nished a ba s is for colla bor a t ion b etween the classes in the advanced cap it a li st coun t r ie s, is ou tl ived in Europe today.

The writers of the draft resolution know, I think, thathe period of the rise and expansion of European capitalismcame to an end not in 1939,but in 1914. And, in a sensbourgeois democracy is outlived since 1914. But this is no

what the draft resolution means. When it says that democracy is “outlived in Europe today,” it doesnot mean “today”in a general way as being the period we entered in 1944,buspecificallyas the end of the second World War, in contradistinction to the period 1914-1939. Point 76 says:

Economicand poli ti ca l cond it ions forbid the r estor a t ionof bou r geois d emocr a cy even i n t h e cr is is -t or n forms whichexist ed a ft er t he la st wa r.

Stated in clear terms, the theory advanced by the draftresolution is as follows: the end of the period of risingcapitalism, which occurred in 1914, prohibits in 1944 therestoration of political forms which existed between 1918and1939. One of two things: Either the economiccause has an

immediate political effect, then no democratic regime shouldhave appeared or existed after 1914; this is clearly falseOr, although the economicbasis has collapsed,political formmay survive, “outlive themselves,” for quite some time because of a peculiar combination of circumstances (failure othe proletarian grave-digger to finish off bourgeois society)This side of the alternative is the correct one. But then whyshould this “outliving of itself” by bourgeois democracy bstopped in 1944 by an economic condition which came toexistencein 1914?

The writers of the draft resolution may cite the seconWorld War as a possibleexplanation for the impossibility othe restoration of bourgeois democratic regimes even “in the



P a g e. 30 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL January 19

crisis-torn forms”which existed between 1914and 1939.This,however, would be a completely different theory from theone given in the draft resolution, for this draft tries to basethis impossibilityupon an economiccondition, the end of therise of capitalism in 1914. But let us wait and see how thewriters of the draft resolutionwill try to get out of the sorrytheoretical straits they got themselves into, and, indepen-dently of whatever the causemay be, let us look at the alleged

impossibility of the return of political forms which existedbetween 1918and 1939.Let us reread point 76 of the draft resolution:

Economic and polit ica l cond it ions forbid the res t ora t ionof bou rgeois democr a cy even in t he cr is is -t or n forms whichexisted afte r the las t war . Bourgeois democra t ic governmentsca n a ppea r in E ur ope on ly a s in ter im r egim es in ten ded t os ta ve off t h e conques t of power by t he p rolet a ns t.

The possible future democratic governments in Europewill be interim regimes, and they will not be a repetitionof formswhichexistedbetween 1918and 1939.This distinctioninplies that the democratic forms between 1918and 1939werenot of an interim character. Quite an innovation in our move-ment! The false perspectiveabout the future suddenly turnsinto an embellishmentof the past.

Do we really have to inform the writers of the draft reso-lution that most of the democratic regimes in Europe betweenthe twoWorldWars did have an interim character? It is clearenough in Italy, Poland, Germany, Spain, etc., etc., not tospeak of Kerensky’sregime. In certain countries of WesternEurope (France, England, Scandinavian countries) bourgeoisdemocracy was relatively more stable, but even there wasmore and more taking an “interim” character in the yearsprecedingthe outbreak of the secondWorld War. No, really,the attempt of the draft resolution to draw a distinction be-tween the two kinds of democracy is not very fortunate.

Maybe the writers of the draft resolution meant that in

the past democratic regimes quite often came into existencea/ter an unsuccessfulrevolutionary upheaval, as a kind ofby-product, while in the future they can appear only be)orea revolutionary assault. This would imply that in the futureeither (1) no revolutionary attempt will ever be defeated, or(2) every defeat will be followedby a dictatorial regime. Infact, that is what the draft resolution says in point 77:

Inevitably,they (the bourgeois democra t ic regimes) wil l

b e d is pla ced by t he d ict a tor sh ip of t h e p rolet a ria t emergingou t of t h e t r iumphant worker s’ r evolu t ion or t h e s avage d ic-t at or sh ip of t h e ca pit alist s con sequ en t u pon t he vict or y ofthe counter-revolution.

Neit her of t he t wo pr oposit ion s ( 1) an d (2) is justified.

Let us take our most authoritative international document,the Manifesto of the Fourth International on The Imperialist

War and the Proletarian Revolution. ltstates:Will n ot t he r evolu tion be bet ra yed t his t im e t oo, in as -

much as there ar e two I nt er n at ion als in t he ser vice of im -per ia li sm while the genuine revolut ionary e lements const itutea t in y m inor it y? I n ot her wor ds: s ha ll we su cceed in p rep ar -ing in t ime a par t y ca pable of le ad ing t he p rolet a ria n r evolu -t ion ? In order t o answer th i s ques t ion cor rect ly it is nece ssa ryt o pos e it cor r ect ly. Na tu r ally, t h is or t h at up ris ing may andsurely wil l end in defeat owing to the imma tur it yof t he revolu -t ion ar y lea der sh ip. Bu t it is n ot a qu est ion of a sin gle u p-r is in g. It is a qu es tion of a n en tir e r evolu t ion ar y ep och .

This answers proposition (1), that defeats are not pos-

ble. As for proposition (2), the document goeson:

The ca pit alis t wor ld h as n o wa y ou t, u n les s a p rolondea th a gony is s o con sid er ed. It is n ecess ar y t o p rep ar elon g yea rs , if n ot d eca des of war, upris ings, br ie f inter lof tr uce, n ew wa rs a nd new uprisings.

“Brief interludes of truce”, this is preciselywhat decracy has been in many countries of Europe between theWorld Wars, interludesof truce, during which the contenclassesprepared for new struggles. This is what the Weirepublic was. Tomorrow as yesterday we may expect sdemocratic interludes after the eventual temporary defearevolutionary assaults. The only difference between theand the future isthat in the future the interludeswill be mbrief. This is a certain quantitative difference, but therno qualitative difference between two kinds of bourgeoismocratic regimes, before 1939 and after 1944, a differeallegedlybased upon “economicconditions”which are presince . . . 1914. The statement of the draft resolution tha

Economic and polit ica l condit ion s for bid t h e r es tor a tionbou rgeois dem ocr acy even in t he cr isis-t om forms wexis ted a ft er t he la st wa r

shows that it does not clearly understand either the pasthe future.

This discussionmay seem rather involved and somewobscure to the uninitiated reader. But now 1 shall givekey to the mystery.

The story began almost a year ago, as far back asFifteenth Anniversary Plenum (October 1943). The wriof the original draft resolution for that plenum presentedraft which explicitly denied the possibility that bourgdemocratic governmentswould ever exist again in Europ

Confronted with the opposition of some comrades, ecially comradesMorrow and Morrison, to this conceptionplenum had to abandon such an untenable position, althoit did so without full clarity and precision. Since then evhave revealed the falsehood of the original theory to evebody, perhaps even to its authors. Thus, the writers ofpresent draft resolutionhad to admit the possibility of decratic regimes in Europe, but, since they felt some solidawith the unfortunate authors of the plenum theory, and mbe even somesympathy for them, had to find some sort ofexcuse: “Yes, there will be democratic regimes in the futbut, you see, they will not at all be what they have beenthe past.” Thus came to the worldthe theoryof the two kiof bourgeoisdemocracy, the pre-1939and the post-1944. Tcreation was perfected when an “economic”basis was fofor it: “The difference comes, you see, from the end ofrise of capitalism”. . . which occurred in 1914.

The distinction between the two kinds of democrac

as theoretically false as the alleged impossibilityof bourgdemocratic regimes in the future, and, in a way, more cfusing, for it creates confusionabout the past as well as abthe future.

We should not be surprised if the draft resolution, wa theoretical arsenal supplied with such conceptions as“naked military dictatorship” or the two kinds of bourgdemocracy,is unable to exactly focus the political tasks ofpresent period.

Europe is now seething with revolutionary movemethat have sprung up under the impact of German tyranThroughout Europe the masses have moved far to the lethey are crying for freedom, sensitive to any kind of opp

sion. This is an enormous potential danger for Allied do



nuary 1945 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page31

ion a nd , con sequ en tly, for the whole bourgeois rule inrope. How to transform this potential danger into an actua2d direct peril? This is the central problem of the hour. [ns transformation programs of democratic demands have anportant role to play. Their role has been great in the de-lopment of every revolutionary crisis (Russia, Germany,a in , et c.). Bu t wit h t he con dit ion s pr eva ilin g in E ur ope

day they acqu ire a pecu lia r impor t ance .

Th ou sa nds, t en s of t hou sa nds ca n lea rn t hr ou gh dir ect

pa ga nda . Th ey con st it ut e t he va ngu ar d; t hey com e t o t he

volu tion a ry pa rt y on t he ba sis of it s S ocia lis t pr ogr am . Bu t

illion s, ten s of m illion s — a nd r evolu tion is im possible

it hou t t he a ct ive p ar ticip at ion of t en s of m illion s — ha ve t o

m e t o Socia lism t hr ou gh t heir own exper ien ce. Th ey h ave

disca rd , on e a ft er t h e ot her , r egim es a bou t wh ich t hey h a ve

illu sion s . They have t o d is ca r d fa ls e lea der s in whom they

e put t h eir con fid ence. The t a sk of t h e r evolu t iona ry par t y

t o s peed up a nd fa cilit at e t ha t pr ocess a s much a s p oss ible,

t it cann ot jump over it . This is precisely what programsdemocraticor transitional demands are designedfor. Thisprecisely the Bolshevikmethod of winning the masses, by

ing together with them through action, as opposed to thepagandisticenlightenmentabout the advantages of Social-, in the spirit of the SecondInternational.

Under the monarchy we call for the proclamation ofe republic. Under a bourgeois democratic regime we caIlr the most democratic forms (one House, immediate elec-ons, etc.). When the revolutionary tide is high enough, well for the expulsion from the governmentof the representa-ves of bourgeoisparties. We call upon the opportunist 1ead-s to take power if they enjoy the confidenceof the majoritythe workers. Etc., etc. These will be vital problems ofvolutionary tactics in Europe in the comingmonths.

Truly enough, the draft resolution speaks of democratic

mands. [t even devotesto the problem at least fivelines—less.But it fails to show the specificconnectionof such aogram with the present political situation. How could itlfill such a task, armed as it is with the false politicaleories we have examined? Thus the phrases about demo-atic demands in the draft preserve a general, abstract char-ter and cannot fail to appear asmerelyritsdi$tic.For years we had discussionswith opponents about theblem of democratic demands, especially concerning coun-s dominatedby fascism.Wemade certain predictions.Thus,

rotsky wrote more than eleven years ago, at a time whenscismhad not yet established the most brutal tyranny upone whole of Europe (four hundred millions have now had

suffer under it!):The fa scis t r eg ime preserves democra t ic prejud ice s, r e-

cr ea tes t hem , in cu lca tes t hem in to t he you th , a nd is evenca pa ble of impa rt in g t o t hem , for a s hor t t im e, t he gr ea tes tstrength.

Wh at a bou t t ha t pr edict ion ? H as t he r ecen t exper ien ce

f France confirmedit or not? What is the present situation?e draft resolutiongives no answer.The casual and perfunctory way the whole problem of

mocratic demands is treated is exemplifiedby the slogansentioned in the text. These democratic sIogans are given:ree electionof all officials,freedomof the press” (point 33).hy are these two slogans singled out? What about others?

rue, there is at the end of the sentence a little “etc,,” intoich anything can be stuffed.

The “free election of all officials” includes the electiof administrators in villages, towns and cities. But doesinclude the electionof deputies? What about the whole prolemof the parliament and of democraticrepresentations?Mothan thirteen years ago Trotsky found it possibleto raisea hypothetical form the slogan of the Constituent Assembfor Italy at the time of Fascism’sdownfall. In August 19The Militant reprinted Trotsky’s article without adding an

commentary about the use of the slogan. However,we are nlonger in 1931,but in 1944. We now have— or should hav— the reality beforeour eyes. Howdoesthe problem preseitself today? The draft resolutionmaintains on this questiothe same silence as The Militant did.

Another important democraticslogan in Italy at the prsent time is the republic. Apparently, the writers of the dradid not put it down among the democratic demands becausalthough in the tradition of our movement,it is not as rituaistic as the freedom of the press, it does not fIow as easifrom the pen. Or is there any other reason? The sloganone of those that seemmost indicated by the present situatioand we shall consider it for a while.

One of the central problems of Italian political life hbeen, until now, the existenceof the monarchy. The discusionson that point have thrown a bright light on the servilitthe corruption and the ignominy of all the Italian officparties, including the Stalinists. The king was Mus~liniaccomplicefor twenty years. Beforeleavingthe United Statfor Italy, the self-styled liberal Count Sforza wrote: “It mabe that a fraction of the Italians is still for the Monarchbut after so many shameful acts and treasons this could bsoonly for reasonsof expediency.” However,it soon appearethat the “reasons of expediency” were strong enough to brespected, even by Sforza himself. We then witnessed thmost repulsivepolitical farce, whoseplayers were somewrecleft by liberalism like Croce or Sforza himself, the Stalinisand the various democratic and Social Democratic partieBehind the stage, the king and his son, the reactionary uppcrust of Italian society and the Allied diplomacy were rjoicing at such an extraordinary spectacle.

Croce, the philosopher of compromise,explained thatwas “against the king as a person, and not against thmonarchic institution.” It has always been the dream of tcraven liberals to keepthe monarchy and to have only “gookings. The Stalinist messenger boy palmieri Togliatti (Ecoli), arriving from Moscow,declared that he was “againthe king as an institution, and not as a person,” having proably been impressed by the remarkable and generouspersoality of the king. A shameful compromisewas attained whthe Crown Prince was made lieutenant general of the realm

The monarchy remains the rallying center of reactiothe reactionaries of the “Blue Party,” the Church and thAllied diplomacy. Any new development of the Italian revlution will inevitably raise the question of the existencethat focus of intrigues against the people,the Court.

To all the horse-trading among the monarchists, the ambulating corpses of liberalism and the Stalino-royalists, threvolutionary party must answer with the cry: Immediaprocfamutiono/ the republic! Arrest of the king, the CrowPrince and all of the royal famiIy! Immediate confiscationall the royal properties for the benefit of the people!

(To Be Concluded in Next Issue)

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This volume contains Trotsky’s last writings which are among the

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I }against the petty-bourgeois [revisionistsw~o broke away from the

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The companion volume to In Defense o f Mar x ismby Leon lr~tsky.

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I

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4th International - Lenin Memorial Edition 1945

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Transcript of 4th International - Lenin Memorial Edition 1945