The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 24, 1924, Page 9

ABROAD WITH LENIN (Continued from last issue.) DECIDED to put the shoes on the first time that night for the opera. On the way there everything was all right. But in the theater I already began to feel that something was wrong. Perhaps this is the reason why I do not remember the impression which the opera made on Lenin and on myself, I remember only that he was in a very good mood, he jested and laughed. On the way back I suf- fered terribly and Lenin mercilessly mocked me all the way home. How- ever, under his jests there was hidden a sympathy born of experience; he himself, he said, had suffered sev- eral hours from those same shoes. *. * * ‘HE first delegates to the coming second convention were arriving in Geneva and ceaseless conferences with them were going on. In this preparatory work Lenin unquestion- ably was the leader, although it was not always noticeable. Altogether, three workingmen arrived for the con- vention. Lenin spoke at great length with each of them and won all the three over. ‘ HE most acute question for Lenin was the organization later of a central organ, which was practically to play simultaneously the role of a central committee. Lenin considered it impossible to maintain further the old board of six. Zasulich and Axel- rod unfailingly took the side of Plek- hanov in every dispute. And then it was at best three against three. Neither the one nor the other side agreed to have one member leave the board. *- 2. 6 ‘HERE remained the opposite direc- tion—enlargement. Lenin wanted to introduce me as the seventh mem- ber, so as to later form a narrower editorial group consisting of Lenin, Plekhanov and Martov. I was gradu- ally drawn into this scheme by Lenin who, however, did not intimate even by a single word tbat he proposed to have me as the seventh member of the board, that this proposal was ac- cepted by everybody but Plekhanov, who resolutely opposed the plan. T one of the conferences, which shortly afterwards took place with the newly-arrived delegates, Lenin, taking mevaside, said: ‘Let Martov argue against Plekhanov on the sub- ject of the popular organ. Martov oils and you hack away. It is better to let him oil.” I clearly remember this expression “to hack and to oil.” sf @ ND now I want to set down the reasons why, in my opinion, the decisive change in the political con- sciousness. and self-estimation of Lenin must have taken place in the days of the old “Spark,” and why this change became necessary and inevi- table. REMINISCENCES BY L. TROTZKY ENIN arrived ‘abroad from Russia already a mature perfon of thirty. In Russia, in the student circles, in the first Social-Democratic groups and in exile, he had occupied the first place. He could not help feeling his power, for the reason that everybody whom he had met and worked with recognized it. He left for abroad with a load of theoretical knowledge, with a considerable supply of political ex- perience and permeated thru and thru with that tension toward a goal which formed his spiritual nature. -> * * OLLABORATION with the “group of labor emancipation,” and first of all with Plekhanov, the profound and brilliant expouent of Marx, a teacher of several generations—a the- orist, statesman, publicist and orator of European connections—awaited Lenin abroad. With Plekhanov were two of the most authoritative names: Zusulich and Axelrod. * * * 2 pol the second convention and immediately after it the indtgna- tion of Axelrod and the other members of the staff against Lenin’s conduct was mixed with perplexity: “How did he dare to do it?” The perplexity in- creased soon after the convention, following the break between Lenin and Plekhanov, when Lenin neverthe- less pursued the fight. BACK TO WORK TROTZKY ON A STEAMER R nearly-two years the problem of organizational centralism, which in Czecho-Slovakia is represented by a departmentalized One Big Union, has held the attention of the entire revolutionary labor movement of that country, causing various misunder- standing and preventing a more rap- id development of the movement. The point is that part of the revo: lutionary trade unions of Czecho-Slo- vakia—the greater part—are organ’ fzed in the One Big Union known as the International General Workers’ Union, while the minority, the revolu tionary unions of building workers, woodwork railwaymen, transport workers, commercial employes; and the German Section of the rev- olutinary textile workers is still defi- nitely opposed to this form of organ- ization and strives to retain its au- , advocating at the same time the principle of the federative form of organization of the revolutionary unions. Objective Reasons. While in other countries the crea- tion of the One Big Union was a result of Anarcho-Syndicalist tendencies, in Czecho-Slovakia this form of organiz- ation arose in consequence of a num- ber of special circumstances of an ob- jective character. Just as in other countries, when the post-war revolutionary wave subsided we saw in Czecho-Slovakia, spontan- eous tendencies. towards organization among the masses, anxious to resist the concentrated attack of capital. And it must be stated that Czecho-Slo- vakian capitalism, in spite of its na- tional varieties, prosecuted this cam- paign against labor in an unusual ly organized, systematic manner, at- tacking with all its strength some of the most important sections of the labor front. ; Thanks to this tactic, and even more to the scattered state of the Cze- cho-Slovakian labor movement, cap- italism@ in Czecho-Slovakia has been marching for nearly three years from HE attitude of Axelrod and the others might have been expressed in these words: “What bit him? He but recently came abroad as a scholar and behaved like a scholar. Whence this sudden self-confidence? How could he have dared?” These were the judgments of the old leaders. Then there was another puzzle. He had prepared his soil in Russia. It was not in vain that all. communica- tions were in the hands of Madame Lenin. Quietly there was being car- ried on a process of>conversions of the comrades in Russia against the “Group of Labor .. Emancipation.” Zasulich was not less indignant than the others, but she perhaps under- stood him better. It was not for noth- ing that she told Lenin, long before the split, that he, as. distinguished from Plekhanov, had. “a deadly grip.” * * * “Lenin always prepared for tomor- row, strengthening the current day. His creative tho never stopped, his watchfulness never rested. And when he conyinced himself that the “Group of Labor Emancipation” was not fit to take in its hands the immediate leadership of a fighting organization of the proletarian vanguard, in prepa- ration for an approaching revolution, he deduced for himself all the practi- cal conclusions. ** 6 'HE old leaders were in error, and not only the old ones. He was no longer merely a young, promising revolutionary worker, he was a leader, thoroly pervaded with a tension to- ward a goal, and, I think, completely conscious of himself as the leader, after his collaboration with the older men, with the masters, and his per- ception that he was stronger and more needed than they. > *¢ @ ENIN arrived abroad not as a Marxian “generally,” not for lit- éfary revolutionary activity “gener- ally,” not merely to continue the ac- tivity of the “Group of Labor Eman- cipation,” which had been carried on for twenty years. No, he came as a ~otential leader—the leader of the revolution which was ripening, which he- sensed and felt. He came to cre- ate in the briefest possible time the ideological rigging and the organized machine which the revolution de- manded. eset 8 ND when I spoke of his furious FPA and yet disciplined tension to- wards a goal, I did not mean that he, Lenin, strove to aid in the triumph of “the final goal.” No, this is too generalized and empty. I meant it in a concrete, direct, immediate sense; that he put before himself a practical goal; to hasten the arrival of the revolution and to secure its victory. f Union Centralization In Czecho-Slavakia victory to victory. The disruption of Czecho-Slovakian labor is evident on every side, political, national and re- ligious, and as a result, the 1,600,000 organized workers of Czecho-Slovakia, out of more than three million indus- trial workers are divided into 465 na- tional unions of which about 340 are affiliated to 11 national federations, while the remaining 125 unions are altogether unaffiliated. Weakness and Disruption. This weakness of the Czecho-Slo- vakian labor movement was aggravat- ed three years ago, during the rise and organization of the revolutionary labor movement, -by the disruptive tactics of the Czecho-Slovakian re- formists and by the general indus- trial stagnation which drove more than half a million workers into the camp of the unemployed. On the whole, the situation under which the Czecho-Slovakian revolutionary move- ment was born in the middle of 1922, was entirely unfavorable to it. The very fact of its birth was a result of By I. GRASHE the enforcement of the disruptive pol- icy by the reformists, who had good grounds to fear the complete en- trenchment of the Communists in their unions and therefore hastened, through splits, to save as far as pos- sible their positions in the labor movement, They were enabled to do so thanks to both the crisis and unem- ployment, and to their support by the capitalists, government machine which helped them capture all the material resources of the _ trade unions, They acted mainly through expulsions of the most militant revo- lutionary elements, including both in- dividuals and organizations and they did not even hesitate to expel entire national unions when the latter were completely in the hands of the mili- tants, . Mass Expulsion. They thus expelled more than ten (out of 54) national unions, The larg- est and best organized of these was (Continued on page 8.)