The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 13, 1924, Page 7

The Discussion on Pa FARMER-LABOR OPPORTUNISM By WILLIAM Z, FOSTER HE campaign of the Workers Par- ty to establish a farmer-labor par- ty was the major united front man- ouvre of our party up to date. On the whole, despite some decided disad- vantages which will be touched upon in this article, it was beneficial to our party. It put the Workers Party at the head of large masses of workers in motion and gained for it much pres- tige as the fighting party of the work- ing class. It gave us an opportunity to acquire much skill in the handling of these masses and enabled us to make them at least partly acquainted with Communist principles and tac- ties. It gave our own party member- ship a realization that the Workers Party, altho a small party, can become a real factor in the class struggle by following a militant policy. But this farmer-labor party cam- paign was carried out under exceed- ingly difficult circumstances. The sentiment for a farmer-labor party of industrial workers and poor farmers, distinct from a LaFollette third party, was weak and vague, and almost the entire trade union bureaucracy was opposed sharply to the farmer-labor party. The problem of driving a wedge between the “class” farmer- labor movement and the LaFollette movement proper, and of organizing a farmer-labor party in the teeth of official trade union opposition, was a' great one. The burden of leadership in the movement fell almost entirely upon the membership of the Work- ers Party. Naturally many mistakes were made. Some of these were of an opportunistic character. In their desperate efforts to breathe the breath of life into their dead “class” farmer-labor party slogan, the farmer-labor Communists of the minor- ity, especially Comrades Ruthenberg and Minor, have singled out some of these incidents and, upon the strength of them, have denounced the Central Executive Committee as opportunist. They conveniently overlook far more serious mistakes made by themselves when they_were the C. E. C. It is the purpose of this article to discuss the various mistakes in our labor party policy to place the blame for them where it belongs, and to draw the les- sons from these mistakes for our future work. .. The Chicago July 3rd Convention The W. P. policy in this convention, mapped out by the present minority, which was then the C. E. C., was highly opportunistic. The ‘basis. of the convention was a united front from above, between the leaders of the Workers Party and the farmer- labor party. At the last W. P. con- vention comrades Pepper, Ruthenberg, and Lovestone made the welkin ring with complaints about the Chicago un- ited front, but they themselves en- gineered this phase of it, the one sec- tion that was really open to gerious criticism. Perhaps the biggest mistake made at the convention was pressing to the point of a split the question of the immediate formation of a farmer-labor party. Experience later with the fil- my federated farmer-labor party, which was formed at that time, show- ed that this mistake originated in an opportunistic grasping for the masses. The former C. E. C., in their eager- ness literally to grab off a mass party, over-reached themselves. For this they were censured in the latest. decision of the Communist International on our labor party policy, as follows: “The Workers Party failed in devel- oping sufficient pliability with regard to so-called progressive elements and did not devote, and does not yet, de- vote, enough attention to the work among the workers organized in the labor unions.” Former endorsement of the split by the C. I. were based on re- ports that the split resulted in a party of 600,000 workers and poor farmers, Other sharply opportunistic tenden- cies developed with regard to the pro- gram of the F. F.-L. P. A committee entirely controlled by the W. P. pre- sented to the convention a program so conservative in character that it, was acceptable to the most reactionary elements and was adopted unanimous- ly. (Comrade Pepper was especially pleased with the “courage” of our party in supporting the petty-bourge- ois money plank which was supposed to win for us the support of the farm- ers). Comrade Pepper was pleased over this incident, almost as much so as some months later when he heard that our comrades in Minnesota had decided to vote for Magnus Johnson. He declared that we must have such errors in the platform, because behind this confusionism stands great mass- es, and of course we had to cater to catch them. Another fine sample of the opportunism of the former C. E. C, at the Chicago convention was the failure to introduce a resolution for the dictatorship—it was feared it would pass and break up the show. The August Thesis Among the very worst opportunis- tic development of the W. P. labor party policy stands the so-called August thesis. This was the chef d’oeuvre of Comrade Pepper, a master opportunist, the shrewdest yet pro- duced by the American Communist movement, and one who understood how to cover up his opportunism with a heavy mask of revolutionary phrase- ology. His August thesis, enthusias- tically supported by the former C. BE. C., proposed a sort of get-rich-quick scheme. It was a very seductive “short-cut” to the revolution. Its essence was that the Communists should, by a grand manouvre, sort of sneak up unsuspected upon the labor movement, off a great section of it and become overnight the lead- ers of a mass-movement, The August thesis proposed the wonderful and opportunistic scheme of two mass Communist parties in this country. One of these, the fed- erated farmer-labor party, was to con- sist of a general mush of trade unions, singing societies, fraternal orders, hiking associations, self-advancements clubs, etc., and its function was to car- ry on an opportunistic campaign amongst the workers on the basis of their immediate demands. The other Communist party, the Workers Party, was to stand modestly in the back- ground, serving to salve our revolu- tionary consciousness and to pro- pagate Communist principles in the abstract. The present C. E. C., then the min- ority, fought the August thesis un- relentingly. They forced its ad- vocates to lay it on the shelf. At the last W. P. convention, the defenders of the August thesis lacked the moral courage to make a fight for it. They evaded the issue. But they still have this thesis definitely in their minds. It is the basis of their labor party pol- icy. Comrade Minor admits this frankly in a recent article. Comrade Pepper’s political stock gamble, as exemplified by the August thesis, was sharply condemned by the C. L in its recent decision on the American farmer-labor policy. In the face of Comrade Pepper’s vigorous op- position, Comrade Olgin and I made war against the August thesis in Mos- cow. The result was that the fol- lowing paragraph in the decision, which is entirely in accord with the policy of the present C. E. C., was proposed by comrade Kuusinen and adopted unanimously by the presid- ium: “7. The aim to strive at is not rty Tasks advanced and revolutionary | ele- | ments into the Workers Party.” The Third Party Alliance Another oportunistic sin on the pol-| itical soul of the present minority was | the so-called third party alliance. This | was another product of Comrade Pep-| per’s fertile opportunism. In commen with many others, the present C. E.| C. fell victim. to it. It was my hard | task to defend it in’ the Comintern. | No sooner did I hit Europe and ex- | plain it to the first revolutionist I met) than I encountered a drastic con-! demnation of it as most dangerous op-| portunism. And so it continued all the time I was on the continent. Never on my whole trip, in Russia and else- where, did I meet a single Communist who did not wholeheartedly repudiate this proposition. The action of the Comintern presidium was unanimous {in rejecting it as a manouvre unfit |for the Workers Party to make. There ;is no need here to make further ar- gument about the opportunism of the third party alliance. This is admitted everywhere except in the thesis of the minority. The corrective action of the Comintern in this matter saved our party from serious difficulty. In passing it may be noted that the three grand labor manouvres’ en- gineered by comrade Pepper and the former C. E. C., namely the Chicago convention, the August thesis, and the third party alliance, were all con- ‘emned by the Communist Interna- tional in its latest decision on our labor party policy. The Grab at the Farmers Another opportunistic manouvre by the former C. EB. C. was the adventure among the farmers. The split at the Chieago July 3rd convention cost the Workers Party many valuable rank and file union connections in the various industrial centers. It dam- pened the labor party movement there very much. Just about this time com- rade Pepper discovered the impend- ing “LaFollette revolution,” the back- bone of which were the farmers, then in a strong state of ferment. Im- mediately in the policies and _ state- mens of the former C. E. C. the farm- ers emerged as a great, if not the great, revolutionary factor. The party turned its major attention towards working among them, the more dif- ficult work among the trade unions being sadly neglected. Largely forgetting that the indus- trial workers must of necessity be the base of our party activity, they shifted the center of gravity to the farmers. The trade unions were systematically minimized, the whole A. F. of L. being denounced as simply an organization of labor aristocrats, notwithstanding the great numbers of miners and other genuine proletarian elements amongst the unions. Efforts were made to min- imize the importance of the working class itself in the revolution and to prove that the United States is more of an agricultural than an industrial country, In Moscow Comrade Pepper even went so far as to state that in respect to its industrial development the United States resembled Russia more than it did England. The Workers Party must win the support of the poor farmers. They are essential to the success of the rev- olution. But this support must not ‘be won by the sacrifice of real prole- tarian support. Realizing this, the present C. E. C,, then the minority, carried on a ceaseless struggle to keep the heads of the former C, E. C. from being turned altogether by the “easy pickings” amongst the. farmers and from neglecting the far more vital work amongst the industrial workers. The opportunism of the former C. EB. C. ran riot in connection with the farmers. The St. Paul Convention | to split the left-wing from the labor Then we came to the St. Paul con- party as quickly as possible in or- | vention, In this connection the farm- der to form this split off party into jer-labor Communists raise loud out- a mass Communist Party. But we |cries of protest. After having been must strive at letting the left wing |suilty of the gross opportunism of the grow within the labor party and at Chicago split, the August thesis, the the same time at taking in its most third party alliance, and the grab at cclasitnenninticicsesenianiebtinatidiataia the farmers they venture to call the present C, E. C. opportunistic. The situation at St. Paul was this: The elections were approaching and it was absolutely necessary to crystallize the farmer-labor party in order to make, or try to make, a campaign under its banner. The situation was difficult, with the LaFollette forces sucking the life out of the farmer-labor movement. Consequently the C. E. C. made ex- treme efforts to hang on to the dis- appearing masses. In some respects its policy verged into opportunism. This must be admitted. But the min- ority are disbarred from criticism. They endorsed the whole thing. Comrade Minor blossoms forth with a speech I was supposed to make in St. Paul, The fact is the speech was im- perfectly reported. But it was bad enough at the best. I make no apol- ogy for it. It represented only one of the overstrainings we made to re- tain contact with the masses. But the speech was in harmony with. the point of view of the whole C. E. C., major- ity. Comrade Ruthenberg, who was on the steering committee-that author- ized it, pronounced it very timely. Not a word of objection was raised by the minority, altho the C. BE. C. was meeting nightly. It was only a couple of months later, when word was re- ceived from Moscow, that the minor- ity woke up to a realization, for fac- tional purposes, that the speech was opportunistic. : Comrade Ruthenberg also voices a protest against our opportunism. He cites a motion that I am supposed to have made in the C. E. C. to the effect that we should support LaFollette’s nomination. But Comrade Ruthenberg has developed much a penchant for writing the minutes in a factional spirit that the C. BE. C. had to adopt measures for their constant correc- tion. Months ago I definitely reput- iated this motion. It unfairly stated my position. At that time the C. E. C. was committed to the third party alliance which tacitly if not actually, accepted the proposition that LaFol- lette would be the candidate of the third party. Any denial of this is sheer hypocrisy. The motion I made proposed in effect that if at the com- ing conference the question of nom- inations was foreed upon the confer- ence and the choice lay between Ford (who-was then in the field as a pro- gressive candidate) and LaFollette, that. if it had to the Workers Party would support the latter as the lesser of two evils.. This was bad enough, but it indicates merely the oppor- tunistic tangle we got into as a re- sult of comrade Pepper’s beloved third party alliance. Comrade Ruthenberg’s manufac- tured indignation that we should tol- erate the nomination of LaFollette comes with ill grace, especially after his militant support of the third party alliance. Time and again he gave Mahoney, of the Minnesota farmer- labor party, to understand that if the Workers Party made any opposition to the candidacy of LaFollette in the approaching conferences and conven- tion it would be purely formal, to keep the record clear. It is interest- ing to note also that when I in- troduced a motion in the C. EB. C. at St. Paul which would have precipitat- ed a break with the LaFollette forces then and there, it was lost by one vote, the vote of comrade Ruthenberg. His “fight” against LaFollette’s nom- ination was a fake. This was clearly shown by the following motion, in- troduced by comrade Ruthenberg and defeated by the C. E. C. on May 2, 1924: “We shall nominate in the con- vention a candidate in opposition to LaFollete and cast our vote for such a candidate. We must, how- ever, be careful to see to it that this manouvre does not defeat La- Follette, for to nominate another candidate and permit LaFollette to become the candidate of the July 4 convention in opposition to our (Continued on page 4) 1 KN 5 }