The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 3, 1925, Page 7

| The Discussion GITLOW IS NOT A LIAR Why? Because the case of the majority does not need to resort to “proof” of this kind. Poor Gitlow is perfectly welcome to the use of all the epithets he can lay his hands on. They will avail him little. Our mem- bership is already beginning to open their eyes to the menace of “farmer- labor Communism.” ‘The party will not be fooled into a policy of oppor- tunism. And no amount of mud- slingi-g and billingsgate will deter us one ft.a from telling the party exact- ly.what we think of our farmer-labor- ites. What Happened at the Hungarian Convention? Gitlow says Bittelman plainly lied about what happened at the Hungar- fan convention. & serious charge— isn’t it?—expressed in rather strong language. But what was it that hap- pened at the Hungarian convention? The Hungarian convention accepted the position of the minority. This is what I reported to the C. E. C. on the Hungarian convention. It is a lie? No, of course not. Gitlow will be the last man in the world to deny it. Then, what else did I say? I said that by accepting the position of our farm- er-laboristic minority, the Hungarian convention proved that it is in cap- tivity by the farmer-labor ideas. I said that the Hungarian convention was so obsessed with farmer-laborism that it could not imagine the further development of our movement without this slogan. This is what actually took place. Does Gitlow disprove it? Of course not. How could he? To disprove this would mean to deny the fact that the Hungarian convention accepted the minority position. Alli I said in my published report was that by accept- ing Comrade Gitlow’s “Communism” the Hungarian convention went wrong. It went opportunistic. The fact that Gitlow “captured” the convention means that the convention was cap- tured by farmer-laborism. Isn't that so? And that was all I said. Quite naturally this does not please Gitlow. But, then, permit me to ask a question: Is it my duty to please Gitlow, or to tell the party the truth? My Second “Lie”. In my report to the C. E. C., I said that in order to disprove my charge of opportunism Gitlow asked the Hun- garian convention to examine the personnel of the majority and minor- ity. He attempted to prove that be- cause some of the leaders of the mi- nority, at one time or another, went to jail for their activities in the move ment, therefore, they are not oppor- tunists. Gitlow calls this a lie. And how does he prove it? Read the following portion of his article:” “What I said was in answer to the charge that the majority calls minority liquidators. In refer- to this I asked the delegates examine the personnel of the minority and their service in the Communist movement to determine whether or not the minority is made Bittelman and the whole majority cannot deny them. As a further example let us take Comrade Rut- henberg. Comrade Ruthenberg is of the minority. The majority brands him as a liquidator. Yet, after having spent three years in By ALEXANDER BITTELMAN AM fot going to call Gitlow a liar.| What is its meaning? It is this: Be- Did you read the above carefully? cause the minority were active in the left-wing, because they were active in the organization of the Communist Party, and, finally, because they had gone to jail, therefore they cannot be charged with opportunism and liquida- tion. Now, comrades, what do you think of that? I address myself now par- ticularly to those of you who have seen jails, the exile, the torture, and have looked death into the face not once but many times,—what do you think of this sort of an argument? I ask our Russian comrades, the Polish, Jewish, Lithuanian, Letts, and all those who received their revolution- ary baptism not in the socialist party of Hillquit and Berger, not in the state legislature at Albany, N. Y., but in the revolutionary struggles of the proletariat of Russia between the years of 1903 and 1911—what do you think of a Communist who undertakes to defend his policies by reference to his jail record and to the sacrifices that he brought for the movement? Did Lenin do it? Did you ever hear such arguments from Zinoviev, Stalin, Kameney, etc? Why, my dear Gitlow, if it is a matter of jail records, we can give you all you want, only we want to be sure that you will honor jail re- cords under the czar as highly as you honor some jail records under President Wilson. Also that you will give us credit for exile into the - “cold” portions of Russia, and for participation in armed struggles against czarism, and its agents. And mind you, we were doing all this as proletarians, as workingmen, as members of the Social-Democratic Labor Party of Russia, of which, Lenin, Stalin, and Kamenev were members and_ leaders. ‘ The reason it never occured to us to refer to our jail records as proof of the correctness of our pol- icy, is because we do not believe in this kind of bunk, which is cheap self-advertisement, and smacks of the methods of bourgeois salesman- ship. we thought we were members of a Communist Party and not trav- eling salesmen to advertise chewing gum. - My Third “Lie”. I reported Gitlow as saying, in sub- stance, that because the Russian Com- munist Party initiated the movement for and participated the building of Soviets, although the Soviets were non-partisan, non-Communist political organizations, therefore, the American Communist Party may also initiate a movement for and participate in the building of ... a farmer-labor party munist, political organization: Gitlow does not like the way I re- ported his argument at this point. He dislikes it so much that he calls it a lie, and he proceeds to tell, in his own words, what he really said. Read it: “The above is a complete fal- sification of what I said. When the political secretary of a Communist Party resorts to such deliberate methods of misrepresentation in the furtherance of factionalism, the par- ty is bound to suffer severely. Now what did I say on the question of Soviets? I said that the Russian Communist Party participated in the Soviets even though the Soviets were not Communist bodies and even though they were not integral parts of the Bolshevik Party. That did not stop the Russian Bolshevik party from raising the slogan of all power to the Soviets thereby through the revolutionary strug- gle that ensued making the Soviets the instruments of state power and the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat. I used this argument to counteract the sectarian poison that is being injected into our party by the major- ity that maintains that only through which is also a non-partisan, for independent political action, and on Party Tasks its own organization can th. orty wage a Communist politicai strug- gle, and that it is opportunism for the party to wage political struggles thru the instrumentally of other or- ganizations. The farmer-labor party I therefore contended could be made an instrument of our political strug- gle even though it is not a Com- munist body.” The comrades will pardon me for imposing upon their patience with these long quotations from Gitlow. ;But it can’t be helped. The interests {of the party demand that we all know ithat because the Russian Party par- | ticipated in Soviets, therefore, the j|American party must participate in jthe farmer-labor movement. This is jthe new Marxism and Communism of ‘our farmer-laboristic minority. | am | leaving aside, for the moment, the fact jthat it is not the question now of | participating in but of initiating and |creating a farmer-labor party. Gitlow jhas either entirely misunderstood the |discussion, or he is consciously twist- {ing the issue when he represents the thing as though it were a question of ; jour pa:ty participating in a movement | |that already exists. There is no such thing. The question is: Shall the Workers Party create a substitute for itself in the shape of a farmer- labor party? This is the issue. I am willing to assume that Gitlow did not understand what our contro- versy was all about. He may have sincerely believed that the whole fight is about participating in an already existing movement. That’s why he has written the above lines to the effect that since the Russian Party participated in Soviets, the Workers Party may participate in a farmer- labor party. He is pitifully wrong, just the same. But where is my “lie”? As to Factionalism. Some day there will be written the history of our party, and then we shall know which faction or tendency in our movement contributed most to the | development of our party. We may be compelled to begin writing history much sooner than would be necessary otherwise. If the salesmen of the jminority (a la Gitlow) will continue |the way they started, we may find it jadvisable and for the good of the par- ity to start writing history immediate- jly. But one fact must be established lright here. It is the fact that never in the history of our party did a minority opposition defy so flagrantly and brazenly the fundamentals of or- ganization of the Comintern, as did the present minority. The caucus is everything, the party is nothing—this is the motto of the present minority. | But we shall leave this aside for ithe moment. We want the party first to realize the menacing nature of the policies of the minority, and then we will speak in more detail about their practices of organization. Our main task now is to have the party repudiate definitely and completely the right-wing farmer-labor opportun- ism of the minority. In pursuing this task, we shall speak to the party as plainly and frankly as is possible, and = leave to the minority all the privileges and all the rights of adver- tising their virtues and of calling us names. MINORITY DID NOT PROVE THEIR CASE By MORRIS KUSHINSKY HE nearer the discussion of our party’s immediate tasks approach- es its conclusion, the more it becomes evident that the minority has a very poor case in justification of their pro- posed policy. Of all the arguments advanced by the minority all through the discussion none were of any strik- ingly convincing nature. In my opinion the minority has still got to phove that there is NOW in existence a mass sentiment on the part of the American workers for a farmer-labor party. Those of us who are actively engaged in the everyday work of the American labor unions, know the facts that point to the con- trary. As a matter of fact we see that ever since the presidential election the issue of a labor party, as far as the majority of the labor movement is concerned is dead and buried. Those elements in the labor unions who de- monstrated any kind of a sentiment who were willing to do anything in order to put this sentiment into ac- tion, are now either altogether in- different to the issue or satisfied with their conviction that what was ac- complished by the LaFollette move- ment was all that they wanted. For us to come out now in the labor unions with the slogan, “For a farmer- labor party” would mean at best talk- ing to stone walls. On theother hand we must not for- get that ever since the Bridgeman arrest and the consequent discussions in the capitalist press of what the Communist Party was and our ap peals to the American workers for the defence of those arrested, brought about a situation whereby many thousands of American workers be- came very much interested in know- ing what the Communists really stood for. Then again in the last pre-election Follette movement besieged the labor unions for their endorsement and sup- port of their candidates, we, the Com- munists, have learned the means of effectively combatting this custom, and have gained a great deal ?n the way of showing to great masses of workers that the Communists are the only real friends of the working class. In short, the late developments in the American labor movement and the activity of our comrades therein have removed many barriers which were in the way of our propagation of the class struggle from a Commun- ist point of view and to show to the workers that the only political party worthy of their support is the Workers (Communist) Party. Now, after all the experience we have gained and after the many hard- ships we have overcome, for us to come again before the American work- ers and try to raise the slogan of a farmer-labor party, would amount to as much as to try to inject new life into a dead corpse. At the same time, to talk now to the American workers, of a mysterious “class farmer-labor party,” would mean to be “hiding be- hind the bush” for the simple reason that we might just as well and with just as much advantage come right out clearly and unhesitatingly with the propaganda for the (Communist) Party. To my mind the proposed policy of the minority means retreat from gained positions. It means retreat that is not warranted by actual con- ditions in the labor movement at the Present time. This proposed tactic of the minroity if accepted would mean a step backward that would create a situation whereby we would have to play a hide and seek game. This would not mean a retreat where- by we could strengthen our position for a new attack upon our enemy, but one that would tend to destroy our gained influence and prestige in the labor movement. This is an out and out un-Leninist, un-Bolshevik tactic. In conclusion let me say that we, the Communists, active in the labor movement, have greater and more important tasks to perform than to force upon the American workers Workers (Continued on page 4) ee rn ree net a ete pe en Gg RET ©