The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 22, 1925, Page 9

st nC eae DREN te IM tan ptt — CCORDING to Comrade Wolfe, my article on Labor and Empire in the July number of the Workers’ Monthly is replete with errors, Inas- much as there was no polemical dis- cussion under way at the time he might, of course, have come upstairs and talked to me about it, and tried to convince me to correct my point of view in detail:in the succeeding num- ber of the magazine; but in that case he might have had no article to write —and besides, he would perhaps say, “This is not the way that a Com- munist organ (even a would-be Marx- ist-Leninist one) corrects the ‘errors committed in one of its articles.” Comrade Wolfe rushes to the at- tack. 'To those who have not read my article, he seeks to give the im- pression that I am not only an ignor- amus and an eclectic, but also a so- clal-democratic apologist for imperial- ism, with secret leanings toward ue conference pacifism. He does not scruple to make use of insinua- tion, deliberate misquotation, and fal- sification of facts. For these reckless epithets, my article itself is sufficient refutation, representing as it does an attempt to arouse American workers to the necessity of active alliance with the exploited peoples of the col- onies and semi-colonies for the over- throw of American imperialism. i is with the doctrinal inadequacies of Comrade Wolfe’s criticism that I shall deal here. rt At the outset I want to say that I should haye been sincerely glad of a better if less pompous and pretenti- ous criticism of my article. The ar- ticle was, in a sense, pioneer work in a new field; it was, so far as I know, the first attempt to give the Lenin- ist conception of imperialism a wider practical application in the American class struggle by showing the effects of imperialism upon the American working class as well.as on the sub- ject peoples. For the first time a detailed explanation of the mechanics of super-profit in the American em- pire was essayed, together with the mechanics of the relationship between the super-profit reaped by the capi- talists and the poisonous “class col- laboration” policy in American trade unions. I also pointed out the sinis- ter connection between super-profit and the role of the American socialist party. Many of these things had been dealt with before, some of them in much greater detail, but nowhere had they been brot into direct juxtaposi- tion in an article on imperialism. This [ conceive to be one of the most im- portant tasks of our party in the struggle against imperialism. We do not direct our articles on imperial- ism written in English to the colonial and semi-colonial peoples, but to the American working class. And it is essential not only to make the Ameri- can workers realize that American im- perialism exists, by printing long lists of statistics (altho this also is of vital importance), but to make them realize how imperialism bears they must fight it. I do not claim any basic originality for my article, It is simply an adaption of the theses on national and colonial questions adopt- ed at the second congress of the Com- munist International, I have drawn freely for material upon widely- known writings of Lenin, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Stalin, and Pavlovitch, Prac- tieally all of the information on “class collaboration” is taken from the lit- tle pamphlet by Comrade Browder, which js undoubtedly the meat au- thoritative work in its special field, Yet the article was in many respects pioneering, Better articles on the same subject will certainly be writ- ten, but in {ts fundamental proposi- tions the article is correct as it stands, ND here I encounter Comrade Wolfe, who declares that all of my basic propositions are incorrect. What are these propositions? 1 haye set them down plainly in my article, the first six of them tabulated, with numerals precisely as all of -them are tabulated here: (1.) That by intense exploitation of subject peoples under the condi- tions of imperialism, the capitalist derive a super-profit which becomes the mainspring of imperialist re- lationships. (2.) That as.a result of this the capitalists are able to continue the system of wage slavery in the home countries of imperialism. (8.) That imperialism thus be- comes a burden not only upon the colonial and semi-colonial peoples, but upon the workers in the devel- oped countries as well, whose con- ditions moreover becomes worse and worse as the race for super-profit becomes hotter. (4.) That the American workers are therefore obliged to struggle energetically to retain even their hard-won gains of the past. (5.) That a section of the work- ing class, including the trade union bureaucracy and the privileged workers, refuses to take part in the struggle and actually betrays. it, having been won over to the bour- geoisie thru a share in the super- profits. : (6.) That, sharing directly in the spoils of empire, these corrupted labor elements have a vested inter- est in imperialist expansion and be- come conscious or unconscious ac- complices in the enslavement of subject peoples. (7.) That super-profits are also the basis for social-democratic pa- cifism, whose appeal is made to the aristocracy of labor. q (8.) That, unlike the socialists, the Communists do not base their policies on a privileged group but on the needs of the broad masses, which require unceasing struggle against capitalist exploitation and imperialism. (9.) That, while the reactionary officialdom of the trade unions (the bureaucracy) are cynical traitors to the working class and must be gotten rid of, some sections of the labor aristocracy as such (the bet- ‘ter-paid, highly skilled workers) can and must be won away from collaboration with the bosses to fight for their own ultimate class interests side by side with the rest of the workers. (10.) That the theory of super- profits is thus a strong weapon in our hands against the.labor bureau- cracy and the socialists, and against the imperialist policy of the bour- geoisie, an instrument which en- ables us to establish a connection between the industrial proletariat in this country and the national liber- ation movements in the countries under the heel of American impe- rialism. (11.) That the American work- ers must take the lead in establish- ing a fighting alliance with the peoples of America’s colonies and semi-colonies. HHESE are the propositions that Comrade Wolfe says are incorrect. He does not prove they are incor- rect, He scarcely deals with them at all. Instead, he restates them to sult himself, and then proceeds to give me an elementary school lecture on the A, B, ©, of imperialism, the development of monopoly, the transi- tion from the era of the hegemony of the textile industry to the era of the tron and steel industry, the differ- ence between selling railroads and flannel underwear, etc, If my critic did any research work to get this ma- terial he might have saved himself the trouble by consulting one of my own articles, entitled, “Lenin and the New Wave of Marxism,” which ap- peared in the March number of the Workers’ Monthly, this year, Com- rade Wolfe's criticism shows that he does not even perceiye what the basic propositions of my article on Labor and Empire are, notwithstanding the fact that they are clearly stated and enumerated, One might read his ar- ticle thru without having the slight- est conception of what I had been writing about, Tho truth is that he, and the group in our party which he represents, are not deeply interested in the problem of getting the Ameri- can masses into motion against impe- rialism but rather in academic gener- alizations separating theory from ac- tion, * A Reply to Wolfe’s Uncritical “Critique” HE foregoing paragraphs sum up my article on Labor and Empire and give an idea of the persistent wrong-headedness of Wolfe’s attitude toward it, They do not touch upon the specific points that he tries to make, I shall now take these up one by one, answering them not only in my own words, but by quotations from official documents and recognized leaders -of the Comintern. The analysis begins by ridiculing my statement that the American workers might have already thrown off the whole system of wage-slavery if it were not for the appearance of imperialism. “Such speculations,” says Wolfe, “are un-Marxist and futile. Marx showed that capitalism leads thru ac- cumulation to concentration and cen- tralization of capital. This leads in- evitably to monopoly capitalism which is the primary .economic basis of im- perialism. Thus Comrade. Gomez's “if” partakes of scholastic medieval speculation and not of Marxist. On what ground does Comrade Gomez as- sume that non-imperialist background countries imply a victory of the pro- letariat?” AOLFE ought to know that I do not assume non-imperialist back- ward countries imply a victory of the proletariat—altho in the present, im- perialist epoch, the overthrow of capi- talism in even a “backward” country would be such a_ victory, and if Wolfe does not understand this his conception has nothing in common with Leninist theory. What I was concerned with was to show how capi- talist rule was prolonged thru im- perialism, this historical example serving as an introduction to the pro- position that imperialism is the back- bone of wage slavery today. Whether or not my use of hypothesis was un- Marxian and un-Leninist, I leave for the reader to judge after comparing it with the following sentence from the theses on the national and colo- nial quesfions at the second congress of the Comintern, presented by Com- rade Lenin himself: “But for the extensive colonial possessions acquired for the sale of her surplus products and as a source of raw materials for her ever-growing industries, the capital- istic structure of England would have been crushed under its own weight long ago.” Will Comrade Wolfe have the temerity to say that the “but” in this sentence “partakes of scholastic me- dieval speculation and not of Marx- ism?” Y critic will no doubt reply that the conditions in England were quite different from those in the Unit- ed States, but that does not alter the question of the allowability of hypo- thesis. Moreover, Comrade Wolfe does not give my original statement intact. In my article I did not speak of the United States alone, but of England, France and the other capi- talistic countries of Europe (in much the same form as the above quotation from Lenin’s theses), at the same time drawing in America which as part of a world system could not help but be profoundly influenced by the general development, Now as to the “peaceful period of capitalism,” about which Comrade Wolfe getg yery much excited—so much so that he repeatedly misquotes me, This ts the main section of Wolfe’s “analysis" and it shows him at his worst, There is in it not a trace of understanding of the development of imperialism in its relation to class war, nor any more than the most su- perficial conception of Lenin’s method of considering it, By Manuel Gomez he places an exclamation point after the misquotation. No such phrase ap- pears anywhere in my article. What I did say was: “The climax of the struggle to obtan super-profits is thus far different from the period of ‘peaceful development’ which char- acterized its earlier stages.” A peace- ful period in the struggle to obtain super-profits is something quite differ- ent from a “peaceful period of impe- rialism,” as the reader will see fur- ther on. But where Wolfe has played me most foul is in the important mat- ter of dates; by taking two state- ments of mine out of their context and placing them in unnatural asso- ciation, he arrives at the following monstrous distortion: “The ‘peaceful period of capital- ism’ in the United States, Gomez dates from 1894 to the world war. This, he adds, is an international phenomenon.” ND this, when I expressly stated that early period of storm and stress of European capitalism culmin- ated around 1871, adding that this de- velopment in the United States came “later and in a necessarily modified form.” Farther along in the same paragraph I remarked that “the so- called peaceful period of capitalism”. (which everywhere followed the per- iod of storm and stress) “was an in- ternational phenomenon.” To anyone reading the paragraph without deliberate perverseness of in- tent, the meaning is quite clear. No one who has seen any of my articles on imperialism—Wolfe least of all— could honestly believe that I date the so-called “peaceful period” of world capitalism from 1894 to the world war. But I must admit that I cannot agree with Comrade Wolfe’s dates. “By the ‘peaceful period,’” he says, “is meant that period roughly includ- ed in the second and third quarters of the 19th century when the first wars for capitalist national unity were generally at,.an.-end..(the,.se¢alled | national wars) .. .’ In the second and third quarters of the 19th century occurred the revolu- tionary uprisings of 1830-31, 1848-50, 1863 and 1871, and that wars of 1854- 55, 1859, 1864, 1866 and 1870. The period between 1848 and 1871 brot in- to being modern Italy, Hungary, and Germany. Incidentally, the years 1868-71 marked the peak of the activ- ity of the International Workingmen’s Association (the First International), which could hardly be said to reflect a peaceful epoch of capitalism. fos second and third quarters of the 19th century—the middle; years of the century, that is—are revolu- tionary and not “peaceful.” They are so characterized by Comrade Buk- harin, who points out that a new per- iod did not set in until later, In his report on the Question for a Pro- gram for the Communist Internation- al, delivered at the fourth congress of the C. I. (November 18, 1922), he says; “Following t he revolutionary epoch of the middle of last century, an entirely different historic epoch in the development of the capitalist system set in, It was the epoch of the gigantic growth of capitalism. This growth was chiefly based upon the colonial policy of the bour- geolsie and the stupendous develop- ment of continental industry which was chiefly stimulated by the ex- ploitation of the colonial peoples. This created a certain community of interests between the continental bourgeoisie and the continental pro- letariat which was the basis for a great psychological and ideological tendency manifesting itself within the working class and, ergo, within the socialist parties.” Comrade Zinoviey, in his great work on “The War and the Criais of So- elalism,” declares that “the year 1871 marks the close of the national wars