The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 7, 1928, Page 3

e DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1928 In its statement of December 3rd, the Opposition within the Party struck the following as the keynote of its pre-convention policy: “The objective meaning of the stand taken by the majority of the Central Committee is to confuse the characteristics of Trotskyism as a Left deviation, to obscure the characteristics and most important manifestation of the present Right danger and thus to weaken the struggle against both deviations. The result of such a line can only be the strengthening of all oppor- tunist elements in the Party.” Z From this statement it is clear that the policy of the Opposi- tion is: 1. Trotskyism today in the United States is a Left deviation, a Leftist danger of no important consequence. id 2. The Central Executive Committee is proposing a right wing opportunist line and therefore in the light of the American and in- ternational situations, the Central Executive Committee is the main danger before the Party. 3. Declaration of war on the Central Executive Committee—a call to the membership to mobilize against the present Central Executive Committee, the Party’s present leadership. This is a dangerously wrong policy based on false assumptions, leading to erroneous conclusions and which can only serve to harm the Party very seriously. What are the facts? tive Committee? The Central Executive Committee has thus given its stand and policy for the fight against the Right danger and Trotskyism in its declaration of November 16th: “Trotskyism is nothing but opportunism covered with Left phrases... “To the American section of the Comintern, Trotskyism, as a challenge, has now come in its last stages of development, in its open counter-revolutionary, in its open social-democratic form. The recurrence of Trotskyism in our Party brings Trot- skyism to us as the international flag of all enemies of the Soviet Union, as the tool of social-democracy against the Com- intern, as the rallying center of all hostility against Leninism. In the leading parties of the Communist International, after the defeat of Trotskyism, the decisive danger is the outright op- portunist menace. In the Soviet Union, as the October 19th statement of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union declares, the fight must be conducted on two fronts: against Trotskyism and against outright oppor- tunism. “In the Workers (Communist) Party of America—in the present situation in which Trotskyism makes its reappearance, already stripped of its Left phrases, as outright opportunism— Trotskyism is an organic part of the Right danger. In our Party we must concentrate the fight against two dangers; first, the Right danger, against outright opportunism, and then .against its Trotskyist variation, which is opportunism covered with Left phrases. Both come to a head and converge into a common attack against the Party and the Comintern. “Trotskyism is the most comprehensively developed system of opportunism with an international basis still seeking to hide its social-democratic character by covering itself with Left phrases. “Trotskyism, in its last stage of development, is the sum- ming up, is the unifying force of all these opportunistic, Right dangers, Trotskyism, the crassest, the most complete example of opportunism, is coming to a head in an open attack on the Party, on the Comintern and on the Soviet Union. . . “The Central Executive Committee warns emphatically against any underestimation of the Right danger in our Pay cas “In the present international situation, the Right danger is the main danger within the Communist International ard in | its American section. The Right danger has its roots in the stabilization of capitalism and in the existence of reformism + in the labor movement which retains its hold on large sections of the working class.” This is the policy of the Central Executive Committee. The line of the Central Executive Committee is clear. No amount of misrepresentation, no smoke-screens can mislead the membership of our Party. THE GROWTH OF THE TROTSKYIST MENACE. Since the above statement was issued the Trotskyist menace has grown within and outside the Party. Let us recount only a few of the aggravating developments. In the Minnesota district those supporters of the Opposition who have most energetically been resisting the line of the Central ‘Executive Committee of fighting the betrayer Shipstead, those who have been guilty of some of the worst opportunist errors in our Party, aiming to wipe out completely the independent role of the Communist Party in the Labor Party movement, have come out for Trotsky-Cannon & Co. Among the leading Minneapolis Trotskyites are V. R. Dunne, Skoglund, Coover, Votaw, and Hedlund. In Chicago, Arne Swabeck, formerly district organizer, and Glotzer, member of the National Executive Committee of the Young Communist League, have openly embraced Trotskyism. Only re- cently Swabeck was nofhinated by Chicago Opposition comrades to serve as district organizer of their district. 2 In the Boston district, the Trotskyites have now banded them- selves into a “League Against the Party,” a self-styled Independent Communist League of Doctor Konikow, an old standby of the Op- position. This group of Cannon followers is already publishing a paper of its own—the “Bulletin”"—a frankly counter-revolutionary organ resorting to the vilest slander of the Soviet Union. In Cleveland, New York, Kansas and in other districts, Trotsky- ism has also raised its ugly head, securing recruits in the ranks of the Opposition. ' In the Finnish fraction, the Right and Trotsky dangers for a while appeared extremely serious. Vicious attacks were launched against the Party forces in the non-Party organiz&tions by the no- torious right wing, opportunist crew of Sulkaneft, Askeli, Berg, Mor- son and Sallo, who have for years been the backbone of the Opposi- tion among the Finnish members. These enemies of the Party and the Comintern have all been expelled. Unquestionably, some tentacles of Trotskyism are still inside our Party. Cannon has instructed his followers to remain in the Party, to hide momentarily their opinions on Trotskyism in order to be able to attack the Central Executive Committee from inside the Party as well as outside. The danger for the Party in this maneuver of the Trotskyites is clearly brought home in the case of Swabeck, who only a few days before his outright acceptance of Trotskyism, voted against Trotskyism, for the expulsion of Cannon, Abern and Shachtman, and supported: the reservations of the Op- position. There is also to be noticed an increasing cooperation and unifi- cation among the Trotskyite anti-Party forces outside the Party. Lore and Cannon are again getting closer and closer. Cannon and Eastman are once more working hand in glove. The Volkszeitung, edited by Lore, has hailed the policy of Cannon & Co., has stretched out a hand of welcome to it and has roundly condemned the Central Executive Committee for its prompt and vigorous action against Trotskyism. The Hungarian Trotskyist organ edited by the ex- pelled right winger and social democrat, Baski, is already working openly with Cannon. We will soon see a unified common center of all Trotskyist anti-Party elements in the country. Every Party member must be awake to this growing menace of Trotskyism. To minimize or to close one’s eye to this danger, is to play into the hands of Trotskyism. Every Communist must rally to the unreserved support of the Party and the Comintern. No matter what Left phrase the Trotskyites may cover themselves with, the indisputable fact remains that today American Trotskyism is the amplifier and broadcaster for the socialist party and all enemies of the Communist Party—the megaphone of the vilest slander and at- tacks against the Communist movement and its leadership, against the Soviet Union and its achievements, CONFUSION AND BANKRUPTCY OF THE OPPOSITION. Why does the Opposition within the Party persist in minimizing the Trotsky danger? Why does the Opposition continue to call Trotskyism in the United States a Left danger when Trotskyism is day by day more and more openly counter-revolutionary, when it is bitterly against the Comintern? Merely because Trotskyism covers itself, its Right wingism, with Left phrases? Ig that the reason for Trotskyism being a Left deviation in the eyes of the Opposition? The whole line of the Opposition stands out as confusion worse con- founded when its sudden shifts on the question of Trotskyism are re- ~ What is the policy of the Central Execu- “ aon: peed ee Smash Trotskysim! Annihilate the Right Danger! Statement of the Central Executive Committee of Workers (Communist) Party PARTY PRE-CONVENTIO Defeat the Opposition! Unite the Party! On October 16th, Comrades Foster, Bittelman and Aronberg evaluated Trotskyism in the United States as an organic part of the Right danger. “Trotskyism has been correctly condemned by the Comintern as a Social Democratic, counter-tevolutionary’ tendency.- Trot- skyism employs Left phrases to cover up Right deeds. Comrade Cannon’s variety of Trotskyism in the United States constitutes a téndency to develop a Right wing orientation for the American section of the Comintern, under cover of re-onening for discussion the C. I. attitude on the question of Trotskyism. “The main dangers in our Party, as in the C. I., come in the present period from the Right. The Minority is committed to an uncompromising fight against the Right danger in our Party, no matter from where it comes or in what covers it makes its appearance. «+ “The Minority decides to wage a merciless fight against this Trotskyite maneuver of Comrade Cannon and to wage this fight as an organic part of its general struggle against the Right danger and the Right wing of our Party, (Lovestone group).” On October 16th, the Opposition correctly characterized Cannon's Trotskyism as “a Right wing orientation,” as “employing Left phrases to cover up Right deeds,” “as an organic part of ... the Right danger.” We will not examine here the ridiculous charge of the Op- position that the Central Executive Committee is the Right wing—a charge which the Comintern branded as unfounded. But on December 3rd the Opposition changed its front com- pletely and characterized Trotskyism as a Left error: “The objective meaning of the stand taken by the majority of the Centra] Executive Committee is to confuse the character- isties of Trotskyism as a Left deviation (CEC emphasis).” The Party realizes that there ig something vitally wrong with the stand of the Opposition when it is compelled to shift its position on so important a question as Trotskyism so quickly and so sharply in so short a time as from October 16th to December 3rd. On this latter date, the Ovposition right-about faced and spoke of Trotskyism in this new and totally opposite fashion from what it did on Noyem- -ber 16th: “Deviations to the Left in the American Party grow out of the same objective situation as Right deviations. . , .” Marvelous discovery indeed! “These numerically weak elements (the Trotskyites) are tending to lose faith in the Communist Party and in the possi- bilities of its growth. They also tend to lose faith in the Com- intern generallv. These elements have in the past and today rallied to Trotskyism.” Perhaps the Opposition would have the Party believe that Can- non has gone to the Left since October 16th, since he published his “Militant,” since he circulated non-Party individuals with anti-Party documents, since he openly launched his Trotskyist attack on the Central Executive Committee, the whole Party and the entire Com- tern, In that event the Opposition would have to conclude that the Comintern and its American section are to the Right of the Trotsky- Cannon Company. Has Swabeck gone to the Left since his open em- bracing of Trotskyism and his consequent expulsion from the Party? Have our Minnesota ex-members gone to the Left since their ex- pulsion for support of Cannon’s Trotskyism in addition to Shipstead? Maybe Doctor Konikow, Messers. Sulkanen, Askeli and Company, have gone to the Left’since their public adherence to the “Left devia- tion” of Trotskyism? To what depths of absurdity, to what unbelievable fallacies, do the political confusion and bankruptcy of the Opposition lead! Rely- ing on such false reasoning one would conclude: Those who have faith in the Comintern are to the Right; those who have lost faith in the Comintern are to the Left. What is the basis of all these errors creeping into the position of the Opposition? The answer is clear. The Opposition is confused and bankrupt in its whole analysis and conclusions relative to the Trotskyist and the Right danger in our Party. This confusion and bankruptcy flow primarily out of the fact that the Opposition within the Party (Foster-Bittelman-Aronberg) and the Opposition outside the Party (Cannon) still stand on the same platform for the United States—“The Right Danger in the American Party.” When Comrade Foster presented to the Comin- tern his position embodied in the ill-fated document, “The Right Danger in the American Party,” he declared before the Anglo- American Secretaziat on July 17th,*1928, as follows: “These groups, the so-called Cannon and Foster groups, have been working in an increasing cooperation since their coming to- gether in Moscow a year ago and are rapidly developing in the direction of a uniform and united movement.” However, the Opposition in its December 3rd statement, com- plained that Cannon is only: “Pretending to stand on the platform of the Minority, he has actually abandoned every principle incorporated in that docu- ment. “Already Cannon is forced openly to expose his abandonment of the platform of the Minority when he says that he is not ‘in agreement with ‘certain wrong formulations contained in it (Minority document) on the world position and role of American imperialism.’ In other words Cannon is forced to state that on the most basic proposition in the Minority point of view, namely, on the world position and role of American imperialism, Cannon does not share but is opposed to the point of view of the Minority.” It is not true that Cannon has repudiated the Platform entitled “The Right Danger in the American Party.” He expressed reserva- tions regarding some formulations in reference to the estimation of American imperialism. But on this very point, the estimation of the present trend of American imperialism, the Opposition itself has also made somewhat of a right-about face and changed its position in recent weeks. The common platform of the then joint Opposition (July-August- September, 1928) against the CEC thus characterized the trend of American imperialism: “An analysis of the degree of ripeness of these contradictions will show that American capitalism is about to reach the apex of growth. (Opposition’s emphasis.) But today the Opposition speaks somewhat differently. Compare the above estimate of the present trend of American capitalism given by the Opposition in “The Right Danger in the American Party” on July 17, 1928, with the following estimation of American imperialism it gave in its declaration of Decentber 3, 1928: “The maturing of the inner and outer contradictions of Amer- ican capitalism which takes place under conditions of continued upward development of United States imperialism. . . “While American imperialism is still developing upward, there are maturing internal and external contradictions.” (CEC emphasis.) , Again there is a shift. In July-September the Opposition spoke of Americen capitalism reaching the “onex of growth,” and having “exhausted its reserves.” Two months later, it characterized Amer- ican capitalism as “still developing upward” and “continued upward development of United States imperialism.” This confusion and political hankruptey of the Opposition are very sharply revealed in the difference between the estimate of radicalization of the workers in the United States it made in July- September, 1928, and the one it made in its December 3rd declaration. Speaking on radicalization before the Anglo-American Secre- tariat of the Comintern, on July 17, 1928, in behalf of the then united Opposition (Foster-Cannon-Bittelman) to the Central Execu- tive Committee, Foster declared that there was: “. , widespread leftward drift of the masses in the United States. There is a general growth of discontent, militancy and readiness tc struggle among the semi-skilled and unskilled work- era, (the bulk of the proletariat). A process of wide- spread and general radicalization is taking place in all industries among the most exploited sections of the workers. . .” (CEC empha’ Then Comrade Foster went on to pour sulphur and fire upon the Central Executive Committee by charging it with a: “Denial of the existence of a wide-spread and general left- ward or radicalization drift among the bulk of the American workers. . .” (CEC emphasis). Note another right-about face from the above extravagantly wrong estimation of radicalization, to the more modestly near-correct estimation of the same Opposition (minus Cannon of course) given in its declaration of December 3rd: “The process of radicalization which is slowly but definitely taking place among the large masses of the American work- Sse ce What has suddenly happened to the “wide-spread” and “general” radicalization among the “bulk” of the American proletariat? Where did the “general” leftward or radicalization drift among the “bulk” of the American working class disappear in recent weeks? Why is radicalization moving so “slowly” all of a sudden? Did the American working class move in the last few weeks, to the Right? Or, now that Cannon has left the Opposition, has it gone to the Right? Are such confusion and turtle-turning on the part of the Opposition the basis of their claim, their real qualifications, for the leadership of the American section of the Comintern? What is especially important to note that these sudden shifts in the sand-hills of the’ so-called Marxian analysis of the Opposition occur not on secondary issues, unimportant issues, but on the estimation of American imperialism and the radicalization of the working class, which issues the December 3rd_ statement of the Opposition itself characterizes as “the most basic proposition in the Minority point of view.” This confusion and political bankruptcy of the Opposition are neither new nor sudden, It is a system—an inherent political feature of the Opposition. Its gamut runs from material bourgeoisification of the American working class in June-September, 1927, to “sudden deep-going general radicalization” in June, 1928; from American im- peralism “about to reach tHe apex of growth” in July 1928 to “con- tinued upward development of United States imperialism” in Decem- ber, 1928; from Trotskyism as a “social democratic and counter- revolutionary tendency,” as a “right wing orientation,” as “an organic part of the Right danger” in October 1928 to “Trotskyism as a Left deviation” in December, 1928. Thus swings the “Marxian” pendulum of the Foster-“bourgeoisi- fication” to the Bittelman-“radicalization”; from the Bittelman- “apex of growth” to the Foster—“upward development”; from the Foster estimate of Trotskyism as a “Right wing orientation” to th» Bittelman estimation of “Trotskyism as a Left deviation.” Really, it’s about time, that the Foster-Bittelman Opposition, which claims the ideological leadership of the party, should decide who leads whom and where—Bittleman Foster, or Foster Bittelman. THE FIGHT AGAINST THE RIGHT DANGER AND TROTSKYISM. The Opposition cannot shake itself free from the shackles of unfounded accusations against’ the CEC and unwarranted, pretentious claims in its own behalf. That is why it charges the Central Execu- tive Committee with not fighting Trotskyism, with not fighting op- portunism. And that’s how it comes about that the Opposition is trying to place patently on its own masthead the banner of sole antagonism to Trotskyism and the Right danger. Very likely this grows out of the fact tnat the Opposition has given birth to both Lore, the arch-opportunist and original Trotskyite in the United States, and Cannon, the latest Trotskyist. The American Party, under the present leadership, has been in the forefront of the fight against Trotskyism from the moment it reared its head in the Comintern. Hence the slander and villification of our Party and its leadership by the Trotskyites of every country. There is scarcely a document by Trotsky which does not attack the American Party. And just as it is no accident that the Opposition gave birth to Lore and Cannon, so it is no accident that Lore and Cannon, as revering offspring, have @nly pats for the Opposition and slams for the Central Executive Committee. _ Several years ago, the Party launched a fight against and drove out from its ranks such crass op) rtunists as Salutsky, Lore and East- man. Notorious Right wingers, outright opportunists like Sulkanen, Askeli & Co., have long been under the fire of the Central Executive Committee, while the Opnosition was seeking to shelter them and turn the attack against the Left, the genuine, the proletarian, the Com- munist elements in the ranks of the Finnish comrades. Under the leadership of the Central Executive Committee, the Party has reor- ganizd itself on the basis of shop and street nuclei; has abolished the Social Democratic language federation system; has adopted the Party’s first Communist election platform; has worked out a Leninist anti-war platform; has laid the beginnings of mass work among the Negroes; farming masses, and the youth; in the face of terrific objective difficulties the Party has begun the actual organization of the unorganized and exercised strike leadership on a large scale. Above all, the Party has initiated and has been increasingly learning the practice of merciless self-criticism, of the errors of the Central Committee, of the errors of the entire Party. The Central Committee has consistently fought opportunist errors. Sharp self-criticism, notably of opportunist errors in the 1927 election campaigns, and in the trade union work of the Party, as evidenced in the unanimously adopted Thesis at the last February Plenum. The May Plenum reso- lution has severely condemned such opportunist Right wing errors as evidenced in the Panken case, the open letter to the National Socialist Party, the resistance in Minnesota to the Party policy of fighting Shipstead, the manifestations of white chauvinism and such pacifist errors as the “ston the flood of blood” policy in our fight against American imperialism in Nicaragua. An energetic policy against the Right danger and against toler- ance of any of its manifestations, as well as a frank self-criticism, characterized the policy of the Party Delegation at the Sixth World Congress of the Comintern. Since the return of the delegation, the Party has intensified its fight against the Right danger, of which Trotskyism is today the cressest expression in the United States. We repeat from the Central Executive Committee declaration of November 16: “In the present international situation, the Right danger is the main danger within the Communist International and in its American section. The Right danger has its roots in the stabilization of capitalism and in the existence of reformism in the labor movement which retains its hold on large sections of the working class.” On the basis of the unqualified¢é—— — recognition of the fact that the| trialization, of breaking the Right danger is the chief danger | liance of the working class with | day and that every Party must fight! the peasantry, in spreading dis- it as such, the Central Executive; belief in the possibility of build- Committee has fully endorsed the ing Socialism in one country— position of the Central Committee represents the ‘Left’ danger in of the Communist Party of the So- the Soviet Union and leads to viet Union and the Party Confer-| the restoration of capitalism. ence of the. Communist Party of But after the decisive defeat of Germany, in their fight against the Trotskyism, organizationally as Right danger and those who show well as ideologically the main tolerance of the Right. | danger today in the Soviet Internationally, and in the Soviet, Union is outright opportunism, Union, Trotskyism has been defi- whichunderestimates the nitely defeated. The main danger| strength of the kulaks and Nep- facing the Comintern as a whole, is; men, refuses to see the intensi- therefore no longer opportunism) fication of the class struggle in covering itself with Left phrases,| the Soviet Union, demands the but outright opportunism—outright slowing down of industrializa- Right wingism. Hence the resolution tion, spreads skepticism about adopted by the Central Executive the possibility of the collectiv- Committee on December 1, declared: ization of agriculture—all of “Trotskyism—in over-estimat- | which means the disarming of ing the capitalist forces, in ad- | | the Communist Party and the vocating a policy of over-indus- working class before the class s | | democratic. Jis an open ally of the c | elements enemy and increases the chances for the reestablishment of cap- italism in the Soviet Union. “Not only the interests of the working class of the Soviet Union but the interests of the international proletariat also demand an uncompromising struggle against Trot against outright opportunistic tendencies, and against all t erance tov such tendencies, all conciliatory attempts to cover up and protect such out- right opportunism.” ed States Trotsky- But in the 4 the con- growing menace. outbreak in our ve situation for renegade Cannon overtime to split . ideology tode counter-revolutior around Cannon, Lore and E I our Pa openly the government, the social the A. F. of L., in t wipe out the Communist Party. In its present form in the United States, Trotskyism is the most com- posite and consistent system of op- portunism. The platform of Trotsky- ism in the United States is today the rallying point of all Right wing within and outside our Party. The complete destruction of Trotskyism in our Party can be | realized only ‘thru an uncompromis- ing, relentless fight against every manifestation of the Right danger, thru merciless self-criticism of all errors, of all mistakes made by the Central Executive Committee and by the Party as a whole; thru a most thorough mobilization of all Party forces to isolate and annihi- late the renegades, near-social dem- ocrats, liquidators and splitters. In the United States, Trotskyism has never rallied to its banner any support from the Left. The very opposite has been the ease. Whom has Trotskyism ever rallied to its support but the extreme Right wing elements in our Party? Look at this galaxy of opportunists who have flocked to Trotsky’s Menshevik standard: Lore, who was condemned by the Fifth Congress and Fifth Plenum of the Comintern as a two- and-a-half internationalist and who was unanimously expelled by the Fourth Convention of our Party as an incurable opportunist; Salutsky, a defender of the reactionary trade union bureaucracy’s faith; Eastman, avowed anti-Marxian and once sup- | porter of Woodrow Wilson and his imperialist war plans; Askeli, una- nimously condemned by the Fourth Convention of our Party for his Right wing errors; Sulkanen, for years the symbol of the crassest a tional social democracy against the Commun Finally the Sixth World Congress generated to Menshevism in it nal questions a ively, become t an organ strugg! the Soviet power... of against “The Congress conside: superfluous to discuss with enemies of the Comintern the ter-revolutionary political content of the Trotskyist plat- for fter the combined mem- bership unist Par- ties ha y and most emph ected the stand- e or less vism, but in the red under the mask of. ultra-left phrase The first Trot- skyist outbreak after Lenin’s death wa: ist” deviation. In Ger- many, in Italy, in the Soviet Union’ it attracted towards the close of this rst stage of development the ad- herence of ultra-leftist groups (Ruth Fisher, Bordiga, and remnants of the Workers’ Opposition). But in the later and last stage of its evolu- tion, Trotsk; arrived thru the very logic of ing in the core always opportunistic in its ideology to outright opportunistic, half so- cial-democratic, near-Menshevik con- clusions. Immediately before and soon after its expulsion, the Trotsky- ist group become a tool of the so- cial democracy, the rallying center of all opportunist elements in the sm |Comintern and an openly counter- revolutionary factor which object- ively renders help to overthrow the Soviet government and aims at the destruction of the Comintern. This is the history of the trans- formation of Trotskyism from a “Leftist” ideology (right deeds and Left phrases) to an outright oppor- tunistic, counter-revolutionary sys- tem. But, of course, only the me- chanically minded can think that Trotskyism cannot occupy here and there even today in certain given situations, or in a given country, a Leftist position. Such is for exam- ple the case today in the Soviet Union. Trotskyism advocates today in Soviet Russia a program of over- industrialization which was correctly characterized by Comrade Stalin in his October 19th speech before the Plenum of the Moscow Committee as a Left deviation in contrast to | the platform of the outright oppor- tunists who advocate a platform of jopportunism in the ranks of our) the slowing’ down of industrializa- Finnish comrades; and lastly, Can-| tion, But this concrete, single, ultra- non, who resisted the expulsion of Salutsky, who proposed the expul- sion of five thousand Left workers | from our Party because they did not immediately accept the proposals of the Central Executive Committee for the organization of an open Party. This is the same “Left” Cannon who was censured by the Fifth Congress of the Comintern: “The comrades gathered around the other group, such as Comrades Hathaway and Can- non, have made a number of declarations which show that in their efforts to secure influ- ence on the petty-bourgeoisie, they failed to maintain the Com- munist position.” The Comintern’s characterization of Trotskyism, which began as a “Left” deviation and developed in its last stage into an out-and-out social democratic deviation has proven to be correct. Thus, Comrade Stalin, at the Oc- tober, 1927, Plenary meeting of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the Commu- nist Party of the Soviet Union, said of Trotskyism: “From Trotskyism to ‘Men- shevism’ to the fundamental question of degeneration—that is the way of the Trotskyites in the last three years. “The Trotskyites have changed ...” And in his concluding speech at the Fifteenth Congress of the Com- munist Party of the Soviet Union, Comrade Stalin further said: “Comrade Rakovsky main- tains that the opposition is the Left wing of our Party. This would make a cat laugh. Such statements are evidently made to salve the conscience of poli- | mittee has a differcnt left position of Trotskyism does not and cannot change the general characterization of Trotskyism on an international scale, or as an in- ternational phenomenon, as a coun- ter-revolutionary tool of social-dem- ocracy, as a Menshevik flag of all Right elements as stated by Com- rade Stalin and Bukharin, by the Convention of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the World Congress of the Comintern. But in the face of all these char- acterizations, the Opposition within the Party still persists in arguing falsely that Trotskyism is a Left deviation today in the United States and that the policy of the Central Executive Committee on Trotskyism is in conflict with that of the Com-* N DISCUSSION SECTION st International thus 2 intern, The Oppostion in its Decem- + bert Third statement declares: “In the present struggle against both the Right danger and against Trotskyism, the minority proposes that the Par- ty shall follow the line laid down by the Communist Inter- national. the majority of the Central Committee of our Party and em- bodied in its statement is con- trary to the Comintern on this question...” This is the point of view of the minority on the question. It is not the point of view of the Central Executive Committee which makes Trotskyism the main danger in the Party and obscures and weakens the strug- gle against the Right deviations and the Right danger.” If the Executive Com- line on the Trotsky question than the C, I. has as the Opposition maintains, then why did the Comintern only a few Central | days ago (November 30th) call upon The line adopted by © Bukharin said: Comintern characterized Trotsky- | ism in this fashion: “ tical bankrupts. It has been proven that the opposition is a Menshevik wing of our Party, that the opposiiivi las degen- erated into Menshevism, that the opposition has been object- ively converted into an instru- ment of bourgeois elements.” t the same Congress, Comrade | the C. E. C. “to mobilize the whole | Party” against Trotskyism? And if |there was the slightest grain of | tratn in the Opposition’s cnarge that |the Central Executive Committee was conducting a weak fight against Trotskyism and the Right danger, why did the C. I. very recently en- |dorse the vigorous measures taken by the Central Executive Committee against Trotskyism? What is more, if Trotskyism were not a serious | menace to the Party, then why does | the C. I. urge that the whole Party be mobilized to isolate and defeat Trotskyism? “The argument that an ultra- Left wing exists that stands to the Left of us, and of which Trotskyism is the embodiment, is exceedingly wrong.” Then the Ninth Plenum of the Obviously, the viewpoints of the Comintern and the Opposition on the question of the estimate of the Right danger and Trotskyism are at variance. Either the Comintern: ; is wrong or the Opposition is wrong. The Central Executive Committee “All the worst elements of the working class movement, the openly opportunist elements in the Communist movement, all the little groups of renegades that were thrown out of the ranks of the Comintern, now rally around the Trotskyist plat- form of the fight against the Soviet Union, against the Com- munist Party of the Interna- | |the Comintern and unqualifiedly re- jects the policy of the Opposition in minimizing the Trotsky meénace and in misrepresenting Trotskyicm in Continued on next page A unreservedly accepts the position of a # an ¥ ia}