The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 29, 1929, Page 3

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUE PARTY PRE-CONVENTION DISCUS ' > By EARL BROWDER ¥° and JOSEPH ZACK. The approaching congress of the American C, P. is marked by a sharp factional struggle. The basis of this struggle is a deep principle differ- ence as to the correct orientation of | the Party; the differences arise from two opposite perspectives of Amer- ican imperialist development. The main body of the Party membership is aligned on one side or the other side of this controversy, while out- side the Party, recently excluded, stands a small Trotskyist group | ane its head since the fea Sixt inciple |. fae Be the eae coe rmnetnle| writings and speeches of the Love- establish the struggle against the | *one-Benver EO eo present.) 3.—There is no general process of Right danger, as the main danger of the Party; secondarily, it is to} Lies overcome and liquidate the danger Tdicalization of the masses, but of Trotskyism; thirdly, it is to stabil- | Tather the opposite theory of “brib- ize the Party leadership. In what) ¢ty of larger strata of the working relation do these tasks stand to the ‘lass’; analysis of elections as a | | | Lovestone, “Communist,” July, 1928; speeches at Sixth Congress of Love- stone and Pepper; Lovestone’s on Sixth Congress to New membership, etc.) 2.—This American “exceptional- line of the C. I. as applied to Amer- i (This theory pervades all’ the groupings within the American | “sweeping victory for reaction”; Party? characterization of the sectional Is There i ii crises in coal, garment, oil and tex- % J ENED AnERE an | tile industries, as “crises of growth,” jlaynig a basis for “greater expan- 48 question may seem super-' sion of American - imperialism. ‘luous, since now the whole Part; C r ‘peaks of the Right danger. But | ae Pies ee 8 significant that the Majority of ee sib eucati ai ne ne vii he C 1 “ _| increasingly coming under the in- eta rumuttee, (Lovestone | uses ctthat Auk ofl. which wil *epper leadership) strenuously de-| ‘ ‘ - tied the existence of a Right danger | Probably Fee a ren borin or nt = growth, while the prospect of an in- he oe Ge eS dependent movement of workers, the he Minority leadership (Bittelman |¢St#Plishment of new unions on the ind others) as being ultra-left. They | basis of class struggle is very poor used themselves organizationally | ™4eed- (Their struggles ee ny nd politically with all the formerly-|Pt0fintern Congress; Pepper's ar- ecognized Right wing elements and | Biles) sCommuniaty Hanes Se endencies within the Party. Up lle as aa a eee) he Sixth Congress, it was impos-| 5—It is necessary that the Party ible to attack any manifestation of Program should be “A Program for he Right danger, without finding | Prosperity.” (See Wolfe, “Commu- ‘under the protection of (or an or-| nist,” July, 1927.), and should not anie part of it) the Central Com- | base itself upon the growing con- rittee leadership. The ECCI on sey-| ttadiction of American imperialism. ral occasions, before and at the! With such an orientation as the ixth Congress, sharply criticized! foregoing, it is inevitable that the ie grossest manifestations of this|Lovestone-Pepper group fell into ‘ystallizing Right wing line, and/ the grossest opportunism, and that ‘re also, by the logic of facts, the|it fought against the Minority of ‘iticism necessarily found itself di-| the Party as “ultra-Left.” (It is veted primarily against the Major-| only in the last weeks, under the y of the Central Committee. From | necessity to find a “Right danger” lese facts it is established: |against which to fight, that they 1.—There is a serious Right dan-| have accused the Minority of being or in America. the Right wing.) 2.—The Lovestone-Pepper leader-| The Minority has proposed and lip refused to recognize the danger | fought for a program and tactics itil forced to do so by the C. I. | which were based upon an entirely 3.—The Right danger is especially | different orientation. The Minority cute in America because it has|views have the following character- metrated into the highest leader- | istics, as contrasted with the Ma- report| the form of. colonial York The gap between productive capa-| ism. tip of the Party. Two Contradictory Perspectives. It is no accident that the Love- one-Pepper leadership could not e the Right danger. This followed sically from their basic orienta-| m, which has the following char- teristics: 1—They maintain that while the st of the capitalist world is in an ute crisis, America is an exception this respect, and that its per- | jority: (For substantiation, see es- | pecially document to the Congress, entitled “The Right Danger in the| American Party,” | speeches): 1, America is {becoming involved | crisis of capitalism. | period” 1923-27, and Congress more and more in the world The “prosperity exhausted the pos- sibilities of expansion of the home market, which is now shrinking with every new technical advance. DAY, JANUARY 29, 1929 tegs nu B SION SE In the world market, American im- perialism is ¢ver more sharply en- rival imperialists, in the form of sharper price-competition as well as monopolies. |eity and actual production is con- | stantly widening; the number of ism” applies to the whole tactical) Workers engaged in industry is posi- | | tively shrinking; structural * unem- | ployment has\ made its appearance in. America ifvolving millions of | workers. . Therefore, further expan- | sion ‘leads inevitably to more dras- tic attacks upon. the living stand- ards .of ‘the masses and to an at- | tempt atthe armed redivision of the world’s markets. This is thus the period’ of approaching the apex of growth of American imperialism. 2. The foregoing factors are ranidly eliminating any “exception- al” features of American imonerial- ism which might require a different tactical line for the C. I. in Amer- ica; more and more do American problems fit in to the tactical world orientation of the C. I. 3. There is a general process of radicalization of the masses, as yet vague and undefined but deep and full of potentiality. Already our Party has found itself, as a whole, dragging behind this process of radicalization, and it required the beginnings of independent mass ac- tions, undertaken even sometimes without the participation or knowl- edge of our Party (Colorado min- | ers, textile, coal, subways, oil, auto- mobiles) to force even the Minority bs ; | | into an energetic struggle for a re- orientation cf the Party generally on this question. 4, The A; F. of L. continues to move to the Right, incorporating it- self more fully into the capitalist structure in every sense, and nar- | rowing its base even more to a few | Privileged or highly skilled groups (building, printing). This fact, in , conjunction with the beginnings of | radicalization of the masses, makes |mecessary and inevitable the rise of |a new mass labor movement, organ- ized outside the A. F. of L. into new unions. The conscious wing elements must set the organ- ization of the unorganized into new unions as their central task in this period. 5. It is necessary that the Party program shall base itself upon an exposure of the illusions of “pros- |perity” which have no reality for Left | | by alliance with the colonial inde-| line of policy extending over a period | | pendence movements and unity with the leading elements of the Minority. |the revolutionary workers of all | During 1926-1927 the Minority itself jlands. It must struggle against| was engulfed in the swamp of op- |every tendency to adjust itself to|portunism in which the whole Party | “prosperity” of American imperial-| of years, generally accepted by all |labored, and therefore its half-blind These are the two perspectives | struggles within the Party tock on which are struggling for mastery | the appearance of unprincipled fac- of the American Party. The first | tionalism, although in reality they | perspective is represented by the| Were rather the expression of lack | present Majority (Lovestone-Pep- | of political maturity, |Per); the second perspective is that! 9. Lack of a thoroughly homo- of the Minority (Bittelman, John-’ geneous character. It is not an acci- | criticism the Lovestone-Pepper Ma- | jority has greatly modified the ex- {pressions of its line, but it still | stubbornly clings to its essential | features, striving to hide them un- der a cloak of phrases, to conceal |them in lengthy, interminable docu- |ments, while it conducts the sharp- lest kind of factional struggle |against the Minority which raised the issue of the Right danger, and which has been fighting for a line |in America closer to that of the Cot | The Weaknesses of the Minority. | Although the Minority has been | conducting during 1928 an essen- | tially correct struggle within the | American Party, still it would be | wrong to use this fact to avoid dis- jeussion of the weaknesses of the| | Minori Equally incorrect would! lit be to s peak only of the strong), se . camps, ‘and | points of the Minority, which are|f" suddenly changing S | vering between groups; generally well known in the C. 1, |f01, menchven ne oe this knowledge, (Such as its proletarian character, |the Minority took Cannon into its |contrasted with the intellectualist-|jeadership, nominated him onto the | artistic composition of the Love-| Program Commission of the Sixth stone-Pepper leadership; its long ex- | Congress and proposed him for even perience in the American class-| higher posts. This reflects a lack | struggle, contrasted with the Love-| o¢ thorough, searching self-analysis | Stone-Pepper group, most of which | and self-criticism within the Min- |graduated from the colleges and | ority which it must certainly cver- juniversities into the Central Com-| come before it can be considered a |mittee of the Party; its “American” satisfactory nucleus for the re-con- origin and base in the movement, | stituted leadership of the American leontrasted with the “foreign-| party language group” origin and base of | by Bee | the Lovestone-Pepper group; etc.,| 3. Lack of a unified understand- jete.) ling of its own origin and history, For the Minority at present, a | very searching self-criticism will be | ,of much more value than constantly | |to boast about its strong points. It) | Minority, that Cannon could have jbeen one of its leading members | right up to the moment when he de- cided to openly declare his Trotsky- ism. To attempt from this, as | Lovestone does, to infer a funda- | mental Trotskyist tendency, to the | Minority, is only factional slander; evaded by the Minority, which is, that the Minority has not been suffi- ciently concentrated upon the neces- sity of advancing to leading posi- tions only those elements who mani- festly contribute to a homogeneous, stable leadership. Cannon’s Trot- skyism was a secret until October, | but it was no secret to the Minority | that Cannon was very unstable, that he had been an element of instability in Party leadership for years, that his chief capacity has always been of the Party as a whole, An ex: of this weakness, and its possi |bad effects, is seen in the unifica- but its true significance must not be | also has its weak points, and unless these are relentlessly searched out | and energetically overcome, the} | Minority cannot effectively fulfill | | its function as the nucleus for a} tion with the Cannon group without | The Right Danger and Trotskyism in America spectives are for. “unlimited expan: sion” and “bigger prosperity than in the period just concluded.” (See countering the limitations raised by of principle directed against the!succeeded in doing the following Minority, things: Why do we, supporters of the| 1. Strengthened Cannon and i y, occupy so much time in| Trotskyism, Some workers, espe- ising the Minority instead of|cially outside the Party, believe the Majority Lovestone-Pepper Cannon and Lovestone when both of leadership? the ay the same thing, namely, For two principal reasons: (1) The Lovestone-Pepper group already stands condemned for its political line. (2) It the Minori future lead Party and the C. tribution in that direction, The Problem of Trotsky. the special task of y, as the nucleus of the This is a con- that Lovestone is the logical repre- entative of C. I. leadership in America, and judging the C. I, from what they know of Lovestone (who s concrete and near to them) they turn against the C, I. leadership. pes * i t take up seriously the gle| 2, Turned the attention of the Dunes). Unaee quite, Browder, | dent, but rather one expression of a oainet its own defects, and to de |Party away from the real Right Pet tne Tiree tears Gre | SeoUs Political weakness in the| <> in the open before the whole|wing danger, which finds, its hase in T ism but in the re- mist-trade-unionism of America; hereby Lovestone-Pepper hope to ape the examination of their own not The sudden outbreak of Trotsk Right wing theories and ism in America, through the « nel of Cannon and his friends, has| 9, Within the Party, mobilized increased the difficulties of the |their supporters on the assumption Party for the moment, although the Minority as disguised Trot- ‘ S a he s: ime = eventually it may prove to have ee ye eG boon a healthy pargative, siding | Arcevcan Paty t arty ssentially unhealthy | z ‘ Pena cra ipieicis Gen. | ia. Cheated’a wad condacion among non's influence will prove—has |the membership, and especially proved—very small, and to raise, as mong. the non-Party sympathize Lovestone has done, the ery of dan- |Y their metaphysical juggling with zer of a split in the Party, is fac-|the categories of “Left and - “Right,” in order to substantiate Trotskyism. lies wealthy middle-class liberals close to the Part: many tens of thousa: who follow our leadership lirade union struggles. It is very ds of worker: easy to obtain an almost unanimous of condemnation within the Pa Cannon and Trotskyism, but a more difficult and complic left-wing masses. | This phase of the struggle against not to speak of the origin and history | Trotskyism has been completely ple | brushed aside by the Lovestone- ple |Pepper leadership, in favor of a pretation of the Trot- | special. inter; t kyist danger, invented to fit their ional demagogy directed toward an- other purpose than the fight against The danger of Trot- | kyism, and of Cannon, in America, in that with the support of it | spreads its poison of suspicion and distrust toward the Comintern and toward the Soviet Union among the masses of workers outside of but among those in the k to overcome the effects of his | fi ropaganda among the non-party, sae : own factional needs of the moment. a principle understanding on the |“ ech Ei) . Sy aaiaantal issues which in the past | They proclaimed to the Party, that: we + Hees | (1) The only channel open to sup- had divided it trom the Minority. | 114 the C. T..and the Soviet Union, jtheir factional strategy. Tt is perhaps in its handling of the Trotskyist problem in America that |the Lovestone-Pepper group has the | most crassly revealed its essentially opportunist-ndventurist features for jall to see who care to, throughout the world as well as in America. America, after all, is still largely unknown to most Parties of the mintern, and the C. I. leadership itself is only too well aware of the insufficiency of our present knowl- edge and analysis of the American \problems. But Trotskyism is an old jand familiar problem by now to all, stone-Pepper mishand- sue, from obvious fac- tional considerations, stands out of the American scene like a mountain, clear and unescapable, 's, In spite of incidental er . quickly corrected (such as the echo of Lovestone-Pepper theory in the Oct. 16 statement), the Minority has contributed much to make the strug- gle against Trotskyism a real ideo- logicai struggle (as well as an or- ganizational one to break all its holds on our movement), to raise Bolshevist, stable leadership around) 4. A tendency within the Min- jwhich the American Party can be ority to, overemphasize immediate | unified. prectical results (the obverse side What are some of these weak- | nesses? A few of the most im-| |the masses, upon the growing | acuteness of the class struggle, upon the ripening contradictions of Amer- ‘ican imperialism at home and abroad, upon an energetic struggle against rationalization and the war | danger, upon the necessary “inter- nationalizing” of the working class follows: line. lis through support of the Love Pepper group. (2) That Trots! | Cannonism. is ‘the most consistent of one of its strong points, namely, | and developed system of opportun-, its immersion in mass work), some-|ism” and. that it is the “rallying listed as|times at the expense of its main center of opportunism in America Min eee This tendency has been the) both inside and outside the Party.” ; 1. Lack of a coherent, clarified basis of most of the charges of leck With this program Lovestore has to support the C. I. and Soviet | the political level of the Party, and to combat its influence among the non-Party masses. It has completely smashed the legend, so comfortable |for Cannon and Trotskyists the world over, that in America only | Lovestone-Pepper provide the means = ween nn) Union. It wiil continue the struggle |to the final iiquidation of Trotsky. |ism as an influence among the merican workers. For the Line of the Sixth Congres The Minority in the America Party believes that its struggle be fore and after the Sixth Congres: is essentially a struggle for the lin of the C. I., and especially a strug gle for the application of the Sixt! Congress line to America withou reservations. While the Minority at the Sixth Congress expressed it disappointment that the door wa not closed finally upon the theory; of American “exceptionalism” in th: Congress resolutions, but only b; implication, while Lovestone-Peppe were allowed unchallenged to clain the Congress decisions as C. I. sup port for their theories and prac tices in America, yet the Minority was then and since, not expressine reservations to the line of the Sixtt Congress but on the contrary de manding the full application of tha line to America. The Lovestone Pepper group, on the contrary, ha: not corrected its line in the ligh of the th Congress. It has re peated former errors in ever more gross forms, restating it: theory of American “exceptional ism,” surrendering to the craft ideology of the Right wing elements jin the garment trad continuing jits support and protection to the |Right wing in the co-operatives | placing Right wing elements in con- | trol cf the anti-imperialist work ete., ete. Its concessions to the Sixth Congress line have been nure- ly formal, and of the nature of me- chanical repetition of phrases, but have not touched the practical work of the Party. In the most imper- missable manner they have made 2 factional football of the Trotskyist issue. They have convinced very many responsible comrades, who at the time of the Sixth Congr were still in doubt, of the opportunist and adventurist nature of their leader- ship of the American Party. In the light of all these facts. the coming Party Congress must defi- nitely liquidate these Right wing elements in its leadershin by plac- ing them in a minority, by placing the Party condemnation upon their theories, by revivifying the Party leadership with new proletarian ele- ments around the nucleus of the present Minority. Upon the basis of a corrected line, and with the as- sistance of the Comintern, the two large groupings into which the Par- ty is now divided, must be fused together into a united, solidified Party fully determined to complete its process of Bolshevisation, and \to lead the American working class through all ‘its’ partial struggles, jover all its immense difficulties, to | tha conquest of power over Amer- jican imperialism. its \ Criticism ot the Party Opposition By A. B.* Many comrades in the building tides approached me with the estion, are you with the Major- American imperialism surely could sides,” ete. ? I am sure that as a proletar-|0t fail to see the industrialization | said, 1 element, they trust in my sin- ‘ity and I think I owe this open itement as to why I support the England, they could not fail to see| our mistakes and shortcomi 1C thesis and am not for the Op- sition. first, about some methods in this tional fight, that do not appear | asant. They were committed by! h gtoups; those who are engaged a tight are always liable to lose| million, with the U. S. in the best the Minority |position to develop them as consum- | put forward ir balance. = Now, comrades, the” Communist | ernational, and the Workers ommunist) Party of America, as ection of the International, have their final goal Communism, and ir revolutionary duty on the way this goal. The Communist Inter- ional is confronted with a social ueture that creates some very icate problems, with an enemy t has many complicated means fighting Communism. Our forces, " masses, cannot be taken biolo- ally, as animals; they must be died socially, ideologically. In rt, for laying out our policy we 3t be on guard to have a scien- 2 estimation of what is confront- us. The policy, the political ,is the main thing that we have watch. ‘or the general mass of Party nbers, it is easier to see the er- s that their leaders are making she course of their activity; but question of a correct line is not »asy to detect and this has been ven by revolutionary experience. vrong line, a wrong policy, is the n danger in a_ revolutionary ty. he Communist International was .cturally guided by these facts. have the highest tribunal of the ership of the World proletariat, C. I, to guard our sections in different countries. But before Third International was created, had cases where Oppositions in arty were built to fight for a rect policy (as in the Russian al Democratic Labor Party) and 1 Oppositions were necessary. The Sixth World Congress. __9w we will come to the Sixth ld Congress of the Comintern _ the American question. Among _ Opposition followers there is a sspread belief that Moscow was well informed on the situation America. This is not correct. _ Minority had as great an op- unity as the Majority to pre- - their facts. The truth of the er was that it was hard to con- » | ead Those leading comrades of the world proletariat who made scien- tifie surveys on the resources of |of the South is more than a shift- | ing of the textile industry from New another industrial expansion (on a great area with a backing of sur- plus capital ready to pour in), They could not overlook Latin America with her big natural re- sources, a total population of 80 ers. estimation of the resources American imperialism, which is striving for world hegemony, is fast creating those external contradic- tions which are creating the an- tagonistic groupings and regroup- ings in the preparation that brings the war danger nearer. The leadership of the world prole- tariat could not find the radicaliza- tion of the American masses to the degree that our Opposition esti- mated it. They could not see a gen- eral radicalization, because a gen- eral radicalization is a stage of de- velopment where the workers of a country, as a class, begin to re- alize that in order to solve their problems, some radical changes must take place in the social and political life of the country, Sorry, but we haven’t got it as yet in America. Even Smith’s vote is the ordinary course in American poli- ties for decades, the course of ups and downs. A republican adminis- tration, dissatisfaction, masses turn to the democratic party. A demo- cratic administration, dissatisfac- tion, masses turn to the republican party, ete, The “general radicalization” and the “apex theory” of our American Opposition were thrown into the waste basket in Moscow as a wrong estimation. Our American Minority brought before the Sixth World Congress of the Comintern a long statement, a big list of accusations against the Majority leadership of the American CEC and in the main poift accused the present Majority leadership of being a Right wing leadership. The Opposition asked the Comintern to send an open let- ter to the American Party member- ship to educate them, by which they meant, to tell the membership that their present Majority leaders are misleading them. The Sixth World Congress of the Comintern, having all the minutes, and all the facts presented by both sides, came to the estimation as we all know, “that the comrades such as Bukharin,' present leadership was the stalwart: AS TRUE LEFT WINGERS jleader of the American masses in stubborn struggles,” “that mis- |takes were committed by both (By a Packing House Worker.) The Political Bureau! Cannon and his followers say that “that the charges against the the Party and its leadership is not |present Majority as a Right wing sroletarian; that he, Cannon, is real | City will make proletarian leader- | Majority are unfounded” and that! revolutionary, - real proletarian. |ship without him, because we ex- ings shall| When he says this, he is a faker. | pelled some Cannonites, and now the th Party His followers in Kansas City are | workers will take control of the con- not workers, they are small busi- vention. The last convention was After the thesis of the Comin-|ness men. At the last convention | stolen from us. If Cannon came tern was adopted unanimously by|thesCannon group had a majority back to the Party he would put his the leadership of 54 countries, Com-| in the convention and in the D. E. C. | bunch of non-proletarians into Party jrade Jack Johnstone in the name of | How many members did they choose | control. One of his followers by the the Party and he will make the Party proletarian. Cannon is liar. This convention in Kansas be thrashed out in the Six Convention, | Opposition in America the declaration of dis- They had to make a careful) agreement with paragraph 49 (8/D. E. C.? reservation to the Comintern on the American question (according to the political dictionary). The Party Discussion. The American question brought before the American >rty |membership for discussion. The pro- logue was Cannon’s Trotskyism. Our Opposition turned up their sleeves to fight the Right danger in Amer- ica. But what Right danger? The Right danger of the present Major- ity of the CEC. And what about Trotskyism? Well, Trotskyism’ is a Left danger and the main danger is the Right danger and as the Ma- jority of the CEG (according to the Opposition) is Right wing, we have to concentrate cur fight on the Maj- ority of the CEC. Well, before we go further, I want you comrades to look in the pamph- let on the Fourth Party Conven- tion proceedings, page 70, paragraph 4, Resolution by the at-that-time Majority CEC (which means Bittel- man, Foster, Dunne, and others of the present Opposition). The reso- lution says, “to concentrate our forces to fight the Right deviations of Trotskyism.” I want to ask our leaders, “since when did Trotskyism turn“to the Left?” Now as to why the present Ma- jority is a Right wing leadership? And the Opposition tells us in their thesis (thesis of the Minority—Daily Worker). “It overestimates the power of American imperialism. It underestimates the trend of radical- jism of the American masses, ete.” Well, comrades of the Opposition, according to procedure of the Sixth World Congress, this which you call overestimation and underestimation, this which you term “Right danger” is a matter not only of Lovestone and associates, but also of Bukharin and associates, and thesis of the from packing house workers, rail- ‘ay workers and coal miners for the They elected one mem- of points) on the American question—j|ber and that is myself, and now |Party policy. Only recently he re- |Cannon has nerve enough to speak about proletarianizing the Party leadership. The Party members name of Kassin has always been a [FAKERS MASQUERADING The Platform of the T'rotsk y Opposition in the Soviet Union (Today we reprint the sections of the Trotsky Opposition platform in the Soviet Union, dealing with the very important question of housing and improvement of production, to- gether with replies by the Politbu- reau of the C. P. S. U. While the figures are not up to the minute, they deal with the situation which existed at the time that Trotsky made his proposals. There has, of elds ' The American aspects of Trotsky. ism are being taken up in the gen- cral Party discussion now under} way- or.) } * THE OPPOSITION ON THE | HOUSING QUESTION. “The amount of floor space for | the workers usually considerably lower than the average space en- joyed by the urban population, The |5-year course, been. progress in all workers employed in the largest in- since the time that this material was | dustrial cities fare worse in regard written, to housing than any other section of fused to let a committee from the| The Trotsky question is not a|the population. An investigation I. L. D. and Civil Liberty Union Russian 4uestion, but one that af-|Made into the distribution of floor |speak at a Jewish mass meeting. |fects the international+working class | SPace in various cities shows the fol- |vight winger (now he says he is left winger.) He always fights was | from the shops not only oppose Can- | The Committee wanted to speak for non when he comes out for Trotsky, |but we fought him always. We al- | ways supported the C. E. C. because the C, E. C. leadership is a real Communist group. Only those who \look for jobs fight the C. E. C. Cannon wants to be the leader of out. ;movement. However, it is highly Parties throughout the world. And this is really where you stand now. You claim that you have the | Second International. correct line on the American ques-| Our Minority Opposition in this tion, implying that the Comintern| pre-convention discussion has the wrong line. Now who shall! would call it, “political” cam: decide which line is the correct have tried the methods of ordinary line? | American politicians, who are ham- Suppose the majority of the mem- ™mezing on the weaker spots, on the bership of the American Party, shorteomings of their political anta- guided by a certain sentiment, would | gonist. decide that our American Opposi-| Not having enough success with tion has the correct estimation, the! their long list of accusations in correct line. What would it mean? | Moscow where both sides of the Are the majority of our Party mem- | story could be judged, they took bers fully equipped with the data | these accusations against the Ma- on American economy? Are they | jority leadership, multiplied them equipped with the knowledge of our before their followers, multiplied national and international relations,'them again behind the closed doors to make a thoro survey of facts in| of the caucuses to such an extent relation to American imperialism? | that some weak Party elements got It would create a situation where | the impression that we haven't done it would be the duty of the C. I. to/ anything, we are betraying them, educate the majority of our Party we are brainless, etc. Well, and membership to the fact that they | how is it that Moscow has another are guided by a wrong line and are | opinion about us? So, there must supporting a leadership which is|be something wrong in Moscow. pursuing a wrong line. Happily What good material for Cannon! for our Party, the majority of our How much of destructive work was Party members had the judgment done, intentionally or unintention- that they have to follow the line of ally! ‘ the Comintern without any reserva-| When a proletarian Party mem- tions. In fact, it was more than) ber, whose time is limited to read support to the majotity of the C. I.,| between the lines, read the state- it was victory for the C. I. The de-| ment of the Minority Opposition to feat that Trotskyism had among/the Sixth Congress of the Comin- the American Party members espe- | tern, he is liable to get into confu- cially in the industrial centers, and| sion. So many accusations against develop to as loose a body as the paign) Comintern on the American question. So why camouflage it? Why not say simply that you are fighting the Right danger of ‘tha Comintern? | especially on the question of reserva-|the CEC! And what about the tions, these facts prove that the) Minority! Well, by some pressure, general membership of the Com-|our Opposition comes afterward in munist Parties are on guard that| the open before the membership with the Third International should not'some of their own Right mistakes jand we see that the story has two | sides. | Mistakes committed? Surely, (or I comrades. They were committed on | the political field, they were com- mitted on the industrial field in solving trade union problems, in ‘building unions, ete. But, being in trade union activity, I could enumer- ate fact after fact, of Left blunders ‘committed by Majority leaders, of ‘Right blunders committed by Min-|° ority leaders, and the reverse. Where shortcomings were discovered in the local New York TUEL (Majority) where shortcomings were discovered in the National "UEL (Opposition leadership). Such matters will have to thrash out in the coming conven- tion. We will also have to insist upon having the “Party Organizer” as a place where we should be able to write to criticise and cure the shortcomings. Now as to unity in the Party, All (our sincere comrades have to realize that Party unity is une of the main problems confronting us. But how to achieve it? This is the question. Comrade Costrell, at the Section 5 @onference, said, “Unity only on a correct political line.” I agree with Comrade Costrell, but the political line of the Opposition was considered in Moscow the wrong line, by the Majority of the Party membership in America the wrong line. And the coming Party convention will surely consider it the wrong line. And you are still telling us that you will con- tinue to fight for your so-called right ‘line. Well, Comrade Costrell, if you 5 NSN i lowing: Workers have 5.6 square the 5 comrades arrested in Kansas. | important to know the platform of | meters; office employes, 6.0 square ; This is the kind of left winger Can-| Trotskyism in the Soviet Union and jmeters; artisans and handicrafts- | non has, If we want to have real|the reasons why it has been over- |™en, 7.6. square meters; persons en- | ; Communist Party and have more|whelmingly rejected by the mem- |g2ged in n workers on the district committee | bership and leadership of the C. P. | Square meters; non-working ele- | we must keep Cannon and his bunch |S. U. as well as by the Communist | ments, 7.1 square meters, The work- free professions, 10,9 | ers are at the bottom of the list. | The floor space for the workers is diminishing from year to year, while that of non-proletarian elements is increasing.” THE FACTS. The kousing problem is full of enormous difficulties. The census cf 1923 shows that the average rate of floor space per head of the popu- | lation, notwithstanding the reduc- | tion of the urban population, was ‘crly about 13 square arshins (1 shin is 18 inches). At that time |the rate was below the established |rate of 16 square arshins. At the beginning of the present economic jyear, the average rate was 11.3 |square arshins. Complaints, how- | ever, will not improve the situation. | intend to continue the fight, tell me | please what remains to be done? Drop your reservations, drop your organized Opposition to the Majority |of the Party, and we will have unity. | We may still have to be on guard against some destructive elements in the Party, whose intentions are not clear to us. We may still have to eliminate from leadership some unhealthy elements, but the Party needs all the tonstructive forces for active work. No factional fight! No factional discriminations! No fac- tions in the Party! Let us unite to criticize, to correct our mistakes, to build the Party in a real Bolshevik spirit! | _ * «© *(On account of being an active trade unionist, the comrade is unable to sign his name to the above article. ie is a member of Section 5, Branch ‘This problem can be solved satisfac- torily only over a long period of time. How difficult it is can be seen from the calculations of the plan of economic develop- ment. In order to’ provide the whole cf the population with the hygienic rate above-mentioned, it would be necessary during the five years to invest 11 billion roubles in housing. As is to be expected, first place is occupied in our housing program by workmen’s dwellings, and in the more remote districts like thé Don- etz coal fields and the Baku oil fields, an increase in the rate of floor space per head is observed. The estimates in 1927-28 provide for the investment of 400,000,000 roubles in housing by public enterprises and £90,600,000 xoubles by private enter- prise. These investments will make it possible to maintain the rate of floor space for the working class section of the population at the level as it stands today. This in itself is a great achievement, for it tellsshow the rate has fallen from year to year, owing to the rapid increase in the number of town workers. With regard to house rent paid hy workers, rent represents 5 per |cent of the workers’ budget, whereas in 1914 it represented from 7 per tent. (To Be Continued.) to 9 WILHELM IN NEW PLOTS. DOORN, Jan. 28.—Wilhelm Hon- zollern, still claiming to be emperor of Germany, celebrzted his sever tieth birthday here today, surround- ed by 48 or 50 members of royalty and ex-royalty and amidst the p’yt- ters of all the reactionary forces in Europe, who hope for a restoration of the monarchy in Germany, but are not all agreed on the Hohen- ollerns as their best champions. PLAN USSR PEAT INSTITUTE. MINSK, U. S. S. R. (By Mail). ~—In order to stimulate the produc~, tion of peat in White Russia, a peat institute has been organized in Minsk, The work of the Institute will be carried on in conjunction with two factories to be constructed. One factory will produce peat bri- quettes and the other coke. The construction and equipping of these factories will cost six million rubles, The proletariat, the lowest stra- tum of our present soclety, cannot stir, cannot raixe itself up without the whole superincumbent strata of official society belug sprung inte tral (Commus mint el Marx