The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 28, 1929, Page 4

Page Four DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 1929 —S———— Daily SH5 Worker | Enlightenment Campaign on the Comintern Address to the Communist Party Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U. S. A. jis decision gives the Party to the |former Minority. ~Lovestone used | this argument as one of his principle | means for mobilizing opposition to | the C.1. line. And many Minority | comrades gave him direct aid, mak- | ing exactly the claim that the C. I. hearings, stubbornly persisted in their political errors. Not only did |sentment at the sharp criticism of the power of American imperialism, and under-estimation of the workers’ radicalization, but they even theo- retically defended the theory of ex- mmepaa opinions for the Party Press. Resolutions of Factory Nuclei also will be printed in this section, Send all material deal- ing with this campaign to Comrade Jack Stachel, care Na- tional office, Communist Party, 43 E. 125th St., New York City. proposed to give the Party to the|ceptionalism itself. They went out Minority. For this the Address very | of their way to lend active support sharply and correctly condemns us.|to the rights in the Russian Party | Our mistakes in this direction were | during the recent Plenum. Love- HE Polbureau is desirous of securing the broadest pos- sible Enlightenment Campaign on the Comintern Ad- dress and the immediate Party tasks outlined therein. All Party members and particularly the comrades active in the workshops in the basic industries are invited to write their TWO LIN apse political line pursued by Jay Lovestone, which led to a defiance of Party discipline and to his expulsion from the Communist Party of the United States of America (car- ried unanimously by the Political Committee against the single vote of Comrade Wolfe), was part of a general tendency which showed itself in the last period within the parties of the Communist International, described in the decisions of the Sixth World Congress as the Right Danger. It is important for every mem- ber of the Communist Party of the U : for the revolutionary workers of America to study and analyze this political | of Jay Lovestone. | SN especially deadly during the conven-| stone’s theory of the “running sore” tion. Our factional activities at the| and that the Comintern leadership unquestionably made |is revising the Sixth World Congress, y more difficult the tesk of the | are the arguments of the rights and Cc. in handling the already ex-/|conciliators throughout the ©. 2 tremely difficult situation. |The speeches and statements oF We must distinctly understand | these comrades at the C. I. hearings that, it is not the intention of the |constitute a definite right platform, GC. I. to give the Party to the Minor-| These comrades tried to cap ity but to liquidate both groups)and| their entire tendency by organizing | unite the Party. Claims to the con-|a split against the Comintern and by trary by Minority comrades are not | definitely repudiating their defeat only incorrect and opposed to the|by the Party membership in its over- cee ge ernie eee For the Unity of the Party face vhis error takes on a “left”| tional walls and establishing politi-|could be brought forward to still unity and for developing a/ further emphasize the correctness of By WM. Z. FOSTER. cal The evolution of this political line can be traced very clearly, step by step, from the resistance to the application to the United States of the Ninth Plenum decisions of the Executive Committee of the Commu- nist International as far back as Feb 8. It appeared in sup- port given to the Right attitude in the proce gs of the Sixth World Congress (overstressing of stabilization of cay ism, underes of sharpened contradictions) and in the subsequent blurring of the and clear line laid down in the thesis of the Sixth World Congress its final form. The theory of exceptionalism continued to grow after the Sixth World Congress under the skillful gardening of Pepper and Lovestone. The seeds that were sown after the Ninth Plenum sprouted in articles and finally blossomed out in the thesis presented to the Party Convention. Concomitant with this now well-developed oppor- tunist theory, there appeared before and during the Convention the un- principled attitude towards the Communist International, the Wall Street-like speculation on the situation in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the “rotten diplomacy,” which combined formal condem- nation of Evert, Humbert-Droz, etc., with a covert and insidious attack by a propaganda of “running sores,” etc. The whole of this political line of Jay Lovestone was continued in the proceedings of the Amer- ican Commission and in the declarations and speeches before the Pre-” sidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, in the resistance to the Address, and in the arguments with which this resistance was supported. All his maneuverings and breaches of disci- pline were but the expression of this Right opportunist line. When he was sabotaging the decision of the Comintern last fall to recall John Pepper, when he carried this to the extent of attempting to deceive not only the Comintern but also the delegates to the convention, when he hoodwinked even the members of his own faction with the fairy tale of Pepper’s voyage to Mexico, while at.the same moment he and Pepper were secretly closeted together during the time of the conven- tion, he was but following out, with Tammany Hall methods, his petty- bourgeois, opportunist political line. Again the breach of the pledge and solemn decision of the convention that the delegation must accept whatever decision the Comintern reached, the impermissible attitude adopted in the declaration of Ten Points, in the decla n of May 9th, in the declaration of May 14th (itself a rm ruggle against the Comintern), followed by his open defiance of elementar, Communist discipline in the refusal to accept the Comintern decisi of May 14th, were all the outcome of this political line. From t Tine, too, followed his subsequent vicious maneuvering. The base a of cabling instructions to those whom he thought (and thought wrongly, as it turned out), would prefer Jay Lovestone to the Communist In- ternational, that they should break away from the Comintern, refuse io publish its decisions, seize the institutions of the Party, sell its build- : ings (presumably the Workers Center), and in this way wreck the Party, was his first tactic. Deaf to the cables from his own previous supporters, imploring him to follow the line of the Comintern, and only after he became aware that the overwhelming majority of the Party stood by the Comintern and stood so strongly that all contrary opinions could only express themselves in the shape of the Concealed Opposition, only then did he adopt his second tactic of declaring formal acceptance, while at the same time raising the slogan of disagreement with the Address, under which slogan the Concealed Opposition already ‘stood enrolled. When the Central Executive Committee refused to broadcast this rallying cry of the Concealed Opposition and had insisted that Lovestone must disavow his splitting activities and his concealed opposition, Lovestone paid no heed to this demand, but in defiance of the decision of the ECCI came to the United States, did not report his arrival to the CEC, and when called by the Secretariat to give an explanation did not come, but began a series of factional meetings, a repetition and propagation of further rumors, continuing his attack against the Communist International. These alternating tactics of open defiance and dirty deception are just the characteristics which the " Address"of the Communist International condemns, or, in the words of the cable from the Comintern published yesterday they are “methods of intrigue, falsehood, and disruptive activ: metho of petty- bourgeois politiciandom, and of demoralization of the Party intolerable in the Communist movement.” What is the sum total of this line and of these tactics and of these acts of indiscipline? They end in nothing less than an organized at- tempt to split the Party. What follows from splitting the Party? The formation of a new, anti-Comintern party, a party which would embody in itself the Right danger. In the fall of 1928, Brandler left Moscow in defiance of discipline; Brandler, too, asserted that he would not set up a new party; Brandler, too, endeavored to split the German Party; and Brandler, too, began to build the apparatus of a new, anti-Comin- tern party. Renegade Brandler was defeated. In the summer of 1929, Jay Lovestone, step by step, followed a similar path, but Jay Lovestone, too, will have as little success as Brandler. In the period of sharpen- ing contradictions within each imperialism, leading to the acute class struggles we are now witnessing i le America, in Gastonia, in the South, in the mine fields,.in the strikes of foodworkers, shoeworkers needle workers; in the hypocritical gestures of Hoover which conceals a more efficient and more deadly preparation for war; in the need of sharpened struggle against social democracy, against social reformists, against social democratic influences inside the ranks of the Commu- nist Parties, it can be clearly seen to what the line and the splitting tactics of Lovestone amount. The attempt to organize a split is poli- “tically the fullest expression of the Right danger, the danger of an - opportunistic attitude towards the preparation of wars, towards the struggle against social democracy, towards the intenser struggle against capitalism. _. It is scarcely necessary to ask the question why Lovestone and Wolfe and Gitlow and Pepper are against the Address of the Commu- _ nist International. They are against it, because the Address calls on ‘the Party to fight against the Right danger and against factionalism, itself the manifestation of opportunism. The Address is politically in- ‘correct, say Lovestone and Wolfe. But, if anyone says that the Address 3 Politically incorrect, the political consequence of such a statement is . Not to accept the Address. Not to accept the Address is not to fight _ against the international Right danger. | Such, with all its sorry consequences in deceptions, intrigues, fac- tional maneuvering and breaches of discipline, is the political line of | Jay Lovestone. What is the Party line? The Party line is full and unreserved | acceptance of the Address, which correctly applies the line of the Sixth | World Congress. The Party line is adopted with enthusiasm by the proletarian rank and file, who are breathing for the first time in years __ a non-factional atmosphere. The Party line-is the ruthless eradication of all opposition, open or concealed, to the Communist International de- ns, the uprooting of factionalism, the taking up of tasks and prac- work too long neglected or sabotaged through factional strife. Lovestone arrived with his line, he found the overwhelming ma of the Party is already standing firmly on the line of the Comin- He found a situation of which his factional mind could not ceive. The Party already had begun to carry out the line by de- a campaign of self-criticism, by analyzing past errors in a true ik manner. Was this campaign, wes this self-criticism, which ‘only begun, was it possible under the factional regime of Love- ? The line of the Communist International is the line of the Aming majority of the Party. The decision of the Political tee to expel Lovestone was taken on the basis of the over- majority of the Party having already pronounced itself for of the Communist International. The Central Executive Com- holds a trusteeship for the Party, both to express the position ty has taken up, and to preserve the unity of the Party, and circumstances it was its bounden duty to carry out the ex- Loyestone. That duty it has performed. ‘remains? The members of the Party have now more earnest- er before to take up their practical tasks, For this pur- , nécessary to strengthen and improve the apparatus of the | d and mutilated by the past factionalism, to build up its also depleted and weakened as a result of fac- Q&g profond importance in the development of the Communist Par- ty of the U.S. A. is the Address of the Communist International to the membership of our Party. This docu- ment, which re-emphasizes the poli- tical line laid down in the Open Let- ter addressed to our Sixth Party Convention, constitutes a devastating attack against the right danger and against the canker of factionalism that has been eating into our Party for so many years. It lays the basis for the unification of our Party and gives it a powerful impulse in its, development into a mass Communist Party. The Address of the Comintern, which is a concrete application to the American Party of the line laid down by the Sixth World Congress, | provides the means for a successful | struggle against the right danger.) The extent of this danger, stressed | so much in the decision, was drama- tically emphasized by the statement of Comrade Molotov in the American Commission to the effect that the right danger is more deeply en- trenched in the American Party than in any other Party in the Commu- nist International, This correct statement does much to explain the sharpness and incisiveness of the re-| cent C.I. decision on the American question. An especially valuable section of} the Address is that dealing with the| theory of exceptionalism. This op-| | imperialism, an under: lof social reformism. aspect by an ove’ mation of the crisis of American capitalism, the substance of it, as the Comintern correctly points out, is exceptionalism, the tendency to look upon American cap- italism as something more or less separate from world capitalism. It has been generally agreed that the Party was slow in re-orientating towards the new line of establishing revolutionary industrial unions, The Minority also shared heavily in this right mistake. And at the bottom of it was the theory of exceptionalism which in this respect as in many others, reflected itself by an over- estimation of the power of American imation of ailding new the possibility of b unions, ete. The Minority, like the Majority, also showed a decided exceptional- ism in its handling of the question Thought not theorizing this exceptionalism to the extent that Pepper and Lovestone did, nevertheless, it was clearly in evidence in our thesis, articles, and speeches. Because of the compara- tive weakness of the trade unions, the socialist party and the labor party and the practices of the cap- italists to use more freely the meth- ods of open dictatorship, we of the former Minority tended to consider the American situation an excep- tional one on the question of social reformism and to feel that the C. I. attacks against social reformism did the appearance of | portunist theory, a reflection of/not apply to America as to other bourgeois jdeology in our Party, is| countries. This led us to a definite the cloak behind which the right | under-estimation of the harmful role | deviation almost always hides. Both | of social reformism, which came to} former grdups in the Party, the|/a head in my article “The Decline Majority ahd the Minority, fell vic-|of the A. F. of L.” At the bottom tims to this insidious and harmful} of this mistake of the Minority re- theory. garding the role of social reformism In substance the theory of excep- tionalism holds that American im-| perialism, essentially sound and/an imperialism so. strong that it did healthy, is developing pretty much | not need, as in the case of capital- accordig to its own economic laws, | ism in other countries, to rely upon and is relatively exempt from the | the social reformists for the dem- growing world crisis of capitalism. | oralization of the workers. In our Party it manifests itself par-| The bourgeois theory of American ticulaxly by an over-estimation of | exceptionalism, originating out of the pewer of American imperialism, ' the geographic isolation of the and an under-estimation of its crisis | United States and its relatively late and of the radicalization of the | geyelopment as an imperialist coun- workers, Its general effect is tol try struggling for world markets, destroy the revolutionary perspec-| and strengthened by the present the power of American imperialism, | tives of the Party and to seriously | great power of American imperial-| hamper it in its leading role of the ism, reflected itself in our Party and class struggle. \influenced in an opportunist direc- This bourgeois theory of excep-| tion almost every branch of the Par- tionalism, which has long afflicted|ty activity. The Negro work is an our Party, has been especially active|example. If our Party, including since the Ninth Plenum and the) both Majority and Minority groups, Sixth World Congress of the C. I./so completely failed to understand In these meetings the C. I., basing|and carry out work among the its conclusions upon its analysis of | Negroes, it was principally because, the third period of post-war capital-| in addition to subtle white chauvin- ism, which is characterized by the!ist influence, of undeniable ten- was clearly an over-estimation of | leftward swing of the masses and} intensifying class struggles, devel- | oped its line of sharpened struggle | dencies to look upon the Negro prob- lem as one peculiarly American in character and to retreat in the face _the insidious theory of exceptional- ainst the capitalists and their ag the social reformists. Where- upon in the American Party the theory of American execptionalism came into place to prove that, be- of its “unique” differences. This is clearly a case of exceptionalism and one in which the Minority fully |shared. If, on the other hand, the Comintern has so clearly analyzed ause of the greater strength and the Negro problem and so effectively special position of American impe-| instructed our Party in the revolu- vialism, this anaysis and tactical | tionary potentialities of the Negroes line did not apply to the United in the United States, much of its States. Elaborate arguments were | success in this respect is based upon developed to minimize the contra-|the fact that it approached the dictions in American imperialism, to | Negro question in the United States under-estimate the role of social re- from a world standpoint, as part of formism, and to play down the rad-| the international problem of op- iealization of the workers, etc. The) pressed races and nationalities, and substance of all of which being to/not as an isolated American pheno- develop in the United States a dif- | menon. ferent political line than the world) wany other mistakes of the for- line of the Qomintern, a line to the j,er Minority in the direction of ‘right, a line that would paralyze | American exceptionalism could be| the Party. The Comintern, by its ex- | cited, all of which combined to plosion of the theory of American) .+ hen= theavight “sanaeniice ss exceptionalism, the false theory that sienetien: ere envencies a2 fails to “understand American impe-' to jjlustrate the correctness of the rialism is an integral part of world) ©, 1. criticism. The exposure of the capitalism and subject to its laws,| theory of American exceptionalism does a major service to our Party hy the Comintern ‘has come with and greatly fortifies it in its strug-| <omething of a shock to our Party. gle against the right danger. The full implications of this destruc- tive theory are not yet understood by the Party. But already, even with the little discussion that has as yet taken place, the Party under- stands the tremendous importance to the Party of the C. I. analysis of _exceptionalism. The present deci- sion, especially because of its ex- posure of exceptionalism, bids fair to stand as a theoretical landmark in the development of our Party. ‘The Minority and Exceptionalism. Although the former Minority ac- tively put forth the slogan of the fight against the right danger, it at the same time was guilty of most serious right errors which, for the roost, part, cloaked themselves with ism. The Comintern Address cor- rectly says: “Both factions of the American ce i ty have be silt; spit aaa dadlansMohraiy dca In the very center of the C, I. of right errors. Both factions | ; show serious deviations to the | Address stands the question of the right from the general line of the | liquidation of factionalism. This de- Comintern, which creates the ision should make it quite clear to danger of an openly opportunist jour Party that the C. 1. is determined deviation crystallized within the | t? put an end to the six years’ long Party .. . not only the mistakes factional fight. This struggle, which of the Majority but also the most iS @ scandal throughout the Com- important mistakes of the Minor- ‘tern, has done much to paralyze ity were based on the conception |v" Party and to hinder its ideol- of American exceptionalism.” ogical and organizational develop- ‘ment. The great tasks confronting our Party in the growing war danger and the general intensification in the The Question of Factionalism. Thus, the Minority, falling into the Party, but the foregoing serve | healthy struggle against the right danger’in the Party. If necessary, the C. I. will undoubtedly enforce this Party unity by drastic organ- izational measures against all those | who try to continue the factional | struggle. Significantly, the Address | calls upon all workers of the Com- munist Party of the U. S. A. to se- cure the liquidation of all factions and the cessation of factional work and not to shrink “from the appli- cation in regard to sa of | the most severe disciplmary méas- | ures, clear up to the expulsion from the Party.” The leading comrades | of both former groups will do well |to heed carefully this warning. Unprincipled Factionalism. One of the most difficult phases of the C. I, Address for the comrades of both groups to accept, saturated as we have been with factionalism, |is those sections of the decision | which castigate Majority and Minor- lity leaders for unprincipled faction- | alism. The C. I. Address says: “Neither of the groups has car- ried on a proper struggle against these right tendencies in the ranks of its own faction and the fac- tionalism of both groups has been the greatest impediment to the development within the Party of the necessary self-criticism and the political education of the Party members in the spirit of Bolshevik steadfastness based upon principle. A factional lack of principle which is. also an expres- sion of opportunism, finds its ex- pression in the fact that both groups were putting the interests of their faction above the inter- est of the Party.” The correctness of this criticism |is unquestionable. It applies de- finitely to the former Minority as well as to the Majority. As one who | was a member of the former Minor- lity, I must admit that the unques | tionable tendency was to set the in- |terests of the faction before the | interest of the Party. This factional practice blurred the political line, | vik criticism, and generally tended ;to prevent the Party’s mobilizing \its full forces for the class struggle. | Let me illustrate this by a few typi- cal cases, Take for example the | question of Trotskyism. The C. I. says that: | “The Minority of the Central Committee was unable to dissoci- ate itself at the right time from | Trotskyism and did not properly | struggle against it.” If the C.I. has to make this sharp criticism of us, it is not because the Minority group as such had sym- pathies with Trotskyism, but because we wrongly permitted the factional considerations to weaken the initi- ative that we should have properly shown in the matter. The fear on our part that the Majority group were making or would make faction- al use of the Trotsky issue against \us by erippling our initiative in the matter undoubtedly placed an obsta- cle in the way of mobilizing the |Party fully in the fight against \Trotskyism. Such was the banefu! result of the factional struggle. The Minority showed a similar unprincipled factionalism in connec- tion with the California situation: We should have been the very first to criticize the right errors com- mitted in the California district. But typically of the factions in our Par- ty, we did not. We shielded those errors. Such a wrong policy we fell into through factional consi- derations of maintaining the group solid, and with the factional argu- ment that the Majority were cover- ing their right mistakes in other dis- tricts and making a goat out of California because it was a Minority district. This was a real factional blurring of the political line and it is characteristic that it was carried through by us under the slogan of the fight against the right danger. | The C. I. Address sharply criti- cizes the Minority where it declares that we, as well as the Majority, were “engaged in inadmissible, un- principled speculations with ques- tions of the situation in the Commu- nist Party of the Soviet Union in its struggle against right deviations.” This is true. Had there been a nor- mal Party life it is certain that we would not have precipitated the Rus- sian question in the manner that it was done but would have worked in close collaboration with the Com- intern with this extremely important and delicate question. The net re- sult of our factional handling of the whole matter was to make more dif- \ ficult the clarification of both the Russian and American questions. One of the very worst features of the unprincipled factionalism in the Party has been, as the C. I. Address undermined the principle of Bolshe- | the C. I. criticism in this respect. |Thus for example in the form | Minority, sharp group differences | developed over the questions of the |apex theory, the reservations, the |“No more cruisers” slogan, etc., but the comrades holding these different | | views instead of bringing them open- |ly before the Party, yielded to fac- |tional tendencies and kept them within the group. Typically, such | bridging over of political differences |which make our real struggle against | | the right deviation impossible, were | made under the slogan of fight against the right danger. Charac- teristically, in the faction the ten- dency was not to see right errors in one’s group, but only in the op- | posing group. Such practices, deep- ly-engrained in the groups as a re- sult of the long inner Party strug- gle, constitute unprincipled faction- alism. They are the negation of self- criticism and stand as a deadly bar- rier in the way of the Bolshevik development of the Party. The Question of,Self-Criticism. \ In order to unite the Party on the) line of the C. I. Address ‘by the| Viquidation of the factional walls | within the Party and also to liqui- |date whatever opposition there may | ‘be, open or concealed, to the C. 1. |line, it is fundamentally necessary | that the practice of self-criticism be introduced fully in our Party. The C. I. Address shatters politically the | old factional groupings. | |now develops upon us to follow up | this heavy blow by wiping out the } old factional practices and thereby | | really unifying the Party. For this | | purpose the frankest Bolshevik self- |eriticism and the admission and ex-| | planation of errors is fundamentally | |necessary. In.this way, the double} purpose is served of at once learning | the lessons from these errors and of | |removing them as objects of fac-| | tional controversy in the Party. The| C. I. Address correctly lays the ut-| |most stress upon the question of) | Self-criticism, a necessary Bolshevik | principle which has been almost en- tirely absent in our Party, in the old | Minority groups as well as the Majority. | It will be no easy task to eradi-/ cate deep-seated factionalism in our |Party, despite the devastating at- | tack the C. I. decision has made upon this pernicious system. During the long years: of inner-Party struggle, many unpfrincipled practices have grown up. Factional loyalties, cov- ering up most serious political dif- ferences, have developed. Factional enmities have separated, as in two | different parties, good Communists | |who should be working in closest | 'harmony; capable comrades had been |excluded from Party work, etc. These ‘and many other factional practices will require drastic treatment for their liquidation, but the central evil to be attacked is the factional lack ‘of self-criticism, the inability or re-| |fusal to see the mistakes made by | oneself or one’s former group. The | The task} |degrée of success in applying the| |C. I. Address will be measured by |the extent to which we develop self- | criticism. The very heart of the En- lightenment Campaign must be self- criticism. Only in this manner can} the whole import of the decision be understood by the Party and the Comintern accomplish its purpose of | uniting the Party. Some Mistakes of the Minority. In previous paragraphs, I have dealt with some of the serious er- rors of the Minority, especially with regard to exceptionalism and un- principled factionalism. All these have tended very much to prevent the development of the Party and must be ruthlessly eradicated. Many more could be cited here. A few of these are very important in the pre- sent situation and must be dealt) with, First, there is the error and dan-| ger in claiming a group victory in the present C. I. decision. There has been a distinct tendency on the part of some Minority comrades to do this. In the case of past C. I. | decisions, one of the very worst manifestations, which did much to perpetuate factionalism, was the practice of both groups to claim the victory. These factional claims, when they were not put forward for the whole decision, were even fig- ured out on the basis of percentages. This deadly practice must be avoid- ed. The line of the Address is not the line of either group. This must be thoroughly understood. It criti- cizes the serious errors of both groups. It is the line of the Com- intern. It does not mean a victory for either group, but the correction of the serious mistakes of both groups and the liquidation of these groups into a unified Party. It is the very height of factionalism to consider the decision in the sense | of discussion in the pre-convention | line of the C. I. but they also tend to ¢| discredit the C. I. and to make its work of unifying the Party much more difficult. They are the most extreme manifestations of factional- ism, and factionalism must now be recognized as a serious right devi- ation. Now, a few words as to other mis- takes of the former Minority. In addition to its openly right oppor- tunist errors, most of which were based en the insidious theory of ex- ceptionalism, the former Minority made a number of serious opportu- nist errors which covered themselves up with “left” phraseology. The C. I. Addresss correctly says: “The Minority of the Central Committee of the American Com- munist Party was committing, in regard to questions dealing with | the crisis of American capitalism and the swing of the masses to the left, “left,” but in reality right opportunist errors.” The errors of this type made by the former Minority originated for the most part,~out of its confused efforts to fight the right danger in the Party. Thus, in trying to com- power of expansion of American im- perialism, signalized principally by the writings of Comrades Pepper, Lovestone and Wolfe, the former Minority fell into the serious_error of practically trying to argue away the growth of American imperialism | pressed most clearly in the Minority theory that American imperialism was about to reach the apex of its development, and in efforts to fight against the Pepper-Lovestone theory |of the “Wave of Prosperity,” by exaggerating the extent of the im- mediate economic depression, by “left” interpretations of the Smith vote, etc. Such errors, instead of weakening the tendencies in our Party to over-estimate the power of American imperialism and to un- der-estimate the mood of the masses for struggle, clearly strengthened these right tendencies. Among such “eft, but in reality right oppor- tunist errors” of the former Minor- ity were the famous reservations made by us to the thesis of the Sixth World Congress of the Comintern. The Minority had differed with the | original draft presented by Comrade | Bukharin, but we made the serious “leftist” error of developing this op- position to the point, with our reser- vations, of putting ourselves in the position of practically challenging the line of the Congress thesis. We went to the extreme of believing it necessary to make these reserva- tions in order to carry on the strug- gle against the right danger. This course was wrong. It not only vio- lated elementary procedure tof the| Comintern but it had the additional | bad effects of raising the issue of | the reservations to the central point | period and thus obscuring other seri-| ous right errors in the Party. Resistance to the C. I. Line. Although the C. I, Address is very | sharp in its political analysis and| criticism, it will unquestionably be | understood and accepted by practi-| cally the entire Party, but there is) a definite opposition, some of it open and some concealed. First, let me say a few words about the open opposition led by Pepper, Lovestone, Wolfe and Gitlow. It will be recalled that Lovestone and Gitlow, arguing ‘at our conven- tion against the C. I. line, declared that the C. I. had made its “error” simply because it did not understand the American situation; that the Party would send a delegation to ex- plain matters and that then, after this discussion with the C. I., the]. delegation would accept the ensuing decision regardless of its sharpness. But Lovestone and Gitlow, arrived in Moscow, forgot the pledge to the convention, even as they forgot their Communist principles generally. And although the C. I. set up an Amer- ican Commission consisting of the most outstanding leaders of all the Parties then represented in Moscow, and held hearings which Comrade Stalin declared to be the most ex- tensive ever held on any similar oc- casion, nevertheless Comrades Git- low, Lovestone, Pepper and Wolfe categorically rejected the present C. I, Address, which was the result of these thorough-going hearings, and declared emphatically that they would not put it into affect. In sub- stance they declared their judgment to be superior to that of the Com- intern. Their opposition went so far as to develop -definite proposals to split our Party and to set up an anti-Comintern Party on the Brand- ler model, The opposition of Lovestone and | portance. | post-war development. |whelming acceptance and endorse- | ment of the C. I. Address. | Dangerous also, in addition to the ; open splitting tendency of Lovestone, |and Gitlow, is the attempt to build {up a “concealed” opposition to the line of the C. I, Address. The policy |of this concealed opposition is to make a formal acceptance of the |C. I. Address and then to or a factional opposition agai |'This covert opposition, if not checked, may lead to the perpetu- ation of the factional struggle under new forms. The opposition must energetically be liquidated in the ex- tensive campaigns of enlightenment regarding the C. I. line now being initiated by the Polbur: au. Unite the Party. The time has now arrived to put an end to the long factional strug- gle. The C. I. Address lays down the necessary political line for this and it deals-a shattering blow to | the old factional line-up. It is now |up to the sincere Communist ele- ;ments to complete the task by eli- minating the factional remnants and | really uniting the Party. As I have |already indicated, this will not be | bat the gross over-estimation of the|an easy task. The factional ten- | dencies and impediments in the way | of Party unity are stubborn but they jcan_ and will be eliminated. We have | to say that our Party is now enter- jing upon a period of the most com- | plete Communist unity it has yet know. The campaign of enlighten- |and exaggerating the tempo of its| ment now being carried on by the crisis. This wrong tendency was ex-| Polbureau will serve to clarify the |Party as to the fundamental impli- cations of the C. I. Address. It will unify the membership ideologically | against those, who, by open or co- | vert methods, would split the Party |or continue the factional struggle. | It will go far towards isolating the |right danger and uniting the best | Communist elements, of both former |groupings, to fight against this danger. It will undermine the fac- tionalism that has done so much to confuse the membership of our Par- ty. Our Party is already learning the tremendous importance of the C. I. Address. The members understand that the exposure of the theory of exceptionalism is of the most vital importance for the Party. They -al- so realize that the C. I, Address has smashed the old factions, something that every Party member must wel- |come as of tremendous benefit to the |Party. Moreover, the members see |from the articles and speeches of | leading comrades, that the Address |has been the means of introducing | real self-criticism in the Party. This inew self-criticism comes as a \vefreshing shock to the Party mem- bership. The whole Party is begin- ning to breath in a new atmosphere of Communist clarity and unity. Great tasks stand before our Par- ty. We must fight as never before against the war danger. We must struggle for the leadership in the multiplying battles of the workers against their employers. We must build the new unions and make the T. U. E. L. convention of historic im- We must redouble our work among the Negroes. g We must defend the Gastonia workers on trial. The program of action being pre- sented by the Polbureau, further coneretizing the C. I. line, will further outline the next steps in these Communist tasks. But to bring all this work into life we must have a united Party. The basis for such unity has been laid by the C. I. Ad- dress. Already the new spirit of unity is manifest in all sections of the Party. The Party is about to become ready for work as never he- fore in its history. Let us therefore’ put an end to the long factional struggle and take up the great tasks ahead of us. Correction on Article : by Comrade L. Kovess As a result of faulty ‘proof-read: ing, the second paragraph in Com- — rade Louis Kovess’ article “Towards — Sharpening Class Struggles,” pub- lished as part of the Enlightenment — Campaign in Monday’s issue of the ° | Daily was incorrect. The following — is how the paragraph should have read: “By the wrong analysis strength and role of American it perialism, we were heading in a wrong direction. The Open Letter and the Address of the Communist International opened the eyes of the membership as to the meaning of the third period of capitalist intern has’ pointed fe sh eee intern has ont jarpen- ing contradictions, mighty waves — of class-struggle, colonial revolt Its, imperialist wars, revolutions in which we are partly in and partly \the error of not fully realizing the heading: for. The Comintern has of a group victory. Any comrades to create a closer political linking between the center and reanimate the life of the Party. The Address of the tional has been like a political blood transfusion to which was suffering from the deadly | integral relationship of American and world economy, made the mis- take of, as the Address says, “dis- class struggle imperatively demand the cessation of the internal struggle on its old unprincipled basis and the associating the development of inner contradictions of American capital- Bh, on the unification of the Party. The Com- intern, in its moe to the Party says, the tendency to cover up poli- tical differences existing within the respective groups. This amounts in substance to shielding the right de- Viation, Of this the Minority has| tendencies must be eradicated. who make efforts in this direction are raising the most serious bars to the unification of the Party. Such is the others cannot be ascribed to personal subjectivity, to mere re- sentment at the sharp criticism of the C, I. It is political in character. It is resistance from the right to ‘the polit ? shown us that exceptionalism, un- iyseiied Meera ae erable, especially 1 . The Communist Interna.