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From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 47, 14 October 1933, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
But the final resolution of the New York convention – is that a pacifist document? Merely to ask such a question is to display a vast gullibility. What do the words of this cooked-up resolution matter? Those who voted for it include not only the Stalinists, but persons whose avowed policy is to “promote peace between religious, classes and races” or “who are opposed to every kind of war” – and similar class collaborationist, reactionary pacifist clap-trap. What possible resolution can be adopted jointly by such elements and genuinely revolutionary elements? Nothing but a document of deceit, of sham, a mere collection of words strung together on a Stalinist string to serve as a noose for the militant proletariat and its fight against imperialist war.
So you are opposed to the united front? Not at all. In the first place, a genuine united front, and not an indecent burlesque, would start off with an open appeal by the Communist International for a conference with the Second International, the Amsterdam International, the independent organizations, the syndicalists and the International Left Opposition, to discuss a minimum program – and not to set up a special organization. In the second place, a united front with sincerely pacifist elements can never be organized to fight war in general, or even imperialist war as such. The pacifists are totally incapable of even starting such a light, and the duty of the Communists is to say so plainly. A united front, with such groups can be confined to nothing more than concrete questions of the moment, can be maintained only for a brief time, and cannot, must not, take the form of a united organization. Anything else means a bastardized “anti-war” movement, a cruel misrepresentation, a deliberate fraud, a wax figure that melts as soon as events warm up a little.
Hasn’t that already been demonstrated in less than a year? What did the Amsterdam movement do to halt the progress of Fascism In Germany? NOT A THING? What genuine, virile mass movement is it setting in motion now to ward off the insolent attacks upon the Soviet Union by Japanese imperialism? NONE AT ALL! The truth is that it is as bankrupt, as impotent, as misleading as the Stalintern which brought it into being.
The Left Opposition does not conceal for an instant its attitude towards this monstrosity perpetrated upon the militant working class. Our position towards it is not a new one. It is identical with that of the Left wing a generation ago, which had to combat similar manifestations of opportunism treachery and bureaucratism in the Socialist parties of that time. We can therefore do nothing better here than to quote with approval the views of the Left wing in the Socialist party with regard to the People’s Council sixteen years ago, express ed in the official organ of the Left, The Class Struggle (Sept.–Oct. 1917). With hardly the change of a phrase, it applies word for word to the problem in hand.
“The Socialist party in its support of the People’s Council has again made a tactical error of the first importance. Indeed, the tragedy of the situation is seen in the circumstance that our party has practically lost its identity nationally as a force against the war. All its anti-war activity is virtually centered in the People’s Council, an organization that does not accept revolutionary action, and the conversation of which, moreover, is strengthened by the party bureaucrats dominant in its management. The People’s Council is being used by the Socialist party officials to make votes for the party. This may succeed, temporarily, but its ultimate effect will be to make recruits for the Gompers-Spargo party of ‘practical’ social reform ... It is easy to enthusiastically accept the People’s Council. The more difficult task, indispensable, is to cleave to fundamentals and express our own independent action in our own revolutionary way as adherents of international socialism.”
Let the fate of the Socialist party and its “People’s Council” serve as a grisly warning! The August 4th of the Comintern in Germany already indicates the fate to which the Barbusse movement has been doomed from its inception.
P.S. – The call for the New York conference started out by welcoming “the step taken by Sherwood Anderson, Theodore Dreiser and Upton Sinclair.” Not one of these three dragon slayers was even present at the congress! Sinclair is running for governor of California on the Democratic ticket. Dreiser has endorsed the Roosevelt program. Anderson follows in his footsteps. Shouldn’t it begin to be clear now where the “heads” of the “historic congress” have been pulling its “body” – to say nothing of its Stalinist posterior?
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