File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1996/96-12-27.212, message 55


Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 07:47:24 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Lenin in Context, part 2


STALIN AND THE COMINTERN

"Our Party alone knows where to direct the cause; and it is leading it 
forward successfully. To what does our Party owe its superiority? To 
the fact that is a Marxian Party, a Leninist Party. It owes it to the fact 
that it is guided in its work by the tenets of Marx, Engels and Lenin. 
There cannot be any doubt that as long as we remain true to these 
tenets, as long as we have this compass, we will achieve success in our 
work."

What could this be, words from a Maoist sect's leaflet vintage 1967? 
Actually, the words are by Joseph Stalin, from "Foundations to 
Leninism". That Stalin could represent himself as the foremost 
Marxist thinker in the world from the late 1920's to the 1950's does 
more to explain the current crisis in socialism today than anything 
else. Not only did this hogwash pass for Marxism during this period, if 
anybody attempted to present a political alternative they would end up 
with broken teeth or a bullet to the head.

This type of simple-minded nonsense has pretty much disappeared 
>from the world of Marxism, except for the occasional Maoist 
manifesto here and there. We can read the following in "World to 
Win", a theoretical journal started by retro-Maoist Robert Avakian and 
his co-thinkers in other countries. "By looking at the life and teachings 
of Mao Tsetung, a new generation who themselves never witnessed the 
dramatic changes wrought in revolutionary China could begin to 
understand that the poor and oppressed could indeed rise up and 
transform the world through revolution; that the imperialists' 
declarations that 'communism is dead' reflect their hatred and fear of 
the very class of proletarians that can and will do away with them 
forever; and that to move forward to all the way liberation, the 
understanding forged by Mao Tsetung in the Chinese revolution and 
summed up as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the indispensable 
weapon for victory."

It was Stalin's intention to turn Marxism into this sort of crude dogma. 
He wrote in 1925 that the 'new type' of Communist leader should be no 
man of letters; he should not be burdened by the dead weight of social 
democratic habits; and he should be feared as well as respected.

Not only did Stalin do his best to persuade others to follow this model, 
he used state terrorism to eliminate those who refused to conform. In 
August 1936, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Smirnov, Mrachkovsky and others 
stood trial. In January 1937, Piatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov, Muralov, 
Serebriakov and others faced charges. Marshal Tukhachevsky and a 
group of the highest generals of the Red Army appeared before a secret 
tribunal in June 1937. Finally, in March 1938, Rykov, Bukharin, 
Krestinsky, Rakovsky, Yagoda and others came before Soviet "justice". 
All of these individuals were leading Bolsheviks when Lenin was 
alive. Any one of them had more political experience, theoretical 
understanding and leadership qualities than any individual Marxist in 
the United States today. Soviet courts charged them with attempting to 
assassinate Stalin, restore capitalism, wreck the nation's military and 
economic power, and murder masses of Russian workers.

Controlling the Soviet Union did not satisfy Stalin. He made sure that 
every Communist Party in the Comintern obeyed him as well. He 
made the Chinese Communist Party submit to the strict discipline of 
the Kuomingtang. Soviet propaganda built up the image of General 
Chiang Kai-shek as the great leader of Chinese national re-birth. 
Socialism was not on the agenda in China, just an anti-feudal 
revolution under his leadership.

Mao obeyed Stalin's orders even after Chiang purged a thousand 
communists from the Kuomingtang and subsequently had them 
murdered in 1926. Chiang's forces arrested, tortured and killed over 
50,000 Communists and their sympathizers as he consolidated his 
power in the second great purge in 1927. Mao managed to escape into 
high grass just over two hundred yards from the wall where the firing-
squad was about to shoot him.

Let us take a close look at Stalin's intervention into the American 
Communist Party in order to understand how unlike Lenin's Bolshevik 
party these Comintern parties had become. Let us review what Lenin 
understood as Bolshevism in the early 1900's: simply put, democratic 
centralism in action and a newspaper that allowed various tendencies 
within Marxism to contend with each other.

In the initial fervor over the Russian Revolution, radicals all over the 
world made the decision to form parties on the Bolshevik model. They 
did not really have a very clear idea of just what such a party should 
be. They often brought often their own political experiences to bear on 
the formation of new organizations--as they should have. The 
American Communist leader, Charles E. Ruthenberg, explained 
Bolshevism early in 1919 as something that was not "strange and 
new."  Bolshevism was merely the consequence of the same type of 
education and organization that the Socialist movement had been and 
was carrying on in the United States. His Socialist-syndicalist 
background showed in his description of the infant Bolshevik state as a 
"Socialist industrial republic". His instincts were completely correct.

By 1920, everything changed. A resolution passed at its second 
convention of the American Communist Party stated, "The Communist 
Parties of the various countries are the direct representatives of the 
Communist International, and thus indirectly of the aims and policies 
of Soviet Russia." Among the people voting for the resolution was 
James P. Cannon, who went on to form the Trotskyist movement in 
the United States. He retained the same hierarchical understanding of 
the relationship between an international center and member parties, 
except he switched allegiance from the Comintern to the pope-like 
authority of Leon Trotsky.

Let us examine the case of Jay Lovestone's fall from leadership of the 
American Communist Party to illustrate how harmful Stalin's heavy-
handed interventions were.

In the 1920's, Bukharin was the top leader of the Communist Party 
and the Comintern. Bukharin spoke for the right wing of the 
Bolshevik party and had allowed the NEP to get out of hand. Rich 
peasants withheld their grain from Soviet authorities and food riots 
began to appear. Stalin allied with Bukharin for most of the 1920's but 
grew alarmed at the threat posed by the Kulaks. Stalin broke with 
Bukharin and lurched far to the ultraleft. He destroyed Bukharin 
politically while preparing a war against the Kulaks.

The moves against Bukharin did not appear all at once and it was 
Lovestone's misfortune to back him long after clues had come out of 
the Kremlin that Bukharin was in disfavor. The sixth world congress 
of the Comintern marked the beginning of the end for both Bukharin 
and any of his international supporters. 

It was difficult for Americans to figure out what was going on behind 
the hearsay and gossip emanating from the Kremlin. People rose up 
the party ladder on the basis of their ability to anticipate Stalin's 
moves. James P. Cannon said, "They were required to 'guess' what it 
meant and to adapt themselves in time. Selections of people and 
promotions were made by the accuracy of their guesses at each stage of 
development in the factional struggle. Those who guessed wrong or 
didn't guess at all were discarded. The guessing game was played to 
perfection in the period of Stalin's preparation to dump Bukharin. I 
don't think many people knew what was really going on and what was 
already planned at the time of the Sixth Congress."

A faction opposed to Lovestone in the American party submitted a 
document called "The Right Danger in the American Party". It 
basically accused Lovestone of overestimating the power of US 
capitalism and underestimating the militancy of American workers. 
This faction included William Z. Foster, future CP leader, and James 
P. Cannon, future Trotskyist leader. This document tied Lovestone 
politically to the fading Bukharin. Lovestone, not sensitive to the 
power shifts already taking place in the Kremlin, told this gathering of 
the Comintern that yes, indeed, he did solidarize himself with 
Bukharin. At that point Stalin put a check-mark next to Lovestone's 
name in his little black book.

At the December 1928 plenum of the American party, Lovestone, 
commenting on the conjunctural situation of American capitalism, 
invoked Bukharin's authority: "What did Comrade Bukharin say about 
this? I still quote Comrade Bukharin. For me he does not represent the 
Right wing of the Communist International; although for some he 
does. For me Comrade Bukharin represents the Communist line, the 
line of the C.E.C. of the C.P.S.U. Therefore Comrade Bukharin is an 
authority--of the C.I." Stalin became enfuriated when he heard this.

Lovestone eventually began to get nervous over growing signs that 
Bukharin was on the outs. He decided to send his friend and old 
classmate from City College, Bertram Wolfe, over to the Kremlin to 
serve as American representative to the Comintern. (Wolfe, as 
Lovestone, eventually became a professional anti-Communist.)

Wolfe learned immediately that Stalin had plans to remove the 
Lovestone leadership. When Wolfe attempted to see Stalin to clear the 
air, Stalin refused to meet with him. When Wolfe tried to meet with 
Bukharin, Kremlin authorities told him that Bukharin was too sick to 
meet with anybody. Wolfe, who had become ill himself, did learn of a 
special presidium set for discussion of these problems on a day's 
notice. He stayed up the whole night, with a temperature of 104, 
drinking coffee and vodka, and preparing his defense of the Lovestone 
majority.

The next day he spoke under great emotional and physical stress. After 
a half hour, he collapsed at the podium. Only one person in the vast 
assembly, Eliena D. Stassova, head of the International Red Aid, came 
forward to assist him. She gave him two aspirins and pleaded with 
him to stop his speech. Wolfe refused unless the meeting was 
postponed. The presidium refused postponement and the feverish 
Wolfe continued with his speech.

A few days later, Wolfe bumped into Bukharin in front of the Hotel 
Lux, where Comintern officials lived. Wolfe confessed surprise at the 
hale and hearty appearance of the reputedly ailing Bukharin. Bukharin 
answered sardonically, "By a vote of five to four, I am too ill to 
function as Chairman of the Communist International."

On the eve of the Sixth Convention of the American Communist Party, 
Lovestone's strength seemed formidable. There were 104 delegates, 
and 95 supported Lovestone. There were two delegates whose votes 
were more important than all the rest combined, and whom Lovestone 
could never persuade. They were the Comintern's representatives to 
the convention: Philipp Dengel, a German CP'er and Harry Pollitt 
>from England. Wolfe, the American representative to the Comintern, 
had not learned that the Kremlin had sent the two to the convention.

Dengel and Pollitt proposed to the convention that William Z. Foster, 
a member of the tiny minority faction, replace Lovestone. Stalin 
directed Lovestone to report to Moscow where he would function in 
the Comintern. Lovestone, to his credit, went ballistic and for the first-
-and last--time in the history of American Communist, a convention 
decided to disobey the Comintern.

Lovestone decided to have a showdown with Stalin in order to defend 
the legitimacy of his leadership. He put together a "proletarian 
delegation," headed by Lovestone and two other leaders, Benjamin 
Gitlow and Max Bedacht. The delegation also included William 
Miller, a Detroit machinist; Tom Mysercough, a mine organizer; 
William J. White, a steel organizer; Alex Noral, a farm expert; Ella 
Reeve Bloor, an organizer from California; Otto Huiswould and 
Edward Welsh, African-Americans.

The American Commission heard from delegations from the majority 
and minority factions in America. The commission included Stalin 
himself who generally remained aloof from such matters. This 
signaled its importance. Lovestone spoke for the majority and Foster 
for the pro-Stalin minority.

Stalin eventually delivered his judgment on the issues in a speech on 
May 6, 1929. He was conciliatory to the majority politically, especially 
in light of Lovestone's perceptible shift to the right, but insisted on 
handing control of the party over to the Foster minority. When it came 
time for the American delegation to vote on Stalin's proposal, 
Lovestone declared: "Whatever work is given to me I will do. But we 
have a deep conviction that such as an organizational proposal as the 
one aiming to take me away from our Party today is not a personal 
matter but a slap and slam in the face of the entire leadership."

The Lovestone majority composed more than ninety percent of the 
party. This did not impress Stalin. He explained in a speech to the 
delegation what the true relationship between the American 
Communists and the Kremlin was. "You declare you have a certain 
majority in the American Communist Party and that you will retain 
that majority under all circumstances. That is untrue, comrades of the 
American delegation, absolutely untrue. You had a majority because 
the American Communist Party until now regarded you as the 
determined supporters of the Communist International. And it was 
only because the Party regarded you as the friends of the Comintern 
that you had a majority in the ranks of the American Communist 
Party. But what will happen if the American workers learn that you 
intend to break the unity of the ranks of the Comintern and are 
thinking of conducting a fight against its executive bodies--that is the 
question, dear comrades? Do you think that the American workers will 
follow your lead against the Comintern, that they will prefer the 
interests of your factional group to the interests of the Comintern? 
There have been numerous cases in the history of the Comintern when 
its most popular leaders, who had greater authority than you, found 
themselves isolated as soon as they raised the banner against the 
Comintern. Do you think you will fare better than these leaders? A 
poor hope, comrades! At present you still have a formal majority. But 
tomorrow you will have no majority and you will find yourselves 
completely isolated if you attempt to start a fight against the decisions 
of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. You 
may be certain of that, dear comrades."

Later in the day, Stalin became more blunt. He told Wolfe, "Who do 
you think you are? Trotsky defied me. Where is he? Bukharin defied 
me. Where is he? And you? When you get back to America, nobody 
will stay with you except your wives." He also warned the Americans 
that the Russians knew how to handle strike-breakers: "There is plenty 
of room in our cemeteries."

After Stalin completed his fulminations, he strode toward the 
American delegation and offered his hand to Edward Welsh, an 
African-American delegate. Welsh turned to Lovestone and asked 
loudly, "What the hell does this guy want?" and refused to shake 
Stalin's hand.

In the following year, nearly everybody in the party lined up with 
Foster, because they saw that Lovestone was in disfavor. The 
American Communist Party certainly did not heed the advice Lenin 
gave to Zinoviev in an unpublished letter. "If you are going to expel all 
the not very obedient but clever people, and retain only the obedient 
fools, you will most assuredly ruin the party."

If the Communist Party were merely the creature of the Kremlin 
described above, we could conclude our discussion. The writings of 
Theodore Draper supplied much of the information in the section 
above. Draper was a historian who tended to focus on the control of 
the Kremlin over Communist Party leaderships. History, for Draper, 
revolves around such relationships.

We have to look at the CP dialectically. There was a whole other side 
to the CP at the grass-roots level that we can characterize as dynamic, 
militant and successful. People like Maurice Isserman and Mark 
Naison, part of a new generation of historians, have begun to focus on 
this aspect of CP history. Studying the writings of historians such as 
these is very important to those of us who are trying to construct a new 
socialist movement in the United States. More can be learned from 
their writings about how socialists can reach the masses than all of the 
literature generated by American Trotskyism.

In an essay "Remaking America: Communists and Liberals in the 
Popular Front", Naison discusses how the CP made the decision to 
implement the Popular Front in a very aggressive manner. Browder 
and the American Communists made a big effort to stop speaking in 
"Marxist-Leninese" and discovered many novel ways to reach the 
American people.

They concentrated in two important areas: building the CIO and 
fighting racism. There is an abundance of information about its union 
activities, but new research is bringing out important facts about its 
links to the Black community.

A "Saturday Evening Post" writer observed in 1938 that CP 
headquarters "is a place where every Negro with a grievance can be 
sure of prompt action. If he has been fired, the Communists can be 
counted on to picket his employer. If he has been evicted, the 
Communists will guard his furniture and take his case to court. If his 
gas has been cut off, the Communists will take his complaint, but not 
his unpaid bill to the nearest office... There is never a labor parade, 
nor a mass meeting of any significance in the colored community in 
which Communists do not get their banner in the front row and their 
speakers on the platform."

On the cultural front, the CP dropped its traditional rigidity in the 
most amazing fashion. In 1936, for example, the "Daily Worker" 
actually polled its readers to see if they wanted a regular sports page. 
When they voted in favor six to one, the paper hired Lester Rodney, 
who was not even a party member. Rodney, largely on his own 
initiative, opened up a campaign to integrate major league baseball.

John Hammond, a friend of the CP, put together a series of Carnegie 
Hall concerts that brought the best jazz talent together in an interracial 
setting. The success of these concerts inspired Hammond to such an 
extent that he started a nightclub called Cafe Society that also invited a 
racially mixed audience. On opening night, Teddy Wilson, Billie 
Holiday and the comedian Jack Gilford performed.

The party also spawned a new folk music culture. On the west coast, 
Woody Guthrie offered his services to California farm workers 
organizing under party auspices. Eventually Guthrie wrote a column 
in the west coast CP daily newspaper.

On the east coast, the party drew the black folksinger Huddie Ledbetter 
(Leadbelly) close to its ranks. He was a fixture at parties and meetings. 
Eventually Leadbelly made a disciple of a 21 year old journalist-
musician by the name of Pete Seeger. Naison observes, "Guthrie, 
Ledbetter and Seeger, employing rhythms and harmonies harking back 
to 16th century England and Africa, but writing of contemporary 
themes, created music that both sentimentalized and affirmed the 
populist aspirations of US radicals, enabling them to feel part of the 
country they were trying to change."

The party we need to be build in the United States will have to build 
exactly the same kinds of ties to labor, the black community and artists 
and intellectuals. Except this time we will not have to answer to the 
Kremlin, only to the American people.


Louis Proyect



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