Published: The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 45, 8 November 1948, pp. 1 & 2
Source: PDF supplied by the Riazanov Library Project.
Transcription/Mark-up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
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The Militant began its existence 20 years ago as the organ of the pioneer group of American Trotskyists who had revolted against the Stalinist degeneration of the Communist Party. From the very first issue it was dedicated to the struggle for orthodox Marxism, This Marxism is not, as the snivellers say, a “theology” or a fossilized dogma, but the most dynamic revolutionary theory and guide to action ever formulated. This paper has expounded and defended the doctrines of Marxism in 20 years of struggle against every form of revisionism and renegacy. That is the greatest merit of our Militant and the main reason why it became and remains the dearest treasure of the revolutionary vanguard of the American working class.
Our break with the Stalinized Communist Party necessitated the formation of a new organization. Along the way, we established relations with groups of different origin who were advancing toward a revolutionary program, and in the course of collaboration and unification with them, the name of the organization was changed several times. In the furtherance of our tactical struggle, The Militant, too, underwent several temporary changes of name. Once it was suppressed altogether for a time. This was the price of our admission into the Socialist Party in the days of its revolutionary ferment in 1936 and 1937. The government clipped The Militant’s wings and revoked its second class mailing privileges during the war.
All these changes of name, of both the organization and its paper, were matters of form only, as far as we were concerned. In the essence of the matter, there is a straight line of continuity from the first tiny founding group of 20 years ago to the Socialist Workers Party which has just carried through its first presidential campaign. By the same token, our Militant of today, which has survived and grown tougher through all the difficulties and vicissitudes of 20 years of battle, is the same old Militant which made its first appearance November 15, 1928. And it still defends, no less firmly and effectively, we believe, the same program.
The original organization of expelled Trotskyists and their paper, The Militant, appeared to be “new” manifestations struggling against the “old,” as represented by the Stalmized Communist Party. But this, again, was only the form, not the substance. The new experiments in the domain of theory and politics were represented by our opponents. They were the revisionists, not we. The Stalinist dogma of “socialism in one country” was derived from a lack of confidence in the revolutionary potential of the international working class. It implied the abandonment of the program of international proletarian revolution in favor of the reactionary-utopian program of a national Russian “socialism” co-existing indefinitely with capitalism in the rest of the world.
The latest crop of revisionists-turned-renegades, who are currently publishing their discoveries and confessions, started out from Stalinophobia but their fundamental motivation is the same as that of the Stalinists. They, too, are disappointed by the failure of the workers to deliver socialism on time. They conclude from this that the workers are incapable of, carrying through the liberating revolution which Marxism foretells. Stalinism has its roots in the same misunderstanding. The Stalinists and the Stalinophobes, like the Colonel’s Lady and Judy O’Grady, are sisters under the skin.
For our part, we emphasized from the beginning, and never failed to repeat at every stage of our 20-year struggle, that we had no new revelation. World Trotskyism grew and developed by its affirmation – against all pessimists, skeptics, and renegades – of the revolutionary nature of our epoch and the profound realism of the program for the revolutionary transformation of society.
Just at the moment when capitalism in Europe had regained a certain stabilization in the decade following the First World War; when American capitalism, expanding in an unprecedented boom, dazzled the world with the claim that Ford had refuted Marx; when a worn-out generation of Communists became Stalinist and traded off their activity as working class revolutionists for the miserable role of pressure groups for the Russian State bureaucracy – it was just then that Trotsky proclaimed in his great Criticism of the Draft Program of the Communist International: “There will be no lack of revolutionary situations. And America, whose unprecedented boom is preparing an unprecedented crisis, is included in this perspective and can even be among the first in line.” That thesis, which simply reasserted the theory of Marx and the practise of Lenin, is the heart of Trotskyism.
It was on the basis of the old program of Marxism, brought up to date in application to new events, but unchanged in fundamentals, that the Trotskyist parties, the only revolutionary organizations in the world, were constructed in the long period of reaction which followed the isolation of the Russian revolution and the death of Lenin.
Unshaken confidence in the revolutionary perspectives was the central characteristic of the American Trotskyists who started The Militant 20 years ago. Then, as now, that is what distinguished and set us apart from all other tendencies in the labor movement. But this did not mean that we were “announcing the revolution for 11 o’clock tomorrow morning,” as the philistines were fond of saying, and as Norman Thomas, the “great moral hero” of the neo-renegades, repeated, with incredible vulgarity, in his debate with Dobbs. These philistine jibes were a misrepresentation amounting to slander. Trotskyism took sober account of the depth of the reaction that had set in, and explained that it could only be deepened and prolonged by the defeats which flowed from the false policies and betrayals of the Stalinists and the Social Democrats.
We promised no quick and easy victories to the new recruits who enlisted under our banner in the early days. We foresaw a long fight ahead and tried to prepare our movement to go through it and survive it. The Militant has constantly explained: The inevitable victory of socialism, which we proclaim, is a historic prognosis and not a promissory note to be paid at the bank on a definite day and date. The time schedules of a historic epoch do not always coincide with the life span of individuals. Those who fail to keep this in mind are apt to lose their sense of proportion and give way too easily to impatience and despair.
The death agony of capitalism can be prolonged by mistakes and betrayals of the workers’ leadership and the defeats which flow from them; or it can be shortened, and the socialist reorganization of society can be brought nearer, by effective work to construct a party capable of leading the revolutionary struggle. Genuine revolutionists can only conclude from this that it is necessary to work harder, in the face of any hazards or difficulties whatever, to build the revolutionary party as a combat organization against capitalism, and against all forms of revisionism and renegacy which represent capitalist influence and pressures within the labor movement.
Our Militant has waged this all-sided fight since its first issue, and we hail it proudly on its 20th Anniversary. It has been the chief instrument in the building of our party which has just gone through a new higher stage of its development in its first presidential election campaign. It is not easy to build a revolutionary party in the richest and strongest country of world capitalism. We have suffered defeats and disappointments, and the span of time between the formulation of the program of revolutionary struggle and the realization of its goal is stretching out even longer than expected.
But we have victories to our credit, and they are important ones too. Our party and its Militant have preserved and defended the revolutionary program against every assault from every quarter, from the outside and from within, and we are more firmly united than ever on the basis of the program. We have assembled and educated cadres who have shown how to penetrate deeply into the trade union movement, and to carry on a sustained agitational and practical activity there, without altering their fundamental program or losing sight of the historic goal. Our party membership is rich in youthful energy and courage and confidence in the future. These are our victories.
Nothing was given to us. Every inch we gained was gained in struggle. For that reason we feel that the ground we have conquered is firmly ours. We are well aware that this is only a beginning, that greater difficulties and harder struggles are ahead. But it is a good beginning, and it has prepared us to face with confidence anything the future may hold in the progress of the working class, through struggle, to its socialist destiny. Our Militant has been a herald and a doughty battler for that destiny. Long may she wave!
Last updated: 28 March 2023