Harrison George
“There are some people, and Comrade Dimitroff has aptly called them ’political hens,’ who have got the idea that the Communists have allegedly given up their principles or are modifying them. These fanciful ideas can only give rise to laughter!... If there is anything at all that we are altering, it is only the methods and forms by means of which we can, in the conditions of a changed situation, spread our basic principles still deeper among the masses and establish united working class action so as to defeat our class enemies and pass over to an offensive against them. And Messrs. the capitalists will very likely soon feel this on their own necks.” – From the report of K. Gottwald of Czechoslovakia (now Premier), to the Seventh Congress of the Communist International 1935.
IN THE PRESENT CONTROVERSY within the CPUSA, the idea that the Seventh Congress of the CI revoked the previous program of the Communist parties to struggle for Socialism and the proletarian revolution, has been given furtive circulation by the “political hens,” who are hatching some revisionist eggs.
The implications made have been plain enough that we, and all other Communist Parties, were so directed by the Seventh Congress as to confine ourselves to the one aim, solely and exclusively, of saving bourgeois democracy, and to refrain from even propaganda for the overthrowal of capitalism.
In his statement (which he did not deliver) to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, as published in the People’s World of March 31, 1947, Comrade Dennis made mention of the Seventh Congress, and in a way to nourish this myth of its having “given up” or “modified” Communist principles. I quote below all that he said on the subject:
“We were at particular pains to publicize as widely as possible the decisions of the Seventh Congress of the Communist International in 1935.
“The Seventh Congress of the CI, to which we American Communists made important contributions, prepared the way for the dissolution of the Communist International. It registered the fact that the Communist Parties of the world were independent organizations, each of native origin, and making their own decisions.”[32]
“It corrected some mistakes by young Marxists who were just beginning to learn that Marxism is a scientific guide to action, and not a dogma,” continued Dennis.
“It called on the Communist Parties of the world to check and defeat the fascists in every land by studying (by “studying,” sic! – HG) the concrete conditions and the special methods of fascism in each country. It called on them to rally and mobilize the workers and people of every nation for united action against fascism and war.” Now then, unless Comrade Dennis could have been trying to correct the “leftism” of Congressmen Rankin, Thomas, et al, his words could only give the impression to Party members (virtually the only ones who received them, thanks to the strange behavior of Comrade Dennis before the Committee), that the Seventh Congress met, gave up all idea of struggle to overthrow capitalism, decided that all Communist Parties must limit their aims to defeating fascism and war – without touching a hair of capitalism’s venerable head – and, finally, and apparently as the result of “contributions” made by our Party, the Seventh Congress “prepared” to dissolve the Communist International; to quit, to call off the proletarian revolutionary struggle as too “dogmatic.”
We learn from Comrade Dennis’s statement one more thing, namely, that our Party took “particular pains” to publicize the decisions of the Seventh Congress “in 1935.”
Yes, in 1935, our Party did that. But what have we done since 1935? Why do we now, in 1947, conceal, and not publicize the decisions of the Seventh Congress, if they are important enough now to refer to? Why do we not now publicize Dimitroff’s report there if it was worth mentioning in Comrade Dennis’s statement? He said:
“The heroic Bulgarian, Georgi Dimitroff, presided over that historic Congress. Even the members of this Committee must admit that Dimitroff was well qualified by first-hand experience to lead a discussion on the subject of how to fight fascism.”
The reason why our Party does not now publicize either the Seventh Congress decisions, or the report there made by Comrade Dimitroff, might be found in the fact that this would show the Seventh Congress to be not precisely as Comrade Dennis represents it to have been, as might be seen in the very closing words of Dimitroff’s report, where he called upon the Communist Parties to lead the toiling masses into struggle “to sweep fascism off the face of the earth, and together with it, capitalism!”
Comrade Dimitroff and the Seventh Congress did, most assuredly, correct the mistakes of Marxists, and not only the “young” ones. And not only “left sectarian” mistakes (which were the main danger at that time in the International), but also the Seventh Congress pointed out the grave dangers of Right Opportunism, as well.
It is correct to say, and even to repeat, that “Marxism is a scientific guide to action, and not a dogma.” It is a good axiom. But when Comrade Dennis says it now, we remember that he said it before, and in chorus with Browder, using it to impose upon our Party the vile revisionism of social-imperialism. And, this being true, his present use of it stands in suspicion of another raw use of it. Indeed, as we shall see, Comrade Dennis transforms this axiom against dogmas, into an argument for dogmas, the dogmas of revisionism.
Without in the least minimizing the necessity to guard, today, against “left” sectarian mistakes which the Seventh Congress (particularly in the report of Wilhelm Pieck) pointed out as the main danger at that time, it is necessary, at this time, to indicate the Right Opportunist dangers which Comrade Dimitroff and others spoke of at the Seventh Congress. To do this, we must recall some of its basic postulates.
Inherent in all the leading speeches at the Seventh Congress was the consciousness of the over-shadowing fact of the general – the historical – crisis of world capitalism, its epochal decline to its historic (but not “automatic”) doom; and that this crisis confronted the Seventh Congress with “the approaching second round of wars and revolutions” (Manuilsky).
More than one speaker (Pieck and Thorez, for example) emphasized Stalin’s words at the 17th Congress of the CPSU, that, as a consequence of the deepening of the general crisis, “the idea of storming capitalism is maturing in the minds of the masses” – and that in varying degrees, this was taking place in “all” capitalist countries. Thorez went on from that to quote Stalin as follows:
“This, as a matter of fact, explains the fact that the ruling classes in the capitalist countries are zealously destroying, or nullifying, the last vestiges of parliamentarism and bourgeois democracy, which might be used by the working class in its struggle against the bourgeoisie.”
This over-shadowing fact of capitalism marching to its doom, was set forth by Dimitroff in the very opening of his report, where he spoke of the “sharp accentuation of the general crisis of capitalism and the revolutionization of the toiling masses” as the reason why “imperialist circles need fascism” in order to “prevent revolution.”
Did the Seventh Congress, therefore, “give up” the world Communist strategic aim of proletarian revolution, and revert to a reformist aim? Did it limit its perspective to the “defense of bourgeois democracy” in the period for which it set forth the policy of the united proletarian front and the people’s front? It did no such thing!
On the contrary, basing its policy on the historic change in the toiling masses, in the “growth of their revolutionary consciousness” (Manuilsky), the Seventh Congress launched the tactic of the united proletarian front and the people’s front, as the means of mobilizing and preparing the masses, not merely to defend bourgeois democracy, although this was the central tactical aim, but to carry over these masses in their developing revolutionization, to the struggle for the final and strategic aim of the proletarian revolution. Here, for example, is the closing paragraph of the Seventh Congress resolution on Dimitroff’s report:
“The establishment of the united front of the working class is the decisive link in the preparation of the toilers for the forthcoming great battles of the second round of proletarian revolution. Only the welding of the proletariat into a single mass political army will ensure its victory in the struggle against fascism and the power of capital, for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the power of the Soviets.”
The Seventh Congress recognized that, while the masses were changing, “This change is not taking place at a dizzying speed, it does not imply that the masses are at one stroke coming over to the position of the revolutionary struggle for the proletarian dictatorship, it is not proceeding smoothly everywhere, it encounters the resistance of counter-acting forces, but it is proceeding... ” (Manuilsky.) And the united proletarian front and the people’s front were the forms by which to guide the masses onward, changing them further in struggle, against fascism and capitalism.
“Ours has been a Congress of a new tactical orientation for the Communist International,” said Dimitroff in his summary. And, again: “Our Congress has reshaped the tactical lines of the Communist International.” But – there was no giving up of the strategic aim for proletarian revolution. On the contrary, the change in tactical lines was fully explained as facilitating and hastening the attainment of the strategic aim; which is, of course, the role of tactics in relation to strategy.
What is the concept of the Right Opportunist tendency toward this whole historical perspective of the impending end of capitalism throughout the world? The concept of the Right Opportunist tendency, though rarely if ever expressed frankly in words, is one of fundamental disbelief. Here in America, the fabulous and mighty America, the “strongest” imperialist country on earth, those who never were Marxists-Leninists, or who have forgotten Marxism-Leninism, look around them at the vast panoply of imperialist power, and shrink back in disbelief that: “This, too, shall pass.”
But the perspective itself was not new at the Seventh Congress. The Sixth Congress in 1928 had already set it forth in its very comprehensive Program:
“The capitalist system as a whole is approaching its final collapse. The dictatorship of finance capital is perishing to give way to the dictatorship of the proletariat (p. 19)...
“Expeditions against the colonies, a new world war, a campaign against the USSR, are matters which now figure prominently in all the politics of imperialism. This must lead to the release of all the forces of international revolution and the inevitable doom of capitalism” (p. 29).
But the comrades who were with our Party in those years will remember that the Right Opportunist tendency in the CPUSA, then led by Jay Lovestone, although it “accepted” the program of the Sixth Congress in words, did not accept it in reality. World capitalism is decadent, Lovestone admitted, “but not in the United States” Here, he held, was an “exception.” And he received strong support from the Bukharin “Rightist’’ group in our brother Soviet Communist Party; Bukharin writing in 1929 that “American imperialism is rosy-cheeked.” The Lovestone leadership shaped all practical policies of the CPUSA according to this opportunist conception.
And old comrades in our party will also remember that so tenaciously did the Lovestone leadership cling to this concept and steep the membership in the idea that all opposition to it was “Trotskyism,” and so factionally did Lovestone conduct the leadership as a bureaucracy, that the Communist International had to intervene, not only to end factionalism of both leadership and opposition, but to correct the Party line.
Again, the Seventh Congress, emphasizing that the post-World War I partial and temporary stabilization of capitalism was collapsing, and that the world was confronted with a “second round” of wars and revolutions, reshaped the tactical lines of the Communist movement to make the most of the intensifying general crisis of world capitalism.
And Browder, who had been one of the chief opponents of Lovestone’s “American exceptionalism,” a more consistent one than Foster, “accepted” the Seventh Congress program in words. But he began, already in 1937, as we have seen, to reject it in deeds. Browder became fascinated by the “success” of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s bourgeois reformism. Roosevelt, as he frequently and plainly said, pursued this tactical policy of reformism for the strategic aim of preventing proletarian revolution in this country in the interest of imperialist capital; whereas the same strategic aim was sought in other countries by the tactical policy of fascism.
There was, of course, a certain elasticity in the economy of American imperialism which aided Roosevelt, but only for a brief period, in giving his tactical policy of preventing revolution by reforms a fleeting appearance of success. But we also know, and the Seventh Congress pointed it out, that American imperialism was headed for disaster, and everyone who is a Marxist-Leninist should know that the “solution” of the crisis which World War II brought to American economy only made more certain and more disastrous the crisis we now confront.
But Browder, who already in 1937, had revoked the people’s front tactic in order to “go with Roosevelt,” and had remained unshaken even by the break in his cherished “coalition” when Roosevelt in 1939-40 became openly anti-Soviet (Finnish war period) and sent Browder himself to prison (perhaps even because of this), still was impressed by the “power” of American imperialism, and still disbelieved in the perspective of proletarian revolution.
The outbreak of World War II came providentially for Browder, and under the spell of the anti-Axis coalition (which was not an anti-fascist coalition on the part of American imperialism for which Roosevelt was the leader), Browder went onward from the concept of disbelief in capitalism’s doom to efforts to prove his disbelief was true by “making capitalism work,” and the consequent rendering of revolution unnecessary. Browder became a salesman for American imperialism; in Marxist-Leninist terminology, a social-imperialist or social-chauvinist.[33]
Browder began to discover the virtues of “American exceptionalism,” which, in Lovestone, he had condemned. This thought, neatly tucked in the phrase – “whatever may be the situation in other lands,” etc., became the basis of his outlook. The continuing and intensifying “revolutionization of the toiling masses,” as seen by the Seventh Congress of the CI, Browder became unable to see at all. By January, 1944, introducing his “Teheran” policy, he said:
“It is my considered judgment that the American people (sic! people, not toilers – HG) are so ill-prepared, subjectively, for any deep-going change in the direction of Socialism, that post-war plans with such an aim would not unite the nation (sic! the ’nation’ of warring classes! – HG), but would further divide it.”
Which, it can be seen, is not only a foreswearing of any perspective for Socialism whatever, but a typical chauvinist alarm that the “unity of the nation” be disturbed by class struggle. This tender and bourgeois regard for “national unity,” which naturally escaped rebuke during the anti-Axis war, but which became a putrid thing the moment the end of the war put an end, also, to the transient coalition between American imperialism and the American proletariat, is still being used by Comrade Dennis, although with the sly precaution of inserting the word “progressive” or “democratic” in front of the words “national unity.”[34]
The same anti-class struggle ideology applies to Comrade Dennis’s passion for “order,” “orderly change,” and “orderly methods,” on the part of the proletariat, found in all his writings preceding the publication of the Duclos criticism, and to some extent later. But this Chamber of Commerce term, he has, by reason of gigantic developments of “disorder,” been forced to use less and less. However, this typical social-democratic hostility to the symptomatic outbreaks of accumulated mass indignation against capitalism, has gone down to the bottom of our Party. In my meeting with the California State Security and Review Commission on June 28, 1946, Comrade Harry Glickson plaintively asked me:
“Do you think it was right to call for a general strike and disrupt industry in San Francisco and all around the Bay area?”
Came the Duclos article, and our National Convention wrote a Resolution which, although far from perfect, did provide the elements for reconstructing Party policy on a Marxist-Leninist line.[35]
The National Convention Resolution rediscovered the “general crisis of capitalism” and its “fundamental contradictions” (Part II, Section 6). It at least half-way recognized the growing radicalization of the American proletariat by (Part I, Section 4) “taking cognizance of the growing interest of the American people and its working class in the historic experiences of the Soviet people in the building of a new socialist society. And it definitely provided that, while “helping the American working class” fight for and “realize” a program of immediate demands, “we Communists” would “systematically explain to the people” that “Socialism alone’’ can give a permanent solution to their problems.
Now, the “general crisis of capitalism” is a world crisis, as both Lovestone and Browder found out. Its “fundamental contradictions” which are taking world capitalism towards its historic doom, as the Seventh Congress pointed out, is taking American capitalism, too, along with it. Also, it is obvious that, as an integral part of this development, as the very meat of these “fundamental contradictions,” the American working class is, also, along with the world proletariat, even if not at equal tempo, being “revolutionized,” as the Seventh Congress put it, and as dimly acknowledged by the “growing interest” which our National Convention Resolution found to exist in American workers for the country of Socialism.
We have seen how Lovestone “accepted” the concepts of the Sixth Congress of the CI, but immediately attempted to revise them for America, because America was “different.” We have also seen how Browder “accepted” the Seventh Congress line, but directly afterward began to revise, and finally to dump it completely, as “not applying*’ to America. Both were opportunists. Yet no axiom is more worth memorizing than the one which says that no opportunist wears a brand upon his forehead for all to read thereon: “I am an opportunist.” No opportunist ever arises and declares: “I am now going to make an opportunist proposal.” Such things never happen. Instead, like Lovestone and Browder, the opportunist advances his proposals while veritably dripping with assertions that such proposals are “Marxist-Leninist,” and supports them with quotations (usually subtly mis-applied) from everyone from Marx to Dimitroff.
And so, now comes Comrade Dennis (with plenty of company, as had Lovestone and Browder), “accepting” in 1945 the new line of the Party, which expressed, even if somewhat lamely, the concepts of both the Sixth and the Seventh Congresses of the Communist International, and certainly expressed the general viewpoint of our Party. More, Comrade Dennis comes out now, in March, 1947, in the role of a valiant champion of the Seventh Congress of the CI, its leading reporter, Comrade Dimitroff, and the whole line of the Seventh Congress.
But is Comrade Dennis (and those in his political company) carrying out the guiding line of the Seventh Congress? On the contrary, he is violating its every precept. Is he then, perhaps, carrying out the National Convention Resolution? No, he is violating that, too, distorting to the Right its fundamental line in practice and interpretation, and defending this departure from its policy by violating, also, its categoric condemnation of bureaucracy.
True, Comrade Dennis does mention on rare occasions, that there is a “general crisis” of capitalism. But that this general crisis is carrying capitalism all over the world, including the United States, to its historic doom, is a thought evidently too horrible for him to entertain, much less to utter. That there could not possibly be a general crisis of world capitalism, intensifying (with certain spotty interludes of ephemeral “stabilization”) through the years since World War I, without affecting the toiling masses of America with some measure of what Dimitroff called “revolutioniztion” and what Stalin described as “the idea of storming capitalism,” is a fact that escapes Comrade Dennis completely.
Therefore, we find the Dennis leadership adopting an outlook of “American exceptionalism,” to the effect that the American proletariat is not affected at all, or in a degree not worth mention, by the stimuli which have affected the rest of the world proletariat; and that the American working class is not only relatively, but absolutely “backward” politically, so much so that, instead of leading the “democratic coalition,” and from the “very first phases of its development” (Bittelman), such leadership must be given over to the liberal bourgeoisie.
From this viewpoint of “American exceptionalism,” it naturally follows that to call for a Farmer-Labor Party is a piece of rank “Leftism.” So we, ourselves, left the workers with the sole choice of voting for one of the two capitalist parties, and no chance to vote against capitalism. And when, we having insisted that one capitalist party was better than the other capitalist party, the workers ignored our advice, we came out with solemn declarations about the workers’ “backwardness.” Thus, in the editorial on the election of 1946, in the December Political Affairs, we find this slander against the working class:
“Important sections of the working class were misled, especially because of the low level of class consciousness among the workers. It (the Republican Party) was able to secure the votes of workers who only yesterday expressed their militant demands for better conditions on the picket lines in struggle” (p. 1061).
This nonsense is put forward as profound “Communist analysis,” and its outright foundation upon “American exceptionalism” is given on the previous page (1060), where it is declared that “the basic reason” for the Republican victory ”... must be found in the factors that are peculiar to the United States, and that distinguish it from the countries in which the masses voted in increasing numbers for the parties of the Left.” Here we have, under new auspices, the hardy perennial of Lovestone-Browder “American exceptionalism” in full flower. And a left-handed assertion that the Democratic Party is a “party of the left.”
This at a time when Boris Vronski, cited by the Associated Press from Moscow on Nov. 5, 1946, as “one of Russia’s foremost political scientists,” was quoted by Red Star(the Red Army’s daily paper), as saying that the difference between Democrats and Republicans “was never so insignificant as now,” and that “Democrats as well as Republicans are waging with equal determination an offensive against the vital interests of the American popular masses.”
It is not surprising, therefore, to find, if we read carefully what Comrade Dennis wrote in his March, 1947, statement to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, boldly advanced behind a seeming “agreement” with the Seventh Congress of the CI, a studied rejection by the CPUSA of any positive guidance by international principles and policies.
The main thing which Dennis sees to admire in the Communist International was its dissolution. Secondly, the Seventh Congress’ supposed “registering of the fact” that the various Communist Parties were in no way bound to any guiding general principles and policies of the world movement, because we “have changed our views on many questions of theory” (The Worker, March 30, 1947). Which is Dennis’s way of saying what Bob Minor said during the “Teheran period,” that we “couldn’t find the answers in the dusty old books” of Marx and Lenin.
Certainly, not only the Seventh Congress, but all CI Congresses, and all Communist teachers, back to Marx, urged a “study of concrete conditions” in each country as a basis for formulating policy for the Communists of that country. All have remarked that the law of unequal development and the consequent differences in conditions prevailing in various countries must be taken into account, that there must be no “mechanical” application of tactical policies found good in one country, to another country; and Dimitroff, at the Seventh Congress, declared war on “cut-and-dried schemes” which “doctrinaires” might wish to apply to any and all cases and countries.
But, with all these qualifications, neither Marx, nor Lenin, nor any CI Congress, in urging that the differences between countries be taken into account, ignored the similarities existing in the class struggle of all capitalist countries; and they urged the reckoning of the differences only in the application of a general and uniform program for proletarian revolution to overthrow capitalism.
Comrade Dimitroff correctly condemned “cut-and-dried schemes.” But it would be a travesty on Dimitroff as a theoretician, to say that he had no “scheme” at all; to imply that at the Seventh Congress he told us to throw away the compass, blindfold the pilot and set to sea without the chart of Marxism-Leninism to guide us. Comrade Dennis has, himself, a “cut-and-dried scheme,” a scheme “cut” by Lovestone and “dried” by Browder, a scheme of “American exceptionalism.”
And what Comrade Stalin says about such attempts to impose any national “exceptionalism” upon any Communist party, with tricky chatter about “studying concrete conditions,” is stated in his Foundations of Leninism (Chapter III, Section 3), as follows:
“Formerly, it was customary to talk of the existence or absence of objective conditions for the proletarian revolution in individual countries or, to be more exact, in this or that advanced country. This point of view is now inadequate. It is now necessary to take into account the existence of the objective conditions for the revolution throughout the whole system of imperialist world economy which forms an integral unit, for the existence within this system of some countries that are not sufficiently developed from the industrial point of view cannot form an insurmountable obstacle to the revolution, if the system as a whole has become, or to come nearer the truth, because the system as a whole has already become, ripe for Socialism.
“Formerly, again, the proletarian revolution in this or that advanced country was regarded as a separate and self-contained unit, facing a separate and distinct national capitalist front, as its opposite pole. Today, this point of view is inadequate. Today it is necessary to speak of proletarian world revolution, for the separate national fronts of capital have become links in a single chain called the world front of imperialism, to which should be opposed the united front of the revolutionary movement in all countries.
“Formerly, the proletarian revolution was regarded as the consequence of an exclusively internal development in a given country. At the present time this point of view is inadequate. Today it is necessary to regard the proletarian revolution above all as the result of the development of the contradictions within the world-system of imperialism.”
Comrade Dennis is familiar with all this, no doubt. But Comrade Foster (July Plenum, 1946), reminded us that Comrade Dennis “worked for many years as a highly responsible leader” – helping Browder – in the Party’s national center. He was, indeed, “highly responsible” for imposing revisionism on our Party. And his attempt to perpetuate “American exceptionalism” is a necessary part of his attempt to perpetuate revisionism.
But not in the identical form, not in the visible and shameless form of “Browderism,” of outright social-imperialism. That has proved to be self-defeating as it is too easily discerned for what it is. But rather in the more subtle and deceitful form of social-reformism, which makes use of a pseudo-Marxism, which “deceives the workers,” as Lenin said, with “the repetition of commonplaces about capitalism,” which gains the confidence of the workers by seeming to “fight” for their elementary demands, but only to betray them by holding back, demoralizing and demobilizing the proletarian army (the subjective factor), when every objective condition, spoken of by Stalin in the above quotation, is favorable for the proletariat and its allies to “storm capitalism.’’
It is quite correct that “the immediate economic and political interests of the working class, the defense of the latter against fascism, must be the starting point and form the main content of the workers’ united front in all capitalist countries” (Seventh Congress resolution). But it is incorrect when we stop at the “starting point,” and limit our propaganda to “repetitions of commonplaces about capitalism.”
(Lenin pointed out, in his State and Revolution, p. 30, that “commonplaces about capitalism” and “acceptance of class struggle” is not enough. Denying that “the class struggle is the main point” in Marxist teaching, Lenin added: “Out of this error, here and there, springs an opportunist distortion of Marxism, such a falsification of it as to make it acceptable to the bourgeoisie. The theory of class struggle was not created by Marx, but by the bourgeoisie before Marx and is, generally speaking, acceptable to the bourgeoisie. He who recognizes only the class struggle is not yet a Marxist; he may be found not to have gone beyond the boundaries of bourgeois reasoning and politics. To limit Marxism to the teaching of the class struggle means to curtail Marxism – to distort it, to reduce it to something which is acceptable to the bourgeoisie. A Marxist is one who extends the acceptance of class struggle to the acceptance of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Herein lies the deepest difference between a Marxist and an ordinary petty or big bourgeois. On this touchstone it is necessary to test a real understanding and acceptance of Marxism.”)
Our press, quite rightly, is filled with accounts of “labor disputes,” of the daily contests between “progress” and “reaction,” with the “commonplaces” about capitalism. But, missing from this, is the “systematic explanation” called for by the National Convention Resolution (1945), informing the workers that only when they fight for and win Socialism, can these problems be solved and their demands permanently secured. To do so, our leadership says, would be “sectarian,” since our leadership holds that the workers are so very “backward” that they would be frightened away from us. Which is opportunist nonsense.
The workers must “learn from their own experiences,” we are told. Which is true enough. But, unless our own Party introduces Socialist concepts into the minds of the workers, as a part of their ”experiences,” and simultaneously with their struggles for their immediate demands, the workers learn nothing. This has been repeated and emphasized by all Communist theoreticians, in their struggle against “the theory of spontaneity”; the theory that workers acquire a Socialist political outlook spontaneously through participation in economic struggles for immediate demands.[36]
Carried into life, this theory of spontaneity leads to a major crime of opportunism, the separation of theory and practice. It destroys the dialectical connection between the class struggle’s strategic aim and its tactical aims, and nullifies not only the former, but the latter as well. For unless the labor movement is given the vision and virility of a revolutionary ultimate aim, the reforms it wins, or has granted it, are easily revoked and swept away. It is the duty of Communists to bring up the consciousness of the masses to the level of the consciousness of the Party, to get them to understand what we already should understand, that “the main thing is revolutionary work and not reforms, for reforms are mere by-products of the revolution” (Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, Chapter VII, Section 6).
As with the economic phase, so also does the social-reformist, the social-democrat in practice, no matter if calling himself a “Communist,” tear apart the tactical aim of defeating fascism and war, from the strategic aim of putting an end to capitalist imperialism which is the source of fascism and war.
Because fascism and war deeply injure all intermediate strata between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; and because, for that reason, the proletariat can mobilize and lead these middle strata for anti-fascist and anti-war aims that are comprehensible to them, the social-reformist insists that neither the proletariat nor its vanguard party shall have aims further than these, that no Communist dare entertain (or, if he does entertain, he not disclose to his fellow workers) any concept of a revolutionary perspective beyond the “defeat of fascism and war.” Because, forsooth, the “democratic coalition,” or the “majority of the people,” cannot be expected to entertain any such perspective or have any such strategic aim.
Thus rejecting the strategic aim of revolution, not merely for the platform of the coalition (which is correct), but for the program of the Communist Party (which is incorrect), the social-reformist, whatever his occasional “tipping of the hat” to Socialism, ends his perspective of the historical process with the saving of bourgeois democracy. Period. Then, the monopolists will be “curbed.”
Which is, of course, not Browderism. And, under the joint auspices of the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie, capitalism is to continue indefinitely, with the Communists loyally striving to “make it work.” Not, of course, as Browder conceived it, but, let us say, as Henry Wallace conceives it should work.
True, Comrade Dennis has confessed having a vision of Socialism, which he “keeps ever bright before him.” But so did Browder – after “many generations.” But neither of them allows such visionary matters to interfere with the practical task of “making capitalism work.” Does this agree with the perspective outlined by the Seventh Congress for the guidance of all Communist Parties? It does not.
The Seventh Congress, and Comrade Dimitroff’s report there, gave general indications of the line to be followed by Communists when, the “united proletarian front,” or “the people’s front,” having gained strength, and enough strength to defeat fascism, the movement might face the contingency of forming a government. Let us see what Dimitroff said: Firstly, he said he referred to a government possible to form “on the eve of and before the victory of the Soviet revolution.” But that only “specific prerequisites” make its formation politically necessary, however. These are, said Dimitroff:
“First, the state apparatus of the bourgeoisie must already be sufficiently disorganized and paralyzed, so that the bourgeoisie cannot prevent the formation of a government of struggle against reaction and fascism;
“Second, the broadest masses of toilers, particularly the mass trade unions, must be in a violent state of revolt against fascism and reaction, though not ready to rise in insurrection to fight under Communist Party leadership for the achievement of Soviet power;
“Third, the differentiation and Leftward movement in the ranks of Social-Democracy and other parties participating in the united front must already have reached the point where a considerable proportion of them demand ruthless measures against the fascists and the other reactionaries, struggle together with the Communists against fascism, and openly come out against that reactionary section of their own party which is hostile to Communism.”
Dimitroff went on to explain that, in 1922 and 1924, the Fourth and Fifth Congresses dealt with the analogous question of a “workers’” or a “workers’ and peasants’ government.” Certain mistakes were made then:
“The first series of mistakes was determined precisely by the circumstance that the question of a workers’ government was not clearly and firmly interlinked with the existence of a political crisis. Owing to this, the Right Opportunists were able to interpret matters as though we should strive for the formation of a workers’ government, supported by Communists, in any, so to speak, ’normal’ situation. The ultra-’Lefts’ on the other hand, recognized only such a government as could be formed exclusively by armed insurrection, after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. Both views were wrong.
“The second series of errors was determined by the circumstance that the question of a workers’ government was not interlinked with the development of the militant mass united front movement of the proletariat. Thus the Right Opportunists were enabled to distort the question, reducing it to the unprincipled tactics of forming blocs with Social-Democratic parties on the basis of purely parliamentary arrangements. The ultra-’Lefts’ on the other hand, shouted: ’No coalitions with the counter-revolutionary Social-Democrats!’ regarding all Social-Democrats as counter-revolutionists at bottom.
“Both were wrong, and we now emphasize, on the one hand, that we are not in the least anxious for such a ’workers’ government’ as would be nothing more or less than an enlarged social-Democratic government. We even prefer to waive calling it a ’workers’ government,’ and speak of a united front government which in political character is something absolutely different, different in principle, from all the Social-Democratic governments which usually call themselves ’workers’ (or Labor) governments.’ While the Social-Democratic government is an instrument of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie in the interest of the preservation of the capitalist order, a united front government is an instrument of collaboration between the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat and other anti-fascist parties in the interest of the entire toiling population, a government of struggle against fascism and reaction.”
Comrade Dimitroff then explained at length that there were “two different camps of Social-Democracy,” one reactionary, rejecting the united front because it “undermines their policy of compromise with the bourgeoisie,” and the other, a “growing camp of workers who are becoming revolutionary,” who favor the united front, and how, “the better this mass movement will be organized from below... the greater will be the guarantee against a possible degeneration of the policy of the united front government.” Proceeding, Dimitroff said: “The third series of mistaken views which came to light during our former debates touched precisely on the practical policy of the ’workers’ government.’ The Right Opportunists considered that a ’workers’ government’ ought to keep ’within the framework of bourgeois democracy,’ and consequently ought not to take any steps going beyond this framework. The ultra-’Lefts’ on the other hand, actually refused to make any attempt to form a united front government.”
Comrade Dimitroff then cited the 1923 case of the “workers’ government” in Saxony and Thuringia (Germany), where – in a revolutionary situation – Rightist Communists, Brandler and Thalheimer, pursued an opportunist policy; and although they correctly entered the government with Left Social-Democrats, they refused to “use their positions to arm the proletariat,” doing “nothing to organize the revolutionary mass movement of the workers,” and “behaved generally like ordinary parliamentary ministers within the framework of bourgeois democracy.”
“Comrades,” he stated, “we demand of every united front government an entirely different policy. We demand that such a government carry out definite and fundamental revolutionary demands required by the situation. For instance, control of production, control of the banks, disbanding of the police, its replacement by an armed workers’ militia, etc.”
Then Comrade Dimitroff went into a phase of Leninism most upsetting not only to ultra-“Lefts,” but to the concepts guiding the Rightist Dennis leadership, if, indeed, any concepts can be determined from what this leadership has to say. He said:
“Fifteen years ago Lenin called upon us to focus all our attention on ’searching out forms of transition or approach to the proletarian revolution.’ It may be that in a number of countries the united front government will prove to be one of the most important transitional forms. The ’Left’ doctrinaires always evaded this precept of Lenin’s. Like the limited propagandists that they were, they spoke only of ’aims,’ without ever worrying about ’forms of transition.’ The Right Opportunists, on the other hand, tried to establish a special ’democratic intermediate stage’ lying between the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat, for the purpose of instilling into the workers the illusion of a peaceful parliamentary procession from the one dictatorship to the other. This fictitious ’intermediate stage’ they also called the ’transitional form,’ and even quoted Lenin on the subject! But this piece of swindling was not difficult to expose; for Lenin spoke of the form of transition and approach to the ’proletarian revolution, i.e., to the overthrow of the bourgeois dictatorship, and not of some transitional form between the bourgeois and the proletarian dictatorship.”
This bit of Dimitroff is absolutely fatal to the Dennis vision of Socialism as “but an extension of this (!) democratic process.” And to his evident concept of the defeat of fascism and the consequent saving of bourgeois democracy as the end of the social struggle.[37]
Comrade Dimitroff continued, in his report, to show the absolute necessity for both “transitional slogans and special ’forms of transition or approach to the proletarian revolution,’ ” in order to help the masses develop a consciousness of what path to take; which party to follow:
“Otherwise, the great mass of the people, a prey to petty-bourgeois democratic illusions and traditions, may waver even when there is a revolutionary situation, may procrastinate and stray, without finding the road to revolution and then come under the axe of the fascist executioners.”
This doesn’t look like the present CPUSA leadership’s obvious alarm lest somebody point out to the masses that beyond the transitional slogans and forms lies ”the road to revolution.” Indeed, Dimitroff made this difference emphatic when he added:
“That is why we indicate the possibility of forming a government of the antifascist front in the conditions of a political crisis. In so far as such a government will really prosecute the struggle against the enemies of the people, and give a free hand to the working class and the Communist Party, we Communists shall accord it our unstinted support, and as soldiers of the revolution shall take our place in the first tine of fire. But we state frankly to the masses:
“Final salvation this government cannot bring. It is not in a position to overthrow the class rule of the exploiters, and for this reason cannot finally eliminate the danger of fascist counter-revolution. Consequently, it is necessary to prepare for the Socialist revolution! Soviet power and only Soviet power can bring such salvation!”
Does the present leadership of the CPUSA ever “state frankly to the masses” this Communist concept? Never! That the united front or the anti-fascist people’s front program is by common agreement limited to demands for reforms and the defeat of fascism and War, and rightly so limited, is undeniable. But that we, the Communists, limit our own program to the same aims, is utterly impermissible, and inexcusable by the excuse given – that to do so would be “sectarian,” that we cannot support the limited program of the united front without giving up our own program of propagandizing the masses within the united front to raise their level of class consciousness and prepare them, ideologically, to carry the struggle further, to the Socialist revolution.
Yet that is exactly the sum total of such “theories” as are voiced by Comrade Bittelman in the Daily Worker, in a series of articles whose complicated sophistries can be summed up in the thought that, while it is all right to “believe” in Socialism, it is “left opportunism” to propagandize and work for Socialism among the masses; and a perfidious allegation that any Communist who wants to do so, is ipso facto, an “agent” of reaction, a “renegade,” and so forth and so on, who is trying to ”isolate labor from its allies,” etc., an allegation based on the falsehood that propaganda for Socialism among the masses who support the ”democratic coalition” is identical with trying to force into some yet non-existent written compact of the coalition the demand for a “direct” fight for “immediate” Socialism on the part of our allies.
This sort of thing is exactly what Comrade Dimitroff warned against at the Seventh Congress, when he said:
“While fighting most resolutely to overcome and exterminate the last remnants of self-satisfied sectarianism, we must increase to a maximum our vigilance in regard to and the struggle against Right Opportunism and against every one of its concrete manifestations, bearing in mind that the danger of Right Opportunism will increase in proportion as the wide united front develops more and more.
“Already there are tendencies to reduce the role of the Communist Party in the ranks of the united front and to effect a reconciliation with Social-Democratic ideology. Nor must the fact be lost sight of that the tactics of the united front are a method of convincing the Social-Democratic workers by object lesson of the correctness of the Communist policy and the incorrectness of the reformist policy, and that they are not a reconciliation with Social-Democratic ideology and practice. A successful struggle for the establishment of the united front, demands constant struggle in our ranks against tendencies to depreciate the role of the Party, against legalist illusions, against reliance on spontaneity and automatism, both in liquidating fascism and in conducting the united front against the slightest vacillation at the moment of determined action.”
And toward what end is the “determined action,” which Comrade Dimitroff spoke of, directed? Is this great movement of the masses going some place after fulfilling the official aim of the “coalition” itself to “liquidate fascism”? Evidently. In the course of discussion at the Seventh Congress, concerning united front governments, Comrade Dimitroff (See the magazine The Communist International, September 20, 1935, p. 1235) said, in arguing against “any hard-and-fast rules”:
“It would be wrong to imagine that the united front government is an indispensable stage on the road to the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship. That is just as wrong as the former assertion that there will be no intermediary stages in the fascist countries and that the fascist dictatorship is certain to be immediately superseded by proletarian dictatorship.
“The whole question boils down to this: will the proletariat itself be prepared at the decisive moment for the direct overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of its own power, and will it be able in that event to secure the support of its allies? Or will the movement of the united proletarian front and the anti-fascist people’s front at the particular stage be in a position only to suppress or overthrow fascism, without directly proceeding to abolish the bourgeois dictatorship?”
Nor was Dimitroff alone in this conception that there is no Chinese wall between the defeat of fascism and the proletarian revolution, beyond which wall no Communist dare look on pain of expulsion from the CPUSA. Comrade Wilhelm Pieck, in concluding his report, asserted that:
“... the indignation of the masses at the capitalist regime will continue to grow, the revolutionary crisis to mature and the idea of storming the citadel of capitalism to mature in the minds of ever larger masses of proletarians...
“Our task is to organize the toiling masses who are rising against capitalism into a solid revolutionary army of the proletariat and to lead them to storm capitalism.”
Comrade Maurice Thorez, speaking at the Seventh Congress, before the formation in France of the first (1936) People’s Front government, headed by Leon Blum, spoke of how such a government would have to fight off “an attack of reaction and fascism even more cruel and persistent” than before.
“But,” he said, “the people’s front and the Communist Party would occupy new positions which we should have to make use of in preparation for the setting up of Soviet power, of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
And in his explanation of the character of the French Communist Party, American comrades can see the contrasting character of the present CPUSA. He said:
“Our party can realize such a policy. It no longer risks losing itself in other parties or being confused with them... We acquired this independence especially thanks to the adoption of the tactics of ’class against class,’ tactics by force of which the face of our Party was shown to be absolutely different from all other parties, including also the Socialist Party.”
Is the CPUSA in danger of “losing itself in other parties”? To answer that question, one has only to look at what is being proposed by our leadership. Firstly, basically, the tactic of ”class against class” is completely outlawed.
Ideologically, in our actual practical work among the masses, we are commanded not to propagandize for Socialism, since this would “isolate” us from those terribly “backward” workers among our allies; and, in effect, to limit our propaganda to the need for defeating fascism and war, without injecting any conception that this can be done, finally and effectively, only by struggle of “class against class” to overthrow capitalist rule.
By this practice, the Communist Party emphasizes to the masses the likeness in its program to that of other “progressive” political groups, and the Democratic Party particularly in respect to its so-called “pro-Roosevelt” section; and, by this practice, the difference in our Communist program from these other groups and parties become obscured to the masses – and, finally, to ourselves.
Who are the Communists in the CIO, and what are they doing there? The answer by our National Trade Union Secretary, John Williamson (published by the Waterfront Section of the Communist Party, undated, but early in 1947), reveals that Communists differ from other CIO members only in being extraordinarily good union men “fighting selflessly for the progressive policies of the CIO and for its unity around its elected leader, Philip Murray.”
Who are the Communists who are messing around the Democratic Party, and what do they mean by it?
The answer to this question can be found in any Dennis report or Schneiderman speech: these Communists are only extraordinarily passionate defenders of (bourgeois) democracy, and they are only trying to get the Democratic Party to remain true to the (bourgeois) reformism of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Obviously, it is this sort of thing, this hiding of the face of our Party, and not of bold assertion of our identity as Communists, with a Communist program of distinct aims going beyond the aims of Philip Murray and of Jimmie Roosevelt, which invites red-baiting and destroys, rather than builds, any real “coalition” on the basis of a commonly agreed upon fight against fascism and war.
The anti-Communist resolution of Philip Murray is virtually asked for; and Jimmie Roosevelt, Chairman of the Democratic Party in California, is practically forced to do the job of differentiation that we don’t do, by exclaiming: “We must make clear that we Democrats are not Communists” (UP press report, December, 1946).
That is the sort of Right Opportunist practice which Comrade Dimitroff was warning against at the Seventh Congress of the CI. More, it is precisely what our 1945 National Convention Resolution condemned in Part II, Section 6, as follows:
“We Communists began to carry on the historic struggle against fascism, for democracy and national freedom, in a way that was not always clearly distinguishable from that of bourgeois democrats and bourgeois nationalists.”
So much for the current practice of liquidating the CPUSA ideologically.
Organizationally, and proceeding under this banner of identifying ourselves only as defenders of bourgeois democracy, we are commanded by Comrade Dennis (December, 1946, Plenum “Remarks,” published in Political Affairs, January, 1947, pp. 11-12) to go forth, each and every Communist Party member, and lose ourselves in another political party, by recruiting individuals (regardless of class, too!) into something which Comrade Dennis cagily calls “a grassroots mass membership political action organization.” Here is what he says:
“What is required is the organization, in every ward and township, in every city and on a Congressional district basis, of some form of independent, political, legislative membership organization... building down below, everywhere, a grass roots mass membership political action organization.”
Observe that this is not a united front of proletarian organizations united in a delegate council; neither is it a people’s front alliance of parties and organizations, each of them retaining its independent identity, and federating together, as in a Farmer-Labor Party, on a program common to all, but infringing on none of their separate programs. No, this is a “mass membership” organization.
And who is going to do the actual work of organizing it? The Communists, of course. Yet not as Communists, because we have already foresworn any propaganda of Communist ideology and aims; and, having organized such a “political action organization,” we Communists, but not as Communists, must assume the main if not all the burden of its activities. All of which, as anybody of experience can see, will certainly result in liquidating the independent activities of the Communist Party as a Communist Party. It will do the job of liquidation just as surely and even more effectively than did Browder’s “Teheran” policy of liquidation in 1944.
And, to top off all this Right Opportunist liquidation of our Party in fact, without doing it “officially” as Browder did, Comrade Dennis, directly after instructing us so to do, says he “stresses” that:
“All this activity must be connected with a determined and greatly expanded effort to help unite and activate the pro-Roosevelt forces in and around the Democratic Party.”
So, if the members of the Communist Party want to know where they may be found after losing themselves in this anonymous “political action organization,” the answer is: together with that organization, “in and around the Democratic Party.”
Browder could do no better. In fact, he couldn’t serve the imperialist bourgeoisie half so well as does Comrade Dennis.
But the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, which Comrade Dennis so professes to admire, never provided him with any decision to justify that. Neither did the CPUSA National Convention of 1945.
“Liquidationism,” said Lenin, in his Selected Works, Vol. IV, “is the attempt of a certain section of the party intelligentsia to liquidate (i.e., to dissolve, destroy, abolish, close down) the existing organization of the Party, and substitute for it an amorphous association within the limits of legality, even if this is attained at the price of an open renunciation of the program, tactics and traditions, i.e., the past experience of the Party.”
[32] It is false to assert that the Seventh Congress “prepared the way,” in 1935, for the dissolution of the CI in 1943, any more than the First Congress “prepared the way,” or that Monday “prepares the way” for Friday. The Resolution of the Executive Committee dissolving the organization declared that the movement had outgrown the forms of organization originally provided, and the latter had, therefore, become anachronistic. As to being “independent” organizations “making their own decisions,” the Seventh Congress resolutions say nothing more than the following:
“Taking into account the constantly growing importance and responsibility of the Communist Parties which are called to head the movement of the masses in the process of revolutionization, taking into consideration the necessity of concentrating operative (my emphasis – HG) leadership within the Sections themselves, the Seventh Congress of the Communist International instructs the Executive Committee of the CI:
“While shifting the main stress of its activity to elaboration of fundamental political and tactical lines of the world labor movement, to proceed in deciding any question from the concrete situation and specific conditions obtaining in each particular country and as a rule to avoid direct intervention in internal organizational matters of the Communist Parties.” (All emphasis mine – HG.)
[33] In his Imperialism (Chapter VI), Lenin in comparing Plekhanov to the British Imperialist, Cecil Rhodes, gives a quotation from Rhodes, made in 1895, which might well, transferred to the American scene of 1944, have been uttered by Browder. Rhodes said:
“I was in the East End yesterday and attended an ’unemployed’ meeting. I listened to the wild speeches, which were just a cry for ’bread,’ ’bread,’ and on my way home I pondered over the scene and I became more than ever convinced of the importance of imperialism. My cherished idea provides a solution for the social problem. In order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands for settling the surplus population of this country, to provide new markets for the goods produced in our factories and mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become an imperialist.”
Browder wanted to “avoid civil war,” of course “for the benefit of the working class.” So he became an imperialist, “for the benefit of the working class.”
[34] Another and more brazen attempt to smuggle this anti-class struggle “national unity” idea into our Party, was made by Comrade John Pittman (People’s World, April 8, 1947), and under a shameless pretense that Comrade Dimitroff was urging this idea upon us. Completely unsupported by a single word actually quoted from Dimitroff in what Pittman, writing from Bulgaria, called “an exclusive interview,” Pittman himself asserted that a “national front” was desirable in America, but asserted it in such a way that he implied that Dimitroff had used that term. Now, Bulgaria is not an imperialistic country. On the contrary it has been made the victim of imperialism, and still stands in danger of losing its national independence by imperialist aggression. Therefore, a “national front,” a policy of “national unity,” is right and proper for the Communists of Bulgaria. But in the United States, a country which is the very prototype of an imperialistic nation, a country whose national independence is threatened by nobody, but, on the contrary, an imperialistic nation obviously aggressively threatening the national independence of every nation on earth, a “national front” or an ideology of “national unity” no matter how neatly dressed-up in “democratic” phrases, can only be a “national unity” against class struggle, a “national unity” for American imperialism.
[35] I cannot believe that those comrades who were sincerely trying to get our Party back on a correct line can defend some obvious absurdities in the Resolution. For instance, Part I, Section 3, states in part:
“It is essential to weld together and consolidate the broadest coalition of all anti-fascist and democratic forces, as well as all other supporters of Roosevelt’s anti-Axis policies.”
Aside from the typical Dennisesque redundancy of “consolidating” something already “welded together,” one might ask just who are these “other” supporters, over and above “all” of the “anti-fascist and democratic” forces? Are there, somewhere, some pro-fascist and anti-democratic elements who supported “Roosevelt’s anti-Axis policies”? Undoubtedly there are such elements. But do we Communists want them in a “democratic” coalition which is to fight against fascism?
Again, it strains the intelligence overmuch, for the Resolution, in Part II, Section 5, to declare that we American Communists are distinguished by “our adherence to the scientific principles of Marxism-Leninism,” when it is admitted in Section 6, that we had not adhered to those principles in about every particular possible to enumerate, in fact, confessing to a “revision” of Marxist-Leninist principles.
Again, in the Resolution’s opening paragraph, a prize example of putting the cart before the horse is given by the statement that: “It (the military defeat of Nazi Germany) has already brought forth a new anti-fascist unity of the peoples in Europe.” It seems evident that it was rather the “anti-fascist unity of the peoples of Europe” which “brought forth” the military defeat of Nazi Germany, and not the other way round.
Once more, and more seriously, we have the horse behind the cart in Part I, Section 3, where it is recommended that:
“... labor should co-operate with those capitalist groupings and elements who, for one or another reason, objectively at times, promote democratic aims.”
Here it is held that labor should co-operate with certain capitalists, rather than that these capitalists “should” co-operate with labor for democratic aims. Apparently, labor should not lead. More obscurantist is the phrase “for one or another reason.” This outright concealing of class interests is obviously the work of Comrade Dennis, since the same phrase “for one or another reason” occurs in his pre-convention reports and also in his post-convention speeches. But, unless we are deliberately trying to deceive the workers, why could we not speak plainly, and say that certain capitalists “promote democratic aims,” temporarily, at least, because they think that is the best way to maintain capitalism and prevent revolution; that there’s no harm in having such allies, but there’s harm in having illusions about them. Of course, such a clear explanation might well nullify Comrade Dennis’s desire that labor should turn the most reverent and obsequious visage to such “democratic” capitalists – and instead of the labor movement tailing after such capitalists, if they want “for one or another reason” to march for democracy, to march under Labor’s command.
Nevertheless, with all its weaknesses, the National Convention Resolution provided, to any leadership which wanted to pursue a Marxist-Leninist line, sufficient general guidance to take that path.
[36] “The ’theory’ of spontaneity is the theory of opportunism. It is the theory of deference to the spontaneity of the labor movement, the theory that actually denies to the party of the working class its leading role of vanguard of that working class... It is opposed to the movement which follows the line of struggle against the foundations of capitalism, and is in favor of the movement which follows exclusively the line of ’possible’ demands... The theory of spontaneity represents the ideology of trade unionism... the ideology of ’dragging at the tail,’ the logical basis of all opportunism.” – Stalin, in Foundations of Leninism (Chapter III, Section 2).
The reader can take note how this theory of spontaneity has been given official approval in practice by our Party leadership in its sanction of the CIO Resolution, sponsored by Murray, against Communist Party “interference.” Compromises on the question of trade union “independence” are sometimes permissible for the Party; compromises are sometimes forced upon us, but in such cases the Party must take its case to the widest rank and file masses, and explain the role of the Party in relation to the trade unions. But this CIO Resolution was not a compromise, but a complete surrender to the Murray policy of excluding Communist propaganda and Communist policy from the CIO. Nor was any adequate effort made to reach the CIO workers with enlightenment as to the necessity of a Communist Party to their interests, only an exercise in semantics on. the definition of the word “interference.” The results speak for themselves.
[37] I say it is Dennis’s “evident” concept because, firstly, every positive statement of his is so formulated as to imply such a concept; and, secondly, because he gives no other concept whatever. If he has any other than the social-reformist concept visible in all he says why cannot he be as frank as Dimitroff; as clear as Lenin, in voicing it? Whom does he think he is fooling? The imperialist bourgeoisie? He cannot fool them. And he should not fool the proletariat.