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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. II No. 30, 23 July 1938, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
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At its recent convention, the Communist Party adopted a new constitution which says that the “party opposes with all its power any clique, group, circle, faction or party which conspires or acts to subvert, undermine, weaken or overthrow any or all the institutions of American democracy.” And in his formal statement to the McNaboe Commission, Earl Browder declared that while the Trotskyists and Lovestoneites attributed to the Communist Party a position against capitalist democracy, the party was in fact always the staunchest advocate of this democracy. How utterly hypocritical and mendacious the new Stalinist position is, may be seen from the quotations which we reprint below. They are taken from an official Communist Party pamphlet entitled Why Communism? by M.J. Olgin, second revised edition, issued by the Workers Library Publishers, in May 1935, that is, two years after Hitler came to power. The quotations are merely a statement by Olgin of the traditional Marxist and communist position, which has now been completely abandoned by the Stalinists – Ed. |
You have been taught that we live in a democracy, that the institutions of this country are bulwarks of freedom, that the government of the U.S.A. is a government by, for and of the people. From time to time you are allowed to cast your vote, and on this occasion you are told that by universal suffrage the “sovereign will of the people” is expressed ...
The truth of the matter is that this is a rich man’s State and a rich man’s government. The State is there to act on behalf of finance capital and to protect Its interests against the people. The government is the executive committee of the big trusts ...
The State is an instrument of power in the hands of the big industrialists, bankers and landlords, who by this token are the ruling class. The State is there to effect the exploitation and oppression of the workers and the poor and small farmers, and also of the subjugated colonial peoples, by the ruling class. The Constitution, the government, its laws, its agencies: the army, the militia, the police, the courts, the jails, the legislatures – all are there to effect the exploitation and oppression of you and millions like you ...
At a time when it is necessary for the workers to understand the real nature of the State as an Instrument of exploitation and oppression they [the leaders of Socialist Part. – Ed.] tell the workers that the State, as constituted at present, can be a means of liberating them from exploitation and oppression. At a time when it is necessary for the workers to gather strength and fight against the capitalist State and its laws, the Socialists preach to the workers a reliance on this very State and its laws. At a time when it is necessary for the workers to develop the will to power which shall ultimately crush the capitalist State and make the workers and farmers the ruling power in a State of their own making, the Socialists tell the workers that nothing of the kind is needed and that they have to remain within the legal limits prescribed for them by the ruling class ...
Revolution only Answer An extraordinary international Socialist Conference met in Paris at the end of August 1933. The Socialist leaders discussed the question of fascism, the question of war and peace. Did they suggest any effective remedy against fascism? The only real remedy is a revolution of the working class to overthrow capitalism by first destroying the capitalist State. But the Socialist leaders were opposed not only to revolution: they were opposed even to the united front against war and fascism. The Socialist leaders again talked “democracy” instead of revolution. They talked League of Nations and disarmament conferences instead of a real struggle against war. What was the actual achievement of the Socialist conference? It spread illusions among the workers to the effect that by using the instrumentality of the capitalist State, they can abolish the evils of capitalist oppression and by using the instrumentality of capitalist international institutions like the League of Nations or the Hague Tribunal, they can abolish wars ...
We communists say that there is one way to abolish the capitalist State, and that is to smash it by force. To make Communism possible the workers must take hold of the State machinery of capitalism and destroy it.
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