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From Labor Action, Vol. 8 No. 29, 17 July 1944, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Stalin’s lackeys in the United States, led by Browder, Foster and the GPU, are terribly upset over the dissatisfaction workers are demonstrating over the no-strike pledge. Almost every day they have an article in the Daily Worker, howling, wailing, moaning, threatening and calling on the FBI to do something. They want the WPB to deny newsprint to “Trotskyite” papers. They pack CIO Industrial Union Councils and pass resolutions “condemning” Labor Action. They buy space in capitalist dailies to “condemn” “Trotskyites” in the unions. They demand that the government “suppress” Labor Action and throw the “Trotskyite” “seditionists” into jail.
The Stalin-Browder Communist Political Association, following the fascist Elizabeth Dilling, has organized its own “Red Network.” Taking a leaf from the book of the Dies Committee, this outfit goes its slimy way, throwing filth in every place it is permitted to enter and on anybody who never made a pact with Hitler fascism.
They rant and rave about the KKK while at the same time they adopt the reactionary methods of the KKK. They talk against Gerald L.K. from one side of the mouth but from the other side they spew demagogy and reaction in the manner of Smith. This can be seen as clear as day by anyone who dips into the Daily Worker from time to time.
Here are some gems from a column by George Morris in the Daily Worker of Thursday, July 6. “After all, a Trotskyite is a peculiar kind of animal. He steps from the group that publicly confessed in 1936–37 trials at Moscow to an agreement with Hitler ...” But the facts are that no Trotskyist ever confessed. The Moscow Trials were properly characterized as the worst frame-up in history. Stalin used them to help purge his socialist opponents and to consolidate his bureaucratic regime. The trials were a vicious and ghastly frame-up concocted by Stalin and the GPU. “Confessions” were obtained by violence, threats and intimidation and were condemned by anyone and everyone not a Stalinist. Many are silent now only because Stalin is a partner of Churchill and Roosevelt.
But Morris has a queer memory. We advise him to stay out of Russia. He might get shot. As we remember history, it was Morris’ boss, Joe Stalin, who made “an agreement with Hitler.” Neither Stalin nor Morris will ever be able to rewrite this history. No amount of frame-up or GPU murder will destroy that record.
This agreement between Stalin and Hitler gave the fascist Butcher the go-ahead sign for the invasion of Poland which was the prelude to World War II. Right after the Stalin-fascist agreement, Molotov, another one of Morris’ bosses, dumbfounded every decent human being with the announcement that “fascism is a matter of taste.” That is, according to Molotov and Stalin, fascism is something like deciding on one brand of cigarettes or another. You decide which your taste prefers.
The Communist Political Association says that Labor Action and the Workers Party are opposed to an American victory. The inference that workers are expected to draw from this is that Labor Action is for a German victory. Here again they are trying to distort and rewrite history. Labor Action and the Workers are consistent opponents of capitalist and imperialist wars. We have said that this is an imperialist war, that it is not a fight against the theory and practice of fascism. Only yesterday Churchill proved what we say by declaring that the war is not “ideological.” We give political support to no imperialist class or government at any time. We give political support to the working class and to working class political organizations only. We urge the working class in the United States to break with the Republican and Democratic Parties, the capitalist parties, form our own party and establish our own government.
We believe that the workers in England, France, Italy and Japan should do likewise. We believe that the working class in Germany should drive the fascists out and establish their own government. If it were within our power we would help the German workers drive out the fascists just as we would help the oppressed Russian workers drive out the traitor and oppressor, Stalin. This is our program because only the working class can forever destroy fascism!
Morris and Browder would like the working class to forget a few important historic events aside from the “agreement” between Stalin and the fascist butcher, Hitler. We are against capitalist wars and for peace, but we never made a pact with Hitler, helped get an imperialist war going and then organized an American Peace Mobilization. We never organized a GPU and had it cooperate with the fascist Gestapo. We never aided Hitler and the fascists with the slogan: “The Yanks are not coming.” We have never called Roosevelt a fascist. We have never uttered such a monstrosity as did Browder when he said: “The former distinction between the fascist and democratic nations has lost the meaning it once had, and is rapidly losing any serious political meaning at all.” This came from the mouth of Earl Browder in Philadelphia on September 29, 1939.
William Z. Foster is also worried no end about strikes and the no-strike pledge. This is the same Foster who organized and led the great steel strike of 1919. It is the same Foster who a few short years back was whooping it up for peace: any kind of peace, “negotiated” or otherwise, just so the “peace policies of the Soviet Union” were accepted.
Foster is frightened out of his skin at what he now calls “narrow sectarianism.” He admits, that the workers have grievances: “their living standards are being infringed upon by the rising cost of living ...,” there are “various unsatisfactory decisions by the War Labor Board” and “many of the employers” are “provocative.” But, according to Foster, we must turn the other cheek because “the war is reaching its climax.” Also revocation of the no-strike pledge could have highly detrimental effect in the presidential election by strengthening the hands of the anti-Roosevelt opposition.”
This is queer talk from people who a few years ago were telling us that Roosevelt was a fascist. And we are reminded that the Daily Worker is elated over the fact that Dan Tobin of the Teamsters Union is after the “Trotskyites.” They are ready to lie down with Tobin in any old gutter. Now, Tobin is one of the AFL wheelhorses. Yet, didn’t the Communist Party say a few years ago that “the AFL is outright fascist”?
Foster says in his Daily Worker article of July 9 that “the basic remedy for the auto workers’ legitimate grievances, which the strike agitators are exploiting, is not to engage in a suicidal wartime strike policy but to improve the political work of the organization in Detroit, in Michigan, in Washington.” How shall the auto and other workers improve their political work? Foster and Browder say by voting for Roosevelt. But Roosevelt is President now and has been for nearly twelve years. The grievances about which labor complains most now came under Roosevelt. How will they correct these grievances by taking Foster’s advice and voting for Roosevelt again?
We like Foster’s expression, “strike agitators.” Where did we hear that and similar expressions before? “Foreign agitators.” “If you don’t like this country, go back where you come from.” “These agitators who come into our community and disturb the peaceful relations between the workers and their employers.” “They ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of commune-ists.” Yes, we heard this before from the Chambers of Commerce, the KKK, Father Coughlin and reactionary little business men.
With the Communist Party all-out for “free enterprise” and big business, it doesn’t sound strange coming from their months. Their line has changed again!
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Last updated: 17 December 2015