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From New Militant, Vol. II No. 20, 23 May 1936, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
“The date” – Governor Olson’s conference at Chicago, May 30–31, to explore the possibilities of a national farmer-labor party – “may prove to be a landmark in the history of independent political action and the great battle for the rights and welfare of the American people.” So says the Daily Worker. Governor Olson himself could not have said it better.
Should there be any doubt of this prophecy, let us recall the example of the Illinois coal miner. He meant well. During the period in which the National Miners Union was created, he had read in the Daily Worker about the various history-making conferences and when his turn came to attend one of them he arose solemnly just before the hour of adjournment to propose: “Mr. Chairman, I move you that this conference go down in history.”
Certainly the political developments that preceded this conference invests it with an unusual importance, though most likely in the opposite sense of the prophecy mentioned above. A sufficiently wide variety of representatives of the common people, so-called, are invited to give it an appearance of a new movement. But the significance to the working class of such movements, whether new in reality or in appearance, depend entirely on their political direction. And it should not be difficult even at this time to form an estimate of what role history will assign to Governor Olson’s conference based on the position of the various forces that will be represented.
The actual sponsors are made up of a combination of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party, including Governor Olson and Mayor Lattimer, and Stalinist leaders of the official party and stooge organizations. This is the leadership. It should hardly be necessary to remind our readers of the despicable role played by Governor Olson during the strike of local 574 when he declared martial law and had his soldiers throw the strike leaders into the stockade, not to mention the police assaults, under the direction of Mayor Lattimer, upon the Strutwear strikers and upon the strikers of the Flower Mill Iron Works. The whole history of the Minnesota F.-L.P. leadership is one of disreputable deals with the Democratic Party. In the last election Governor Olson’s party lost its control of both branches of the state legislature. It is therefore with the fear in mind of a further possible loss that the Minnesota F.-L.P. leaders have set out to utilize their present unique opportunity of combining a step toward extending their own third party experiences to a national scale with a much bigger deal for support of Roosevelt, all of which is expected to bring returns in a greater popularity at home.
Who will attend the Chicago conference? There will be serious trade union elements like Schlossberg and Gorman, the “outstanding trade union champion for a labor party,” according to the Daily Worker, Heywood Broun, for whom Morris Hillquit once said that Socialism was such a nice novelty, will be there; liberals, amateur radicals and third-partyites will attend, together with a good sprinkling of Stalinists and their stooges; Non-Partisan Leaguers from North Dakota; Farmer-Labor Progressives from Wisconsin; Farmers Holiday people; Epic Democrats, Knickerbocker Democrats and Townsend people who will support anything with pensions in it; Social Crediters, Share-Our-Wealthers and Anti-Fascist Leaguers. What will this motley gathering do?
Browder says: “The conference has the opportunity of working out a program which will be a clear guide for the growing sentiment in the United States for a national Farmer-Labor Party.” But the main forces in this gathering are prepared to make their deal with Roosevelt. The trade unions that are now generally listed in the progressive category are committed to support Roosevelt’s re-election. Commitments in this case means more than support of the person or the individual; it means support of his program and support of his national ticket.
The Chicago conference will not consider a national third party ticket. Naturally! Why should it? The old method of parliamentary deals still holds true and the Democratic Party will decide the national ticket. But, as has already been amply demonstrated by experience, a Farmer-Labor Party is essentially an institution of parliamentary maneuvers and election activities. So also in this case. The real center of attraction in these elections is the presidential ticket; the standard bearer and his platform determines the character of the election campaign and of the governmental administration after the election victory is achieved. Anything that comes out of this conference can therefore in no sense be anything else in reality but an adjunct to the Roosevelt re-election campaign.
Browder cannot possibly have any illusions on this question. Evidently, he sees no conflict between the Roosevelt and the Farmer-Labor Party sentiment. And how could there really be any according to his people’s front Farmer-Labor Party conception. He says: “We must collaborate organizationally and politically with those who are committed to the support of Roosevelt in 1936.” To collaborate organizationally and politically is a very broad promise. It has all the possibilities of a real national union of the so-called common people behind Roosevelt. Given the premise that already exists and reinforced by the Stalinist people’s front ideology, it could hardly have any other outcome. It is therefore only in this sense that the clear guide which Browder seeks from Governor Olson’s conference can have any meaning. And this is all to be put over in the name of the fight against reaction.
These forces of reaction, proclaims the Daily Worker, “have drawn close together to hurl the Statue of Liberty into New York Bay.” Next we will be informed, in tones trembling with indignation, that these same forces will attempt to bury the stars and stripes beneath it.
“We must make the masses of the country understand,” says Browder, “that the victory of the Republican Party-Liberty League-Hearst combination would throw power on to the side of the war makers.” By this the masses are also to be made to understand that Roosevelt and his party are not amongst the war makers. What a frightful delusion and deception of these masses of whom Browder speaks with such a glib tongue. Or, could Browder’s statement possibly have some other meaning? No, it is clear that these masses are to forget this year’s gigantic military budget mounting up to more than one billion dollars, for, says Browder: “We would not do or say anything that would tend to turn Roosevelt support over to the Republican candidate. We distinguish between twins. Even twins are not identical.”
Certainly twins are not identical. But it is very important to know the difference as measured by time, place and objective conditions. Such an estimate will place Roosevelt as a much more effective and a much more progressive defender of capitalism and all that it stands for than the old fashioned reactionaries. Roosevelt’s program, when stripped of its demagogy and verbiage, is clearly a program for more effective and more up-to-date class-collaboration in order to prepare the home basis for a new onslaught on the world market, for new conquests, economic, political and military. The gigantic army and navy appropriations sponsored by Roosevelt can be understood only in this light.
But the Stalinists are not going to “do or say anything that would tend to turn Roosevelt support over to the Republican candidate.” This cannot mean anything else than no opposition to Roosevelt and the conducting of the election campaign in such a manner that votes will be garnered for Roosevelt regardless of whether or not the C.P. goes through the formality of nominating its own candidates, for, as we have seen from the statements of Browder, any other policy would bring the forces of reaction down upon us and “hurl the Statue of Liberty into New York Bay.”
What a dastardly deception and delusion of the working masses is being here perpetrated in the name of the campaign for a Farmer-Labor Party. And this is at a particular time and under objective conditions in which certain important strata of the working, masses have actually begun to enter a process of awakening, when signs are manifest that point toward a beginning of political consciousness. This is the time and place and condition demanding above all clear and precise efforts toward education of the masses for the needs of a new social order – for the needs of a persistent and tenacious struggle for Socialism.
In view of this situation what can Governor Olson’s conference do? Does this general situation not mean in reality that even the idea of a national Farmer-Labor Party is already shelved for 1936? Appearance and reality after all are two different things. In this particular situation it will be found so much more to be the case. Whatever Farmer-Labor Party proclamations may be forthcoming from this conference, such would really be nothing else but a new way, at least for some parts of the country, to corral support behind the Roosevelt standard.
Apparently the open betrayal of the political class interests of the working masses does not even wait for the actual formation of a reformist Farmer-Labor Party.
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