; aa, popular checks
would run hog-wild and
bon have the whole

a worse mess that it

Of course, Comrade
does not want any
uation, but Lenin has
ce taught us that the

results of political
sbear no necessary rela-
fhe subjective desires of
etiators.

the practical effects of
Browder’s revisionist
e to facilitate the poli-
American imperialism
jd question. Let me

is by indicating briefly

r imperialistic implica-

pen Comrade Browder
s; that the United States
ystwar period should set
zild up a $40,000,000,000
sxxport trade, as he did
Sook Teheran: Our Path
pand Peace, he is in fact
Bupon American imper-
i> make a drive virtually
Sopolize the markets of
pid.

Hien Browder says (page
this book Teheran: Our

willing to help the free
sers
foreign market that is
fi entirely and com-
by their own chosen
es.’ he is tailing the
: after the bourgeoisie
rendering the American
into the hands of the
lists!

then Browder proposes
e great capitalists of the
States have a free hand
-y through a postwar
m -of ‘“industrialization

yed areas of the world,”
n fact proposing Ameri-
ynomic and political world
ony.

Then Browder says that
in and the United States
closed the books finally
fyrever upon their old ex-
ton that the Soviet Union
ing to disappear some
ne is blinding the people
s and other countries to
ingerous machinations of
can and British imper-
against the USSR—“a
nmation devoutly to be
i” by these sharks.

Yhen Browder fails to sig-
the danger of American
ialism (and he denies, in-
vle though it may seem,
shere is any such imperial-
enace), he is hiding from
‘merican people the great-
danger to future world
and progress. The im-
lists could hardly ask for
sing more convenient to

» schemes of exploitation
iomination.
When Browder’ fights

pst the American people
‘ng the monopolies, as he
: actually he is freeing from
aint the worst enemies of
racy, the generators of
omic chaos, imperialist ag-
sion, fascism and war.

/ When Browder spreads il-
ns among the workers to
effect that there will be a
-period of class peace after
iwar during which they can
‘iy bind themselves with a
trike pledge, and that the
floyers. will voluntarily rad-
'¥ Improve the workers’ real
es, he is tending to para-

the working class in the .

: of the provocative attacks
‘big capitalists upon the
fe unions and the workers’
og standards.

7IC ADVOCATE—PAGE li

bf his major proposals.

|. War and Peace), “I am .

realize the $40,--

the devastated and un- -

On The Question Of Revisionism

8. When Browder (Daily
Worker, April 8, 1944) haiis=the
Labor - Management Charter
without a word of criticism and
deplores ‘only that it is “un-
fortunate” the NAM is not a
partner to the Charter, and
when (Daily Worker, April 14,
1944), he proposes that the in-
centive wage be adopted gen-
erally in American industry in
the postwar period, he is open.
ing wide the doors for the
speeding up ‘and more intensi-
fied eploitation of the workers
of this country. |

9. When Browder’ dissolves
the CP into the CPA, he is
weakening the most dynamic
foree that the workers possess
to counteract the reactionary
activities of the great trusts at.
home and abroad.

One would have to be blind
politically not to recognize that
all these revisionist theories and
proposals of Browder’s dovetail
with the interests of the great
capitalists and that they are, in
fact, a reflection of the aggres-
sive program of American im-
perialism. Contrary to Browd-
ers faith in the big bourgeosie,
the democratic forces of the~
country and the world will have
to use all their united political
strength to achieve complete
victory, to establish a demo~
cratic peace, to win full em-
ployment and a better life gen-
erally.

EDAZZLED by the United
States’ great power in this
war, by its enormous industrial
expansion and output, by
its gigantic political prestige,
by the many concessions
the capitalists made ~ (under
compulsion) to the workers dur-
ing the Roosevelt regime —
Comrade Browder in his pres-
ent writings and policies leaps
to the revisionist conclusion,
especially, after the Teheran
agreement, that American Capi-
talism and its capitalist class,
including reactionary, fimance
capital, has in some mysterious
way become progressive.

Upon this false basis, Com-
rade Browder proceeds to build
up a capitalist utopia in his
book, Teheran: Our Path in
War and Peace, in which he sees
the “enlightened” great capi-
talists of this country, acting
in “their true class interest,”
leading our country and the
world into an era of unprece-
dented democracy, industrial
expansion and mass well-being.
With this rosy picture in mind,
he calls upon the workers to
join hands harmoniously with
the capitalist class in realizing

it. He tries to stretch postwar _

national unity to include reac-
tionary finance capital. All of
which fantasy, of course, would
boil down in reality to the work-
ers in this country subordinat-
ing themselves to a more in-
tensified exploitation at home,
to the world being soon drag-
ged into a fresh growth of fas-
cism and a new world war.

Comrade Browder’s revision-
ist ideas violate the most funda-
mental principle of Marxism—
Lenininism. They are more
akin to the bourgeois notions
of Eric Johnston than to the
scientific principles of Marx and
Lenin As I said in. my letter

of January 20, 1944, to the Na-
tional Committee, “In this
(Browder’s) é picture, American
imperialism virtually disap-
pears, there remains hardly a
trace of the class struggle, and
Socialism plays practically no
role whatever.” Browder’s re-
visionism, while it goes in .the
general Social-Demoecratic di-
rection of subordinating the
workers to capitalist domina-
tion, is actually not Social-
Democratic, but bourgeois lib-
eral.

Browder attempts to liqui-
date the struggle by
preaching an illusory harmony
of interest between the work-
ers and their class enemies, the
big capitalists, in the postwar
period. For, if what Browder
says were true, that the ecapi-
talists would, of their own voli-
radically improve the

cfass

tion,

-workers’ real wages, there will

remain little or no basis for the
class struggle. Browder’s idea,
too, that the American big capi-
talists, in their “true class int-
erests” virtually must make
them not only raise the work-
ers’ living standards, but live
in friendly harmony with the
USSR, has nothing in common
with the Marxist conception of
classes and their roles. There
is no Marxian principle which
holds that social classes must
follow “their true class inter-
ests.”?- Indeed, history. is-replete
with examples of classes which,
under immediate economic, po-
litical or ideological pressures,
have violated their ‘‘true class
interests,” with disastrous con-
sequences to themselves. A
striking case in point was the
way in which the British ruling
class tended to follow the policy
of appeasing Hitler to the point
where its world position would
have been irretrievably shat-
tered had not the USSR be-
come involved in the war. To
appease the big capitalists and

thus to make sure that they,
would follow their “true class

interests,’ Comrade Browder
not only dissolved the Com-
munist Party, but he was also
prepared, if he could do so, to
liquidate the Communist Po-
litical Association and to give
up even our Communist ideol-
ogy.

Browder also tries to by-pass
American imperialism . theoret-
ically. In fact, his book, Teher-
an: Our Path in War and Peace,
is an attempt to prove that the
epoch of imperialism has passed
and that we are now in a period
of inevitable friendly collabor-
ation between the capitalist and
socialist sectors of the world;
a collaboration, which Browder
would not base upon the
strength of the USSR, the
colonial countries, the new war-
born democracies, and the la-
bor movement of the world (as
it must be if it is to exist), but
upon the good will of the great
capitalists, particularly the
Americans, whose “‘enlighten-
ment,” “high moral sense” and
“true class interests” will dic-
tate to them this collaboration-
ist course. Browder, indeed, un-
dertakes to wipe out American
imperialism regarding its re-
lations with the USSR, and he
also draws idyllic pictures of

how American big capital will, .

Continued

Government’s aus-
inaugurate
paigns of industrialization and
democratization throughout the
world. . According to him, our
capitalists would make the rest
of the world free and prosper-

under our

pices, great cam-

* ous whether it wanted to be so
For, says Browder (ion

or not.
page 79):

“There is not a government
in the capitalist or colonial
world that would dare refuse
or withdraw from such a part-
nership, once the United States
made ‘clear the benefits. that
would accrue to all concerned.”

seeks to do
away with Lenin’s theory of the
decay- of capitalism in the im-
perialist stage, and therewith,
he would even shelve the whole
Marxian concept of the neces-
sity for socialism. There can
be no other conclusions from
his argumentation; for if it is

Browder also

possible. for -world capitalism
under the leadership of the
United States and especially

under the tutelage of “enlight-
ened” American finance capital
to overcome its general crisis
and to embark upon a new per-
iod of exuberant and long con-
tinued economic expansion, then
there would be no possibility to
establish socialism in any think-
able perspective. Thus, Marx
and Lenin. would-be wreng and
Browder right. There is seri-
ous reason to conclude that
when Comrade Browder cast
aside the slogan of socialism
(as an educational issue) in
January, 1944, he did not mer-
ely put it in mothballs, to be
taken out again when its advo-
cacy would be more convenient,
but very probably -he thought
he was done with it for good.
In his theory of a capitalist
system capable of overcoming
its basic contradictions there is
“no room for socialism, even in
the most remote sense.”

®

That Comrade Browder was
attempting to have our party
discard basic principles of
Marxism-Leninism and to adopt
a bourgeois-liberal program is
incontestable. In his Bridge-
port speech 18 months ago, he
gave a clear indication of this
when he said: “Old formulas
and old prejudices are going to
be of no use whatever to us as
guides to find our way in the
new world.” What are the “old
formulas and old prejudices”
that Browder warns us are use-
jess? These are none other
than our Marxist-Leninist an-
alysis of the class struggle, of
imperialism, of socialism. Ali
these Browder himself had. al-
ready abandoned, and he was
trying to get our party to do
likewise.

GOMEADE BROWDER especi-
jally began to develop his
opportunistic ideas shortly aft-
er his return from Atlanta, (al-
though roots of them can be
found earlier.) At that time
the party had a sound war pol-
icy, worked out during his in-
earceration; including all-out
support of the war, support of
the Roosevelt Administration
with criticism, national unity of

all pro-war elements, including
pro-Roosevelt capitalists, the
achievements of maximum war
production, the labor no-strike
pledge, and an active defense of
the masses’. economic and pe-
litical rights as a war necessity.
- Browder almost immediately
started to project his oppor-
tunism into this essentially cor-
rect wartime policy. One of the
first signs of this was his uto-
pian handling of the question
of a centralized war economy. He
developed his opportunistic po-
sition further in his book, ‘’Vic-
tory and After.” And his re-
visionistic point of view finally
eame to full expression in his
“Peheran: Our Path in War and
Peace.”

The revisionistic ideas con-
tained in these works and in
Comrade Browder’s other writ-
ings and policies, not only intro-
duced confusion into our. politi-

_cal thinking, but also hindered

our practical work in support
of the war. In my article in the
Daily Worker of June 10, r
listed a number of the more im-
portant of our shortcomings
and mistakes during the war,
bred of Browder’s opportunism,
a list which, besides those noted
above, included, inadequate eri-
ticism of the Roosevelt -Admin-
istration; failure to demand a
coalition government with’ la-
bor as a full partner; rejection
of the demand that internation-
al labor should be represented
jn all wartime conferences of
the great powers; proposals for
a-joint. Republican-Democratic
_ ticket in the national elections,
which, if adopted, would have
eliminated Roosevelt as a can-
didate, etc. To this list could
be added many others, in al-
most all branches of our party
work. Such, for example, as
the tendency, in the _ earlier
stages of the war, to neglect to
press militantly for Negro
rights; the underestimation, for
a time, of the necessity for in-
creased wage rates for the
workers in. our eagerness to
have the incentive wage estab-
lished; and the failure to make
a major issue in the ranks of
labor and among the public gen-
erally of the vital matter of

the Government and the trade
union movement giving our
armed forces a thoroughly
democratic education regarding
the causes and purposes of the
war.

Through all of Comrade
Browder’s theoretical and prac-
tical errors runs the ever-pres-
ent thread of a tendency to rely
upon the big bourgeoisie for
national leadership, to appease
reactionary finance capital, to
underestimate the independent,
democratic role of labor and
other democratic forces, and
especially of our party, in the
national anti-fascist front. It
is true that the Communists
stood second to none in their
war effort and made a record
of which the party may well be
proud. But we must admit that
in the light of the existing op-
portunities and the responsibil-
ities we fell short in: many re-
spects precisely because of
these opportunist errors.

(Continued on next page)
SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1945.