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Below is the text from an open letter that was
issued in the form of a flier aimed at the Young Communist League. It was written and distributed by young
American Trotskyists at the time of the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939.
Down With the Stalin-Hitler Pact!
Down With the War!
An Open Letter to the Members of the Communist
Party and of the Young Communist League
Dear Comrades,
You have been terribly betrayed. You have been members of the Communist
Party and the Young Communist League because you wanted to fight against
fascism, for peace and freedom and socialism. You suddenly learn that
Stalin, your leader, has come to terms with Hitler, the first among the
enemies of peace and freedom and socialism. What has happened? What can you
do now?
What Kind of Pact Is
It?
When the news came that Von Ribbentrop was flying to Moscow, the Daily
Worker assured you that the agreement would contain the “usual clause of a
non-aggression pact,” permitting cancellation by either party if the other
is guilty of aggression against a third state. But when the text was
published, THERE WAS NO ESCAPE CLAUSE.
On the contrary, Article III of the Pact provides that “the two contracting
parties in the future will constantly remain in consultation with one
another.” Article IV is more remarkable, providing that “neither of the
high contracting parties will associate itself with an other grouping of
powers which directly or indirectly is aimed at the other party.” And, by
Article VI, “the present treaty will extend for a period of ten years.”
Stalin and Hitler have also concluded a trade and commercial treaty whereby
Russia will supply raw materials – now necessary for war – in return for
credit and machinery.
The pact is, therefore, an alliance between Stalin and Hitler. By it Stalin
has given a green light, a go-ahead signal, to Hitler. He has shown that he
is willing to have tens of millions of workers and peasants in Poland and
the rest of Eastern Europe thrust under the yoke of Nazism so long as he
gets Hitler’s “promise” – Hitler’s promise! – that he will not interfere
with Russia.
Stalin’s “Peace
Policy,” Yesterday and Today
Browder says that the Pact is in line with the Soviet Union’s “traditional
peace policy.” Everyone knows perfectly well that Browder is lying. For
five years the policy was for a front of the Soviet Union and the
democratic imperialist powers against Nazi aggression, and against any form
of “appeasement” of Hitler. Munich was condemned as the worst possible
treachery.
The new policy is not merely an appeasement of Hitler, but an alliance with
Hitler. No reversal could be more complete. But though the Pact seemed to
come with the shock of lightning, its roots go deep into the past.
Where the Pact Began
Long ago, even before Lenin died, two opposite roads opened out before the
young Soviet nation. One road was as follows: While the Soviet Union built
up its industry and agriculture, and utilized to its own advantage the
antagonisms among the imperialist powers, it could win out only by
extending the revolution to the advanced nations. That was the road of
Lenin.
The other road was that of “socialism in one country.” According to this
the revolution could develop in Russia independently of the rest of the
world. It did not matter whether the revolution was extended to the other
countries. The theory of “socialism in one country” expressed the wishes of
the new and growing privileged bureaucracy of the Soviet state.
The bureaucracy – Stalin and his group – were able to impose their theory
because the Russian people were exhausted by the Civil War and discouraged
by the defeats of the workers in other countries.
What Stalin Wants
Stalin is the representative of the new parasitic bureaucracy and of the
privileged top layers – the plant directors, “millionaire collective farmers,”
high-paid Stakhanovist workers, technicians and the rest. They lead
comfortable and luxurious lives, with plenty of food and cars and houses
and country estates. All they want is to maintain their own power and
privilege. That is the key to Stalin’s policy, the key to the Pact.
The bureaucracy’s power and privilege are threatened from two directions.
Internally they are threatened by the Russian masses, whom they oppress and
tyrannize. Therefore everyone who dares to speak, or who might even be suspected
of wanting to speak, is shot or exiled. To wipe out the whole tradition of
the workers’ revolution of 1917, and every conceivable leader around whom
the people might rally, the bureaucracy staged the series of great frame-up
trials and the mass purges of the last few years.
Externally, the bureaucracy is threatened by the imperialist powers, which
themselves want to exploit the Russian people. Stalin therefore maneuvers
to secure a favorable “protective alliance” with one or another group of
the imperialist powers.
What Happened to the
Communist International
When the bureaucracy gained power in Russia, it also took over control of
the Communist International. Stalin reduced the parties of the
International from leaders of revolutionary struggle against their own
exploiters to instruments which would aid him in maintaining power over the
Russian people.
He maneuvered the various national parties in accordance with the
requirements of his diplomacy at the given moment. In this process he not
only compelled the parties to give up the revolutionary struggle in their
own countries, but he sacrificed the lives of brave and militant rank and
file members. Thus in 1933 he permitted Hitler to come to power without a
blow struck by the German Communist Party. Stalin’s representatives has
passports and airplanes – but the ranks remained to become the victims of
the fascist butchers.
The Popular Front
Stalin had to avoid war because he knows that in a war, the Russian masses,
with arms in their hands, would not only defeat the foreign invader, but
would revolt against Stalin’s tyranny and exploitation.
There were two possible ways, Stalin thought, to meet the threat to his own
power and privilege: either by coming to an agreement with Hitler; or by a
war between Germany and England-France, with Russia remaining neutral.
Trying the first, he permitted the Communist Party of Germany to be wiped
out, and offered terms to Hitler in 1933. At first Hitler seemed willing
(he ratified a trade treaty), then he turned his back on Stalin’s
out-stretched hand.
So Stalin concentrated on the second variant. He joined the League of
Nations, initiated the Popular Front, and became the apostle of “collective
security.” In England, France and the United States – Germany’s enemies –
the Communist parties gave up opposition to capitalism, became
“respectable” patriots, and announced their willingness to live and die for
democratic capitalism – if democratic capitalism would help Stalin.
Spain was the acid test for the Popular Front. To appease England and
France, Stalin and the G.P.U. prevented the Spanish workers from conducting
a revolutionary war against Franco – the only kind of war which could have
defeated Franco. But England and France – and the United States, through
its embargo – preferred a victory of fascism to a victory for the workers.
Then at Munich the democratic imperialism proved to the whole world what
could be expected of them. The Popular Front, collective security, and the
League of Nations were blown to splinters at Munich.
Stalin After Munich
With the Popular Front policy finished forever, Stalin turned back to an
agreement with Hitler. Soviet aid was withdrawn from Spain. The Communists
agreed to give up Catatonia without a fight. The war against Franco was
abandoned. Litivinov, the symbol of the Popular Front, was dismissed. At
the Russian party congress, Stalin and Molotov openly pleaded with Hitler
for an understanding. The Soviet Union refused to admit any of the Jewish
refugees from the Nazi terror. Stalin entered into secret negotiations with
Hitler.
At the price of a betrayal as infamous as any in history, Stalin thinks he
has saved his skin. But for how short a time! Hitler’s eyes have not turned
for long from the rich fields and oil wells of the Ukraine.
The End of the
Communist International
Stalin long ago destroyed the Communist parties as revolutionary vanguards
of the working class. By the Pact he completes his work. The remaining
Communist parties break up with great speed in the weeks to come. Already,
where the crisis is most intense – in France – the Communist party is
falling apart.
What To Do?
What are you, the members of the Communist Party and the Young Communist
League of the United States, going to do?
There are four choices before you:
1. Will you stay with this party which has led everywhere to defeat and
disaster and which has climaxed its course by embracing Hitler? Will you
stay – for the sake of preserving the power and privilege of the new rulers
and exploiters of the Russian people? We know that already thousands have
left the party, and many more thousands are sure to follow.
2. Or will you follow the example that is already being set, by the big
names that gathered on committee stationary and spoke at public meetings of
the “peripheral” organizations? These people will not stand by the Pact, by
which Stalin’s policy is brought into opposition with that of American
imperialism. They will cringe and run by dozens and hundreds to the shrine
of super-patriotism. They will now curse the name of Stalin. And they will
call with the loudest voices, for war. A war for American imperialism, for
the power and the profits of the Sixty Families.
Is that a war worth dying for comrades? Do you wish to die in order that
the Sixty Families and their British allies shall continue to rule the
earth, to exploit the workers and keep the hundreds of millions of colonial
peoples in hunger and slavery? Is that war a war against fascism? What a
horrible lie! That war, if unchecked, will bring to all the earth a
barbarism and tyranny which will make Nazism look like Paradise.
3. Or will you, disillusioned and disheartened, sink back now into
passivity – quit? Some of you will, we know, and we understand why. But,
comrades, do not think that you can escape by hiding – there is no corner
in this world to hide in.
The Only Road
4. We of the Fourth International, comrades, summon you to another road.
Yes, we are the Trotskyists. We know for many, many years your minds have
been hardened and steeled against us. But you have been lied to comrades.
Our banner is the banner of Marx and Engels and Lenin. Our ideals are the
ideals of the workers’ revolution. You will soon learn the truth of this in
our ranks.
There is not much time now, comrades. Answer our call! Together, with the
ranks of the workers and the exploited assembled, no force can stand
against us. For the triumph of the world socialist revolution!
The Socialist
Workers Party
The Youth
Peoples Socialist League (Fourth International)
Issues From 1996-2003:
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