[James P Cannon with his comrade Farrell Dobbs…]

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James P Cannon with his comrade Farrell Dobbs, in 1941 if Riannilat adventurism: into the swamp of es may by experience over-. for I directly referred to the charges.

We can only find space for of the pamphlet, Chapter 5, ing to the Majority'." one section » 'Submittputsches - we are organsing, speaking, writing, and 'explaining'; in other words, carrying on propaganda with the object of winning over the majority to our programme, which is the programme of social revolution.

Neither were we simply trying to make an honourable impression on the jury without taking into consideration that we should talk for the masses" . To be sure we did not stupidly disregard the jury which held the fate of 28 comrades, not to mention the legality of the party, in its hands. But we were speaking also, and especially, 'for the masses' We testified. primarily for publication. It was our ' deliberate aim to convince those who would read the testimony in printed form of the truth that the proletarian movement which we aspire to lead is a democratic movement, and not a "conspiracy' , as the prosecutor and the whole of the capitalist press would picture it, and as loose talkers would unconsciously aid them to so picture it;

not a scheme to transfer power from one clique to another, but a movement of the majority in the interest of the majority.

In addition, it may • as well be said candidly. that this testimony was also deliberately designed as an educational shock to such members and sympathisers of our movement as may still, at this late day, be dabbling with the idea of a shorter cut to socialism by some mysterious prescription for 'action' The Marxist authorities have all spoken in one voice on this question.

The Communist Manifesto, the first, and the most fundamental statement of the principles of scientific socialism, defined the proletarian movement of emancipation, in contradistinction to all others in history, as follows:

"All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities.

The proletarian move ment is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority"

The communist political method and strategy follow ineluctably from this basic premise. Nowhere and never have the authoritative representatives of Marxism formulated the question otherwise. The Marxists aim to make the social transformation with the majority and nut for the majority. The irreconcilable struggle of Marx and Engels against the Blanquists revolved around this pivot.

In 1895, summing up the experience of fifty years, Engels wrote, in his Introduction to Marx's 'Class Struggles in France':

''The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of the unconscious masses, is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for, body and soul. The history of the last fifty years has taught us that"

The successors of Marx and Engels followed in their footsteps. The experiences of the Russian revolution confirmed in life the basic premises of the founders of scientific socialism. It was precisely because Lenin and Trotsky had assimilated this concept into their flesh and cell blood that they knew how to concentrate their whole activity on propaganda to win over the majority, biding their time till they gained the majority, and resorting to 'action' only when they felt assured of the support of the majority.

What did they do in the meantime? They 'submitted to the majority' What else could they do?

Lenin explained it a hundred times, precisely in those months and days when the Bolsheviks were consciously preparing the struggle for power. In his 'April Theses' "The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution' published in Pravda on April 20, 1917, a few days after his return to Russia, Lenin wrote:

'As long as we are in the minority we carry on the work of criticising and exposing errors and at the same time advocate the necessity of transferring the entire power of state to the Soviets of Workers' Or! Mart Deputies, so tnar ine mass come beel meas A few days. later, he returned to this question, explaining the reason for this attitude, the reason being that "we are not Blanquists, we are Marxists" • On April 22 he wrote:

'In order to obtain the power of state the class conscious workers must win the majority to their side. As long as no violence is used against the masses, there is no other road to power. We are not Blanquists, we are not in favour of the seizure of power by a minority. We are Marxists, we stand for a proletarian class struggle against chauvinist defencism, phrases, and dependence on the bourgeoisie"

Not once or twice, but repeatedly and almost continually, so that neither friend nor foe could possibly misunderstand him, in the months directly preceding the October revolution, Lenin limited the Bolshevik task to the propaganda work of 'criticising', 'exposing errors' ', and 'advocating' in order to 'win the majority to their side'. . This was not camouflage for the enemy but education for the workers' vanguard. He explained it theoretically as we, following him, tried to explain it in popular language at the trial.

Again, in April 1917, refuting the accusations of Plekhanov and others who accused the Bolsheviks of 'anarchism, Blanquism, and so forth', Lenin once again explained : the question, for the benefit, as he said, of "those who really want to think and learn". Into a few paragraphs he compresses a profound thesis which every member of the workers' vanguard ought to learn by heart. He wrote:

"I absolutely insured myself in my theses against skipping over the still existing peasant movement, or the petty-bourgeois movement in general, against as PLAYING ar 'seizure of power' by a workers' goverimend, against any kind we experience of the Paris Commune. And this experience, as we know, and as was shown in detail by Marx in 1871 and by Engels in 1891, absolutely. excluded Blanquism, absolutely ensured the direct, immediate, and unconditional rule of the majority and the activity of the masses, but only to the extent of the conscious and intelligent action of the majority itself.

"In the theses I definitely reduced the question to one of a struggle for influence within the Soviets of Workers' Agricultural Labourers', ', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. In order to leave no trace of doubt in this respect, I twice emphasised in the theses the necessity for patient and persistent "explanatory' work 'adapted to the practical needs of the masses' "Ignorant persons. renegades from Marxism, such as Mr Plekhanov, may ery anarchism, Blanquism, and so forth. But those who really want to think and learn cannot fail to understand that Blanquism means the seizure of power by a minority, whereas the Soviet of Workers', Agricultural Labourers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies are admittedly the direct and immediate organisation of the majority of the people.

Blunder

«Work confined to struggle for influence within these Soviets cannot, absolutely cannot, blunder Grandizo Munis was a Spanish Trotskyist who later became a spokesperson for the ultra-left group that calls itself the International Communist Current. They consider the existing labour movement as bourgeois, rejecting trade unionism, etc.

They publish World Revolution' in English.

** Ochlerites were an ex-Trotskyist faction in the US led by Hugo Oehler. They made a principle of proclaiming the revolutionary party' no matter how small its numbers and support, and of counterposing it as a supposedly finished institutquism.. Nor can it b into the swamp of s ism, for anarchism the necessity for a ste for state power i period of transitior the rule of the bour to the rule of the ariat, whereas I, witt cision that exclud possibility of mir standing, insist on ti essity for a state period, although accordance with ME the experience of th Commune, not the parliamentary bo state, but a state wi standing army, wil police opposed 1 people, without an dom placed abo people" • Again explainine in 'Marxism diffe Blanquism' - he ly considered it al necessary for the & workers to underst so as to be sure ground at every st wrote in a letter to tral Committee of on September 26-2 • To be succes uprising must be k on a conspiracy, "The uprising based on the reve upsurge of the per is the second point COI ion to everything e tially they were T.

who were extreme istic and rigid in ti ing on general poli tions as well as on and thus parted with Trotsky.

They are the i ledged political an oxganisations like and the SWP * Blanquism was form of Iev communism in Fi term as used here politics of armed ion by a conspira ority who would s for the workers.

----- pull-quotes -----

Marx and workers' democracy

Lenin conspiracy

Revolut democri

party, but on the class. This is the fi