Communists and the Bourgeois Press

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First of all it is necessary to recall that the general problem of writing for the bourgeois press has its origin in the fact that a wide layer of the more poorly paid journalists, disgruntled at being exploited, are attracted to the Socialist Party, and sometimes even to the Communist Party. Forced to adapt themselves, in their work for the bourgeois press, to the views of their publishers and the tastes of the public, elements of this sort live double lives, and bring duplicity and outright moral corruption into the ranks of the proletarian party. From this there follows an imperative necessity to protect the party from contamination by the hired journalists of the bourgeoisie — people who by virtue of their adaptability and agility easily take over responsible positions in the proletarian party, crowding out the workers, but who at moments of crisis invariably reveal their lack of firmness and betray the cause of the proletariat. Such are the real social bases underlying the question of collaboration with the bourgeois press; and it is in this way that the problem actually arises.

It does not follow from this, however, that one can or ought to erect impenetrable barriers between the proletarian party and the bourgeois press under any and all conditions. It is enough to cite several of the most striking historical facts in this regard from the rich store of the past. Marx wrote regularly for the New York Tribune. Engels contributed a number of articles to the English bourgeois press. Lenin wrote an article on Marx and Marxism for the Liberal-Populist publication Granat’s Encyclopedic Dictionary. Trotsky, with the consent of the Politburo, wrote an article on Lenin in 1926 for the reactionary Encyclopedia Britannica. None of these cases have anything in common with the kind of work for the bourgeois press in which the Communist is forced to play a part, dissemble, deny one’s convictions, or endure insults against one’s own party, silently submitting to the publishers and blending indistinguishably with them.

In the first stages of a revolutionary movement, especially when the proletarian party does not yet have an influential press of its own, it may become politically necessary for Marxists to write for the bourgeois press. In China, for example, even though the Communist Party’s long stay in the Kuomintang had disastrous consequences for the revolution and the party, nevertheless properly organized contributions to the left Kuomintang publications by Chinese Communists could have had very significant propaganda value.

The same could be said of India, where the formation of “worker-and-peasant” (in fact, bourgeois) parties of the Kuomintang variety paves the way for defeats of the most terrible kind for the proletariat. Even so, total and unconditional independence for the Indian Communist Party does not rule out revolutionary agreements with other mass organizations or the utilization of national-democratic newspapers by Marxists — under supervision by the party.

How is this problem solved by the European Communist parties today? It has been stood on its head. Although Communists may not be writing for bourgeois publications today, the Communist publications are for the most part run by second-rate bourgeois journalists. The explanation for this is that the apparatus of the press and party, materially independent of the party membership itself, has grown to monstrous proportions upon a narrow internal, organizational base and now not only provides employment for the Communist journalists already at hand but also attracts bourgeois journalists, most often incompetents who are unable to make successful careers in the capitalist press. In particular, this explains the extremely low level of the Communist party press, its lack of principles, the absence of any independent views or individual merit in it, and its readiness at any moment to call black white and vice versa.

In this area, as in others, the Western Communist parties suffer not so much from the difficulties intrinsic to revolutionary parties of the proletariat in capitalist countries as from the ills that the Communist Party of the USSR had to combat only after winning power (careerism, the assumption of protective coloration by enemies of the revolution, etc.). Without having power, the Western Communist parties have the disorders that afflict ruling parties — reflecting those of the Stalinized CPSU.

The Opposition finds itself in an altogether exceptional situation. It is the immediate and direct representative today of only a small minority of the working class. It does not have any mass organizations or government resources behind it. At the same time, the Opposition still has its moral authority among the masses and its ideological capital, because, in every country, the Opposition includes elements that led the Comintern during the period of its first four congresses, and in the Soviet republic includes those who, side by side with Lenin, founded and led that republic.

The Opposition is mechanically cut off from the broad masses by the Stalinist repressive apparatus, which makes use of the victories of the world bourgeoisie over the proletariat and the pressures of the new propertied elements in the USSR for this purpose.

If we leave aside certain isolated and ambiguous statements in the democratic and social democratic press about the deportations of Oppositionists, etc., if we take the overall evaluation of the struggle between the Opposition, the centrists, and the right wing made by the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois press, a very clear picture emerges. According to its custom, the bourgeois press translates this struggle over principles into the language of personalities and says: Stalin is unquestionably right against Trotsky, and Rykov is probably right against Stalin. But that is not all. During all these years of struggle, the bourgeois press has used the terminology of the Stalinist press to characterize the Opposition (robbing the peasant, restoring War Communism,^ trying to start a war or provoke revolutionary adventures, refusing to defend the USSR, and, finally, preparing for armed struggle against Soviet power). Pretending to believe this slander, the bourgeois press skillfully uses it to fight against communism in general and against its most resolute and uncompromising wing, the Opposition, in particular. Tens of millions of workers throughout the world have had this slander, fabricated by the Stalin faction, passed on to them through the pages of the bourgeois and social democratic press.

It is an elementary historical fact that the Stalin faction has collaborated closely with the world bourgeoisie and its press in the struggle against the Opposition. This collaboration could be seen especially plainly in the case of Trotsky’s deportation to Turkey and Stalin’s agreement with the most reactionary elements in the German government on not allowing Trotsky to enter Germany. Let us note at this point that the most “left wing” of the Social Democrats agree (verbally) to let Trotsky be admitted to Germany-on the condition that he refrain from political activity; that is, they impose the same demand upon him that Stalin did at Alma-Ata. As for England and France, even without a formal agreement Stalin could count on support from their governments and such organs of the press as Le Temps and The Times, which categorically opposed admitting Trotsky. In other words, Stalin had a de jure agreement with the Turkish police and part of the German government and a de facto agreement with the bourgeois police of the world. The substance of this agreement is: to seal the lips of the Opposition. The bourgeois press, regardless of certain isolated and episodic exceptions, fundamentally gives its blessings to this agreement. That is essentially the lineup of forces. Only the blind could fail to see it. Only well-paid bureaucrats could deny it.

There is an obstacle preventing this united front from achieving full success in its aim of condemning the Opposition to silence, however-that is the fact, as we have mentioned, that the Opposition is headed, in many countries, especially in the USSR, by revolutionists who are known to broad masses of working people and whose ideas, politics, and destinies these masses have a sincere interest in. Added to this is the element of political sensation created by the dramatic forms in which the struggle against the Opposition has been carried out. These circumstances give the Opposition an opportunity on certain occasions to crack the united front between the Stalinist press and the bourgeois press. Thus, the deportation of Comrade Trotsky gave him the chance to state, through the pages of the bourgeois press numbering millions of copies, that the Opposition is fighting against Stalinist national socialism and for the cause of international revolution; that the Opposition will be in the front ranks defending the USSR against its class enemies; and that the accusation of preparing for an armed uprising against Soviet power or of terrorist assassination attempts is nothing but a foul Bonapartist machination.

It would of course be absurd to argue that the Opposition, even on a single occasion, could present its actual program in full in the pages of the bourgeois press. But it is a major gain just to have refuted the most poisonous of the Thermidorean lies in publications circulating in tens of millions of copies, and thereby to have encouraged a certain number of the workers who read these articles to find out for themselves the genuine views of the Opposition. To have rejected such an exceptional opportunity would have been foolish and pathetic doctrinairism. The charge of collaboration with the bourgeois press is not only obscene; it is simply stupid, coming from those who turn Oppositionists over to the bourgeois police.

There is no need to repeat or elaborate upon the fact that it is now more important than ever for the Opposition to establish, strengthen, and develop its own press, and not only to link this press as closely as possible with the revolutionary vanguard of the working class but to make it organizationally and financially dependent on that vanguard as well. In this work we cannot allow even a hint of the habits and practices of the social democratic and semiofficial Stalinist presses, which settle matters by salary and career considerations. The revolutionary commitment and ideological toughness of the editors and staff of the Opposition press must be constantly verified in the strictest possible way.

Individual instances of collaboration with the bourgeois press, which by their very nature can only be episodic and of secondary significance, must be under the strict supervision of the Opposition, organized on a national and international scale. Creating this kind of an organization is the central task of the moment. Only if this is accomplished will we be able to speak seriously about saving the Comintern, which is falling apart under the centrists. and right-wing Communists, or of reviving and strengthening it under the banner of Marx and Lenin.