Discussion with the SWP visitors (June 12, 1940)

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Note from Writings of Leon Trotsky:

"Discussions with Trotsky," National Committee Bulletin, Socialist Workers Party, June 1940, where it bore the title "Discussions with Lund" (a Trotsky pseudonym). About half of this document was printed in England in 1965 under the title "Stalinism and Trotskyism in the USA." This is a rough stenographic draft, not corrected by the participants, of discussions held during four days in Mexico by Trotsky and a delegation from the Socialist Workers Party. For security reasons pseudonyms were used in the stenographic draft, but are replaced in the present text. The SWP members who participated were James P. Cannon, Charles Cornell, Farrell Dobbs, Sam Gordon, Joseph Hansen, Antoinette Konikow, and Harold Robins.

Agenda:

1. Report on Conference of Fourth International
2. War and Perspectives
3. Aftermath of Internal Fight
4. Party Organization, Methods, etc.
5. Stalinists
6. Youth Question
7. Racial Minorities

MINUTES:

(Secretary not present at first session. Excused)

June 12, 1940

Trotsky: It is extremely difficult to make prognoses on account of the unprecedented character of the war. The moral factor in the French army is the big unknown. The intervention of Italy complicates and at the same time simplifies the situation. If Great Britain and France do not capitulate, they must seek a redoubt in the Mediterranean. This would signify an aggressive policy toward Italy. That Italy is now destroying the bridges on her border with France shows that Italy does not intend to invade France but fears invasion. The Alps give France the advantage. It is downhill fighting for them. Italy follows a purely defensive policy in the Alps, an offensive policy in relation to the Suez Canal, North Africa, etc. As for the invasion of the British Isles by Hitler, that would mean only a question of national existence; the Mediterranean is the question of the empire's existence.

It is not excluded that Italy will prove to be Germany's weak link. Great Britain can use North Africa for a new base of operations. It would mean blockading Europe. In regard to the invasion of Great Britain, Churchill speaks of retreating to Canada, but he didn't mention the Mediterranean area. Are they ready to abandon this area? It is more natural that they would fight retreating to the Mediterranean. Then America would be the third phase. If it were not necessary for Great Britain to defend the isles any longer, she would have the preponderance in the Mediterranean. She would make Italy the objective of an intensive fight and blockade Germany, that is, Europe.

It is also excluded that Russia will enter the war on the side of Hitler and Mussolini. If the United States enters the war, and I believe it will, this will have a tremendous influence on Moscow. Let us consider the alternative: not to enter. The very speed of Germany's advance fortifies the isolationists who would wait for Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America to drop in their lap. Then a war against Japan before meeting Hitler. But not only the isolationists, but the march of war in Europe determines the course that will be followed.

I must confess that I have read little about the war during the past few weeks beyond what appears in the newspapers. You will understand that this other matter [the assassination attempt] preoccupied my attention.

The so-called isolationists are inclined to accept the defeat of the British Empire. They are afraid of Hitler. They say that they can't postpone the war against him. He can prevent us from obtaining the British heritage. Hence we read in the papers that the Senate unanimously votes an unprecedented power to Roosevelt. This indicates that he has made an agreement with both the Republicans and the Democrats about the necessity of entering the war.

Cardenas's telegram of sympathy for France over the Italian entrance into the war is the Mexican response to the American voices that Mexico is Nazi and hence intervention is required. It signifies agreement between Cardenas and Washington. Of course those are my impressions rather than sure conclusions. As I mentioned, I have not been following the events the past few weeks as closely as necessary for sure conclusions. Latest events have brought the United States closer to the war. What form will the war have? If the Allies should succeed against Italy, then they would have good air bases against Germany. Success against Italy gives mastery over Spain. Support from the United States in the form of war materials can then become very effective. United States entry might possibly begin with airplanes, battleships, possibly marines—but not the army, at least at the beginning. The sea fleets must be organized in conjunction with Britain and France; a blockade must be organized of Europe in order to stifle Hitler economically despite his victories. This can be done especially if they win Moscow which is very probable. Such successes in Italy would swing Moscow to the Allies, at least as much as toward Germany at the present—like a satellite swung by a new force.

Our working hypothesis for propaganda must be six months legality—no more. We have often discussed illegality and how to work under such conditions. Illegality can be maintained only if we are hidden in mass organizations.

Militarization now goes on on a tremendous scale. We cannot oppose it with pacifist phrases. This militarization has wide support among the workers. They bear a sentimental hatred against Hitler mixed with confused class sentiments. They have a hatred against the victorious brigands. The bureaucracy utilizes this to say help the defeated gangster. Our conclusions are completely different. But this sentiment is the inevitable base for the last period of preparation. We must find a new realistic base for this preparation. We must oppose sending untrained boys into battle. The trade unions not only must protect the workers in peaceful times and protect their industrial skill, but they must now demand the possibility of learning the military art from the state.

For instance in the trade union we can argue like this: I am a socialist and you are a patriot. Good. We will discuss this difference between us. But we should agree that the workers be trained at government expense to become military experts. Schools should be set up in connection with the trade unions—at government expense but under the control of the trade unions. This kind of approach would give us access to the workers, who are 95 to 98 percent patriotic even at the present time.

Only with this perspective, not abstract opposition to militarism, can we have success in the trade unions and the military organizations. We can find in this way new routes and sympathies for illegal situations. Of course the technical side of underground activity is important but it is only a small part of illegal activity.

As for the Stalinists. They flatly oppose the entrance of the United States until Moscow switches. But meantime there is an important distinction between them and us. Abstract slogans have a similarity. They with their larger organization shout louder than us. We must seek to create a very clear distinction in the matter of militarism. Naturally we are against all these things in general but we have particular differences over the matter of militarization. It makes the most important difference in the matter of preparing for illegality.

Everything indicates that Moscow is preparing a switch. In Mexico, where these shifts are often indicated first, the CP has the right to place Hitler on the same level as Churchill. On the day that Moscow makes a half turn toward the democracies as a half friend, there will be a new explosion in the ranks of the CP. We must be ready to gain from it. I consider the possibilities in the CP very good despite the transitory radicalness of the CP, which cannot be for long. Likewise, in general, despite the CP radicalness, possibilities are very good. It is possible that the U.S. will enter during the next six months. It will enter as a military machine. We must learn how to handle arms. All things will now be decided on the military front.

The state is now organizing tremendous military machines with millions of men. No longer do we have just the small possibilities of defense guards but the wide possibilities given by the bourgeois state itself.

Cannon: Can this take the form of resolutions in the trade unions? Do we demand military equipment, training, etc.? What about the possibility of confusing us with the patriots?

Trotsky: Partial confusion is inevitable, especially at the beginning. But we place our whole agitation on a class basis. We are against the bourgeois officers who treat you like cattle, who use you for cannon-fodder. We are concerned about the deaths of the workers, unlike the bourgeois officers. We want workers' officers.

We can say to the workers: We are ready for revolution. But you aren't ready. But both of us want our own workers' officers in this situation. We want special workers' schools which will train us to be officers.

At first the bourgeois press will hesitate. It may even support the idea. But with the class lines sharply drawn they will be disquieted and then launch an attack.

Cannon: The New York Times just printed an editorial advocating universal military training. Do we agree with that?

Trotsky: Yes. That is correct—but under control of our own organizations. We reject the control of the Sixty Families. We want an improvement of conditions for the worker-soldier. We want to safeguard his life. Not waste it. Yes, Mr. Bourgeois, you must depend on the workers. You train them for your own aims. We want them trained for their own aims. We don't want them trained for the command of stupid indifferent bourgeois officers who will use them for cannon-fodder.

Dobbs: On the technical side there is an abundance of material for such agitation. Men were drafted in May and within two or three months were dead in France. They were not properly trained to take care of themselves. We can compile factual material in relation to past experience. In advocating that workers be trained as officers we can compile material on how officers have wasted material. Also it is a good point in arguing against the patriots by showing how the workers lost their lives because they weren't trained. It is a very impressive argument with workers.

Cannon: Doesn't this line make a very sharp break with the pacifists such as Norman Thomas and the Keep America Out of War outfit? For a long time our agitation has been abstract. It was against war in general. Only revolution can stop war. Hence we favor universal training. The difficulty is to make clear that we are really against war. We need very clear and precise formulations.

Dobbs: We can attack the pacifists. Wouldn't that solve it? It is inevitable that we have to fight. You must train yourselves. Whether in the red or the bourgeois army you must train yourselves.

Cannon: It signifies too a re-education of our own movement. The youth has been impregnated with an anti-militarist and escapist attitude toward war. Already many have asked about going to Mexico in order to hide out. Our propaganda is not sufficiently separated from that of the pacifists. We say there must be no war! At the same time we say we can't avoid war! There is a link missing somewhere. All questions will be solved with war. Mere opposition can't signify anything. But the problem which requires clearest formulation is making ourselves distinct from the patriots.

Konikow: What about our slogans such as "not a cent for war"?

Trotsky: Suppose we had a senator. He would introduce a bill in favor of training camps for workers. He might ask 500 millions for it. At the same time he would vote against the military budget because it is controlled by class enemies. We can't expropriate the bourgeoisie at present, so we allow them to exploit the workers. But we try to protect the workers with trade unions. The courts are bourgeois but we don't boycott them as do the anarchists. We try to use them and fight within them. Likewise with parliaments. We are enemies of the bourgeoisie and its institutions, but we utilize them. War is a bourgeois institution a thousand times more powerful than all the other bourgeois institutions. We accept it as a fact like the bourgeois schools and try to utilize it. Pacifists accept everything bourgeois but militarism. They accept the schools, the parliament, the courts, without question. Everything is good in peacetime. But militarism, which is just as much bourgeois as the rest? No, they draw back and say we don't want any of that. The Marxists try to utilize war like any other bourgeois institution. It is clear now that in the next period our opposition to militarism will constitute the base for our propaganda: our agitation will be for the training of the masses.

Our military transitional program is an agitational program. Our socialist revolutionary program is propaganda.

We must be terribly categoric in the next period. We must brand Thomas as the most perfidious enemy. We must say the war is inevitable. Bureaucrats! this war signifies the death of your trade unions. We must make the most categoric predictions in the darkest colors. We must come out categorically for the dictatorship of the proletariat. We must make a complete break with the pacifists. A short time ago everyone was against the war. Any confusion with the pacifists is a hundred times more dangerous than temporary confusion with the bourgeois militarists. We prepare the new arena to overthrow the militarists. The pacifists help to lull the workers to support the militarists. Thomas, we must predict, will support the war—war is inevitable. We must learn the art of handling arms. As for the escapists—including those in our own party—we must speak about them with full contempt. They are deserters. Likewise with the conscientious objectors who accepted everything in peacetime but don't want to accept war. Escapists are deserters from their class and their revolution.

Konikow: Yes, we must not run away from the masses.

Gordon: I believe that the rapid militarization among the broad masses will aid in putting over this program and make it easier than among the radicals, where anti-militarism has a long tradition. Men such as Debs are their heroes. This tradition still exists in the labor movement. Just how to get around it is not yet clear in my mind.

Trotsky: Not even Debs had the perspective of taking power and launching the socialist society. He proclaimed his aversion to war and went to prison. He was brave and honest but he did not have the perspective of revolution.

Cannon: It was a protest and not a revolutionary approach. Our movement is infected with it, contaminated, especially the youth who had the socialist tradition of protest but not the tradition of entering the armed forces and conquering them.

Trotsky: It is no longer the slogan "Jobs not Guns." In a military situation we need new slogans. It would be good to have a party discussion, possibly a small conference to elaborate a good start for this agitation. We could try out a small experience in Minneapolis or St. Paul and see. We should have articles in the magazine on military questions. Likewise in the Socialist Appeal. In four or five weeks we can make a re-orientation. Even those in the majority with an old trade union background can be re-educated at an extremely rapid tempo. Thomas and his ilk will become ridiculous in a short time and lose their audience. In order to fight the real enemy, we must enter his land, which is now militarism.

Cannon: Can we be called militarists?

Trotsky: Yes—in a certain sense—we are proletarian socialist revolutionary militarists. Possibly we should not use it at first. Wait until we are called militarists by Thomas or someone like that, and then make a polemical reply. Thomas has called us militarists. Yes, we can be called militarists in a certain sense. Then we can use it with this explanation.

Konikow: We started to discuss this in our branch but were afraid to bring it out on account of spies. We don't want to bring about the conditions where they will put our young men in concentration camps instead of the army. We were almost afraid our members would be excluded from the army. How can we agitate so as not to be stamped in advance as traitors?

Trotsky: We will have victims. It is inevitable. There will be carelessness and so on. But the general line will protect us. In the union I can say I am for the Fourth International. I am against war. But I am with you. I will not sabotage the war. I will be the best soldier just as I was the best and most skilled worker in the factory. At the same time I will try to convince you that we should change our society. In court my fellow-worker would say, "He said that he would be a disciplined soldier, that he wouldn't provoke rebellions. All he asked for was the right to give his opinion." We can make a similar defense in court for our prediction regarding the doom of bourgeois society. If the bourgeoisie could preserve democracy, good, but within a year they will impose a dictatorship. We are against dictatorship. We will fight arms in hand against such a dictatorship. Naturally in principle we would overthrow so-called bourgeois democracy given the opportunity, but the bourgeois won't give us time.

Dobbs: Just as in the factory one must be a very good worker in order to influence the other workers, so in war he must be a good soldier.

Konikow: We must use caution in our agitation.

Cannon: To what extent can we use the analogy of the army and the factory? Can we use it as categorically as you have expressed it here?

Trotsky: Yes, I think so. In the factories now more than half of their produce is war goods.

Dobbs: Whether we enlist or wait for conscription or avoid entering is a practical question, isn't it? Whether we join voluntarily, await conscription or evade conscription—that's a practical day-to-day question.

Trotsky: We must be for compulsory military training for the workers and under the control of the workers. It is an approach to the workers' militia. As to entry into the army that is an individual question. Obviously we don't agitate for entry!

Dobbs: In Texas a congressman proposes appropriations for the creation of military combat units against the Fifth Column. These workers are to be trained by officers to be selected by the employer. That appears to be an ideal case, one we should pick up and show how it should be turned around and used.

Trotsky: There will be dozens of such examples.

One more point: We must polemicize against the stupid argument that the U.S. cannot be attacked. Of course the U.S. is attacked. Any modern empire is attacked by changes in the military powers of other countries. Germany threatens the empire of the United States. Capitalism is international.