Letter to Max Shachtman (Excerpts), December 25, 1931

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Personal Sympathies and Political Responsibilities

Dear Comrade Shachtman:

It's a good thing that at least a small beginning has been made in England. Let us hope that you will have more luck than Naville, who messed with the English question for more than a year without making the slightest headway, as in every other field.

Unfortunately, you have not replied to my objections to your conduct in Europe. In the meantime, I had to take a position against you openly, at any rate, without calling you by name, in a circular to the sections. I must establish regretfully that you have drawn absolutely no conclusions from the bad experience, beginning with the international conference of April 1930. The difficult situation in the French League is, to a certain degree, thanks also to you, for directly or indirectly you always supported those elements that acted like a brake or destructively, like the Naville group. You now transfer your support to Mill-Felix, who have absolutely not stood the test in any respect At one time you published in The Militant (so did La Vérité!) two scandalous reports by Mill from Spain which misled the whole International Opposition. These reports demonstrated that Mill was incapable of finding his way correctly in the fundamental political questions. After a year of struggle against Rosmer and Naville he suddenly began to fasten himself on to them. In your letter you half-coyly call this stupid. For a fifteen-year-old boy that might still hold. But for the full-time secretary of the International Secretariat one must seek sharper and more political designations.

Your conduct in Spain also, as is evident from your letter, was wrong. The Spanish comrades, especially Nin, committed all imaginable mistakes, wasted a lot of time, and now would like to find a scapegoat for their own weaknesses and mistakes. Lacroix, who, it is maintained, has very good qualities, is absolutely undisciplined in his thoughts and actions and to support him in his outbursts is a crime.

What you say about the German Opposition sounds like an echo of your old sympathies for Landau, which the German comrades do not want to forget and rightly so. In the struggle that we led here against the accidental, burned-out, or downright demoralized elements, you, dear Shachtman, were never on our side, and those concerned — Rosmer, Naville, Landau, and now Mill — always felt themselves covered to a great extent by the American League. I by no means believe that the American League bears any of the responsibility, but I do find it necessary to send the copy of this letter to the American National Committee so that at least in the future our European struggle may be less influenced by your personal connections, sympathies, etc.