Spain's Immediate Task

...To he sure, the seventh Congress of the Communist International held mat year made a lame and hypocritical attempt to introduce an element of consistency between Moscow's foreign policy and its attitude toward the International Socialist and Labor Movement...

...If there is ones s sdM within its boundaries, the BSSSgP of reaction will become brig*** Every Socialist...

...In his previous tenure, of office, he showed an awareness of the central issues that was impressive...

...The Right is rich...

...By doing so it would betray its own class interests...

...The masses and the intellectuals have joined hands in the service of a progressive regime...

...Summarized, they are as follows: ' There must be a resumption of vigorous battle against the Social Democracy...

...The retreat to the old...

...By Harold Laski WHEREVER men still care for progressive social experiment, or the ideal of intellectual toleration, for the kind of State in which the power of wealth is to be subordinated to the interest of the common man, the victory of the Left in the Spanish elections will be welcome...

...While collaborating with tile League of Nations and making military alliances with bourgeois governments, they continue to make war* upon the one great power upon whom Revolutionary Russia can rely implicitly for support at all times and whose support it must have particularly in moments of grave danger such as the present—the International Socialist and Labor Movement...

...That the Comintern itself has finally perceived the futility of its, attempt to deceive the International Socialist and Labor Movement through the united front maneuver and is returning to its old, frank policy of making war upon it is evident from information received this week...

...The Communists must speak directly to the Socialist working masses," says the miserable little double-crosser Gottwald, speaking for the big double-crossers in Moscow...

...and the clericals hate him because he has always fought their power over the education of Spain...

...We should call him a Leftwing Liberal in England...

...His great asset is character...

...The', knowledge of the reaction will hav taught them that, hard as is th ascent to power, its maintenanc is a still more difficult business...

...he dominated Spain in those years...

...Bet, in the next m*M Sp^nwh^Se^lpu "11*' indirec^than perhap...

...I THINK he will have as much * influence as anyone in keeping the forces of the Left together...

...But Gottwald does not stop at demanding the exit of the Socialists from the government...

...There is perfect harmony between Stalin and Hitler in their hatred of the Labor and Socialist International...

...thej I collaborate, for how mack MM stand trustees...

...quite properly in trying to create a People's Front, the defense ol i democracy is possible only on the basis of "unceasing struggle for the concrete practical rights and demands of the toiling population (as interpreted by the Communists...

...While fighting for the democratization of the army, says Gottwald, the Communists made a great mistake in approving the policy carried out by the present government...

...But it has also to bo pursued without weakness, since there are forces in Spam, especially in the alliance between big business and the Church, ready to seize upon the first signs that the grip of the new regime falters...

...They continue to identify the interests of Revolutionary Russia with those of the Communist dictatorship—a viciously false conception—and to mould their tactics principally with an eye to the preservation of their dictatorship...

...It does not shrink from either illegality or repression...

...We have no hesitation in saying that those Socialists and Communists of the left who assail Russia's legitimate policy of selfdefense are, speaking objectively, doing the work of Hitler and fascism...

...After Hitler's speech announcing the advance of German troops into the demilitarized Rhine land, there could be no more doubt of the aims of German policy...

...as Foreign Secretary, he gave new life to the position of 'Spain in the League...

...Coincidently with the publication of Gottwald's articles, it was announced that Budin, editor-inchief of "Rude Pravo," has been removed for "Sabotage, failure to criticise the Social Democracy, abandonment of the Communist line, support of the policy of national defense, failure to give adequate prominence to the speeches of Comrade Stalin," etc, etc From all the foregoing it is obvious that a "new-new line" has been ordered from Moscow...

...Jm the hmg raa _ ¦* cialista...

...Nothing proves more clearly the essential hypocrisy, and irresponsibility of the Communist dictatorship in Moscow...

...What Hitler offered to Europe was a 26-year peace guarantee in the West in exchange for • free hand against Russia...

...Fortunatelyj these left elements constitute an insignificant fraction of the international working class, which rightly perceives in Hitlerism its worst and most savage enemy, whose destruction, at any cost, must be the first and foremost objective of international Socialism and all lovers of freedom...

...The next task is to consolidate its foundations...

...In personality there is something akin to Ernest Bevin about him...

...For the victory has meant that the commor man, in the face of unprecedented effort from the Right, has determined that the Left be given the chance to build upon the foundations of that creative passion whicl made the Revolution five years ago It is an immense responsibility for the simple reason that it is tin last chance of constitutionalism in Spain...

...It has to be pursued with out revenge, for that would drive the Right to desperation...

...The Comintern declared itself as eager for a united front with the Labor and Socialist International, which only a short while before it had accused—with all . the Communist propensity for slander and falsehood—of subsidizing "counter-revolution," "sabotage" and "military intervention'' in Russia...

...Do not let us underestimate their difficulties They will need to mas ter the banks...

...He is aggressive, dominating, insistent...

...Of interest in this connection is the report published in the London New Leader, organ of the Maxton's Independent Labor Party, that Dimitroff, secretary-general of the Comintern, has been sent on a holiday to the Crimea, after being' deprived of active leadership in the Comintern...

...In a series of articles in "Rude Pravo," official organ of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, he condemns the party's "rightist deviations...

...the Left victory means the pardon of some thirty thousand political prisoners...

...To guarantee that it endures is to give new hope to civilization in the darkest hour it has known for many years...

...This gentle professor is one of the noblest intellectuals in Europe...

...And what are Gottwald's conclusions...

...Gottwald condemns the action of the Czechoslovak Communists in voting for the budget as "a political mistake...

...The resolutions and decisions of the Comintern failed to deceive the Labor and Socialist International...

...There must be no more parliamentary combinations, he says, such as the rote cast recently by the Communists for Benes in the election for President of...

...The Right is likely to be a powerful opposition in the CorUs* out be restrained only as tk»'s» ed Left ¦abstains its inUfritT* impaired...

...Spain's Immediate Task Unity of the Left Called Essential Laski Analyzes Situation Confronting Revolutionary Parties and Pleads for Constructive Policy in Line with Nation's Immediate Needs to Avert New Reactionary Wave— Last Chance of Constitutionalism...

...the grim experience of these last years...

...It is the victory—immediately more significant—of a union of all Left forces, from the Social-Radicalism of Azana through the Socialism of Fernando de los Rios, to the Marxian views of Caballero, against the clerical Fascism of G^l Robles, the great landowners, the industrial millionaires, and the Church...

...The Communists have forgotten he class character of the army, Gottwald points out, adding: "The bourgeois army remains a dass instrument of oppression in .he hands of the bourgeoisie, even when the power is not in the hands of a fascist government, even when Socialists are represented in the government...

...I think, *** therefore seek for Spain that the next feu- years as*** ill, a breathing spaee witaia **** tw strengthen the p r «{ re»»i" forces* to s^rsnsafttc tMcir P"^^ into the, minds and hearts sf * people unahakabiy i ¦ * * m Sr S^AIN...

...for none knows better than he that the breakdown of the present union means something like Fascism on the Hitler model...

...ALL the drive and energy o Azana and Caballero, all th< delicate tact of Don Fernando wil be needed to move all these forces on a united front...

...There is, too, a certain relentles sness about him which has'been sharpened by...

...Now his task is to build its emotions into a coherent ideology...

...By John Powers LrrVINOFF'S speech before the Council of the League of Nations hi London on Tuesday emphasized again the extent to which Soviet Russia is committed to collaboration with the League and her military allies, France and Czechoslovakia, against Hitler Germany's war plana...

...For Soviet Russia to pursue any other policy would be to neglect criminally her very life interests and to jeopardize the conquests of flie revolution...

...The Communists must "mobilize the masses for active demonstrations...

...Second, nearly three years of Tory government have convinced the masses that Gil Robles and his allies are merely the monarchy writ larger and more brutal...

...Manuilsky is reported back at the helm of the Comintern, supported by others opposed to the Dimitroff "line" We are obviously confronted with another Stalin zigzag, the substance of which is continued "class collaboration" with the League of Nations and bourgeois governments by Moscow while persisting in the old policy of seeking to destroy the Socialist and labor movement and all democratic governments, including Moscow's own military allies...

...He was a great Minister of Education in the last Azana Government, and...

...In the light of the very real and formidable danger confronting Soviet Russia both from Germany and Japan, no Socialist aware of the realities of the situation and possessing a sense of responsibility can criticise Soviet Russia for its policy of collaboration with the (Lsssgue and any countries whose interests coincide with Soviet Russia's in the task of checkmating Hitler's war conspiracy...

...The Left has the men to do it, Senor Azana, their leader, is the outstanding figure of the new Spain...

...It is the old, familiar refrain—a call for the return to the policy which did so much to make possible the triumph of Hitlerism in -Germany and the progress of fascism and reaction in other countries...

...Events have proven that the "class collaborationist" policy of the French Communists was merely a corollary to the Franco-Russian military fSmtSSfk and that Moscow and its satelites abroad have not given up an iota of their old policy aiming at the destruction of the International Socialist and Labor Movement...

...On the question of the united front, Gottwald lets the cat out of the bag completely...

...The "new hue" of 1935 is abandoned...

...Citing certain portions of Dimitroff's address at last years congress of the Comntersi, Gottwald says that collaboration with the Socialist parties does not exclude but makes more imperative the struggle against the "reformism" of the Social Democracy and its ideology and practice of "class collaboration" with the bourgeoisie...

...Don Fernando is one of the little group of Spanish intellectuals who have kept alive there the noblest traditions of European free thought...

...Nothing is more calculated to play into the hands of the enemies of Revolutionary Russia everywhere...

...Prieto, back from his exile in Paris and Senor Company s who has emerged from, behind the prison walls to preside over the autonomous government« of Catalonia, are men of sterling quality who have learned much in these last years of what it means in a brief period to transform a State which, morally and intellectually ' still largely lived in the mental cli mate of the seventeenth centur...

...He never stops fighting...

...In order that the working class may become strong, we must emancipate it' from class collaboration with the bourgeoisie...

...It will take advantage of every weakness in its opponents' armour...

...It means—if, there is no- coup d'etat from the Right, and -if the primarily, for two reasons...

...They continue to make war upon all Socialists in Russia, and by imposing their rule of blood and iron upon the Russian people, by suppressing the independent, free, creative activities of the masses, by fanning bitterness and discontent among the workers and peasants, they weaken and-undermine the revolution's capacity for defense against the two rapacious enemies waiting for a chance to pounce upon Russia...

...Heil Trotsky and Heil Hitler...

...Comrade Gottwald's conclusions are extremely important not only for the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia but for all other sections of the Comintern...

...Senor Caballero is the outstanding trade union leader...

...Nor was the Labor and Socialist Telsiealhiiitl deceived by the tactics of the united front in France and the participation of the Communists in the People's Front...

...He has courage, energy, determination...

...There are old and stubborn prejudices to be overcome...

...Sunday, February 16th, was a triumph for the anti-Fascist forces of Eu1 rope...

...There is no hope for them in a continuance of that rule...

...The militarist-fascist bandits of Germany have the temerity to suggest openly that if permitted to despoil and dismember Russia, they will not attack the rest of Europe, Litvinoff emphasized this point very well and exposed complete)^ the erne character of Hitler's objectives...

...The interests of self-defense justify fully the sharp change in Soviet Russia's foreign policy from ill-founded, bitter opposition tiTthe League of Nations to "tan collaboration" with the League and any bourgeois governments whose own interests dictate the necessity of collaboration with Soviet Russia...

...Reconciling the Two Communist Lines . In an attempt to reconcile the "new line" of 1986 with the latest "new line," Gottwald declares that while the Communist Party acte...

...I hope the Left will remember that the consolidation of their victory does not concern Spain alone...

...Not less than any of these things, they will need widespread educational reform...

...They have to control follower* of fiercely varying shades of opin ion—Bakunin anarchists in Barce Ionia and Saragossa, ardent Syndicalists in the Asturias, passionate devotees of Moscow in many of the big cities, peasants with thr mentality of those* French agrarians who broke the yoke of feudalism in 1789...

...His treatment by the Robles regime has given him a special hold upon tradeunion opinion...

...on the other hand, collaboration with the International Socialist and Labor Movement was impossible because it was bound to lend logically to collaboration with Socialists in Russia and abolition of the Communist dictatorship...

...Ten years of profound progressive legislation are' essential if Liberal Spain is to be given its letters of credit...

...First, the working classes have resented profoundly the bloody repression of the Asturias rebellion of 1934...

...This bow in the direction of the bankrupt ham actor, Leon Trotsky, s made by the Comintern through its paid agent Gottwald at a time when Hitler Germany is arming to the teeth to destroy not only Czechoslovakia and every other democratic country standing in the way of its avaricious " ambitions but also Soviet Russia...

...There are long years of leeway to be made up...

...They will need drastically to reform the higher ranks of the army and to assure its loyalty...

...into a twentieth-century society...

...This is how the Communist dictators of Russia, engaged in "class collaboration" with the League of Nations, France and Czechoslovakia, are already preparing to stab Russia's allies in the back...

...Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Seaf From both the practical and ideological points of view, the dictators in the Kremlin have found themselves between the devil and the deep blue sea...

...There is something of the moral beauty of Gilbert Murray in him, but with a deeper fighting quality...

...As ourTreaders will remember, the fascists in Czechoslovakia constitute the second largest party in Parliament...

...The triumph of the ideas and ideals represented by the Labor and Socialist International is incompatible with the preservation of the Stalin dictatorship, as it is incompatible with the preservation of the Hitler dictatorship...

...There must be no more 'class collaboration...

...IJE relies not upon ingenious - manoeuvre, but on driving a straight path to his goal...

...The exit of the Socialists from the government would automatically require an invitation to the fascists to participate in the formation- of a new ministry...

...Nothing demonstrates more conclusively the urgent need of its elimination if Revolutionary Russia is to survive...

...The chance is real...

...On one side, Russia's interests of self-defense required "class collaboration" with the League of Nations and with bourgeois governments...

...And for this reason the working class cannot approve any appropriations for such an army and such' a government...

...They will need to break up the large estates in the interest of the poor peasants...

...It is, I think, unlikely that any of the leaders now will underrai he difficulties of their task...

...There are wide difficulties within the Left to be bridged so that an unbreakable unity of purpose confronts its enemies...

...In the last ten years he has moved rapidly to the Left...

...Unfortunately, however, the masters of the Communist dictatorship in Moscow, who by their own policies had contributed so materially to the triumph of Hitlerism in Germany, refuse to be consistent...

...Such are the integrity and wisdom of the incurable intriguers and traitors now in power in Soviet Russia...

...It is not, directly, a victory for Socialism...

...It is welldisciplined...

...There must be no more defense of "the remnants of bourgeois democracy," as proclaimed last year by the Comintern...

...A Left Socialist, he is hated especially by the Right, which cannot forgive him, granted his distinguished forbears, for having thrown in his lot with the working class...

...Rather than agree to the bitter, the rulers in the Kremlin prefer to jeopardize the vital interests of Soviet Tlnasia and the Russian Revolution and to continue to make war upon the International Socialist and Labor Movement...

...the Republic...

...Trotsky's continued attacks and fear of losing, the Communist masses have thus moved the Comintern to a brazenly bold return to the old policy of "a united .front from below, over the hoada of the .reacherous Socialist leaders...

...It is not efMH ttstory that the makers sf *m "orli 'see given the opserBS* jeacefully to build it* fensdsSP** Let them make these secure isfjj hey settle the design of the *** The Workers Abroad Lit vino ff Takes Sane View of Policy to Check Hitler While a Leading Czech Communist Writes Article Indicating Return of Another Stalin Zig-Zag Policy...

...The article bears the title "For a True Execution of the Line of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern.'' That the ideas presented by Gottwald have the approval of the Comintern as a whole is evidenced in the following bold-faced introduction to the article: "The questions discussed by Comrade Gottwald extend far beyond the limits of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and are of international significance...

...The Socialists of Czechoslovakia must be condemned for participating in the coalition government with bourgeois parties and for their policy of "class collaboration.'' In other words, the Comintern demands that the Socialists of Czechoslovakia retire from the government, devoted so energetically to the defense of liberty and the social interest against the threatened encroachment* - of fascism, and open wide^ihe door to the entry ol the fascists into the government...

...This was the now fully exposed united front maneuver...

...position—if a retreat can be considered necessary, in view of the fact that it was never really abandoned—is proclaimed in the last issue of "The Communist International," official organ of the Comintern, in an article by K. Gottwald, representative of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in the Executive Committee of the Comintern...

...Intellectually, Don Fernando do los Rios towers above his colleagues...