The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-08-22

the July number OF the Workers
Monthly is replete with errors. Inas-
much as there was no polemical dis
cusEion under way at the time he
might, Of course, have come upstairs
and talked to me about it, and tried to
convince me to correct my point Of
view in detail In the succeeding num-
Der Of the magazine; but in that case
he might have had no article to write
and besides, he would perhaps say
This is not the way that a Com
munist organ (even a would-be Marx
ist-Leninist one) corrects the errors
committed in one of its articles"
Comrade Wolfe rushes to the at
tack. To those who have not read
my article, he seeks to give the im-
preston that am not only an ignor
anus and an eclectic, but also a So
cial-democratlc apologist for imperial
ism, with secret leanings toward
Hague conference pacifism. He does
not scruple to make use Of insinua-
ton, deliberate misquotation, and fal
sification Of facts. For these reckless
epithets, my article itself is sufficient
REPUTATION, representing as it does an
attempt to arouse American workers
to the necessity of active alliance
with the exploited peoples of the col
onies and semi-colonies for the over
throw of American imperialism.
TT is with the doctrinal inadequacies
of Comrade Wolfe's criticism that
! shall deal here.
At the outset want to say that
should have been sincerely glad of
a better II less pompous and pretenti-
Gus criticism of my article. The ar
ticle was, In a sense, pioneer work in
a new field; it was, so far as l know,
the first attempt to give the Lenin-
list conception of imperialism a wider
practical application in the American
class struggle by showing the effects
OF Imperialism upon the American
working class as well as on the sub
ject peoples. For the first time a
detailed explanation of the mechanics
OF super-profit in the American en-
pire was essayed, together with the
mechanics of the relationship between
the super-profit reaped by the CAPT
talists and the poisonous class col
liberation" policy in American trade
unions. l also pointed out the SIMS
ter connection between super-profit
and the role of the American socialist
party. Many of these things had been
dealt with before, some of them in
much greater detail, but nowhere had
they been brot into direct juxtaposi-
ton in an article on imperialism. This
conceive to be one of the most i'm
portant tasks of our party in the
struggle against Imperialism. We do
not direct our articles on imperial-
ism written in English to the colonial
and semi-colonial peoples, but to the
American working class. And it is
essential not only to make the Ameri-
can workers realize that American i'm.
perialism exists, by printing long
lists of statistics (altho this also is
of vital importance), but to make
them realize how imperialism bears
they must fight it. do not claim any
basic originality for my article. 1t
is simply an adoption Of the theses on
national and colonial questions adopt
ed at the second congress of the Com
munist International. l have drawn
freely for material upon widely
known writings of Lenin, Bukharin,
zinoViev, Stain, and Pavlovitch. Prac.
tically all Of the information on "class
collaboration" is taken from the lit
tie pamphlet by Comrade Browder,
which is undoubtedly the meat au-
thoritative work in its special field.
Yet the article was In many respects
pioneering. Better articles on the
same subject will certainly be writ
ten, but In It's fundamental PROPOSE
lions the article is correct as ii
stands.
AND here encounter Comrade
"A Wolfe. who declares that all Of
INV haair rronaoifiona arc incarreet