The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-06-06

NOR as a warrior in an international
struggle which he thinks he sees still
going on in the Communist Interna-
tional. And on his spear-point fut-
tiers a handkerchief embroidered with
Trotsky's name stolen, we trust and
believe, while Trotsky lay i'll in bed.
Eastman enters the lists with two
books. One of these is Leon Trot-
sky: The Portrait of Youth"
(Greenberg, Publisher, New York;. In
it he writes in the style Of the pretti-
fed giographers-to -the-trade The
reader who has known Max Eastman
in the past begins to wonder what he
wrote the volume for-unless merely
for the market. But on the last page
we begin to get at least suspicion
that he has another motive. In the
second book, "Since Lenin Died." LA
Dor Publishing Co., Ltd, London), we
learn that our guess was right.
WHAT Eastman thinks he is doing
w is to defend Trotsky from the
terrible triumvirate, Zinoviev, Stain
and Kamenev. What he does in fact
is to make a hysterical attack upon
the Communist International and the
Russian Communist Party-too feeble
an attack to be of much concern, but
very interesting as a straw in the
wind of current history.
's There can be no doubt that East
man thinks he has great interna-
tional mission.
Il have hesitated to do this" writes
he, 'for over six months, because l
wanted to be sure that should serve
not merely the ends Of historic truth,
OF personal justice, but the real strate-
epy Of the revolution" (my emphasis).
And "the strategy Of the revolution"
requires that no less a man than Max
Eastman himself should prod the
poor, intimidate, "stampeded" Russian
Communist Party membership with
the fountain-pen of scandal until he
revives it's initiative.
"And that revival of initiative" he
writes, would automatically transfer
I Tie substance Of that power to Trot-
asky, for the simple reason that the
mass OF the party, just like all the
rest Of the world (my emphasis),
recognized. Trotsly's superior moral
and intellectual revolutionary great
ness"
7 DON'T think Comrade Trotsky win
desire or willingly receive the ser
vices OF Max Eastman in such a joust-.
ing, however. For one thing the joust-
ing is over, and Comrade Trotsky did
not win 1t; and for another thing
Eastman's stupid attempt will show
every Communist on earth who has
even an elementary knowledge of
Communism, the abyss Of bourgeois
vulgarization into which the crusade
leads. 1t sufhces to show where the
crusade leads Eastman himself. I'm
less the official head of the Russian
revolution have been guilty of de-
hberate lying. he says, he is forced
t0 conclude that:
=. the whole leadership of the
Russian Communist Party has been
In the hands of Mysteries" The
speeches and articles of Stain and
zinoviev and Kamenev and Bucharin,
If regarded as a discussion of points
raised by Trotsky, 'wouId be thrown
out Of a prize essay contest in a school
for defective children" "And all the
old religious, theological, metaphysi-
cal. absolutistical, canonical, scholas-
tic and dogmatic-academic habits of
the human race" are against Trotsky.
and Eastman sees "the beginning of
the Transformation of Bolshevism
from a science into a religion" the
transformation of the party into a
political church" and its leaders in
to an Official caste" and priesthood
as well"
Now there must be some very deep
reason for all this, and sure enough
Max is going to give it to us.
TT aaama that VIC wara oil x.v.n.~