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

ton of the economic crisis then grip
ping Russia. The theory adopted by
the old guard was that the stabilize
ton of the ruble had to be undertake
en- Immediately as a prerequisite to
the state planning of industry Com
rade Trotsky's view, if am not mis-
taken, was that the state planning
of industry should come first. Who
was right? Is there anybody alive
who does not know now that the stab
ilization of the ruble was not only
one Of the wonders Of recent history
but also an absolutely necessary pre-
requisite to state planning and a
measure without which Russia would
now be in a most serious perdica-
ment instead of outstripping all CAPT.
talist Europe in the rate of economic
organization and improvement?
When Eastman begins to write
about the restoration of the manufac-
ture of vodka as government mon
opoly, it is hard to choose between
his propaganda and that of the anti
Bolshevik bureau in Berlin. "The rev.
dictionary government" he says, "has
made its life dependent, In other
words, upon the successful progress
of the ancient industry of debauehing
the Russian people," with more
space one might demonstrate sober
ly-the wisdom of the revolutionary
governments policy in regard to the
manufacture of spurious liquor, but
here it is only a question of Max
Eastman's right to manufacture such
utilization of the Soviet government
Eastman not only wanders into
what amounts to slanderous denunci-
alton Of the Russian Communist
Party and the Soviet government, but
at every step in his superficial, Cos
sip-gathered conception Of what is
going on within the Communist In
sernational, he builds his case always
upon the very weakest points in the
Trotsky foundation. His manner of
quoting Trotsky for the formula:
America has put Europe on rations,"
is the best that Eastman could do
toward trying to kidnap Trotsky for
the Kautsky camp. The conception
to which Eastman refers is one which
ignores the inherent contradictions
which make the permanent stabiliza-
ton Of world-capitalism impossible.
1t has not only not been adopted by
the Communist International (as
Eastman says 1t has), but it has been
rejected and demonstrated to be in
correct.
Competition is the Life Of
the Revolution.
DUT Eastman, by the nature of his
- task. is not allowed to remain
even in the sphere of vulgarized
"Leninism." He is actually carried
by force of his own momentum into
that field Of delicatessen store phil
osophy which the esteemed Emma
Goldman has made famous in her
my Disillusionment with Russia"
and Alexander Berkman with his hys-
terical collection of petty scolding,
'The Bolshevik Myth" Not that East
man could ever quite accomplish the
stupidity Of either Of these, but he
borders on the field. The anarchist"
petty-bourgeois (who merely develops
the bourgeois free-trade theology to
the reductio ad absurdum and then
calls it revolutionary philosophy
always pictures as a monster of reac-
ton the Bolshevik state monopoly of
printing and the corollary machine of
education and propaganda. To the
Communist, this is one OF the enorm-
GUS weapons of the revolution. To
the anarchist, the cadet, the monarch
~ and the liberal as well, this con-
stitutes a suppression of liberty"
The cadet and the monarchist know
that it contributes to the destruction
Of all their hopes. The anarchist and
the liberal think it will ruin the revo-
luton by destroying individual ini-
tiative-a reflection Of the idea that