The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-12-28

ter-Bittelman Minority of the Gen.
trail Committee.
1. The actions of the Plenum of
the c. E. c. just closed, must be
viewed from the standpoint of the
struggle against the war danger. All
the tasks of our Party, as well as
the situation within our Party, must
be considered primarily from the
viewpoint of developing the most eff
fective means of mobilizing our
membership and the working masses
for an effective struggle against
American imperialism and the war
danger. To effectively do this all
deviations from the correct Commu-
mist line, particularly the underesti-
nation of the war danger, must be
irradicated and our Party must be
unified on the basis of the line laid
down by the Sixth Congress of the
Comintern for the struggle against
the war danger and capitalist ra-
tionalization.
2. The discussions at the Plenum
just closed, has brought about a
somewhat new situation in our Par
ty. The Minority submitted a
thesis dealing with the economic and
political situation and the tasks of
our Party, which emphasized the
rapidly developing war danger, re-
sulting in the sharpening inner and
outer contradictions of American
imperialism, the leftward drift of
the working masses, the rightward
trend of the labor bureaucracy and
its efforts to graft the unions onto
the war machine of U. S. imperial
ism, and the increased opportunities
for our Party to develop and lead
mass struggles especially of the I'M
skilled and semi-skilled workers
The Polcom Majority, on the other
hand, saw only an almost endless
wave of prosperity and the entrance
Of American imperialism into a new
golden age" They saw it brought
about by the industrialization of the
South, the recovery of agriculture,
the unobstructed conquest of Latin
America, ETC., with no sharpening of
the inherent imperialist contradic-
tons and no increased opportunities
for working class struggle. The
c. E. G. majority has shown itself
to be suffering seriously from
prosperity" illusions. The sharp
discussion for four days around the
Majority and Minority theses re-
suited in exposing much more clear
ly the various political tendencies in
the Party and in bringing to light
certain shiftings within the C. E. C.
Majority.
8. The c. E. C. Majority was COM
PEELED at this plenum to practically
withdraw the original Lovestone
thesis (signed by Comrades Love-
stone, Pepper and Gitlow) and to
present another thesis (the Pepper
thesis) signed by Comrades Vein
stone, Bedacht and Patrick. Thus
the G. E. G. Majority stands before
the Party with two theses which on
the surface would appear to contain
different lines on many fundamental
questions. For the first thesis Com
rade Lovestone made the report and
political argument. This thesis
openly defends and further develops
the open opportunist orientation of
the c. E. G. Majority which is re-
sponsible for most of the Right err
rors committed by the Party. Com
rades Lovestone, Wolf and Nearing
most fully and openly express this
Right orientation. For the second
thesis, which apparently supplants
the first thesis of the C. E. C. Ma
jority, Comrade Pepper made the
report and political argument. While
retaining fully the essence of the
open opportanist orientation of the
first thesis (that of Lovesone), the
Pepper thesis undertakes to pay lip
service to the basic contention of
the c. E. c. Minority that the main
source of the Right danger in our
Party comes from overestimating
the power of American imperialism
and Understanding the possibili-
ties for struggle against it. But the
Pepper thesis, instead of pointing
out that the c. E. c. Majority is it.
self guilty of such overestimation,
covers up the Right mistakes of the
c. E. c. Majority which arise from
their overestimation of the power of
American imperialism, by blaming
this tendency upon Scott Nearing
alone. This thesis, championed by
Pepper, Weinstone and Bedacht, diff
ferent from Lovestone thesis, pre-
tends also to pay lip service to the
Minority's correct line of struggle
on two fronts against open oppor-
tunism, the Right danger, and
against the Trotskyist- Cannon op-
position, opportunism covered with
Left phrases.
4. The political meaning of the
appearance of the c. E. G. Majority
before the Plenum with two theses
and two spokesman seemingly con-
tradicting each other on policies of
basic Importance, is as follows:
(a) Under the pressure of the
c. I. and Y. c. I. and under the
pressure of the C. E. C. Minority
and the membership, the c. E. c.
Majority felt compelled to retire to
the background it's openly oppor-
tunistic orientation as embodied in