The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-12-24

of the Tenth Anniversary Cele-
bration of the Workers School,
New York, Dec. 9, 1897
by EARL BROWDER
COMRADES and friends celebrat-
" ing the Tenth Anniversary of
the Workers School: I think we
had a most excellent contribution
from Comrade Olgin. After listen
to Conlrade Olgin's speech, won
dered what one could add, except
to emphasize the thought which he
brought forward, that our revolu-
tionary theory develops right out
OF and is part of our revolution
airy practice in the class struggle.
Bourgeois society has not only
separated the people into owners
and workers. 1t has also separated
ths human faculties and placed
them in opposition to one another.
Knowing and doing are two en-
tirely different categories in bour-
geois society. Those who know
they do not do anything. And
those who do anything are
not supposed to know anything.
Bourgeois society has placed q,
deep gulf between theory and prac-
tlce-so much So that in the or
binary popular sense one who is
particularly Intellectual in action is
spoken of as 'theorist."
REJECT THESE
BOURGEOIS TRADITIONS
OF course we cannot accept these
traditions and conditions of boIr-
geoiS society. Just as it is our
task not only to understand pres
ent-day society, but to change it,
SO also it is cur task to smash
this seeming contradiction between
idea and action, between theory
and practice. Theory is our guide
to action Theory grows out of
action. Theory for us is the in
strument of revolutionary action,
and it can be the instrument of
revolutionary action only insofar
as it is theory which is drawn
from international experience of
the class struggle and the develop
ment OF human society.
I'VE do not create theory out of
w our heads. Our theory grows
organically out of the development
and maturing of the revolutionary
class, the working class. It is a,
historic product. It has the same
objective character as all scien-
tiflc principle. And in just the
same way as it is necessary to be
very lntolerant against all those
VINO wish to revise the fundamen-
tai knowledge of mankind in order
to insert in its place the arbitrary
creations, the phantasies of the in
dlVidual mind, SO also, it is neces-
sary to be intolerant in the strug-
gle against all tendencies to re-
place our scientific knowledge and
our scientific practice with indi-
Vldual, small group revisions of
our revolutionary body of theory.
For 1t is only the proletariat, the
only revolutionary class in CAPT
tal1st society, which is capable Of
understanding and developing the
scientific principles of social de-
velopment.
Our Workers School of the Com
nlunlst Party is often accused of
pelng narrow, dogmatic and in
Tolerant, lacking in broad-minded-
ness, because we struggle against
all individuals and groups who trv
70 revise, change and water down
the essential features of Marxisrn-
Leninism.
In our approach to the masses
whom we are striving to win. to
organize, to mobilize for the revo-
!uClonary struggle, we always must
oe Tolerant and patient, as well as
stubborn and persistent.
AGAINST REvIsIoNIsM OF
MARXISM, LENINIsM
But in the field of revolutionary
theory, to accomplish our main
task of winning the broad masses
the majority of the working class
for the proletarian revolution. we
must be resolutely intolerant
against every deviation in theory
against every effort to revise
Marxism and Leninism.
This theoretical intransigepce
this unyielding adherence of the
Communist movement to the
revolutionary theory of Marxism-
Leninism is not sectarianism.
1t is not dogmatism. 1t Is the
necessary pre- condition for the
smashing of sectarianism of all
opportunist tendencies in the
working class.
Our theory is developed, not in
schools. Our theory is developed
IN life, in mass struggle. Only
through mass struggle can this
theory grow and develop. further.
Our schools are auxiliaries to the
mass struggles. Our schools are