The daily worker., 1934-06-14


thur Rosenburg. Oxford Uni
versfty Press. s5.T5.
Reviewed by
DAVID RAMSEY
THIS book will appeal to those
cockrosch intellectuals who are
still wet from the palpitations Of
witnessing Max Eastman give per-
sonal demonstrations of the rape Of
Soviet literature. 1t is part Of the
current counter-revolutionary and
anti-Soviet campaign that has been
forced to resort to theoretical" at
tacks, since lies about the failure"
Of the Five Year Plan are more diff
ficult to market than they we're
two or three years ago. The anti
Soviet market this summer is spe-
cializing in revelations about the
shaved srmpits OF Russian girls,
literary pogroms, the soul Of the
Soviet intellectual, etc.
RosenbTg's book marks the high
est level Of the present barrage OF
anti-Soviet books. Here we find
German renegade from Communism
who gives us the history Of the
evolution Of Bolshevism from its
roots in Karl Marx through the
individual stages trsversed by
Lenin, down to the theories and
tactics Of Stain in 1882"
Ex-Communist Rosenburg fan
tasizes so cleverly that to refute
him would literally require ten
pages for each one of his para
graphs. He is no ordinary liar like
Eastman, nor does he write with
the stupid spite Of a Malcolm Mug
geridge. His fable is ingeniously
written. He is one Of those his
torians whom bourgeois critics tag
as lucid, informative and impair
tial." In other words. here is
book that will attract sll the phony
intellectuals who seem to be almost
predestined 10 fall for some form
Of fake '1eftisin."
pRIEFLY, Rosenbug's myth is
- that Marx and Lenin and Stain
we're members of "the radical
middle class intelligentsia" who or
ganized workers for the purpose of
completing the bourgeois demo-
cratic revolution" J." The culnina-
ton Of the theories Of these men
has been the establishment Of
State Capitalism in Russia" The
working class and the peasants are
under the heels Of "a small bureau
cratic clique" who have abandoned
all attempts to influence the inter-
national labor movement and to
assist colonial and oppressed coun-
tries in their struggles for national
freedom"
Opposed to the ideas of the
'middle-class" Lenin and Stain is
the "proletarian idealist" Trotzky.
1t is he who is "the living presen-
tation Of its future TO the present
day proletariat." Consequently, the
international capitalist class has
nothing to fear from Bolshevism.
Its enemy is "the international
MARKHAM" proletariat, which is the
designation that Rosenburg applies
to the Trotzkyites and other true
proletarians."
It can be seen that Rosenberg
has carried some of Trotzky's
counter-revolutionsry notions to
the logical conclusion that Trotzkv
himself for political reasons cannot
afford to state. Trotzkyism never
was, and never can be part of the
body Of feminist doctrine. Rosen-
burg makes but one correct state
ment in his book, namely. that
while Trotzky in 1917 became
formally member of the Boil
shevik Party" his policies were al
ways anti-Bolshevik and that his
expulsion from the Party was in
eyitable."
IN ORDER to portray Trotzky as
the forerunner Of the future land
Trotzky's) world revolution. Rosen-
burg has to stretch facts consider
ably. For example, he completely
distorts the truth about Trotzkv's
efforts to ''militarize" the Russian
trade unions which were defeated
by Lenin and the Party. Rosen-
burg puts the facts on their head
and makes it an attempt by Trot-
zky to put IAN end to the dictator
ship Of the higher officials of the
Communist Party"
Rosenburg makes statements that
must be embarrassing to his hero.
Trotzky. The theory that Social
ism can be built in a single great
country like the Soviet Union. he
points out, 'fs to be found as early
as 1928, in Lenin's last writings and
speeches" He also makes the point
that Lenin's theory that one Of the
prerequisites to socialism is that
the peasants be organized into COL
lectives was carried out by the Five
Year Plan. RoSenburg then pro-
ceeds to attack the principle of COL
lective farming as being 'irrecon-
eilable with MARKHAM economies"
BY way of contradicting himself he
asserts that 'Lenin had received
aosolution in anticipation of this
sin against Marxism from the