Jay Lovestone and others of the Communist Party (Majority Group) respond to their expulsion from the Party as part of the wider Comintern break with Bukharin’s leadership and turn towards the ‘Third Period.’ While Foster is named as the main organizational beneficiary of the Comintern’s order to remove Lovestone’s faction, it would be Earl Browder who would become Party leader which he would hold until being deposed by Foster after World War Two. Lovestone’s group would become a key component of the International Communist Opposition, the so-called ‘Right Opposition.’
‘The “Achievements” of the CC Plenum’ Statement of the Communist Party (Majority Group) from The Revolutionary Age. Vol. 1 No. 1. November 15, 1929.
On November 6, 7, 8 there took place the first plenum of the Central Committee since December 1928. In this interval — the longest between plenums in the history of our Party — there had happened many important events in the life of the entire Comintern and of its American section: for instance, the revisionist anti-Leninist Address of the ECCI; the turning of the Party leadership over to the opportunist Foster group; the systematic revision of the principle of Leninism, of the line of the line of the 6th World Congress and of our Party; the regular absorption of Trotskyism; the expulsion of nearly one-third of the Central Committee, including the entire historically developed leadership of our Party bearing the repeated endorsement of the Comintern over a period of years and the support of 90% of the membership; the removal, expulsion, and driving out of hundreds of the best comrades and the loss of thousands more through “enlightenment,” demoralization, and disintegration; the serious crisis in the new unions and the collapse of our mass work; the paralysis of the Party institutions and the decline of the Party into the grossest opportunism covered with empty “Left” phrases.
Finally after months of terror and confusion, with almost the entire previous leadership expelled, a plenum was called. It was prepared in secret. Its sessions were buried in still greater secrecy. Every measure was taken to make impossible the least attempt at free discussion of the issues before the Party; every step was taken to terrorize even the “accepters” and “endorsers” of the Party-wrecking anti-Leninist line of the Address. Comrade B. Lifshitz, who has hitherto voted for every expulsion and revision demanded by the clique now dominating the ECCI, was not permitted even to be present at the plenum.
The declaration of the former leadership of the Party now expelled, which was addressed to the plenum and which contained a clear statement of the crisis in our Party and the issues before us was, of course, never permitted to come before the plenum itself but was suppressed by the factional ring now running and ruining the Party.
A “New Line” Thesis Adopted.
The plenum brought forth a “new line” thesis, the most shameful document in the history of our Party. The forthcoming issue of The Revolutionary Age will contain a detailed analysis of this document. It is thoroughly anti-Marxian and anti-Leninist in approach, method, and content. Cursory glance shows us that it contains:
1. An altogether false view of the present international situation. An attempt is made to cover up and justify the revision on the party of the ECCI of the principles of Leninism and the main line of the 6th Congress. A similar attempt is made to conjure away the deep-going crisis in the Comintern — a fact unfortunately too substantial to be thus treated.
2. A misleading, erroneous, and inaccurate “examination” of the present economic situation which bristles with examples of the crass ignorance of the most basis fundamentals of Marxian economics as well as of the objective conditions in the USA.
3. An acceptance of Green’s (the AFL’s) theory of wages and the “higher strategy of labor.”
4. An “analysis” of rationalization which seeks to bridge the gap between the first position of the “new leadership” and the present revisionist line of the 10th Plenum. Here we find confusion worse confounded.
5. “Proof ” that “in the United States class battles are growing over from the bourgeois offensive to the proletarian counteroffensive and partly to direct offensive struggles.” While the recent semi-racketeer truckmen’s strike in New York is cited as “evidence” of this “revolutionary offensive,” the objective social-economic basis of the real radicalization process is entirely ignored.
6. An “estimation” of the Right danger which betrays a total lack of understanding of this question and an absolute ignorance of the social composition of the American working class, the background of our Party, and the prevailing class relations.
7. A brief “attack” upon the Cannon-Trotskyites (that is, those that haven’t been readmitted yet) because they have deserted the path of yesterday and “become” opportunists (!).
8. A statement on Party “shortcomings” reading in part: A certain degree of slowness in following up political criticism of Right errors with organizational measures. The Freiheit’s Zionist policy is not cited here, of course. Then again the Thesis speaks of the still insufficient development of inner-Party democracy and the development of Bolshevik self-criticism. But of course there is not a word said of the “enlightenment campaign” of terror and destruction.
9. A program of action that is vague and contradictory, false in line and based upon a false analysis. It neglects the new union movement and evades the problem of working in the old unions.
10. The very important Negro question is dismissed in virtual silence.
11. So is the increasingly important agricultural crisis.
12. An absolute failure to expose in any way the fraudulent claims of Hoover, Mellon, Ford, Catchings, etc. about “bourgeoisification” and the “conquest of poverty.”
The Opportunist Foster Group Gains Open Control.
The Central Committee added 12 new members to itself to replace those who were elected by our 6th Convention. Among the great figures added are: Dunne, Hathaway, Wagenknecht, Harrison George, P. Smith, Johnstone, etc. The Polcom was also completely reorganized and the bankrupt discredited Foster Group had 4 out of 14 places on the Polcom. In place of Gitlow, Lovestone, Brataric, and Wolf, the plenum installed Dunne, Hathaway, Harrison George, and Schmies. The latter was added only after his open capitulation to Foster. Now, with the YCL representative Foster has 9 out of 15 members who openly proclaim themselves Fosterites. And it was not so long ago that we were condemned for saying that the line of the Address was to give the Party to the Fosterites!
Weinstone is to represent the Party in the ECCI and preparations are being made to replace him with an equally “reliable” comrade.
Thus proceeds the “new course”! Where are those comrades who assured us that the Address was “never intended” to “give the Party to the minority”? Where are those comrades who assured us that although they “accepted” the Address they would “fight Fosterism to the bitter end”?
The “new course is increasingly showing its real political complexion and increasingly the resistance of the Party membership grows. The “secret plenum,” its Thesis and its organizational decisions will have the inevitable effect of winning new sections of the Party membership to the struggle waged by the CP-Majority Group.
Revolutionary Age began in 1929 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party U.S.A. Majority Group, lead by Jay Lovestone and Ben Gitlow and aligned with Bukharin in the Soviet Union and the International Communist (Right) Opposition in the Communist International. Workers Age was a weekly published between 1932 and 1941. Writers and or editors for Workers Age included Lovestone, Gitlow, Will Herberg, Lyman Fraser, Geogre F. Miles, Bertram D. Wolfe, Charles S. Zimmerman, Lewis Corey (Louis Fraina), Albert Bell, William Kruse, Jack Rubenstein, Harry Winitsky, Jack MacDonald, Bert Miller, and Ben Davidson. During the run of Workers Age, the ‘Lovestonites’ name changed from Communist Party (Majority Group) (November 1929-September 1932) to the Communist Party of the USA (Opposition) (September 1932-May 1937) to the Independent Communist Labor League (May 1937-July 1938) to the Independent Labor League of America (July 1938-January 1941), and often referred to simply as ‘CPO’ (Communist Party Opposition). While those interested in the history of Lovestone and the ‘Right Opposition’ will find the paper essential, students of the labor movement of the 1930s will find a wealth of information in its pages as well. Though small in size, the CPO plaid a leading role in a number of important unions, particularly in industry dominated by Jewish and Yiddish-speaking labor, particularly with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Local 22, the International Fur & Leather Workers Union, the Doll and Toy Workers Union, and the United Shoe and Leather Workers Union, as well as having influence in the New York Teachers, United Autoworkers, and others.
PDF of the full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/revolutionary-age/v1n01-nov-01-1929.pdf
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