Comrade Husto Amutio,
Editor Adelanta-Verdad, Valencia.

    MANY thanks for your friendly letter. The fact that the Socialist youth and the entire fighting proletariat of Spain -- as you say in your letter -- followed the work of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern with extreme interest, and read the report on working class unity in the struggle against the bourgeoisie and fascism with tremendous satisfaction, is a new proof of the fact that in its decisions this historic Congress really expressed the common interests and common desires and longings of the working class of all countries.

    I am extremely glad that you, advanced Spanish proletarians, Socialists and Communists, are seriously getting down to fulfillment of the great task of uniting the working class and all working people for the struggle against fascism, war and the capitalist offensive. I am sure that the toilers of Spain, who have, on more than one occasion, displayed brilliant examples of revolutionary heroism, will succeed in barring fascism's path by establishing a firm united fighting front of the working class and the people.

    The road to victory over fascism and over the forces of reaction and counter-revolution in Spain lies through the unity of the Socialist and Communist youth, through the realization of unity of action of the Socialist and Communist Parties, through the liquidation of the split in the trade union movement, and the extension and consolidation of workers' and peasants' alliances throughout the country.

    Only a united struggle of Communists, Socialists and Anarcho-Syndicalist workers, marching shoulder to shoulder in

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the front ranks of all the toilers of town and countryside, will secure the victory of the working class over the common class enemy. The successes of the movement for unity in Spain constitute a big step forward along the road toward the establishment of international unity of the proletariat.

    I wish you success, dear comrades, Socialists, Communists and Anarcho-Syndicalist workers, in boldly, shoulder to shoulder, overcoming all obstacles to the establishment of unity raised by the splitters of the working class, whether conscious agents of the bourgeoisie or misled opponents of the united front.

    I wish you every success in achieving this militant unity, so that the Spanish people will not have to experience the horrors which the German people are now undergoing under the yoke of the barbarian fascist regime, and so that, in the long run, the victory of socialism will be assured in Spain.

    Fraternal Bolshevik greetings.

G. DIMITROFF  

    November 26, 1935.

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[In the fascist newspaper, Voelkischer Beobachter of December 18, 1935, Von Ribbentrop, Hitler's "special plenipotentiary" on questions of foreign policy, published a letter to Lord Allen of Hartwood, in reply to the request of certain English lawyers -- addressed through Lord Allen personally to Hitler -- that Hans Luetten, a German lawyer, be released.

    [In this letter Ribbentrop puts forward a number of theses. First, that the present regime in Germany constitutes a special legal system which corresponds to the "spirit" and "natural feelings" of the German people. Second, that the advent of the German fascists to power on January 30, 1933, was a "revolution." Third, that the historic mission of German fascism is to save civilization. Fourth and last, that he, Ribbentrop, helped to obtain the release of Dimitroff, a fact which he now bitterly regrets.

    [Ribbentrop regrets the "magnanimity" of the German government in releasing Dimitroff.

    [Referring to the report delivered by Dimitroff at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International,* which he foully distorts, Herr Ribbentrop writes: "This carefully elaborated program is the result of the release of Dimitroff, i.e., the result of the liberal British outlook and German good nature and magnanimity!"

    [Below we publish Dimitroff's reply to questions put to him by representatives of the press on this subject. -- Ed.]

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lished in the official organ of the German government, Voelkischer Beobachter, on December 18, in answer to the demand for the liberation of the German lawyer Luetten, addressed by English lawyers to Hitler?

    DIMITROFF: Herr Ribbentrop is not giving his own individual opinion. Indeed, his personal opinions are of very little value. His letter constitutes an official statement of the German government attempting to justify the monstrous crimes which have given rise to a wave of protest throughout the civilized world. Ribbentrop writes as the mouthpiece of unbridled German fascism, which is attempting to win the support of public opinion in England both for punishing its political opponents and for the war adventures that it is planning. It is not accidental that this letter has appeared at a time when the dastardly execution of the German Communist Claus has aroused the indignation of all honest people throughout the world, at a time when, faced with the catastrophe of starvation into which fascism has driven the masses of working people in Germany, the German fascists are greatly intensifying the terror throughout the country. In speaking openly in defense of those who wield the executioner's ax, their accomplice in the kid gloves of a diplomat, by his letter, virtually challenges the whole of world public opinion.

    QUESTION: What do you think of Ribbentrop's assertion that the present German regime represents a special legal system corresponding to the "spirit" and "natural feelings of the German people"?

    DIMITROFF: Ribbentrop's assertion is a gross insult to the great German people. What cynicism one must possess, and with what "Nietzschean" contempt one must regard the people to whom Ribbentrop's letter is directly addressed, to make such a statement! Fascism and a legal system are two absolutely incompatible things. Fascism is the negation of any kind of legal system. In essence fascism is arbitrary rule. It is the arbitrary rule of an armed gang of hirelings of big capital who enslave the vast majority of the people in the interests

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not only of the exploiting minority in general, but particularly in the interests of the most rapacious exploiters.

    What kind of legal system is it -- apart from its alleged conformity to the "spirit" and "natural feelings" of the German people that has deprived nine-tenths of this people of elementary political rights? What kind of a legal system is it that is destroying the ~lower of the German people in prisons and concentration camps? What kind of a legal system is it that, as Ribbentrop himself says, keeps incarcerated people like Luetten, who are absolutely innocent, simply because they have a different "spiritual viewpoint" from that of Herr Ribbentrop?

    Ribbentrop's justification for the abolition of the old legal system in Germany is, as he says, that "Adolf Hitler could also be tried under the same clauses of the criminal code as other mortals." But a system under which no fascist murderer is held responsible for his criminal acts before any court and under any clause of the law is an arbitrary system. It is a regime of criminals in power.

    It would be no exaggeration to say that the "special legal system" of Ribbentrop stands closer to the "system" of the American gangsters who terrorize the population of the U.S.A. than to any other existing legal system. Under what legal system, for example, can we include the provocative burning of the Reichstag by the German fascists? Let the "coordinated" German Academy of Law, whose materials Herr Ribbentrop so obligingly promises to send to Lord Allen, try from the viewpoint of a legal system to justify this provocative act which served, as its initiators planned, as a pretext for a whole number of St. Bartholomew's nights. By no "legal system" will the Ribbentrops be able to justify such a step as the arrest of people who had nothing whatever to do with the affair, and their trial on the charge of setting fire to the Reichstag, when the whole world knows that the Reichstag was set on fire at the orders and under the leadership of the fascist rulers.

    Let the German Academy of Law try to give a legal justification of the assassinations so frequently perpetrated by the

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fascists, or the numerous cases of murder during so-called "attempts to escape," or the death sentences passed on anti-fascists on the basis of forged documents and suborned witnesses. Let it try to justify the system of tortures and inquisition to which the fascist hangmen subject imprisoned Communists, Social-Democrats and other anti-fascists. Let Herr Ribbentrop explain what standards of a legal system embrace such actions as the murder by a fascist of the German Professor Lessing on Czechoslovakian territory, the bloody slaughter of June 30, the murder of General Schleicher and his wife, the shooting of scores of Storm Troopers. And what about the anti-Semitic pogroms and the persecution of Catholics, which recall the worst pages of the times of the Inquisition, of the times of the Huguenots? And sterilization? Under what legal system are such vile acts permissible? And the Bacchanalia of the public burning of the immortal productions of human thought and genius?

    Yes, such a "special legal system" has had precedents in history, in the dark days of the Middle Ages. It still arouses horror among those who study the history of tortures, the stake, the burning of "heretics," the execution of Giordano Bruno, the brutal "racks" upon which unfortunate people were stretched during the days of Ivan the Terrible. At that time also there were executioners striking off heads at the place of execution, at that time also there were Ribbentrops who lauded this "special legal system." But we know that the peoples utterly destroyed this system, and without regret drove out those who were the bearers of it. And it requires the spiritual degeneration of bourgeois society and all the rottenness of decaying capitalism to revive this system once more, and to bring shame on the country which has given the world Marx and Engels, Goethe, Schiller, Wagner and Heine. The court of history will not be gentler with those who have raised the ax and the block as the symbol of modern medievalism in an epoch when the five-pointed star with the emblem of the hammer and sickle is already blazing over one-sixth of the globe.

    QUESTION: What is your estimate of Ribbentrop's statement

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that "revolutions are not decided in court rooms and in accordance with ordinary legal standards"?

    DIMITROFF: It is quite true that revolutions are not decided in court rooms and on the basis of ordinary legal standards. But Herr Ribbentrop, in thinking that he has here found the key to the justification of the crimes of German fascism, has overlooked a "trifle." The whole point is that the advent of the German fascists to power on January 30, 1933, was not a revolution at all. It is well known that every genuine revolution means the passing of power from one class into the hands of another class. But in Germany the bourgeoisie as a class were in power and have remained in power. The capitalist system has remained untouched. All that has changed is that the most reactionary, the most chauvinistic and most imperialistic circles of finance capital have become the complete masters and have extremely intensified capitalist exploitation and oppression. Political forgery will not help Ribbentrop. He thinks that by sticking the verbal label "National-Socialist revolution" onto the reactionary frenzy of the fascists, he thereby justifies the fascist terror. It never occurs to the fascist diplomat that real revolutions, however harsh they may be, do not need justification, because they lift the people that brings about the revolution, and the whole of mankind as a consequence, to a higher stage of human civilization. But the reason why the bloody orgy of the fascists cannot be justified in any way is that it reduces the great German people to the level of barbarism.

    The fascist legend of a National-Socialist revolution has hitherto been an article primarily for home consumption, intended to lead the masses astray and to take the place of the fats, meat and eggs that are not forthcoming. Ribbentrop, Hitler's traveling salesman, is now attempting to throw these rotten wares onto the European market. He quite seriously recommends the raging fascist frenzy as a "model of revolution" for all other nations.

    It is impossible not to smile when reading such a statement by Ribbentrop as that the notorious methods of the National-

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Socialist revolution "have no precedent in history" and "are in crying contradiction to the cruel and barbarous methods by which revolutions were carried out among other peoples of the cultured world," and that, finally, they serve to "preserve the ethical and moral principles of the people." All this represents such record-making in shameless lying that it does not even need a reply. It is a truly fascist "model" of boundless insolence.

    QUESTION: What is your attitude to the statement of Ribbentrop that it is the historic mission of German fascism to save civilization?

    DIMITROFF: The same as it would be to a statement of American gangsters if they were to attribute to themselves the mission of saving mankind from banditry. It is well known that the German fascists aim their blows at everything which bears the imprint of human progress, free thought, independent creation, at all who are not fascists. It could not be otherwise, because fascism is the most merciless enemy of human progress and civilization. It is the embodiment of the most savage and unbridled obscurantism. It directs its blows first and foremost against the working class movement and particularly against Communism, because Communism represents the vanguard of the world working class movement and the bearer of a new civilization.

    And this role of Communism stands out with particular clearness in the light of those great achievements of socialist construction which have been brought about in the U.S.S.R. under the wise direction of the greatest man of our era -- Stalin. Millions of people workers, peasants, intellectuals, scientists, engineers and technicians -- in the capitalist world are becoming more and more convinced that socialism in the U.S.S.R. means a mighty growth of the productive forces, the continuously growing well-being of the broadest masses of the people, an unprecedented rise in their cultural level, the all-round development of human personality, the birth of a new man, a new life, a new psychology. Socialism means peace and fraternity among the peoples. And for this very reason

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all that is honest, independent and free among mankind is despite all difficulties rallying with the working class to the united front against fascism, against this plague of modern humanity.

    QUESTION: What have you to say about Ribbentrop's claim that he assisted in securing your liberation?

    DIMITROFF: In making such a statement Ribbentrop, to put it mildly, exaggerates the role played in history by his own personality. As everybody knows, my Bulgarian comrades and I were liberated from prison because even a fascist court could not do other than acquit us. It acquitted us because it was proved up to the hilt at the Leipzig trial that the Reichstag was fired, not by the Communists, but by the German fascists. We were liberated because the wave of indignation against the crimes of German fascism rose so high throughout the world, and fascism so disgraced itself and made itself such a laughing stock at Leipzig, that nothing was left for it but to expel us from the country. But where does Ribbentrop come in here? If the Ribbentrops could have torn me to pieces at Leipzig, they would have done so with the greatest of pleasure, but they were powerless. The bandit who lets his victim go because his hands are held down by people who rush to the aid of his victim is the last one to be able to boast of his own magnanimity.

    Ribbentrop tries to depict the program of the united fighting front against the capitalist offensive, fascism and war, which was developed at the Seventh Congress openly before the whole world, as a world terrorist plot not only against fascist Germany but against the whole of Europe and especially against the British Empire. And it would seem that this terrible calamity took place as a result of the "British liberal outlook and German complacency and magnanimity," which, as Ribbentrop assures us, led to my liberation. Ribbentrop needs all this lying balderdash to persuade British public opinion not to repeat such a "mistake" as my liberation, and in order to set the hands of German fascism free to wreak vengeance on Thaelmann and the other prisoners in German dungeons. He deliberately distorts the decisions of the Seventh

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Congress so as to distract attention from the real plotters and terrorists who are trying to drag the world into the catastrophe of a new imperialist war. The stenographic record of my speech has been published. It has been read by the workers of all countries, and English lords can also read it. In my report, in conformity with the program and the tactics of the Communist International, not only did I not speak as a supporter of individual terror, but I fought with all the passion of a fighter for Communism against those who have made the weapon of political individual terror the basic method of achieving their anti-popular aims. I have in view first and foremost the German fascists.

    There is no doubt that more than ever before serious danger threatens the life of Thaelmann and tens of thousands of Communists, Social-Democrats and other anti-fascists imprisoned in German jails and concentration camps. New crimes of fascism are pending. The hand of the fascist butchers must be turned aside. It is for the millions of workers and all honest people to have their say.

Reply to Herr Ribbentrop ; Interview of G. Dimitroff With Representatives of the Press, February, 1936.

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THE terrorist attack by the fascist gangs on the French Socialist deputy, Leon Blum, is arousing great indignation. No fighter in the labor movement, on whatever flank he stands, to whatever workers' organization he belongs, whatever may be his differences with the Socialist Party, can pass over this vile deed.

    Leon Blum is one of the leading figures of the People's Front, set up by the best part of the French people against the fascist hirelings of finance capital, which is striving to establish a fascist regime in France. The attack on Leon Blum is not only a blow against Leon Blum personally; it is a blow against the entire working class of France, a blow against the People's Front, which embraces wide masses of the working people in the fight against fascism, war and the capitalist offensive.

    It is not the first time that we raise our voice in defense of Socialist leaders who have fallen victims to fascist reaction. It is not so long since we Communists fought for the release of Largo Caballero from his prison in Spain with the same determination with which we have defended and are now defending our friend and fellow-Communist, Comrade Thaelmann. Likewise we considered it our duty to come forward in defense of the Social-Democratic workers and their organizations in Austria, Germany and everywhere that they have been subjected to attacks from the fascists. And when in Spain thousands of Socialist workers together with their Communist brethren were subjected to a bestial extermination in the Asturias, we did not hesitate for a single moment to stretch out our hand to the Socialist International and to propose joint action in defense of the heroic Spanish fighters.

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    The terrorist attack on Leon Blum in France, where fascism has only just begun its surreptitious moves towards power, shows clearly what all French workers, including the Social-Democratic workers, have to expect on the morrow, were fascism to win. Every day reports arrive of arrests, torture, murder, beatings, execution of anti-fascists and especially of Communists in Germany, Hungary, Japan, Poland, Italy and the Balkan States. In these countries things have come to such a pass that any Communist, any Left fighter of the labor movement can be secretly murdered and his corpse thrown into the street; that any provocation, like that of setting fire to the Reichstag, can be framed; that any trade union official can, with the aid of a venal press, be branded as a terrorist and conspirator; that anybody serving the cause of the working class can be accused of the most horrible crimes and be thrown into prison or concentration camp.

    The fascist potentates condemn the masses of the people to hunger, poverty and ruin. While employing a system of the most refined and mocking cruelty in their respective acts against the foremost fighters from the toiling masses, they have the effrontery to declare any discontent called forth by the hard conditions of the masses, any movement of the people resulting from the unbearable fascist regime, to be the work of the "hand of Moscow" and the consequences of Bolshevism "penetrating from abroad."

    To remain silent in face of this bloody orgy of fascism -- as is the case in the ranks of the Socialist International on the argument that it is primarily Communists who are being beaten and exterminated, that here and there Social-Democratic Parties still enjoy comparative legality in countries where the Communist Parties have been driven underground, such as Poland, Hungary and Finland -- this means in fact to encourage the executioners of the working class.

    Now, for every man of sound and honest mind it is clear that what is meted out today to the Communist fighters of the labor movement, tomorrow will be done to both the Social-Democratic workers and to the entire labor movement by the unbridled

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fascist gangs, if the working class does not repel fascism in time by united organized mass action and deal it a crushing blow. The experience of the labor movement in Italy, Germany and Austria on this speaks eloquently enough.

    And the first lesson that the workers not only of France but also of all capitalist countries will draw from the terrorist attack on Leon Blum is the following: the parties and organizations of the Communist and Socialist Internationals must unite their forces as speedily as possible on a national and international scale for a most stubborn, systematic struggle against fascism, against the terrorist gangs, yesterday the assassins of Minister Barthou, today the kidnapers of anti-fascists on the territory of foreign powers; yesterday the assailants of Blum, today the accusers of Kisch, fighter of the Hungarian labor movement, as a spy of a foreign power; yesterday the murderers of the Italian Communist, Sozzi, today the butchers of the peaceful Ethiopian population by aerial bombardment; who yesterday seized hold of Manchuria, and today of Northern China, preparing to attack the Mongolian People's Republic and insolently provoking the great land of Soviets on its Eastern borders.

    In the struggle against this fascist plague which menaces the working class, all working people, the whole of mankind, those active in the labor movement cannot but address the question to all honest people considering themselves to be democrats, supporters of liberty and peace, as to where they stand? Whether with those who have made methods of individual terror their chief weapon of struggle, who now roam various parts of the globe armed with bomb and revolver, with the lighted torch of war or with those fighters of the labor movement who, defending the rights of the masses, fighting for their open organization, strive by organized mass action to bar the way to fascist barbarism and war? Whether with those who trample human culture under foot, who burn the works of human genius in bonfires, who rule with the aid of the dictatorship of a terrorist gang -- or with the new civilization coming into being in the land of victorious Socialism, with the new proletarian democ-

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racy, the real multi-national people's democracy that is being realized in the Soviet Union?

    Only a wide anti-fascist front that unites the efforts of the international working class will win the sympathy and active support of all working people, will prove to be a sufficiently effective means of putting a straightjacket on the gangs of fascist violators. And the sooner this international united working class action is achieved, the less difficult, the less agonizing and the less drawn out will be the struggle of the masses of the people against fascism. Every day of delay places an awful responsibility on those who reject this unity. The German working class is paying with its blood to this day for the capitulatory policy of German Social-Democracy.

    The attack on Blum is a warning primarily to those who now continue to apply the same capitulatory policy as German Social-Democracy. The attack on Leon Blum shows how wrong are those leading figures of the Socialist International who on the basis of the first successes of the People's Front in France and in face of the growing difficulties of fascism, are lulling the masses with the notion that the fascist danger is on the decline. It shows how profoundly correct are the Communists when they unceasingly summon the masses to unremitting vigilance towards the fascist danger and to united action so as to carry through to the end the struggle against fascism.

    It would be a fatal error to consider, after the adoption by the French Chamber of decrees against the fascist leagues, that the fascist danger in France has been overcome. And if the fascist movement is undergoing difficulties in France under the pressure of the mass struggle, if its mass basis is really beginning to slip away, this by no means implies that the French fascists have decided to lay down their arms. No, exactly the contrary is true: the more violently will they rage, the more frequently will they resort to acts of individual terror, the more desperately will they organize plots and attempt to prepare fascist coups d'état. Decrees in themselves are not yet a guarantee against fascism. For the Weimar Republic in its day also

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adopted "decrees" against the open activity of the fascists. But this in no way prevented the German fascists from arming themselves further and seizing power. The real guarantee against fascism is the action of the masses themselves, keeping a proper check upon the disarming of the fascist gangs and their real disbandment. Only by a united struggle, carried on step by step, day by day, only by tirelessly extending the anti-fascist movement of the masses and thoroughly strengthening the People's Front on the basis of organs elected by the masses in the enterprises, will the working people in town and country cut the claws of the fascist beast and carry the struggle against fascism to a victorious conclusion. Such is the second lesson which the working class will draw from the attack on Leon Blum.

    And these lessons the working class will firmly master. They will well remember that it is their duty to defend every working class fighter, every supporter of the People's Front, to defend the entire labor movement, its organizations, its press, etc., against the criminal hands of the fascists. There is nothing surprising in the fact that those who fight against Communism and not against fascism, against the U.S.S.R., and not against the fascist regime, who kindle the flames of war and do not defend the cause of peace, do not fall under the blows of fascist reaction. More than this, Doriot, the insidious fascist agent who daily slanders the Communist Party and the Communist International, is lauded to the skies by the fascist press. Trotsky, purveyor of ideological material for war against the Land of the Soviets, wrecker of the labor movement, is made one of the chief contributors of the American fascist Hearst press-combine. The fascists sing the praises of the opponents of the united front among the leading figures of the Socialist International, for these people assist not the working class, not the masses, but the worst enemies of the people. But all the more justified is the working class in undertaking the defense of those fighting in the ranks of the People's Front, of those helping its cause.

    Let the bonds between those associating in the united front

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become still stronger and closer, let the Communist and Social-Democratic workers feel themselves drawn still closer together in their joint struggle against the common enemy, since the most important task of the proletariat is in the shortest possible time to achieve complete victory over fascism. The defenders of the position of the People's Front are not to be scared by the fascist terrorists. The just cause of the People's Front must and shall be victorious.

    P. S.  These lines had already been written when a telegraphic report was received of the huge, unparalleled anti-fascist demonstration now taking place of the working people of the French capital. This crushing reply to the fascist gangs is the guarantee that the anti-fascist People's Front, basing itself on the united action, the solidarity, revolutionary energy and discipline of the French proletariat will in the near future really carry the struggle against fascism to a victorious conclusion.

    February 16, 1936.

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THE international solidarity of the proletariat, if energetically put into effect, is a powerful factor. We can never forget that the active solidarity displayed in deeds by the international proletariat at critical moments in the existence of the Soviet Union -- the first proletarian state in the world and the fatherland of all working people -- during the military intervention, the civil war and famine, considerably helped our heroic Russian brothers to smash the counter-revolution, to drive out the brazen interventionists, to ease the position of those who were starving and to make possible peaceful socialist construction.

    Thanks to the energetic display of international solidarity, the workers of various countries have on several occasions been able successfully to ward off the blows of the enemy. Many thousands of working class fighters have been saved through international solidarity campaigns. The fact that the fascist butchers have not dared, as has long been their design, to murder the leader of the German workers, Comrade Thaelmann, whose life is under perpetual menace, the fact that the leader of the Hungarian workers, Comrade Rakosi, has not been condemned to death, as previously decided by the Hungarian fascists, and that numerous proletarian revolutionaries and anti-fascists who were doomed to death have remained -- alive all this we undoubtedly owe to effective international solidarity.

    The powerful wave of international solidarity on the part of industrial workers, working people generally and progressive intellectuals, regardless of what party or organization they belonged to, was the force which at the Leipzig trial made it possible to gain a victory over German fascism, and which

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not only saved our lives from the ax of the executioners in the service of the fascist gang ruling in Germany, but also hindered the fulfillment of Goering's foul plan of physically exterminating, with the aid of a new provocation and Bartholomew's Eve, the numerous cadres of the German proletariat in the hands of the fascists, in fascist jails and concentration camps.

    If, nevertheless, the international solidarity of the working people has not succeeded in displaying all its power and in achieving still greater successes in the struggle against economic, social, political and cultural reaction, in the struggle against fascism and for the interests and rights of the working people, this is mainly due to the fact that reactionary elements still play a decisive role in the leadership of the Second and Amsterdam Internationals, as well as in the leadership of the majority of the Socialist Parties and trade union organizations in the various countries; and they prefer the united front with their own national bourgeoisie to the united front of the workers in their own countries and on an international scale, continuing systematically to hinder the consolidation and energetic putting into effect of international solidarity.

    All the proposals of the Communist International and the Red International of Labor Unions for jointly rendering aid to the Spanish revolutionaries, and for a joint struggle against the common enemy, have, as is well known, been turned down by these reactionary Social-Democratic and trade union leaders, regardless of the fact that along with the Communist workers the Social-Democratic workers and progressive intellectuals also suffer and bear incalculable sacrifices owing to fascism, political reaction and the capitalist offensive.

    However, never before have the all-round consolidation and organized putting into effect of proletarian solidarity been 80 essential as just now when the capitalist offensive against the standard of living of the working people is growing without a break; when fascism is already raging in a number of capitalist countries, while in others it is striving irrepressibly for power; when the instigators of a new imperialist war, and first and

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foremost German fascism, are feverishly arming themselves, preparing a horrible slaughter for laboring mankind.

    May International Solidarity Day in 1936 be yet another decisive step along the path of the further development and consolidation of ever necessary international solidarity, and of the attraction of new millions of men, women and children from among the working people and intellectuals to the cause of international solidarity!

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NEVER since 1914 has the menace of a world war been so great as it is now. And never has it been so necessary to mobilize all forces to avert this calamity which threatens all mankind. But to do this, one must first of all realize from where the danger is arising, who are responsible for it, and against which countries the attack is being directed.

    It would not be correct to think that the war which is approaching threatens the Soviet Union alone or even the Soviet Union in the first place. As a matter of fact the occupation of the Rhineland by Hitler's armies is a direct threat to France, Belgium and other European countries. It is also a fact that Hitler's immediate plans of conquest are directed toward the seizure of territories in neighboring countries where there is a German population.

    Whereas Hitler talks today about the "sovereignty of Germany" he will talk tomorrow about the "sovereignty of all the Germans." Under this slogan he will try to carry out the annexation of Austria, the destruction of Czechoslovakia as an independent state, the occupation of Alsace-Lorraine, Danzig, the southern part of Denmark, Memel, etc. And this is quite easy to understand. It is much easier for German fascism to send an army first of all to seize the territory of neighboring countries under the slogan of the "national unity of all the Germans," and only later to fight against the powerful land of the Soviets. German fascism, in strengthening its positions on the Rhine, also threatens the independence of the Polish people, in spite of the fact that the present rulers of Poland are its allies.

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    As far as the Far East is concerned, there can be no doubt that a direct blow is aimed at the Chinese people, although the fascist military clique of Japan are preparing for war against the Soviet Union and have an agreement with Berlin for this eventuality. Japan has already occupied Manchuria and is now occupying one province of China after another. Japanese imperialism is striving by this means to subject all the peoples of Asia, including India, and to seize the Philippines and Australia. It is preparing for a decisive encounter with the United States and Great Britain.

    Hence it is clear that the peoples of the West would commit a fatal error if they allowed themselves to be lulled by the illusion that the fascist war-mongers in Europe and the Far East do not threaten them. In particular, the people of the countries neighboring on Germany have food for serious thought regarding the defense of their independence and liberty.

    As is well known, the fundamental cause of imperialist wars lies in capitalism itself, in its predatory efforts. But in the existing international situation, the instigator of the approaching war is fascism, this mailed fist of the most aggressive and warlike forces of imperialism.

    The war danger has become so immediately threatening because the road to power was not barred against German fascism at the proper moment. Having obtained power by means of an internal war against the mass of the people of its own country, fascism has grown a direct war menace to the countries of the whole world. Having enslaved its own people, it is advancing with the torch of war in its hand to attack other peoples.

    The war danger has become extremely menacing for the further reason that the fascist aggressor has been allowed to enjoy a position of impunity. The war preparations of German fascism (the introduction of universal military service, the air and naval armaments) were carried out with the systematic connivance of capitalist powers and the direct assistance of British ruling circles. The passivity and wavering of the League of Nations in regard to the Japanese attack on China

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and the Italian aggression in Ethiopia encouraged the impudence of the aggressor.

    But the growth in the aggressiveness of German fascism and of the Japanese military clique is first and foremost the result of the fact that the international proletariat did not succeed in acting unanimously with all the power of its gigantic forces, did not rally around itself all the working people and all the friends of peace into a mighty front against war. The resistence of the reactionary section of the leaders of the Labor and Socialist International and the International Federation of Trade Unions to the united front of struggle has not yet been broken. But the refusal of these reactionary leaders (supporting the imperialist policy of their own bourgeoisie) to undertake united independent proletarian action against war, lulling the masses to sleep with the illusion that the League of Nations would do everything necessary for the maintenance of peace this has hindered the struggle of the proletariat against war and paralyzed its pressure on the capitalist governments.

    In addition to the openly reactionary leaders who disrupt the unity of action of the international proletariat in defense of peace there are also "Left" phrasemongers who propagate fatalistic views to the effect that war is inevitable and the maintenance of peace impossible. Since the fundamental cause of war is capitalism, then, they say, so long as the latter exists, it is impossible to avoid war, and it is hopeless and useless to fight for the maintenance of peace. Such people are out-and-out doctrinaires, if not simply impostors. They see everywhere around them the raging forces of war, but they do not at all notice the mighty factors for peace.

    The Soviet Union, the country of the victorious proletariat, with its consistent and resolute peace policy, is such a factor for peace. Another factor for peace is the proletariat of the capitalist countries. These are the leading forces in defending peace against the war-mongers. The mass of the peasants, all working people, and the mass of the people in all capitalist countries, are also for the maintenance of peace. A number of

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capitalist countries at present are interested in the maintenance of peace. In the countries where fascism rules, as well as in the countries where the rulers abet the instigators of a new slaughter, the peoples do not want war.

    Phrasemongering doctrinaires, such as those from the British Independent Labor Party, depict matters as if the question of war and peace depends only on the capitalist governments. Yes, this would be the case if the mass of the people were simply pawns in the hands of the governments and did not fight to maintain peace in spite of their governments. But that is just the point; it is radically wrong to regard the mass of the people as puppets in the hands of the government. If these masses, without whom war could not be carried on, were to act resolutely and promptly against the war plans of the governments, they could force these governments to renounce war and the abetting of war plotters. The whole thing is to organize the struggle of the peoples for the maintenance of peace in good time and to carry it on continually and everywhere against the fascist war-mongers and their backers.

    A united peace front is required which would include not only the working class, the peasants, the intellectuals and other working people, but also the oppressed nations and the peoples of countries whose independence is threatened by the war-mongers. A peace front is required extending to all parts of the world, from Tokyo to London, from New York to Berlin, acting in coordination against the war-mongers, against German fascism in Europe, against the Japanese military clique in the Far East. And this peace front will become powerful and invincible if it organizes practical mass action, not restricting itself to protests, resolutions and declarations.

    By economic and political measures, the war-mongers should be put absolutely in a state of siege. They should be cornered in such a way that they are incapable of carrying out their criminal plans. The globe should be encircled with such a network of organizations of the friends of peace, such a mighty movement of international solidarity and such effective measures of a united international policy of the proletariat for the

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maintenance of peace, as will effectively tie the dastardly hands of the war-mongers.

    The fascist aggressor must be made to feel most emphatically that his every step is vigilantly watched by millions of people and that any attempt to attack other peoples will meet with the determined resistance of the proletariat and working people of the whole world.

    Only the proletariat, uniting its ranks, can be the organizer of such a peace front, can be its driving force, its backbone. This is now the central task of the international proletariat as a whole. The success of the fight against fascism itself also depends on its successful solution.

    To want peace is not enough. It is necessary to fight for peace. It is absolutely inadequate to carry on general propaganda against war. Propaganda against war "in general" does not in the slightest degree hinder the conspirators sitting in Berlin or Tokyo from carrying out their dastardly work. They would be quite satisfied if the working class were to go no further than such general propaganda.

    A successful struggle to maintain peace absolutely requires that the joint activity of the proletariat and the widest masses of the people be directed against the specific instigators of war and against those forces inside the country which help them directly or indirectly. From this point of view it is extremely important in every country to work out a definite and correct tactical line in the struggle for the maintenance of peace, taking into account the situation of the Party and the working class movement of the given country and also its internal and international situation.

    In the countries where fascism is in power, the working class, putting in the forefront of its struggle against the fascist dictatorship exposure of chauvinist demagogy and war preparations, unites all forces to avert the catastrophe into which fascism is preparing to hurl the people. When the proletariat

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and the masses of the people of Germany, Italy and other fascist countries fight against the power of fascism and its military aggression, they are acting not only for their own salvation, but in the interests of peace, in the interests of all peoples, of all mankind.

    A particularly important question now in the tactics of the working class, especially in the countries which are directly in danger of an attack, is the attitude which should be adopted toward the foreign policy of the government and the defense of the country. To the working class and all working people it is by no means a matter of indifference what foreign policy the government carries on toward the fascist enemies of peace; whether this policy helps to strengthen collective security or to hinder it; whether the government protects the agents of the fascist aggressor or takes effective steps against them; how it treats sons of the people in the ranks of the army, in what spirit they are trained, what elements the officers of the army are composed of, whether these are reliable in the fight against the fascist enemy or whether they are fascist reactionary elements; how the population is to be protected against the horrors of war, etc.

    To adopt an attitude of indifference to the question of the defense of the country, to leave this question without control in the hands of a bourgeois government, will not in any case assist the cause of defending peace. It is no accident that the ruling section of the bourgeoisie has always looked upon this sphere as its monopoly, regarding it as a kind of "holy of holies." This monopoly of the bourgeoisie must be demolished once and for all.

    The proletariat cannot get along without its own independent policy on these questions. Without on any condition permitting itself to slip into adopting the position of the bourgeoisie, the Party of the proletariat must actively interfere in foreign policy and in questions of national defense, advancing its own platform and its own demands.

    As the supreme supporter of the active defense of its own people and country from fascist enslavement, the working

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class must closely link up the question of the defense of the country with the demands for the extension of the democratic rights of the workers and peasants and the defense of their vital interests, taking as its starting point the fact that only the democratization of the regime, the democratization of the army, its cleansing from fascist and other reactionary elements, and the satisfaction of the urgent demands of the workers and peasants, can strengthen the defensive capacity of the people against a fascist attack. In every concrete situation, the representatives of the working class will support such proposals and will seek to secure the carrying out of such measures as open up the greatest possibility for bringing to bear on the widest scale the pressure of the masses of the people upon the foreign policy of the government, as well as for their effective control over the activity of the government in questions of national defense. They will also support all those measures which hinder the capitulation of the bourgeois governments to the fascist aggressor and the betrayal of the independence and liberty of the people by these governments.

    In case of a direct threat of war by a fascist aggressor, the Communists emphasizing that only the proletarian power is able to ensure the reliable defense of the country and its independence, as is plainly shown by the example of the Soviet Union -- will seek to bring about the formation of a People's Front government. Such a government, taking determined steps against fascism and the reactionary elements in the country, against the agents and backers of the enemies of peace, and ensuring the control of the organized masses over the defense of the country, will assist in raising the capacity of the people for defense against a fascist aggressor.

    Since today the power is in the hands of bourgeois governments which are no guarantee for the genuine defense of the country and which use the armed forces of the state against the working people, the party of the working class cannot take any political responsibility for the defensive measure of these governments, and therefore opposes the war policy of the government and the military budget as a whole. This does not

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exclude abstention from voting in particular cases, giving the reason for doing so, on those various measures of a defensive character which are necessary to hinder the attack of a fascist aggressor (e.g., the fortification of frontiers), of voting and speaking for measures dictated by the interests of the defense of the population against the horrors of war (gas shelters, gas masks, Red Cross work, etc.)

    The time has gone by when the working class did not participate independently and actively in deciding such vital questions as war and peace. The difference between Communists and reformists, between revolutionary and reactionary leaders of the working class movement, is not at all that the latter participate in deciding these questions while we revolutionaries remain aloof. No ! The difference is that on these questions, as on other questions, reformists defend the interests of the capitalists, while revolutionaries defend the interests of working people, the interests of the people as a whole.

    These flexible Bolshevik tactics, which are the application of the general tactical line of the Seventh Congress of the Communist International to a specific question, arise of necessity from the whole present-day international situation, particularly from the existence of definite fascist aggressors.

    It is really ridiculous when "Left" phrasemongers of various kinds oppose these tactics, adopting the pose of irreconcilable revolutionaries. If we are to believe them, all governments are aggressors. They even quote Lenin, who, during the imperialist war of 1914-18, correctly rejected the argument of the social chauvinists that "we were attacked and we are defending ourselves." But the world at that time was divided into two military-imperialist coalitions which were equally striving to establish their world hegemony, and which had equally prepared and provoked the imperialist war. At that time there were neither countries where the proletariat had conquered nor countries with a fascist dictatorship.

    But now the situation is different. Now we have: (1) a proletarian state which is the greatest bulwark of peace; (2) definite fascist aggressors; (3) a number of countries which are

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in direct danger of attack by fascist aggressors and in danger of losing their state and national independence; (4) other capitalist governments which are interested at the present moment in the maintenance of peace. It is, therefore, completely wrong now to depict all countries as aggressors. Only people who are trying to conceal the real aggressors could so distort the facts.

    The peace which exists at present is a bad peace. But in any case this bad peace is better than war. And every consistent supporter of peace will understand at once the need to support all measures which assist in maintaining it, including the measures of the League of Nations, particularly sanctions. Sanctions can be made into an effective means against an aggressor.

    If the sanctions undertaken by the League of Nations did not prevent Italy continuing the war against Ethiopia, this is not an argument against sanctions but against the powers which frustrated their application.

    And if German fascism today is throwing out a challenge to the peoples of the whole world, this is precisely because it reckons on freedom from punishment, because sanctions were not applied to Japan, because the sanctions against Italy were frustrated by the capitalist states, because, finally, when Hitler sent his troops to the frontiers of France and Belgium he was convinced in advance that sanctions against him would be frustrated by the British bourgeoisie.

    It is said that the application of sanctions increases the war danger and will lead to war. This is not true. It is just the opposite, the impunity of the aggressor increases the danger of war. The more resolutely sanctions of an economic and financial character are applied to a fascist aggressor (complete refusal of credits, stopping commerce and the supply of raw material), the less will German fascism be inclined to begin a war, because the greater will be the risk to it.

    The League of Nations must be ruthlessly criticized for its

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irresoluteness, passivity, inconsistency. The working class wages an irreconcilable struggle against the governments of those imperialist countries, members of the League of Nations, which help the aggressor for the sake of their own selfish interests, disrupt measures for preserving peace and sacrifice the interests of small nations to the interests of the big imperialist powers. But it does not follow that we should in general take up a negative position toward the League of Nations. What interest has the proletariat in playing into the hands of the war-mongers, all of whom are at present against the League of Nations? The League of Nations has been deserted by the chief instigators of war, Germany and Japan. The League of Nations includes the Soviet Union, which throws all its international weight into the scales on the side of peace and collective security. In the League of Nations there are also other states that do not want to give the fascist aggressors an opportunity to attack other peoples. Those who cannot distinguish between the League of Nations in the past and the League of Nations at present, those who cannot vary their approach to the different members of the League of Nations, those who refuse to bring mass pressure to bear on the League of Nations and the various capitalist governments to secure the adoption of measures to maintain peace, such people are windbags and not revolutionaries or proletarian politicians.

    The working class must support those measures of the League of Nations and various states which are really directed toward the maintenance of peace (non-aggression pacts, pacts of mutual aid against the aggressor, pacts of collective security, financial and economic sanctions). And not only must it support these measures, but by a mighty mass anti-war movement it must force the League of Nations and the governments of the various capitalist states to take serious steps in defense of peace.

    It is not true that the policy of constantly yielding to the demands of the fascist war-mongers by the League of Nations

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and by various countries (Great Britain, France, Belgium, etc.) can help to maintain peace. The workers have not forgotten that previously in the internal policy of Germany, it was precisely the concessions and capitulation to attacking fascism which paved the latter's way to power. In the international arena, a similar capitulatory policy frees the hands of militant fascism for attack.

    It is also not true that the cause of peace will gain from attempting at the present moment to raise the question of a redistribution of the sources of raw material, colonies and mandated territories, as the reactionary Social-Democratic leaders are doing. In reality this is done with the aim of distracting the attention of the masses from a concrete struggle against the war-mongers. On the other hand, such proposals conceal the desire to give colonies to German fascism, which is bound to strengthen still more the military position of German fascism. It is not the business of the proletariat to advocate any particular division of colonies and mandates among the imperialists. Its task is to support the struggle of the colonial peoples for their interests and their rights and for their final liberation from the imperialist yoke.

    While demanding effective measures from the League of Nations and the bourgeois governments against the aggressiveness of the fascist firebrands, the proletariat must not overlook for a moment that the chief, fundamental and decisive thing in the maintenance of peace is the independent action of the masses in defense of peace against the actual war incendiaries.

    There cannot be the slightest doubt that if the international proletariat, with its mass organizations, especially the trade unions, had acted in unison and by strikes and other measures had prevented a single ship or a single train going to or from Italy, Italian fascism would long since have been forced to stop its war of plunder against the Ethiopian people.

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    But the formation of a really wide People's Front for peace, strong enough to carry on such a struggle against military fascism, is possible only if there exists unity of action of the proletariat itself. It was precisely the establishment of the unity of action of the working class which made it possible for the French and Spanish proletariat to build up a mighty anti-fascist People's Front.

    Torn by internal contradictions, the London conference of the Labor and Socialist International and the International Federation of Trade Unions, under the pressure of the reactionary wing, evaded the question of the necessity for immediately bringing about unity of action of the proletariat on a national and international scale. This conference did not call upon the working masses for independent action, but limited itself to an appeal to rely wholly on the League of Nations. It did not take a stand in defense of the Chinese people, who are being attacked by Japan. It did not condemn in the slightest degree those labor leaders and Social-Democratic leaders who defend the aggressive policy of German fascism, masking this by phrases about the "maintenance of peace."

    But, simultaneously, a movement for the united front of the working class is rapidly developing of late in the ranks of the Labor and Socialist International and the International Federation of Trade Unions. The basic interests of the whole international proletariat require that these forces gain the upper hand and overcome the resistance of the opponents to the united front.

    The fact that fascism, taking advantage of the discord in the parties and organizations of the working class in various countries, has gone over to a military offensive, insistently demands a single international policy of the working class for the purpose of maintaining peace.

    To sum up, this single international policy of the proletariat can be brought about on the following basis:

    1.  The restoration and strengthening of real international proletarian solidarity to defend the interests of the widest

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masses of working people; the Social-Democratic Parties must make a decisive break with the imperialist interests of their bourgeoisie.

    2.  Every possible support for the peace policy of the Soviet Union, the proletarian state that stands unswervingly in defense of peace among peoples. And this presupposes in the first place a determined struggle by the working class parties against the counter-revolutionary attempts to depict the foreign policy of the Soviet Union as identical with the policy of the imperialist states and to represent the Red Army, that bulwark of peace, as being the same as the armies of imperialist states attempts which play into the hands of the fascist war-mongers.

    3.  The blow against the fascist aggressor must be directed with definite purpose and with concentrated force at every moment; the attitude taken toward the aggressor must be different from that taken toward the victims of his attack; any attempt to gloss over the difference between fascist and non-fascist countries must be exposed.

    4.  An independent struggle by the proletariat for the maintenance of peace, independent of the capitalist governments and the League of Nations, making it impossible for the working class movement to be subordinated to the behind-the-scenes designs of the imperialist governments in the League of Nations.

    Under present conditions, the fight to maintain peace is a fight against fascism, and this fight is in essence revolutionary.

    The maintenance of peace is a deadly danger for fascism, because, by increasing its internal difficulties, it leads to the undermining of the fascist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The maintenance of peace helps the growth of the forces of the proletariat, the forces of revolution, helps to heal the split in the ranks of the working class movement. It helps the proletariat to become the leading class in the struggle of all working people against capitalism. It undermines the foundations of the capitalist system and hastens the victory of socialism.

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    "War may break out unexpectedly. Wars are not declared nowadays. They just start." (Stalin.) But this demands first and foremost that Communists have a clear understanding of the extent and nature of the war danger and the ways and means of overcoming it.

    A decisive step at present toward establishment of unity of action of the international proletariat against the war-mongers is for the Communist Parties of each separate country to develop in all fields of social and political life the most active, persistent and extensive campaign for the maintenance of peace. The Communists will carry on this campaign, not postponing it until pacts for joint activity have been signed with the leaders of the Social-Democratic Parties, but they will unfailingly carry it on from the point of view of the struggle for the establishment of unity of action between the Communist Party and the Social-Democratic Party. Communists will exert every effort to overcome the resistance of the reactionary Social-Democratic leaders to the united front and to strengthen in every way the bonds of joint struggle against the common enemy between the Communist and Social-Democratic workers.

    Such a campaign, helping to draw the Communist and Social-Democratic workers closer together, will help to activize and rally all the forces of the proletariat, not only on a national but on an international scale. This will greatly assist setting into motion other strata of the working people of town and country, the masses of the petty bourgeoisie, peasants and intellectuals, all friends of peace. All this will hasten the formation of an invincible front of struggle of the international proletariat, of all toiling people, of all peoples, for the maintenance of peace.

    The struggle for peace is a struggle against fascism, a struggle against capitalism, a struggle for the victory of socialism throughout the world!

    May 1, 1936.

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IT IS impossible without a feeling of deep indignation to read the telegram about the trial of the terrorist Trotsky-Zinoviev center, sent in such haste to the Soviet government by the official representatives of the Labor and Socialist International and the International Federation of Trade Unions, signed by de Brouckere, Adler, Citrine and Schevenels.

    Did these reactionary leaders act with the same alacrity when the Communist International proposed to the Labor and Socialist International that joint assistance be given to the Asturian miners when they were fighting, with weapons in hand, in October 1934? Did they hasten to reply to the repeated appeals for joint action made by the Communist International for the protection of the Ethiopian people when it was attacked by Italian fascism? Not at all. One recalls that they stated at that time that they were not competent to enter into negotiations on this question, and that it was necessary to wait for a session of the Executive of the Labor and Socialist International. But at that time it was a question of a really just and honest matter, the defense of the vital interests not only of the Spanish but of the international proletariat, and of the fight against a most unjust, disgraceful war of conquest.

    But now they show themselves fully competent, on their own account -- without consulting their organizations -- to take under their protection the accused terrorists who had raised their criminal hands against the leader of the Soviet power.

    It has always been so. When the proletarian court in the Soviet Union wielded its avenging sword against saboteurs

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who scattered glass splinters in the workers' food, poisoned collective farm cattle and spoilt machines, or against spies and military saboteurs, agents of fascism who destroyed railway tracks, and caused explosions, such reactionary leaders as Citrine and Adler invariably came forward to protect and intercede for this counter-revolutionary gang of ruffians. And it often happened that when the apparatus of the proletarian dictatorship caught agents of foreign fascism in the act of preparing attacks on the leaders of the land of socialism, the sympathy of the reactionary leaders of the Labor and Socialist International and the International Federation of Trade Unions was not on the side of the workers and collective farmers of the Soviet Union, but on the side of their bitterest enemies.

    The leaders of the Labor and Socialist International sent no telegram of sympathy, whether to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or to the Soviet government, when Comrade Kirov, one of the best sons of the people, selfless fighter for the cause of the liberation of the international working class, was treacherously murdered. On the contrary, at that time also, they hastened to take under their wing those against whom the people's wrath was directed. It is all the more scandalous that, just at this time, when around the heroically fighting Spanish people a real, international united front of struggle is being created against the rebel generals, and against German and Italian fascism, for the protection of the republic and of democracy, Citrine and Co. come forward with their hostile demonstration against the land of socialism, the most solid and unshakable bulwark of the liberties of the people.

    What can these advocates of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev say, in view of the irrefutable facts?

    Has it not been proved that Trotsky, whom reactionary Socialist leaders made a great song about at one time, is the organizer of individual terrorism in the Soviet Union? It has been proved.

    Has it not been proved that his accomplices, Zinoviev, Kamenev and others, prepared terroristic attempts in the course

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of a number of years on Comrade Stalin, the greatest leader and organizer of triumph of socialism, and against his best companions in the fight, leaders of the Party and the Soviet power? It has been proved.

    Has it not been proved that this terrorist gang murdered Kirov? It has been proved.

    Has it not been proved that these despicable terrorists worked in league with the Gestapo, that is, with the secret police of German fascism, the most savage enemy of the working class, the bestial persecutor and torturer of Communist, Socialist and non-party workers? It has been proved.

    Has it not been proved that the counter-revolutionary terrorists, in their foul underground existence, cultivated the habits and customs of the fascist executioners who set the Reichstag on fire, and later destroyed persons who took part in that outrage? It has been proved.

    All this was proved in an open session of the Soviet court, in the presence of representatives of the international press. It was confirmed by the categorical admissions of the defendants themselves. Driven into a corner by the facts and the irrefutable evidence, they fully admitted having committed the crimes with which they were charged and did not deny their political and organizational connection with fascism. Is it not a fact that in their last speeches the accused, one after the other, admitted the heinousness of their crimes against the working class?

    But Citrine, Adler and the others come forward in their defense! Ridiculous and pitiable are the statements of these leaders about granting the accused their due rights. They were given every possibility of saying whatever they liked. They were given the right to choose their defending counsel, to call witnesses, to demand examination of the evidence, etc. But they renounced the right of choosing defending counsel, to call any witnesses and to deliver speeches in their defense, for the chain of their crimes was too obvious and indisputably proved. Their crimes were proved before the whole world in public trial by documents, facts, material evidence.

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    The criminal conspirators were caught red-handed, weapons in hand, with passports in their possession obtained from the agents of the Hitler Gestapo, with explosives. The court was given documentary proof of the personal leadership of the terrorists by Trotsky, who had sent them to the Soviet Union to murder Stalin and to organize terroristic acts against the leaders of the socialist state. Overwhelming proof of the guilt of the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorists was produced at an open trial.

    It was clearly proved that Trotsky, Zinoviev and their gang stood on the other side of the barricades, in the same camp as those who are fighting against the Spanish people, sending airplanes, weapons and munitions to the rebel generals, and carrying on counter-revolutionary intervention in Spain.

    Citrine and the rest are trying to justify their intervention on behalf of the terrorists -- the enemies of the Soviet power -- by pointing to the necessity of maintaining proletarian solidarity with the fighting working class in Spain. They try to create the impression that the trial of the counter-revolutionary terrorists in the Soviet Union endangers the fulfillment of this proletarian solidarity with the Spanish people. But that is an obvious lie.

    The trial of the terrorists, agents of fascism, is an integral part of the anti-fascist struggle of the international working class. True solidarity with the Spanish people is not compatible with the protection of the agents of fascism in other countries. One cannot sincerely support the Spanish people, which is fighting against fascism, and at the same time play the part of protector of the terrorist rabble in the Soviet Union which is helping fascism. Whoever supports counter-revolutionary terrorists in the U.S.S.R., directly or indirectly, is, at bottom, serving the ends of Spanish fascism, disrupting the fight of the Spanish people and facilitating the latter's defeat.

    This action of the leaders of the Labor and Socialist International and of the International Federation of Trade Unions tends to undermine the solidarity of the international prole-

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tariat with the proletariat of the Soviet Union. It is a blow at the movement toward unity of the working class of the world. It is directed toward shattering the united front of the working people against fascism in Spain, France and other countries. This action of Citrine and the others is a direct blow against the heroic fight of the Spanish people, for if the Spanish people were to follow the foul advice which the reactionary Socialist leaders permit themselves to offer to the peoples of the Soviet Union, the Spanish Republic would be doomed to defeat.

    It is just because the counter-revolutionary generals too long went unpunished that the Spanish people is having to make such sacrifices -- because measures were not taken in good time against the fascists, who were secretly preparing a conspiracy against the people.

    There is no reason to doubt that Hitler and Mussolini, Generals Franco and Mola, the fascists of France and other countries, all sworn enemies of the unity of the working class and the People's Front, all enemies of democracy, of socialism and of the Soviet Union, will welcome this scandalous act, for the step taken by Citrine and Adler tends to deepen the split in the ranks of the world working class movement and plays into the hands of international reaction.

    It would be wrong to put the responsibility for this action on all the parties and organizations which belong to the Labor and Socialist International and to the International Federation of Trade Unions.

    They certainly did not empower Citrine and Schevenels, de Brouckere and Adler to come forward in defense of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev, who organized terrorist acts against the leaders of the great Soviet country. They did not empower these leaders to take the accused, the allies of German fascism and the Gestapo agents, under their protection. They did not instruct them to make use of the trial of the terrorist gang for a new slander campaign against the Soviet Union and for a rupture of the united front against fascism.

    It is the bounden duty of the millions of supporters of unity

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in the ranks of the Labor and Socialist International and of the I.F.T.U., in connection with the disgraceful intervention of Citrine and the others, to administer a rebuff to the saboteurs of the united front. It is high time to put an end to their coming forward in the name of the workers' organizations to the detriment of the united struggle against the common enemy.

    The example of the accused degenerates plainly reveals to everybody how renegades, double-dealers, who, like Trotsky, make play with radical phrases, act as wreckers in the ranks of the labor movement and carry out the villainous work of fascism. Now even the most short-sighted people can see for what purpose Trotsky needed the formation of a Fourth International, and whom this dirty crowd of crazed, petty-bourgeois individualists, self-centered careerists, agents of the Gestapo and of the secret police of other countries are serving.

    To be able to display keen class vigilance at every step, to learn how to expose concealed enemies, to know how to expose double-dealers and agents of the class enemy and to remove them ruthlessly and in good time from the ranks of the proletarian organizations -- this is one of the most important lessons of the trial for the workers' movement in all countries.

    We do not doubt that all organizations of the working class will administer a well-merited rebuff to the anti-Soviet efforts of the Citrines; that they will strengthen and develop the united front movement and rally millions of working people around the just, national war of the Spanish people against the rebel generals, who are supported by the Italian and German fascists; that they will rally the working class against fascism and its contemptible accomplices, the Trotskyist plotters.

    October, 1936.

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DURING the fifteen years of its existence, the Communist Party of China has grown into a powerful revolutionary Party, steeled in the fire of the Chinese revolution. One of the best sections of the Comintern, it has succeeded in establishing Soviet districts and building the armed forces of the revolution -- the Red Army, which is displaying miracles of heroism, and which the seven campaigns of the enemy have not succeeded in breaking.

    The Communist Party of China achieved these successes in exceptionally difficult circumstances. It is distinguished from the Communist Parties in other countries by a double task that has fallen to its lot, viz., that of acting as the ruling party in the Soviet districts, in a situation of uninterrupted armed struggle against the internal enemies of the Chinese people, and at the same time in the remaining parts of China having, under illegal conditions, to organize the masses and lead their struggle against the ruling militarist regime. Three-quarters of the members of the Party have been under arms for a number of years and have been at the front all the time. Tens of thousands of the best sons of the Chinese people, and first and foremost Communists and Young Communists, have fallen in the struggle for the great cause of its liberation. A very large number of Chinese Communists have been thrown into jails by the reactionary generals.

    If, in spite of these difficult conditions and great sacrifices, the Communist Party of China has grown into a powerful political force, this is due to the fact that it has deeply-rooted connections with the Chinese people, that it untiringly defends

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their interests, armed with the revolutionary theory of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin, that it protects their unity as the apple of its eye, that it does not fear to reveal its own mistakes in Bolshevik fashion, that it learns from these mistakes and opportunely corrects them, and that it does not allow alien elements to make their way into its ranks, sweeping away all kinds of capitulators and those who support the class enemy.

    But as a real Bolshevik Party, the Communist Party of China realizes that, however great the successes it has achieved, they are only the first serious steps on the road to the liberation of the Chinese people. And now it is making every effort to solve its most important historic task at the present stage, that of becoming the pioneer in establishing a united national front against the Japanese plunderers, and of uniting the now divided forces of the Chinese people for saving China from dismemberment and enslavement.

    The efforts of the Communist Party -- directed toward ending the civil war in the country and establishing collaboration with the Kuomintang and all other political groupings and armed forces of China in the organization of resistance to the Japanese marauders have the sympathy, endorsement and support of the friends of the Chinese people throughout the world. The declaration of the Communist Party in favor of a united all-China democratic republic, as the best means in the present circumstances of uniting all the forces of the Chinese people against their worst enemy, the Japanese fascist military clique, testifies to the fact that the Communist Party is taking account of the actual situation, and is soberly outlining the tasks that correspond to the present stage of the liberation struggle in China.

    The firmness and consistency of this line for the unification of all the forces of the Chinese people, the line pursued by the Communist Party, are also proved by the fact that the Party, with a view to facilitating the establishment of a united national front, is introducing the necessary alterations into its policy in the Soviet districts, while at the same time continuing to strengthen the Soviets as the on]y center of democracy in

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the country at the present time, and as the reliable support of the struggle of the Chinese people against the Japanese imperialists.

    Tremendous difficulties face the Chinese Communist Party. The struggle against heavily armed Japanese imperialism -- a crafty enemy which is cleverly dispersing the forces of China and using every internal struggle there for its own robber ends -- requires tremendous efforts by the whole Chinese people, and first and foremost by the Communist Party.

    The Communist Party has to expose the machinations of the Japanese provocateurs, to expose the dense network of Japanese intrigues to the whole of the Chinese people, and to isolate the agents of imperialism from the honest Chinese patriots, who sincerely desire to protect the independence and liberty of their native land.

    The Party, basing itself on the will of the masses, has the task of carrying on a systematic struggle to establish a united national front with the Kuomintang. This is no light task, for many of the leaders of the Kuomintang, and many of its military men and political workers, blinded with hatred of the Communists, give way to Japanese provocation, and instead of organizing resistance to the usurper, jointly with the Communist Party and Red Army, are wiping out the armed forces of China in a criminal war against the Red Army, and in internal conflicts among the generals. The Communist Party has the task of mobilizing the public opinion of China, and of securing that all real Chinese patriots give up this policy, which is ruinous for the national interests of China.

    The Party has the task of still further strengthening its connections with the masses of workers and peasants, with all toilers, with the working intellectuals, by coming forward as the consistent defender of their elementary rights and urgent interests, and by mobilizing them for the struggle under the slogan, "Clear the Japanese usurpers out of China."

    The Party has the task of unceasingly strengthening the Red Army and raising its fighting power, for the stronger the Red Army the quicker will a united Chinese National Army

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be set up, and the more successfully will the Chinese people be able to carry on the struggle against the offensive of the Japanese military clique, which is armed with the most advanced technique.

    But there are also internal difficulties in the path of the Communist Party of China. It has to overcome the resistance of sectarian elements, who do not understand that in the present conditions the only way to secure the liberation of the Chinese people is by establishing a united national front against the Japanese violators. It also has to carry on a struggle against the opportunist capitulators who are ready to sacrifice the political and organizational independence of the Party and the Red Army, and to dissolve them in other organizations and armies. The Communist Party of China, while loyally and honestly fulfilling its obligations according to the agreement undertaken by it regarding the struggle against the usurper, does not intend to take either the path of blind faith in its allies, or the path of capitulation.

    The Chinese Bolsheviks perfectly well understand that the basic condition for overcoming these difficulties is to strengthen the Party itself, its unity and iron discipline, all the more so since the enemies of the Party are, in the present situation, increasing their efforts tenfold so as to penetrate into the Party, to do it harm and to hinder the cause of the liberation of the Chinese people.

    There can be no doubt that the Communist Party, which during fifteen years has proved its loyalty to the masses of the people of China, and its ability to fight for the interests and liberation of the people, will overcome all difficulties and obstacles in its path and will bring into being the united national front of the Chinese people against the Japanese fascist military clique.

    The international proletariat is following the events in China with unflagging interest. It has repeatedly demonstrated its solidarity with the fighting Chinese people and the Communist Party of China. But at the moment when the direct menace of complete enslavement hangs over China, these usual

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manifestations of solidarity are insufficient. What is needed is to surround the Chinese people, who are fighting for their liberty, with live sympathy and love, and with real moral and political support. It is necessary that energetic measures be taken to influence public opinion and the governments, first and foremost in England, France and the U.S.A., and to secure that all direct and indirect support of the robber plans and deeds of the Japanese fascist military clique is really abandoned. We must unceasingly brand -- as a foul plot against peace, culture and democracy -- the alliance between German fascism and the Japanese military clique, directed toward the dismemberment and enslavement of China and toward unloosing a new imperialist world war.

    Let the celebration of the fifteenth anniversary of the Communist Party of China become a real impulse for mobilizing the forces of the entire international proletariat to render help to the Chinese people, for this great people is fighting for its independent national existence on one of the most important sectors of the world front of struggle against fascism and war.

    October, 1936.

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THE policy of the People's Front of struggle against fascism and war, proclaimed by the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, has aroused a mighty echo among the working masses of all countries. The practical realization of this policy in France and Spain has provided clear proof that the People's Front is actually possible and has enhanced its popularity.

    There is not a single country, at the present time, where the idea of the People's Front does not daily find more and more adherents among all those who cherish democracy and freedom, among all those who advocate peace among nations. The effort to form a People's Front is growing as well in countries where the bourgeois-democratic revolution has still by no means had its last say; in Japan, for instance, where the fascist-feudal military clique, with its rapacious military adventures on Chinese territory and on the frontiers of the great Soviet Union, is thrusting the Japanese people into an abyss of most terrible calamities. And it is growing also in the so-called classic countries of bourgeois democracy, in Great Britain, for instance, where the destinies of nations have been traditionally decided by the two parties of monopoly capital -- the Tory and the Liberal -- which, by their reactionary policy both nationally and internationally, pave the way for the burial of democracy and peace.

    The tremendous historical significance, the correctness nnd timeliness of the People's Front policy, are perhaps particularly clearly expressed in the attitude toward this policy shown by the enemies of the proletariat, the enemies of de-

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mocracy and peace, the fascist war-incendiaries, and the reactionary forces throughout the world. The governments of capitalist countries, bourgeois parties, statesmen and politicians, bourgeois newspapers, have all become seriously alarmed by the decisions of the Congress. The reactionaries of all countries have raised an unparalleled campaign of slander and calumny against the Communist International and against all adherents of the People's Front. In fascist Germany they have even formed a special organization, called the "Anti-Comintern," to carry on propaganda on an international scale against the Communist International and to combat the policy of the People's Front. At the National-Socialist Congress in Nuremberg, Hitler, Goebbels and Rosenberg opened a particularly furious cannonade against the danger of the People's Front, which is menacing the fascist dictatorship, and against democracy in general. While directing the most vehement outbursts against the already existing People's Front in France and Spain, they at the same time thus expressed their alarm and fear of the People's Front movement which is taking shape in Germany itself. The Pope at Rome and their "graces" the bishops in different countries hastened with epistles and sermons, to shield their flock from that "frightful Bolshevik danger," the People's Front. The question of the People's Front is always in the columns of the press in the capitalist countries and is the subject of the most lively discussion.

    The workers' class enemy quickly sensed and understood what a tremendous danger the People's Front, the unity of all anti-fascist forces, constitutes for him. As long as the proletariat is disunited, as long as it is isolated from the other strata of toilers, the working people in town and country, as long as it has not established proper relationships and collaboration with the other democratic forces in the country, it is not so difficult, as the examples of Italy, Germany and Austria have shown, for the handful of financial and industrial magnates, for the fascist bourgeoisie, to crush the working class movement, to defeat the various strata of the people one by one,

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and destroy democracy. The fascists have successfully applied the well-known crafty motto -- "divide and rule?"

    But when the scattered proletarian detachments, at the initiative of the Communists, join hands for the struggle against the common enemy, when the working class, marching as a unit, begins to act together with the peasantry, the lower middle classes and all democratic elements, on the basis of the People's Front program, then the offensive of the fascist bourgeoisie is confronted with an insurmountable barrier. A force arises which can offer determined resistance to fascism, prevent it from coming to power in countries of bourgeois democracy and overthrow its barbarous rule where it is already established.

    As the examples of France and Spain have shown, the establishment of the People's Front signifies a turning point in the relation of forces between the proletariat on the one hand, and the fascist bourgeoisie on the other, to the advantage of millions of the working masses. The People's Front makes it possible for the lower middle classes, the peasantry and the democratic intelligentsia, not only to resist the tutelage and oppression of the clique of finance capital, but also to rise up against it in defense of their vital interests and rights, relying for support on the militant collaboration of the working class nationally and on an international scale. The People's Front offers a way out of the situation which seemed so hopeless to the sections of the lower middle classes, who considered themselves doomed to submission to fascist domination. The People's Front helps the working class to avoid the political isolation toward which the bourgeoisie purposely impels it; it creates the most favorable conditions for the working class to accomplish its historic role, to head the struggle of their people against the small clique of financial magnates, big capitalists and landlords, to be in the vanguard in the uncompleted democratic revolution and in all movements for progress and culture. The class struggle between exploited and exploiters thus receives an immeasurably wider base and a mighty scope.

    While the split in the ranks of the working class, the absence

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of unity between them and the other strata of the working people, pave the way to power for fascism, the unity of the proletarian ranks and the formation of the People's Front ensure victory for democracy over fascism, defend peace against fascist incendiaries of war, and in the long run pave the way for the victory of labor over capital.

    It is difficult to imagine a higher degree of political short-sightedness and absurdity than to contrast the principles of the class struggle with the policy of the People's Front, as some of our overzealous critics "from the Left" do in regard to the decisions of the Seventh Congress of the Communist International. We frequently observe the characteristic phenomenon that not a few Left Socialists, who have become disillusioned with the Social-Democratic policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, and are moving away from reformism, are frequently inclined to go to the other extreme and become the victims of sectarianism and Leftist excesses. They make the mistake of identifying the policy of the People's Front with the policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, and demand "a pure working-class policy," declaring that the joint struggle of the working class and the democratic sections of the lower middle classes, the peasantry and intelligentsia against fascism constitutes a retreat from the position of the class struggle. But this does not at all mean that the People's Front policy is identical with the policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie; it only shows that we must patiently explain the class meaning of the People's Front policy to the sincere Left Socialists and help them to get rid of their own political shortsightedness, which can only play into the hands of fascism and reaction in general.

    As was stated at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, the People's Front will be formed in a different way in different countries, depending on the historical, social and political peculiarities of each country, and the concrete

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situation existing therein. To imitate uncritically and transfer mechanically the methods and forms of the People's Front in one country to another can only complicate its formation, expansion and consolidation.

    However, as experience has shown, it is equally true for the majority of the capitalist countries, that:

    First, the formation of the People's Front is possible in the actual struggle today against fascism;

    Second, the People's Front will be realized the more rapidly, and the sections of the working masses joining it will be the greater, the more determinedly the working class itself acts as one unit, the more quickly its organizations, and in the first place the mass trade unions and the Communist and Social-Democratic Parties, bring about unity of action in the struggle against fascism;

    Third, the People's Front will spread and strengthen as its program for the defense of the interests of the working people, for the defense of democracy and peace against fascism and the fascist war-mongers, is carried out;

    Fourth, the success of the People's Front is entirely dependent upon the extent to which its ranks are consolidated, and upon the extent to which the masses and organizations which take part in it have undergone political and organizational preparation so as to be ready promptly to repulse every blow aimed by fascism, without waiting for its general offensive.

    Today, when the Spanish people is engaged in a deadly struggle against the fascist rebels, when fascism is raising its head everywhere in the capitalist countries and, in the first place, in France, Czechoslovakia and Belgium, it is the supreme duty of the working class to hasten in every way the formation and consolidation of the People's Front by establishing united action nationally and on an international scale. It is the duty of Communists to do everything necessary, taking into consideration the conditions in their own countries, to help the working class to fulfill this its historic task.

    If we are briefly to formulate the most important, immedi-

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ate tasks which the whole situation today places before the world proletariat, they may be reduced to the following:

    To exert every effort to help the Spanish people to crush the fascist rebels;

    Not to allow the People's Front in France to be discredited or disrupted;

    To hasten by every means the establishment of a World People's Front of struggle against fascism, and war.

    All these tasks are closely linked. The most urgent, though, of these tasks, the very first at the present moment, is that of organizing international aid to the Spanish people for their victory over fascism.

    The historic importance of the struggle against fascism in Spain has been expressed concisely and at the same time most clearly in the words of the leader of the working people of the world, Comrade Stalin, in his telegram in reply to the greetings of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Spain:

    The liberation of Spain from the yoke of the fascist reactionaries is not the private affair of Spaniards, but the common cause of all advanced and progressive mankind.

    The course of development in all the capitalist countries in the near future will depend a great deal upon the outcome of the struggle of the Spanish people against the fascist brigands. The action undertaken by the fascists in Spain has shown once more that fascism is not only the bitterest enemy of the proletariat, the enemy of the Soviet Socialist Republics, but the enemy of every form of liberty, of every democratic country, even if its political and economic regime does not go beyond the bounds of bourgeois society.

    Fascism means the destruction of all the democratic rights won by the people, the establishment of a kingdom of darkness and ignorance and the destruction of culture; it means nonsensical race theories and the preaching of hatred of man for man, for the purpose of kindling wars of conquest. Death and destruction are being spread today in Spain by the rabble

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who form the Foreign Legion, by the duped Moroccan troops led by fascist generals, and by the ammunition and military units sent to Spain by the fascist rulers of Germany, Italy and Portugal. The combatants of the Republican army fighting at the walls of Madrid, in Catalonia, in the mountains of Asturias, all over the peninsula, are laving down their lives to defend not only the liberty and independence of Republican Spain, but also the democratic gains of all nations, and the cause of peace against the fascist war incendiaries.

    The special significance of the Spanish events consists in the fact that they have demonstrated the mighty power of united proletarian action, the power of the People's Front in the struggle against fascism. For it is now quite clear to everybody that if united action had not been achieved between the Communist, Socialist and Anarchist workers in Spain, if a broad fighting front of the Spanish people -- from the Communists to the Left Republicans -- had not been formed, the fascist generals would long ago have established their dictatorship. They would have wreaked bloody vengeance upon the workers and other toilers and upon all democratic elements all over the whole of Spanish territory. They would have doomed the country to nn orgy of medieval reaction and inquisition, would have placed it under the heel of German and Italian fascism, would have handed over to them the most important strategic points in the Mediterranean, and have turned Spain into a military base for carrying out their robber uar plans.

    But in Spain the fascist rebels and their inspirers from Berlin and Rome have encountered that force which is barring their way. They have encountered the armed resistance of the People's Front. The Spanish people by their heroic struggle are today demonstrating how democracy is to be defended against fascism. The victory of the Spanish people is the interest of all who do not want to suffer fascist barbarism in their country. The victory of the Spanish people will be the victory of the whole of world democracy, the victory of progress and culture over fascist reaction, the victory of the peace

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front over the fascist instigators of war. It will strengthen the People's Front in France and strike a heavy blow at fascism in all countries.

    The heroic struggle of the Spanish people serves as a striking and convincing warning to the fascist forces of darkness in those countries where they are feverishly preparing for fascist coups d'état, that the time has passed when fascism can make use of disunity in the ranks of the working class and other toilers, when it can catch the people unawares, when it can deceive the politically backward sections of the population and seize state power. It shows that where there are a firm People's Front and international solidarity of action among the working class, it will be impossible to establish fascist rule over a people prepared to defend their freedom and independence. Thus, the cause of democracy and peace in Europe, the struggle against fascism and war in all countries, is linked in a thousand ways with the interests of the People's Front in Spain, whose courageous fighters have taken up arms to defend the Republic and ensure the victory of the Spanish revolution.

    Everything that has happened during the recent period, and primarily the lessons of the Spanish events, point to the fact that the time has come when we must defend democracy by every means, including the force of arms. These are the lessons that must be learned and well remembered by all workers and other toilers, by all those who do not want to become victims of fascist bondage and savage violence.

    It is not at all that the supporters of democracy and peace are in general advocates of armed struggle, but that fascism kindles the flames of civil war against the democratic regime of the country, brings about destruction and death, and compels the people to defend their lives, their freedom and independence by taking up arms.

    It must be understood that it is not a case now of some far distant menace of fascism, but that fascism, which has already

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set up its terroristic dictatorship in such big countries as Germany and Italy, and is seeking to do the same in Spain, is preparing to crush the working class movement and to destroy democracy in other countries, and that it kindles the flames of world imperialist war.

    The war undertaken by fascism against the Spanish people cannot be considered as a casual isolated act. No, this war is a link to the chain of the fascist offensive on the international arena. No illusions must be harbored that the war undertaken by fascism against the Spanish people will be the last of its kind. Fascism is preparing to strike at democracy in France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, at the democracy of England, Switzerland, Scandinavia and other countries. Everywhere the fascist reactionaries are feverishly working, from within and without, to prepare, organize and, at a convenient moment, to carry out fascist rebellions and coups d'état. In order to prepare for a new imperialist war, to seize foreign territories and to subject other nations, in order to ensure the unbridled rule of the most reactionary, rapacious elements of finance capital and to organize a crusade against the Soviet Union, fascism needs to smash the working class movement and destroy European democracy.

    All adherents of democracy must bear in mind that the fate of anti-fascist democracy in Europe is indissolubly bound up with the fate of the working class, with the establishment of the People's Front. Democracy will inevitably perish under the blows of the fascist offensive, if it does not rely for support on the working class and the broad masses of the working people, if it is not prepared to defend itself against fascism by every means at its disposal.

    The policy of retreating before fascism, both nationally and on an international scale, brings grist to the mill of fascism; it brings destruction to the nations, it means the end of democracy. This policy is equally harmful for those who retreat before fascism inside the country and those states which retreat before it on the international arena.

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    The fascist rulers of Germany are systematically blackmailing the countries of bourgeois democracy, and the present rulers of those countries succumb to the influence of this blackmail. But it must be realized that the brazen fascists are becoming the more insolent the more concessions are ceded to them, and the less the resistance they meet. The fascists are using their well-tried method of provocation. In Germany they fired the Reichstag and then shouted that the Communists had done it. In Spain they started a rebellion against the parliamentary regime, against the lawful republican government, and then shouted that the People's Front was to blame for the civil war. The fascists put fear into the hearts of the spineless liberals and flabby democrats; while the democratic jobbers fearing for their profits and the ministers, politicians and leaders from the ranks of various liberal and democratic parties who cling to their soft seats, as well as not a few people from the Socialist and Amsterdam Internationals, give way to this intimidation and do their utmost to find means of conciliation with fascism. They try to persuade us that such a "middle" policy can be adopted whereby "the wolves would be satisfied and the sheep go unharmed." But concessions will not sate the fascist wolves. This kind of policy will not check them. Actually it only leads to demobilizing the forces and the will of the working masses.

    The Spanish events provide a particularly vivid example in this respect, too. It is now clear to all that the fascists, and first and foremost the fascists of Germany and Italy who have raised the revolt, with the Spanish generals as their cat's-paws, counted upon the young Spanish Republican government not offering them any serious resistance; they expected that it would not be difficult for them to subject the country and take over its natural wealth and the islands having strategic importance. In resorting to military action in Spain the fascists had before them the examples of the recent past, when their criminal acts had been allowed to go unpunished. The introduction of compulsory military service in Germany, the militarization of the Rhineland, the seizure of Ethiopia by Italy

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and the earlier seizure of parts of China by Japan, which took place with the connivance of the bourgeois democratic countries and the League of Nations, have whetted the appetites of the fascist bullies and encouraged them to attempt a new robber raid. The fascists would never have dared to kindle the flames of civil war in other countries, to send arms, airplanes, tanks, flotillas of warships and, lastly, army units, had they been promptly and firmly checked. They would have been compelled to retreat if, at the very beginning of the fascist rebellion in Spain, they had encountered the mighty force of the international working class movement marching in a united front, if they had encountered resistance on the part of the bourgeois democratic governments, if these governments had not supported the blockade of the Spanish Republic by their fraudulent policy of non-intervention.

    We often hear the argument advanced by people who pretend to be adherents of democracy, that the establishment of the People's Front only leads to increased fascist aggression, that it hastens the armed action of fascism. From this they draw the conclusion that if you want to avoid the barbarous rule of fascism, do not form a People's Front, but try to come to terms peacefully with Hitler and Mussolini and your own Hitlers and Mussolinis in each country. But nothing could be more misguiding and harmful for the proletariat and the people in the bourgeois democratic countries than to follow the sheepish wisdom of these woe-begone democrats. It amounts to the absurd, stupid, foul moral: "Don't annoy the beast if you don't want it to attack you." And this monstrous moral is being taught to the Social-Democratic workers precisely after the cruel defeat of the working people of Germany and Austria!

    For in Germany and Austria, as is well known, the leaders of Social-Democracy and the trade unions had absolutely refused to undertake any joint action with the Communists, their excuse being that the united front with the Communist Party would alienate the middle strata from the working class, would strengthen the position and the aggression of fascism, would

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hasten on its general offensive and lead to fascist victory and the annihilation of democracy. It was as a result of this policy that the German and Austrian people suffered heavy defeats, followed by countless horrors and calamities.

    On the other hand, we see that the People's Front in France has barred the way against fascism, while it is precisely owing to the People's Front that for five months now the Spanish people have been heroically defending their liberty and independence. In this grave struggle the chances for victory will be the greater the more the Spanish working class is able to maintain to the end the firm unity of the People's Front, the more it is able to subordinate the historically formed differences between the Communists, Socialists and Anarchists, to the greater interests of the people, to the cause of suppressing the fascist rebellion, the more determinedly it resists the attempts at taking dangerous leaps over the inevitable stages of the revolution advocated by certain short-sighted sectarians, light-minded visionaries and Trotskyite provocateurs. Finally, the quicker and more resolute the support afforded to the Spanish people by the world proletariat and the whole of progressive mankind, the sooner will the Spanish people finish with the fascist rebels.

    An analogy, it is true, is not always proof, but frequently it throws a clearer light on a given situation. We can definitely assert that if, at the time of the Leipzig trial when the sword of brutal Hitler fascism hung over the heads of the accused Communists, the anti-fascists of all countries, and we in court, had adhered to this wiseacre policy of "Don't annoy the beast," German fascism would not then have suffered such a moral and political defeat, the heads of the falsely accused Communists would not have remained on their shoulders, and the "St. Bartholomew Night" prepared by the bloodthirsty fascists for the thousands of prisoners of fascism in the jails and concentration camps would not have been averted.

    No, the policy of "Don't annoy the beast," is an unworthy policy! It is a policy which under all circumstances is fatal for the working class, for democracy and peace. On the con-

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trary, the fascist beast must be muzzled. It must be confronted by the mighty organized fist of the People's Front. It must be muzzled in iron so as to prevent it from biting. It must be struck at and finished once and for all, in order to save the democratic gains won by the people and safeguard peace.

    This, of course, does not mean that we should fall prey to the provocations of the fascists, who, while using all means to kindle the flames of civil war inside the country and imperialist war abroad, seek to deceive the masses of the people and create the impression that it is precisely the parties of the People's Front and the states which support peace that lead to civil war and military complications.

    In the contemporary political history of Europe we have two most important and instructive examples showing different attitudes toward fascism that led to diametrically opposite results.

    While in Germany the Social-Democratic leaders refused to establish united working class action and, precisely because of this, facilitated the advent of the fascists to power, we have a different example in France. The French proletariat, thanks to the joint action of the Communist and Socialist Parties and the policy of unswerving struggle on the basis of the People's Front against the fascist danger, caused fascism to be effectively repulsed and prevented the fascists from establishing their rule. This is the greatest victory of the proletariat and democracy in Europe after the coming of fascism to power in Germany. And the working people of other capitalist countries can and must learn much from the French proletariat.

    But these successes in France are only the first successes. They must be consolidated; they demand that the offensive against fascism proceed further. Every attempt to discredit and break up the People's Front must meet with the most resolute resistance on the part of all workers, all anti-fascists. The mustering of the fascist forces within the country, the growing fascist aggression in neighboring countries, the Spanish events, which are fraught with lessons to be learned, indicate clearly to the workers and all anti-fascists that they

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must increase their efforts tenfold in the struggle against fascism, that they must forge an even stronger and more stable united People's Front.

    There is no ground to doubt that this line will be followed persistently and firmly, as the only correct line in the struggle against growing fascist aggression. But maintaining the People's Front in France does not mean by far that the working class will support the present government at any price. The composition of the government may change, but the People's Front must remain and grow stronger all the time. If for some reason or other the existing government should turn out to be unable to put through the program of the People's Front, if it takes the line of retreat before the enemy at home and abroad, if its policy leads to the discrediting of the People's Front and thus weakens the resistance to the fascist offensive, then the working class, while still further strengthening the bonds of the People's Front, will strive to bring about the substitution of another government for the present one, of a government which will firmly carry out the program of the People's Front, will be capable of dealing with the fascist danger, will safeguard the democratic liberties of the French people and ensure its defense against foreign fascist aggression.

    Alongside with maintaining and strengthening the People's Front in France, the unfolding of united action among all sections of the English working class against fascism and war deserves special attention. England plays a tremendous role in the whole of the political life of the world. Her position most definitely influences a number of bourgeois democratic countries and the international situation in general. The whole situation today raises with particular force the question of the role of the working class of England nationally and on an international scale. This fact imposes on it particularly important obligations with regard to the struggle against fascism and for the preservation of peace, and also with regard to the task of establishing international unity of the working class movement. The English working class won democratic rights

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earlier than the working people of other countries. The democratic regime they won has made it possible for them to influence the policies of their country to a greater extent than is the case with the proletariat of a number of other countries. The English workers possess powerful means for the struggle for democracy, to safeguard peace against fascism and, in particular, against the fascist brigands in Spain and the German, Italian and Portuguese interventionists.

    There is no doubt that the working class of England, with the glorious traditions of the Chartist movement behind it, the proletariat in whose midst the First International of Marx and Engels was established, and which possesses powerful, united trade union organizations, will find in itself sufficient strength and will power to overcome all obstacles on the way to creating a united People's Front of struggle against fascism and war, and to fulfill with honor its international obligations in defense of democracy, culture and peace.

    The decisive role in the task of establishing a mighty People's Front belongs to the working class. It can and must rally around itself all working people, all the forces of democracy, all anti-fascists. At the present juncture, when we are faced with furious fascist aggression directed, as was particularly clearly demonstrated by the Nuremberg Congress of the bestial German fascists, against every kind of democracy, when everything must be done to save the Spanish democratic republic, when over the world hangs the ominous threat of a new world imperialist war, it is not only impermissible to allow the forces of the proletariat to be divided, but it is impermissible and criminal to allow any slackening in the work of establishing the united front. This slackening only plays into the hands of fascism. It may cause the proletariat and democracy to suffer new heavy blows.

    The working class must no longer tolerate a situation where, at a time when in Spain the Socialist and Communist workers

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are fighting and dying together at the front, defending not only the liberty and democracy of the Spanish people but the democracy and culture of the whole of Europe against fascist barbarism, there are to be found leaders of the Second Socialist International who bring all their influence to bear to widen the split in the proletarian ranks.

    At a time when