REPORTING WHAT ~RODONG SHINMOON" SAID
By Dick Roberts.
The North Korean Communist party's attack on "Trotskyisn" Lsee World Outlook, September 30] has been put to new purpose. This time it has been reprinted in The Worker, twice-weekly organ of the United States Communist party.. And the purpose here is to smear Trotskyism directly, especially as it is expressed by the American Socialist Workers party.
- When the North Korean | editorial first appeared in the official party newspaper Rodong Shinmoon, the main intent was to associate Pyongyang with the Kremlin position in the Sino-Soviet debate. By declaring the Peking line to be "Trotskyist, " Rodong Shinmoon was Simply employing an old device in the Stalinist handbag -guilt by association -- to demonstrate its true sympathies to Moscow.
The Sino-Soviet debate itself first emerged through such. . highly regarded "signals." On one side, the Kremlin diplomats ‘showed their disfavor with Peking by attacking Peking'"s. ally-Albania; and. on the other, Peking returned Moscow's trusts by attacking Tito and Yugoslavia. Only when Moscow and Peking were prepared for an open break, did the respective bureaucracies engage in direct Polemics. Presumably, Pyongyang is on the Same route.
“But. the. CPUSA has no “need for this tactic. The pages of _ The Worker have: long been-open for attacks against Peking, and if > the CPUSA had been interested in doing so, it would have attacked Peking's position directly. With American Trotskyism, however, it is another story. Confronted with a radical audience aware of the principled record of struggle of the Socialist Workers party, the proponents of Khrushchevism in this country are not quite so bold. In
_28-
this case they prefer innuendo..: The Worker's reproduction of the following paragraph from the Rogong Shinmeon. editorial ais aNeon. example: : . ae mE she I
"Sl andering Soviet society, Trotsky claimea that aifferen— tiation: of classes would take place under socialism in the same way as it does under capitalism, that the relations of domination and: subordination would revive and class contradictions appear. In accordance with Trotsky's theory material values will accumulate . with the development of production and, as a result of the distribution in accordance with the quantity and quality of labor, the ‘bourgeois elements' will inevitably grow and gain in strength under socialism, ‘all kinds of relations and habits inherent in the. . hours. geois society' will revive and grow.
Such nonsense has nothing whatsoever to do with Trotsky's actual viewpoint. One is supposed to. believe from reading this. -that. the commander of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War held that "socialism" would inevitably lead to the ‘differentiation of classes" and the restoration of “bourgeois elements.
What ‘Trotsky actually held was that Stalin's regime stabilized a privileged bureaucratic caste at the expense of the Russian peasants and workers; and Trotsky defended the interests of the peasants and workers against this bureaucracy.
Trotskyists do not feel that capitalism has been restored in the Soviet. Union or any of the states where the workers have taken power, and Trotskyists unconditionally defend the workers states. | against any and every attempt by world imperialism to. destroy them.
The Korean war is an excellent example of this ‘and one that is pertinent to the case at hand. The record of the SWP in defense of the Korean people against Truman's invasion of their country is. unassailable --.a fact that is well known to The Worker , if not to Rodong Shinmoon. 2 a :
It must be. recalled that the climate in this country was not the same as it is today, when millions of people are against American involvement in the war in Vietnam. Korea came during the period of McCarthyism and anti-Communist hysteria. The sensationalized propaganda that South:Korea had been. invaded by North Korea was accepted by the vast: majority of Americans.
But the SWP did not accept this myth for one... “day. From the. very beginning, despite the confusion and hysteria, the American Trotskyist movement stood in the forefront of those who saw through the propaganda and opposed the war. The editors of The Worker know this very well. They are well aware, for instance, of the following letter to the president and members of congress’ by James P. Cannon, the: founder. of American Trotekyism, printed in The Militant, ay 31, A290: ne Si ce, beset:
"Gentlemen:
"I disagree with your actions in Korea and in my capacity as a private citizen I petition you to change your policy fundamentally, as | Follows :
So mwitharaw the “American troops and: let the Korean people . alone..
"The American. intervention in Korea is a brutal imperialist invasion, no different from the: French war on Indo-China or the Dutch assault on Indonesia. American boys are being sent 10,000 miles’ away to kill and be killed, not in order to liberate the Korean people, but to conquer and subjugate then.
"The explosion in Korea on June 25, as events have proved, expressed: the profound desire of the Koreans. themselves to unify . their country, to rid themselves of: foreign domination and to win their complete national independence...
"This is more than a fight for unification. and national liberation. It is a civil war. On the one side are the Korean workers, peasants and student youth. On the other are the Korean landlords, usurers, capitalists and their police and political agents. The impoverished and exploited masses have risen up ‘to drive out ~ the native parasites: as well as ‘their foreign protectors. " os
Throughout the Korean war, week after week, page after page, The Militant carried articles exposing the atrocities of the’ U.S. invading forces. The lurid racism which presented the North Korean armies as an alien and hostile subverter of South Korean "freedom" was named by The Militant for precisely what. it was: the Dixiecrat mentality of the American ruling class.
_ It would have been in order, one would think, for The Worker to have dealt with the: North Korean editorial. quite differently. Rather‘ than uncritically reprinting its lies’ and distortions, ~The Worker might have done a service to the international struggle against U.S. imperialism by calling Rodong Shinmoon's attention to the role of Trotskyists as staunch allies in the defense of their country.
“But to do that would have meant calling attention to ‘the record of the Socialist Workers party. That is what the American. Stalinists do not want to do, and that is»why the readers of ' - The Worker are supposed to draw the "obvious" conclusion from the :misrepresentation in the Rodong Shinmoon editorial on "Trotskyism."
DEMOCRATIC BOSSES SAY, "JOHNSON, GO HOME!"
September 30, midway ine highly publicized tour aimed at helping ‘Democratic candidates in the November election, Johnson cancelled out. His unpopularity is now so great that the local political bosses pressured the president into going back home.
ANDRE BRETON
pi fis André. ‘