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down with the
stalin-hitler pact!
Below is the text for an open letter in the form of a flier that was issues by the Trotskyists to the U.S. Communist Party at the time of the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939.
Down With the War!
An Open Letter to the Members of the Communist Party and of the Young Communist League
Dear Comrades,
You have been terribly betrayed. You have been members of the Communist Party and the Young Communist League because you wanted to fight against fascism, for peace and freedom and socialism. You suddenly learn that Stalin, your leader, has come to terms with Hitler, the first among the enemies of peace and freedom and socialism. What has happened? What can you do now?
What Kind of Pact Is It?
When the news came that Von Ribbentrop was flying to Moscow, the Daily Worker assured you that the agreement would contain the “usual clause of a non-aggression pact,” permitting cancellation by either party if the other is guilty of aggression against a third state. But when the text was published, THERE WAS NO ESCAPE CLAUSE.
On the contrary, Article III of the Pact provides that “the two contracting parties in the future will constantly remain in consultation with one another.” Article IV is more remarkable, providing that “neither of the high contracting parties will associate itself with an other grouping of powers which directly or indirectly is aimed at the other party.” And, by Article VI, “the present treaty will extend for a period of ten years.” Stalin and Hitler have also concluded a trade and commercial treaty whereby Russia will supply raw materials – now necessary for war – in return for credit and machinery.
The pact is, therefore, an alliance between Stalin and Hitler. By it Stalin has given a green light, a go-ahead signal, to Hitler. He has shown that he is willing to have tens of millions of workers and peasants in Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe thrust under the yoke of Nazism so long as he gets Hitler’s “promise” – Hitler’s promise! – that he will not interfere with Russia.
Stalin’s “Peace Policy,” Yesterday and Today
Browder says that the Pact is in line with the Soviet Union’s “traditional peace policy.” Everyone knows perfectly well that Browder is lying. For five years the policy was for a front of the Soviet Union and the democratic imperialist powers against Nazi aggression, and against any form of “appeasement” of Hitler. Munich was condemned as the worst possible treachery.
The new policy is not merely an appeasement of Hitler, but an alliance with Hitler. No reversal could be more complete. But though the Pact seemed to come with the shock of lightning, its roots go deep into the past.
Where the Pact Began
Long ago, even before Lenin died, two opposite roads opened out before the young Soviet nation. One road was as follows: While the Soviet Union built up its industry and agriculture, and utilized to its own advantage the antagonisms among the imperialist powers, it could win out only by extending the revolution to the advanced nations. That was the road of Lenin.
The other road was that of “socialism in one country.” According to this the revolution could develop in Russia independently of the rest of the world. It did not matter whether the revolution was extended to the other countries. The theory of “socialism in one country” expressed the wishes of the new and growing privileged bureaucracy of the Soviet state.
The bureaucracy – Stalin and his group – were able to impose their theory because the Russian people were exhausted by the Civil War and discouraged by the defeats of the workers in other countries.
What Stalin Wants
Stalin is the representative of the new parasitic bureaucracy and of the privileged top layers – the plant directors, “millionaire collective farmers,” high-paid Stakhanovist workers, technicians and the rest. They lead comfortable and luxurious lives, with plenty of food and cars and houses and country estates. All they want is to maintain their own power and privilege. That is the key to Stalin’s policy, the key to the Pact.
The bureaucracy’s power and privilege are threatened from two directions. Internally they are threatened by the Russian masses, whom they oppress and tyrannize. Therefore everyone who dares to speak, or who might even be suspected of wanting to speak, is shot or exiled. To wipe out the whole tradition of the workers’ revolution of 1917, and every conceivable leader around whom the people might rally, the bureaucracy staged the series of great frame-up trials and the mass purges of the last few years.
Externally, the bureaucracy is threatened by the imperialist powers, which themselves want to exploit the Russian people. Stalin therefore maneuvers to secure a favorable “protective alliance” with one or another group of the imperialist powers.
What Happened to the Communist International
When the bureaucracy gained power in Russia, it also took over control of the Communist International. Stalin reduced the parties of the International from leaders of revolutionary struggle against their own exploiters to instruments which would aid him in maintaining power over the Russian people.
He maneuvered the various national parties in accordance with the requirements of his diplomacy at the given moment. In this process he not only compelled the parties to give up the revolutionary struggle in their own countries, but he sacrificed the lives of brave and militant rank and file members. Thus in 1933 he permitted Hitler to come to power without a blow struck by the German Communist Party. Stalin’s representatives has passports and airplanes – but the ranks remained to become the victims of the fascist butchers.
The Popular Front
Stalin had to avoid war because he knows that in a war, the Russian masses, with arms in their hands, would not only defeat the foreign invader, but would revolt against Stalin’s tyranny and exploitation.
There were two possible ways, Stalin thought, to meet the threat to his own power and privilege: either by coming to an agreement with Hitler; or by a war between Germany and England-France, with Russia remaining neutral. Trying the first, he permitted the Communist Party of Germany to be wiped out, and offered terms to Hitler in 1933. At first Hitler seemed willing (he ratified a trade treaty), then he turned his back on Stalin’s out-stretched hand.
So Stalin concentrated on the second variant. He joined the League of Nations, initiated the Popular Front, and became the apostle of “collective security.” In England, France and the United States – Germany’s enemies – the Communist parties gave up opposition to capitalism, became “respectable” patriots, and announced their willingness to live and die for democratic capitalism – if democratic capitalism would help Stalin.
Spain was the acid test for the Popular Front. To appease England and France, Stalin and the G.P.U. prevented the Spanish workers from conducting a revolutionary war against Franco – the only kind of war which could have defeated Franco. But England and France – and the United States, through its embargo – preferred a victory of fascism to a victory for the workers.
Then at Munich the democratic imperialism proved to the whole world what could be expected of them. The Popular Front, collective security, and the League of Nations were blown to splinters at Munich.
Stalin After Munich
With the Popular Front policy finished forever, Stalin turned back to an agreement with Hitler. Soviet aid was withdrawn from Spain. The Communists agreed to give up Catatonia without a fight. The war against Franco was abandoned. Litivinov, the symbol of the Popular Front, was dismissed. At the Russian party congress, Stalin and Molotov openly pleaded with Hitler for an understanding. The Soviet Union refused to admit any of the Jewish refugees from the Nazi terror. Stalin entered into secret negotiations with Hitler.
At the price of a betrayal as infamous as any in history, Stalin thinks he has saved his skin. But for how short a time! Hitler’s eyes have not turned for long from the rich fields and oil wells of the Ukraine.
The End of the Communist International
Stalin long ago destroyed the Communist parties as revolutionary vanguards of the working class. By the Pact he completes his work. The remaining Communist parties break up with great speed in the weeks to come. Already, where the crisis is most intense – in France – the Communist party is falling apart.
What To Do?
What are you, the members of the Communist Party and the Young Communist League of the United States, going to do?
There are four choices before you:
1. Will you stay with this party which has led everywhere to defeat and disaster and which has climaxed its course by embracing Hitler? Will you stay – for the sake of preserving the power and privilege of the new rulers and exploiters of the Russian people? We know that already thousands have left the party, and many more thousands are sure to follow.
2. Or will you follow the example that is already being set, by the big names that gathered on committee stationary and spoke at public meetings of the “peripheral” organizations? These people will not stand by the Pact, by which Stalin’s policy is brought into opposition with that of American imperialism. They will cringe and run by dozens and hundreds to the shrine of super-patriotism. They will now curse the name of Stalin. And they will call with the loudest voices, for war. A war for American imperialism, for the power and the profits of the Sixty Families.
Is that a war worth dying for comrades? Do you wish to die in order that the Sixty Families and their British allies shall continue to rule the earth, to exploit the workers and keep the hundreds of millions of colonial peoples in hunger and slavery? Is that war a war against fascism? What a horrible lie! That war, if unchecked, will bring to all the earth a barbarism and tyranny which will make Nazism look like Paradise.
3. Or will you, disillusioned and disheartened, sink back now into passivity – quit? Some of you will, we know, and we understand why. But, comrades, do not think that you can escape by hiding – there is no corner in this world to hide in.
The Only Road
4. We of the Fourth International, comrades, summon you to another road. Yes, we are the Trotskyists. We know for many, many years your minds have been hardened and steeled against us. But you have been lied to comrades. Our banner is the banner of Marx and Engels and Lenin. Our ideals are the ideals of the workers’ revolution. You will soon learn the truth of this in our ranks.
There is not much time now, comrades. Answer our call! Together, with the ranks of the workers and the exploited assembled, no force can stand against us. For the triumph of the world socialist revolution!
The Youth Peoples Socialist League
(Fourth International)
