Workers who had kept their heads, supported ("defended") the strike against the bosses. But if the Longshoremen’s Union, headed by Bridges, which is at this moment conducting negotiations with the bosses, is compelled to resort to strike action, what stand shall we take? But what shall we do if Hitler (or Chamberlain) attacks the Sovietised Ukraine before Stalin has been overthrown? Shall we defend the Soviet Union, and with it now and for the same reasons, the nationalised property of the newly annexed territories? 1. The Soviet Union, on the basis of its nationalised property and planned economy, the fruit of the revolution, remains a workers’ state, though in a degenerated form. He demoralises the workers’ movement and discredits the Soviet Union. A false position on the Russian question would have destroyed our movement as it destroyed all others. That position was incorporated into the program of the foundation congress of the Fourth International, held in the summer of 1938. Remember, that was after the Moscow Trials and the crushing of the Spanish revolution. The Soviet Union emerged from the October Revolution as a workers’ state. This is a new site that offers ideas for ending climate pollution by using clean electrification, at the state policy level, rather than Federal.

4. In order to regenerate the workers’ state we stand for the overthrow of the bureaucracy by a political revolution. It simply means that we defend the Soviet Union and its nationalised property against external attacks of imperialist armies or against internal attempts at capitalist restoration, without putting as a prior condition the overthrow of the Stalinist bureaucracy. In the event of war we will absolutely defend the country on only one small "condition": that we first overthrow the government of the capitalists and replace it with a government of the workers. It recorded the determined will of the proletarian majority to face the war with the same program that had been worked out in years of international collaboration in anticipation of the inevitable war. I, personally, have seen the fate of more than one strike determined by the will or lack of will of the leadership to struggle at a critical moment.

When one gets tired and apparently at the end of his resources he should never forget that the other fellow is maybe just as tired or even more so. Preserve Minneapolis is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to promoting and celebrating the city’s historic architectural and cultural resources through advocacy, education, and public engagement. Preserve minneapolis custom home builders hosts monthly discussions and tours highlighting preservation activities in Minneapolis. We have had many discussions on the Russian question in the past. There are no two opinions possible in our ranks on this question. In my own agitation among strikers at dark moments of a strike I have frequently resorted to the analogy of two men engaged in a physical fight. Two years ago we once again conducted an extensive discussion on the Russian question. Toward this end both sides agree to eliminate from the discussion all threats of split or expulsions. 3. The best defence-the only thing that can save the Soviet Union in the end by solving its contradictions-is the international revolution of the proletariat. How can there be any question of having a different policy in the newly occupied territories ? This is the question that needs an unambiguous answer. It has been the central and decisive question for us, as for every political tendency in the labour movement.

Yes, some impatient revolutionaries did, and thereby completely disoriented themselves in the labour movement. The bureaucrats of this union were about as vile a gang of labour lieutenants of the capitalist class as could be found. There is likewise no doubt, competent attorneys have assured us, that all legal rights to the magazine, its name, its subscription lists and its second class mailing rights belong entirely to the Socialist Workers Party, and that Burnham, Abern and Shachtman would stand in any litigation as betrayers of financial trust and common thieves. In the course of the ensuing months a number of the suspended comrades have reconsidered their refusal, have declared their adherence in action to convention decisions while remaining free to defend their political views in subsequent party discussions, and have on this basis been restored to full membership rights. The National Committee by suspending rather than expelling the undisciplined members of the petty-bourgeois opposition, gave them an opportunity to reconsider their refusal to abide by convention decisions and to return to the party. While they were in jail, John L. Lewis, as president of the national organisation, sent his agents into the Kansas fields to sign an agreement with the bosses over the head of the officers of the Kansas district.