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C.

First Mass Meeting in Los Angeles

(March 1933)


From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 17, 8 March 1933, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).


Los Angeles. – The first official appearance of the Left Opposition before the workers of Los Angeles was the mass meeting on the question of the The Crisis in Germany. The results of the meeting of March 3 left the newly formed branch highly enthusiastic.

Over 85 workers including a score of members of the party and Y.C.L. listened to the presentation of the position of the International Left Opposition. The hall chosen for the meeting was far too small. Every inch of standing space was taken and the meeting overflowed. The door was kept open to allow the workers who could not be accommodated within the hall to hear the speeches and discussion.

The speakers of the evening were S.M. Rose and C. Curtis. Comrade Sam Meyers was the chairman.

After the speakers of the evening had concluded the floor was thrown open to discussion. The comrades of the YCL and the party are marked here as elsewhere by a lack of any serious education. (They have, however, plenty of that which goes as Marxism-Leninism in the present day.)

Driven into the corner by the irresistible flow of Marxism, one young comrade resorted to the inevitable retreat of an exposed person: slander. The meeting, finally, adjourned at midnight. We are sure that the comrades and workers are going to seriously consider the L.O. position, and are going to raise the issue within their organizations.

It is noteworthy that the C.P. here has not taken notice of the German events. The necessity sensitiveness of a Communist to international events has been blunted by the years of the Stalinist regime. “More important things ... shop campaigns, unemployed work ...” the bureaucrats mumble.

More important things than the defeat or victory of the most powerful working class movement outside the USSR!

* * *

The meeting resulted in a number of contacts for the L.O. and quite a sale of literature.

The comrades of the L.O. are very active in the mass unemployed movement and are the recognized spokesmen within the movement for the Left wing. The Left wing of the Unemployed Cooperative Relief Association (an organization of 40,000 heads of families), through the initiative of the L.O. has invited the C.P. into active participation in the work. The comrades of the C.P. are having quite a time of it. At one meeting we are counter-revolutionists, and at another we are comrades-in-arms, battling together.


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