Needless to say, this movement was helped on by the various communications received from the Lenine dictatorship, and notably by the call for an international communist congress to meet at Moscow in March, 1919. The text of this call began to appear in the American radical publications in late March and April, and is here reproduced from "The One Big Union Monthly" for the latter month:

"First Section

"AIMS AND TACTICS

"In our estimation, the acceptance of the following principles shall serve as a working program for the International:

"1. The actual period is the period of the dissolution and collapse of the whole capitalist system;

"2. The first task of the proletariat consists to-day of the immediate seizure of government power by the proletariat;

"3. This new governmental apparatus must incorporate the dictatorship of the working class, and in some places, also, that of the poorer peasantry, together with hired farm labor, this dictatorship constituting the instrument of the systematic overthrow of the exploiting classes;

"4. The dictatorship of the proletariat shall complete the immediate expropriation of Capitalism and the suppression of private property in the means of production, which includes, under Socialism, the suppression of private property and its transfer to a proletarian state under the Socialist administration of the working class, the abolition of capitalist agricultural production, the nationalization of the great business firms and financial trusts;

"5. In order to insure the Social Revolution, the disarming of the bourgeoisie and its agents, and the general arming of the proletariat, is a prime necessity.

"Second Section

"ATTITUDE REGARDING SOCIALIST PARTIES

"7. The fundamental condition of the struggle is the mass action of the proletariat, developing into open armed attack on the governmental powers of Capitalism;

"8. The old International has broken into three principal groups: the avowed social-patriots, who, during the entire duration of the imperialistic war between the years 1914 and 1918, have supported their own bourgeoisie; the minority Socialists of the 'Center,' represented by leaders of the type of Karl Kautsky, and who constitute a group composed of ever-hesitating elements, unable to settle on any determined direction and who up to date have always acted as traitors; and the Revolutionary Left Wing.

"9. As far as the social-patriots are concerned, who stood up everywhere in arms, in the most critical moments, against the revolution, a merciless fight is the alternative; in regard to the 'Center,' the tactics consist in separating from it the revolutionary elements, in criticizing pitilessly its leaders and in dividing systematically among them the number of their followers; these tactics are absolutely necessary when we reach a certain degree of development;

"10. On the other hand it is necessary to proceed in a common movement with the revolutionary elements of the working class who, though hitherto not belonging to the party, yet adopt to-day in its entirety, the point of view of dictatorship of the proletariat, under the form of Soviet government, including the syndicalist elements of the labor movements;

"11. It is also necessary to rally the groups and proletarian organizations, who, though not in the wake as yet of the revolutionary trend of the Left Wing, nevertheless have manifested and developed a tendency leading in that direction;

"12. We propose that the representatives of parties and groups following these tendencies shall take part in the Congress as plenipotentiary members of the Workers' International and should belong to the following parties:

"1. The Spartacus group (Germany); 2. The Bolsheviki or Communist Party (Russia); 3. Other Communist groups of; 3. German-Austria; 4. Hungary; 5. Finland; 6. Poland; 7. Esthonia; 8. Lettonia; 9. Lithuania; 10. White Russia; 11. Ukraine; 12. The Revolutionary elements of Czecho-Slovakia; 13. The Bulgarian Social-Democratic Party; 14. The Roumanian Social-Democrats; 15. The Left Wing of the Servian Social-Democracy; 16. The Left Wing of the Swedish Social-Democratic Party; 17. The Norwegian Social-Democratic Party; 18. The Danish groups of the class struggle; 19. The Dutch Communist Party; 20. The revolutionary elements of the Belgian Labor Party; 21-22. The groups and organizations in the midst of the French Socialist and syndicalist movements who are in solidarity with our aims; 23. The Left Wing of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party; 24. The Italian Socialist Party; 25. The left elements of the Spanish Socialist Party; 26. The left elements of the Portuguese Socialist Party; 27. The British Socialist Party (those nearer to us are the elements represented by MacLean); 28. I. S. P. R. (Great Britain); 29. S. L. P. (England); 30. I. W. W. (Great Britain); 31. The revolutionary elements of Shop-Stewards (Great Britain); 33. The S. L. P. (U. S. A.); 34. The elements of the Left Wings of American Socialist Propaganda (tendency represented by E. V. Debs and the Socialist Propaganda League); 35. I. W. W. (Industrial Workers of the World), America; 36. The Workers' International Industrial Union (U. S. A.); 37. I. W. W. of Australia; 38. The Socialist groups of Tokio and Samon, represented by Sen Katayama; 39. The Young Peoples' Socialist International Leagues.

"Third Section

"THE ORGANIZATION AND NAME OF THE PARTY

"13. The Congress must be transformed into a common organ of combat in view of the permanent struggle and systematic direction of the movement, into a center of International Communism which will subordinate the Interests of the Revolution from an international point of view.

"The concrete forms of organization, representation, etc., will be elaborated by the Congress."

The testimony of Morris Hillquit in the Socialist case before the Assembly Judiciary Committee gave the preceding document an added interest which the reader will better appreciate further on. As will appear later in our narrative, on September 4, 1919, the Socialist Party adopted a manifesto strongly favoring the "industrial" unionizing of American labor for the purpose of reinforcing the political "demands" of the Socialist Party with "industrial action."

On the stand at Albany, on February 19, 1920, Hillquit acknowledged the authorship of at least 90 per cent of the "industrial action" manifesto of his party, but declared that he had never read the Moscow manifesto when he wrote his, and so was not influenced by the Moscow recommendation of industrial action to bring about a revolution by violence. But the above "call" to the Moscow Conference urged "a common movement" with "syndicalist elements," or "industrial union" revolutionaries, as much as the Moscow manifesto did, and the reader will find at the end of our next chapter evidence that Morris Hillquit was familiar with and criticized the above Moscow "call" at least as early as July, 1919.



CHAPTER IV

THE FREE-FOR-ALL FIGHT BETWEEN THE RIGHT AND LEFT WINGS



Emanuel Blumstein, a member of the Right Wing, in a letter published in "The Call," April 9, 1919, bitterly complained against the tactics of the Left Wingers—in trying to wrest control of the Socialist Party from the "Old Guard" of Berger and Hillquit, which had acquired the habit of domination:

"The reason that the so-called Left Wingers are concentrating at meetings, making motions to recall delegates, and carry their motions through, is very simple. Anyone who attends the meetings can easily understand it. They shout down every honest thinking Socialist with slurs and abuse. They make it so intolerable that the meeting hall appears to be, instead of a Socialist meeting, a room frequented by rowdies of all types and descriptions. In this way they drive the most active Comrades out of the meeting hall, as these Comrades get disgusted with the tactics pursued and leave the meeting. Then they drag the meeting on to all hours of the night until those left, having no opposition, carry all their destructive actions through, and this they call democratic decision for the Comrades of the branch—deciding the policies for them."

Morris Zucker, a member of the Left Wing, defends his faction in a letter that appeared in "The Call," New York, April 11, 1919:

"In regard to Lee's objection that the Left Wing may bring about a premature revolt, the reply is that no real revolution, no social revolution, is ever manufactured. It must be spontaneous. It must be real. It must be an overwhelming, impulsive demonstration of the popular will. Revolutions may be manipulated but not manufactured. Trotzky shows in his 'From October to Brest-Litovsk' that the Bolshevist Revolution was not manufactured.

"The problem is to manipulate the revolution, to guide it, to counsel it. And herein lies the importance of proper Socialist education, of knowledge and understanding, and from these of proper Socialist tactics.

"The Left Wing believes it has the proper program. And it wants the Socialist Party to adopt its program. The Left Wing not only preaches revolutionary Socialism, it believes that the economic and social forces that have made half Europe Socialist, and threaten momentarily to engulf the other half are at work in America also. It believes that a revolutionary outbreak in America is not a matter of the far and distant future. And it desires to make that revolution as easy and as successful as it can possibly be. For that reason the Left Wing has evolved its manifesto and program, and now calls upon the Socialist Party to discuss it, perfect it, and adopt it."

In April, 1919, the New York State Committee of the Socialist Party, by a vote of 24 against 17, resolved that it was "definitely opposed to the organization calling itself the Left Wing section of the Socialist Party, and to any group within the party organized for the same or similar purpose;" and it instructed "its executive committee to revoke the charter of any local affiliated with any such organization or that permits its subdivision or members to be affiliated."

"The Call," April 23, 1919, publishes a long letter from F. Basky in which he defends the principles of the Left Wing and attacks the New York State Committee for the above resolutions. We quote a part:

"Aside of these arguments the Left Wing is not a counter-organization to the Socialist Party. On the contrary, it is the only active force to save the party from going into decay and finally to the scrap heap as a tool not adapted to the task. If the Left Wing is the party, then and only then can we answer the criticism of the syndicalist that a political party is nothing else but a vote-catching machinery for middle-class politicians. If the principles enunciated in the manifesto will be the principles of the party, then it will enjoy the confidence of those who, through their bitter experience realized the fallacies of the Second International, led and dominated by the social-patriots, reformists of the German Social Democratic Party. If we follow the line of uncompromising revolutionary activity indicated by the Left Wingers, then we can rest assured that the party will be cleared of the would-be Scheidemanns, Eberts, Kerenskys, Brantenburgs, and the rest of the traitors of our principles and our class.

"They will be eliminated anyway. The fight is on. And I welcome the attack of the state committee. We at least know some of those we would have to face in the critical hour. Might as well fight it out now; whether they or the Left Wing represents the party. Let us find out right now who is with us and who is against us."

"The Call," April 30, 1919, published a resolution then recently passed by the Socialist Party of Essex County, New Jersey, which had adopted the Left Wing program. Part of the resolution is hereby quoted:

"While the need for new orientation is clearly apparent, there is an element within the party which is either unwilling or unable to adjust itself to the new world conditions and the new tactics required by these conditions. Unfortunately, this element has controlled the party national executive committee and the party machinery, with the consequence that the national organization, in place of furnishing the leadership and urging the locals forward to take advantage of the present world crisis in building up the proletariat movement, has conspicuously lagged behind."

By the early part of May, 1919, conditions in the Socialist Party became so serious that the Executive Committee of Local New York, according to "The Call," May 8, 1919, issued the following statement on the Left Wing:

"To the Members of Local New York:

"Comrades.—A critical situation has arisen within Local New York. Your executive committee is compelled to take unusual and vigorous measures to combat the disruptive efforts of an internal faction which seeks to dominate the party by undemocratic and unsocialistic methods. The executive committee addresses itself to you, the membership, to explain the gravity of the crisis and to urge your support in saving the organization which has been built up with so much sacrifice by thousands of Comrades.

"The very existence of the party is at stake—its existence as the democratically self-governed party of the working class, laboring to awaken and educate the proletarian masses and to express their class interests on the political field....

"This organization, i.e., the Left Wing, is not open to all party members, nor even to all who accept the ideas set forth in its manifesto and program. Only such persons are admitted as can be counted on to set the authority of the 'Left Wing Section' above that of the party itself. Its meetings are held in secret, and their business is that of a permanent closed caucus to lay plans for controlling the action of the party branches and committees, and of obstructing their activities when it cannot control them.

"Even within the 'Left Wing Section' itself democratic methods are not used. The admission of members, the choice of delegates to Left Wing conferences, and the framing of instructions to those delegates are intrusted to committees composing an inner circle. All members and adherents of the 'Left Wing Section' are called upon in their action as party members and as members of party committees, to give explicit obedience to orders issued by the inner circle. A sufficient sample of this is the appointment of a 'steering committee' for the Left Wingers in the central committee of the local, and the issuance of instructions to delegates affiliated with that section as follows:

"'In all matters involving Left Wing tactics vote as a unit with the steering committee. Do not make motions, ask for divisions, further divisions, roll call, and appeals from the chair. The steering committee will attend to that.'

"The Left Wing Section has not been able to command a majority in the central committee, notwithstanding the drastic methods used in their attempt to capture it. Unable to control they have practised systematic obstruction, and have openly declared that they will not permit the central committee to function so long as their group is in the minority there. Under the direction of their steering committee, the time is consumed with every species of parliamentary delay, with the aim and effect of preventing the central committee from transacting business and carrying on the normal work of the party. These dilatory tactics are supplemented by personal abuse directed against those who will not truckle to the 'Left Wing,' by insults and provocatory threats, and when necessary, by the creation of an uproar designed to attract the attention of the police and to break up the sessions....

"The Executive Committee has heretofore decided not to have a meeting of the central committee on May 13, and has appointed a committee to reorganize Local New York. This committee will begin with such branches as are affiliated with the 'Left Wing Section.' No one will be excluded because of his opinions, but no one can retain a double membership in the party and the so-called 'Left Wing Section.'"

By about the middle of May, 1919, the Left Wing program had been adopted by the Socialist Party in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Kings and Queens Counties, N. Y., and Essex County, N. J. In Hudson County, N. J., the county committee referred it favorably to all the branches, and at the end of the month the New Jersey Convention of the party adopted it. In Chicago, J. Louis Engdahl, sentenced[C] to twenty years in Leavenworth prison, was reported to have been ousted from the organization, having been considered too conservative by the millionaire Socialist, William Bross Lloyd, and the latter's friends who controlled the Communist Propaganda League, the Left Wing faction of the local organization.

"The Call," May 8, 1919, publishes an interesting letter from one of its correspondents:

"It is not so much a question as to Left or Right Wing domination as it is a question of whether we are to have a united or divided party.

"I am not a Centrist, if that means to be in the center of the party as it is today. We must move to the Left—that is understood by all thinking, class-conscious Comrades, but we must move together, not, perhaps, as far as some of the hot-heads would like to have us—they fail to understand what an American Socialist Party should be, for they seem to think of New York City as the whole thing. If they could take a trip to Chicago and back they might find themselves moving toward the Right.

"No one wants to be where the stick-in-the-mud Rights are, either—that is, no one except them. The majority of us see the need for revolutionizing the party. What we don't see is any necessity of disrupting the party in the process. The master class would like to see that; in fact, they have been egging us on to fight among ourselves for the last two or three years, and we have blindly done the very thing that they want most we should do. They are laughing in their sleeves at us—poor boobs that we are."

On May 15, 1919, following the open fight against the Left Wing inaugurated by the New York State Committee and its Executive Committee, the Left Wing Locals of Boston, Cleveland and New York joined in a call for a National Conference of the Left Wing to convene in New York on June 21. This call opened with the following paragraph:

"The international situation and the crisis in the American Socialist Party; the sabotage the party bureaucracy has practised on the emergency national convention; the N. E. C. [National Executive Committee] aligning our party with the social-patriots at Berne, with the Congress of the Great Betrayal; the necessity of reconstructing our policy in accord with revolutionary events—all this and more, makes it necessary that the revolutionary forces in the Socialist Party get together for counsel and action."

Apparently so many bitter letters were sent to "The Call" that it found it expedient to publish the following notice in its edition of May 16, 1919:

"No letters dealing in personalities of any kind will be published in this column. All views and all arguments set forth must be confined strictly to the principles and tactics either defended or attacked. This ruling is by the unanimous vote of the Board of Managers of 'The Call.'"

Morris Hillquit, member of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party till September, 1919, and one of the principle leaders of the Right, published in his paper, "The Call," May 21, 1919, a long article in large type, covering half of the editorial page, under the caption, "The Socialist Task and Outlook." After speaking of the gloomy conditions in the Socialist Party abroad, he thus comments on conditions in the American branch of the international organization:

"All the more unfortunate is it that the energies of the Socialist Party should at this time be dissipated in acrimonious and fruitless controversies brought on by the self-styled Left Wing movement. I am one of the last men in the party to ignore or misunderstand the sound revolutionary impulse which animates the rank and file of this new movement, but the specific form and direction which it has assumed, its program and tactics, spell disaster to our movement. I am opposed to it, not because it is too radical, but because it is essentially reactionary and non-Socialistic; not because it would lead us too far, but because it would lead us nowhere. To prate about the dictatorship of the proletariat and of workers' Soviets in the United States at this time is to deflect the Socialist propaganda from its realistic basis, and to advocate the abolition of all social reform planks in the party platform means to abandon the concrete class struggle as it presents itself from day to day.

"The Left Wing movement, as I see it, is a purely emotional reflex of the situation in Russia. The cardinal vice of the movement is that it started as a wing, i.e., as a schismatic and disintegrating movement. Proceeding on the arbitrary assumption that they were the Left, the ingenuous leaders of the movement had to discover a Right, and since the European classification would not be fully reproduced without a Center, they also were bound to locate a center in the Socialist movement of America.[D] What matters it to our imaginative Left Wing leaders that the Socialist Party of America as a whole has stood in the forefront of Socialist radicalism ever since the outbreak of the war, that many of its officers and leaders have exposed their lives and liberties to imminent peril in defense of the principles of international Socialism, they are Right Wingers and Centrists because the exigencies of the Left Wing require it. The Left Wing movement is a sort of burlesque on the Russian revolution. Its leaders do not want to convert their Comrades in the party. They must capture and establish a sort of dictatorship of the proletariat(?) within the party. Hence the creation of their dual organization as a kind of Soviet, and their refusal to cooperate with the aforesaid stage Centrists and Right Wingers.

"But the performance is too sad to be amusing. It seems perfectly clear that, so long as this movement persists in the party, the latter's activity will be wholly taken up by mutual quarrels and recriminations. Neither wing will have any time for the propaganda of Socialism. There is, as far as I can see, but one remedy. It would be futile to preach reconciliation and union where antagonism runs so high. Let the Comrades on both sides do the next best thing. Let them separate, honestly, freely and without rancor. Let each side organize and work in its own way, and make such contribution to the Socialist movement in America as it can. Better a hundred times to have two numerically small Socialist organizations, each homogeneous and harmonious within itself, than to have one big party torn by dissensions and squabbles, an impotent colossus on feet of clay. The time for action is near. Let us clear the decks."

By the end of May, 1919, the Left Wing fight had become so serious that the National Executive Committee revoked the charter of the Socialist Party in Michigan and suspended the Russian, Lithuanian, Ukranian, Lettish, Polish, South Slavic and Hungarian branches, expelling or suspending considerably over 25,000 members out of a total dues-paying membership of about 100,000.

"The Ohio Socialist," the party organ of Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and New Mexico, in its issue of June 4, 1919, comments as follows on the expulsions:

"Violating every principle of fair play and square dealing and disregarding every constitutional provision, the National Executive Committee at its session in Chicago, May 24 to 30, expelled without a trial the state organization of the Socialist Party of Michigan, constituting about 6,000 members, suspended the Russian, Lithuanian, Lettish, Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian and South Slavic Federations of the party, constituting more than 30,000 members, and worst of all—and let it be said to their everlasting shame—are autocratically holding up the national membership referendum for the election of a new National Executive Committee, International Delegates, International Secretary, and the holding of a national convention.

"Never before in the party's history have Socialist Party officials been so lost to all sense of decency and square dealing. A wilful group of seven members of the National Executive Committee usurped power which the constitution does not grant them and which the Socialist Party membership never intended any servants of the party to have. This despotic group of seven did not act as the party's servants, but as dictators and tyrants to defeat the expressed will of the party membership and to perpetuate itself in office.

"Unbelievable as it may seem, seven officials of the party had the monumental effrontery to assume the right to expel and suspend 40,000 members. Think of it. That such a dastardly deed should ever be perpetrated upon the rank and file of our organization is almost beyond comprehension. And yet it was done—it was done by those whom you elected to serve you. Instead they are betraying you, disrupting the organization....

"The intention of these autocrats is plain as daylight. Like a tidal wave, the demand for a Socialism which stands true to the working class at all times has swept the party. The thousands of Comrades who are sincerely working to win the party to a more revolutionary position are known to the Left Wing. This Left Wing understands clearly that the Scheidemann brand of Socialism stands for the betrayal and defeat of the working class and that only the Socialism of Liebknecht and Lenine has within it the potentialities of victory and success....

"There was no trial, no opportunity for defense offered to the Michigan Comrades. A motion to allow Michigan a chance to interpret their action was voted down. The right to appear at a trial was denied....

"Expulsion meant throwing out over three thousand votes. On with the expulsion of Michigan....

"But the expulsion of Michigan was apparently not sufficient to decide the elections in favor of the reactionary moderates. At a subsequent session, accordingly, it was decided to destroy the whole election.

"The National Executive Committee instructed the secretary not to tabulate the vote or make it public. They nullified the referendum vote, destroyed the will of the membership in order to retain control. Most of these National Executive Committee members are out for re-election, are interested parties, knowing that the referendum defeated them for re-election, are now, by this action, perpetuating themselves in office....

"The National Executive Committee's action is equivalent to stealing the elections. The party must act sternly to rebuke this official chicanery.

"After this betrayal of the party the despotic seven seemed to fear the results of the National Convention, which has been called for August 30. A way had to be devised to control the convention. Happy thought: Suspend the federations that have endorsed the Left Wing, and we are safe. Another caucus held. Result: Suspension of the Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Lettish and South Slavic Federations from the Socialist Party—over thirty thousand members. A plain attempt to assure the election of reactionary delegates to the National Convention to approve the abominable actions of the National Executive Committee majority....

"In spite of all these dirty tactics the little group of reactionary autocrats did not feel themselves secure. They still fear that they will not be able to control the coming National Convention. So they formed a corporation, nearly all the directors of which are of the same stamp as the wilful seven, and into the hands of these directors is to be placed the entire property of the Socialist Party, including the new headquarters building upon which $10,000 has been paid. These directors cannot be recalled by the party membership as long as they retain membership in the party, and only four, a minority, can be removed in three years' time....

"They want the Left Wing to desert the party. They want us to leave the party machinery in their hands. They will be disappointed in this. We know their game. We shall not play into their hands. We will not quit. Every Left Winger will work night and day for the reinstatement of the nearly 40,000 members whom the reactionaries are trying to sever from the party in violation of the party's constitution. Every radical will work with might and main to get new members and build, build the Left Wing and the party. Every revolutionist will stick until victory is ours and the Socialist Party is completely won for revolutionary Socialism."

Commenting on the referendum for a new National Executive Committee "The Revolutionary Age" in its May 24, 1919, issue says:

"The moderates claim that the Left Wing represents only a small clique in the party: why, then, not allow the membership to make its decision through the referendum? Why disfranchise the revolutionary Socialists? Why steal votes away from the Left Wing candidates? These desperate tactics are understandable only on the theory that the moderates feel that the revolutionary Socialists are a majority, that they will meet defeat in the referendum votes and revolutionary Socialism will conquer the party."

"The Revolutionary Age," July 12, 1919, informs us that the Massachusetts Comrades were also expelled and that others in other States were threatened:

"Another State gone. Massachusetts is expelled for adopting the Left Wing program at its State Convention and for refusing to recognize the National Executive Committee's act of suspending the Federations. For this latter offense, Pennsylvania is now threatened with excommunication, and very likely Ohio will meet the same sad fate.

"It is a race against time. Will there be anything left for the rump N. E. C. to expel by August 30th?"

Relative to the success of the Left Wing in electing its members to the new National Executive Committee of fifteen, and to the meeting of this new committee, "The Revolutionary Age," July 19, 1919, comments as follows:

"The election of Comrades Fraina, Hourwich, Harwood, Prevey, Ruthenberg, Lloyd, Keracher, Batt, Hogan, Millis, Nagle, Katterfeld, Wicks and Herman appears now to be certain, while there is still a question about the third choice in the First District, Comrade Lindgren leading without the New York vote.

"There is no question, but that the final tally of the party elections is available at the National Office, but according to the action of the National Executive Committee this tally will not be made known till August 30. Meanwhile the State secretaries have published enough of the votes to leave no question of the outcome, except as above indicated....

"According to the party law the new N. E. C. is entitled to control beginning July 1st....

"There can be no legality by which a defunct Executive Committee can keep the newly elected committee from taking office. By such 'constitutionality' the old body could perpetuate itself indefinitely, let the members vote as they like. Stopping referendums is the method chosen to make sure that the members consent."

Accusations and recriminations, charges and counter-charges, continued to fly back and forth between the two Wings, as the secretaries proceeded with the work of expulsion or suspension, carrying out the savage instructions of the Right Wing majority of the National Executive Committee, where Victor L. Berger, Morris Hillquit and Seymour Stedman were the dominating leaders. On the side of the Lefts little more could be done than to set up a howl against the "dictatorship of the proletariat" within the party which forced them to taste the medicine they would have preferred to prescribe for the rest of the country.

During the summer the Left Wing movement was hastened on, dragging the Right Wing after it, by the publication in the radical papers of America of the manifesto issued in Moscow in March, 1919, by the Third or Communistic International in session there. Max Eastman, a Left Wing leader, in an article on "The New International" in "The Liberator," July, 1919, a Left Wing magazine, thus describes the Bolshevik International:

"The Communist International, which met at Moscow on March 2d, 1919, comprised thirty-two delegates with full power to act, representing parties or groups in Germany, Russia, Hungary, Sweden, Norway, Bulgaria, Rumania, Finland, Ukrainia, Esthonia, Armenia, delegates from the 'Union of Socialists of Eastern Countries,' from the labor organizations of Germans in Russia, and from the Balkan 'Union of Revolutionary Socialists.'

"There were also present representatives with consultative powers from parties and groups in Switzerland, Holland, Bohemia, Jugo-Slavia, France, Great Britain, Turkey, Turkestan, Persia, Corea, China, and the United States (S. J. Rutgers, of the Socialist Propaganda League, now merged with the Left Wing section of the Socialist Party). A letter was read from Comrade Loriot, the leader of the Left Wing section of the French Party, repudiating the Berne Congress of the Second International.

"The Russian Communist Party was represented by Comrades Lenine, Trotzky, Zinoviev, Kukharin and Stalin. This party contains many millions of organized class-conscious Socialists, more, perhaps, than are to be found in all the rest of the world."

The Communist Manifesto of 1919, issued by this Moscow International, became the test of fellowship among the simon-pure "Reds" the world over, and since the campaign of the Left Wing grew into an attempt to force the Socialist Party of America to adopt this Bolshevik program, we here quote the salient parts of the Moscow Manifesto from the article by Eastman mentioned above:

"To the proletariat of all countries!

"Seventy-two years have gone by since the Communist Party of the World proclaimed its program in the form of the Manifesto written by the great teachers of the proletarian revolution, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels....

"We Communists, representatives of the revolutionary proletariat of the different countries of Europe, America and Asia, assembled in Soviet Moscow, feel and consider ourselves followers and fulfillers of the program proclaimed seventy-two years ago. It is our task now to sum up the practical revolutionary experience of the working class, to cleanse the movement of its admixtures of opportunism and social patriotism, and to gather together the forces of all the true revolutionary proletarian parties in order to further and hasten the complete victory of the Communist revolution.

"The opportunists who, before the war, exhorted the workers, in the name of the gradual transition into Socialism, to be temperate; who, during the war, asked for submission in the name of 'civil peace' and defense of the Fatherland, now again demand of the workers self-abnegation to overcome the terrible consequences of the war. If this preaching were listened to by the workers, Capitalism would build out of the bones of several generations a new and still more formidable structure, leading to a new and inevitable world war. Fortunately for humanity, this is no longer possible....

"Only the Proletarian Dictatorship, which recognizes neither inherited privileges nor rights of property, but which arises from the needs of the hungering masses, can shorten the period of the present crisis; and for this purpose it mobilizes all materials and forces, introduces the universal duty to labor, establish the regime of industrial discipline, thus to heal in the course of a few years the open wounds caused by the war and also to raise humanity to new undreamed-of heights.

"The whole bourgeois world accuses the Communists of destroying liberties and political democracy. This is not true. Having come into power the proletariat only asserts the absolute impossibility of applying the methods of bourgeois democracy, and it creates the conditions and forms of a higher working class democracy....

"The peasant of Bavaria and Baden who does not look beyond his church spire, the small French wine-grower who has been ruined by the adulterations practiced by the big capitalists, the small farmer of America plundered and betrayed by bankers and legislators—all these social ranks which have been shoved aside from the main road of development by Capitalism, are called on paper by the regime of political democracy to the administration of the State. In reality, however, the finance-oligarchy decides all important questions which determine the destinies of nations behind the back of parliamentary democracy....

"The proletarian State, like every State, is an organ of suppression, but it arrays itself against the enemies of the working class. It aims to break the opposition of the despoilers of labor, who are using every means in a desperate effort to stifle the revolution in blood, and to make impossible further opposition. The dictatorship of the proletariat, which gives it the favored position in the community, is only a provisional institution. As the opposition of the Bourgeoisie is broken, as it is expropriated and gradually absorbed into the working groups, the proletarian dictatorship disappears, until finally the State dies and there are no more class distinctions....

"In an empire of destruction where not only the means of production and transportation, but also the institutions of political democracy have become bloody ruins, the proletariat must create its own forms, to serve above all as a bond of unity for the working class and to enable it to accomplish a revolutionary intervention in the further development of mankind. Such apparatus is represented in the Workmen's Councils. The old parties, the old unions, have proved incapable, in person of their leaders, to understand, much less to carry out the task which the new epoch presents to them. The proletariat has created a new institution which embraces the entire working class without distinction of vocation or political maturity, an elastic form of organization capable of continually renewing itself, expanding, and of drawing into itself ever new elements, ready to open its doors to the working groups of city and village which are near to the proletariat. This indispensable autonomous organization of the working class in the present struggle and in the future conquests of different lands, tests the proletariat and constitutes the greatest inspiration and the mightiest weapon of the proletariat of our time. Wherever the masses are awakened to consciousness, Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Councils will be formed....

"The outcry of the bourgeois world against the civil war and the red terror is the most colossal hypocrisy of which the history of political struggles can boast. There would be no civil war if the exploiters who have carried mankind to the very brink of ruin had not prevented every forward step of the laboring masses, if they had not instigated plots and murders and called to their aid armed help from outside to maintain or restore their predatory privileges. Civil war is forced upon the laboring classes by their arch-enemies. The working class must answer blow for blow, if it will not renounce its own object and its own future which is, at the same time, the future of all humanity.

"The Communist parties, far from conjuring up civil war artificially, rather strive to shorten its duration as much as possible—in case it has become an iron necessity—to minimize the number of its victims, and, above all, to secure victory for the proletariat. This makes necessary the disarming of the bourgeoisie at the proper time, the arming of the laborer, and the formation of a communist army as the protector of the rule of the proletariat and the inviolability of the social structure. Such is the Red Army of Soviet Russia which arose to protect the achievements of the working class against every assault from within or without. The Soviet Army is inseparable from the Soviet State.

"Seizure of political power by the proletariat means destruction of the political power of the bourgeoisie. The organized power of the bourgeoisie is in the civil State, with its capitalistic army under control of bourgeoisie-junker officers, its police and gendarmes, jailers and judges, its priests, government officials, etc. Conquest of the political power means not merely a change in the personnel of ministries, but annihilation of the enemy's apparatus of government; disarmament of the bourgeoisie of the counter-revolutionary officers, of the White Guard; arming of the proletariat, the revolutionary soldiers, the Red Guard of workingmen; displacement of all bourgeois judges and organization of proletarian courts; elimination of control by reactionary government officials and substitution of new organs of management of the proletariat.... Not until the proletariat has achieved this victory and broken the resistance of the bourgeoisie can the former enemies of the new order be made useful, by bringing them under control of the Communist system and gradually bringing them into accord with its work....

"The Dictatorship of the Proletariat does not in any way call for partition of the means of production and exchange; rather, on the contrary, its aim is further to centralize the forces of production and to subject all of production to a systematic plan. As the first steps—socialization of the great banks which now control production; the taking over by the power of the proletariat of all government-controlled economic utilities; the transferring of all communal enterprises; the socializing of the syndicated and trustified units of production, as well as all other branches of production in which the degree of concentration and centralization of capital makes this technically practicable; the socializing of agricultural estates and their conversion into co-operative establishments....

"As far as smaller enterprises are concerned, the proletariat must gradually unite them, according to the degree of their importance. It must be particularly emphasized that small properties will in no way be expropriated and that small property owners who are not exploiters of labor will not be forcibly dispossessed....

"The task of the Proletarian Dictatorship in the economic field can only be fulfilled to the extent that the proletariat is enabled to create centralized organs of management and to institute workers' control. To this end it must make use of its mass organizations which are in closest relation to the process of production....

"As in the field of production, so also in the field of distribution, all qualified technicians and specialists are to be made use of, provided their political resistance is broken and they are still capable of adapting themselves, not to the service of capital, but to the new system of production.... Besides expropriating the factories, mines, estates, etc., the proletariat must also abolish the exploitation of the people by capitalistic landlords, transfer the large mansions to the local workers' councils, and move the working people into the bourgeois dwellings....

"The capitalistic criminals asserted at the beginning of the World War that it was only in defense of the common Fatherland. But soon German Imperialism revealed its real brigand character by bloody deeds in Russia, in the Ukraine and Finland. Now the Entente States unmask themselves as world despoilers and murderers of the proletariat....

"Indescribable is the White Terror of the bourgeois cannibals. Incalculable are the sacrifices of the working class. Their best—Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg—they have lost. Against this the proletariat must defend itself, defend at any price. The Communist International calls the whole world proletariat to this final struggle.

"Down with the imperialistic conspiracy of capital!

"Long live the International Republic of the Proletarian Councils!"

As will be seen when we study the I. W. W., the above is the program of the world-wide conspiracy of a single class, a minority of society, to carry out the cynical purpose of I. W. W.'ism—to "take possession of the earth and the machinery of production."

Morris Hillquit, a Right Wing leader of the Socialist Party of America, declared that "The Communist Congress of Moscow made the mistake of attempting a sort of dictatorship of the Russian proletariat in the Socialist International and was conspicuously inept and unhappy in the choice of certain allies and in the exclusion of others."[E]

Quoting this, Max Eastman, in the article from which we have taken so much, makes the following reply:

"How can he expect them to be any more indefinite and generous in their invitation than they were? In every country where there was a doubt as to what groups had stood true to the revolutionary principle and the principle of Internationalism, they so indicated the alignment as to leave every Socialist free to consider himself their ally who seriously and courageously desired to. This was what they did in America. The S. L. P. (Socialist Labor Party), the Socialist Propaganda League, the I. W. W. and in the Socialist Party 'the followers of Debs!' Could they in a brief word open the door wider to American Socialists, unless they wished to admit prominent members of the Socialist Party who were known to have repudiated them, as Berger did, declaring his solidarity with the Mensheviks who were waging war on them?"



CHAPTER V

BIRTH OF THE COMMUNIST AND COMMUNIST-LABOR PARTIES



On June 24, 1919, the Left Wing Conference assembled in New York City. The purpose of the Conference was for the first time to unite the forces of the Left Wing throughout the country and to decide upon a common plan of action against the Right. For some time there had been a growing desire among the members of the Left for the formation of a new party to be known as the Communist Party. The Michigan State organization and the different Russian-speaking federations, which had either been expelled or suspended, were particularly anxious for a new party. Then, too, many members of the Left Wing throughout the country believed that, even though they were more numerous than those of the Right, it would be useless to try to control the National Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party, called for August 30, 1919, in Chicago. They feared that the credentials of the still unsuspended and unexpelled Left Wing delegates would not be recognized by the party machine in the hands of the Right Wing, and, moreover, that even if they were, these Left Wing delegates would not be in the majority because so many other Left Wing delegates had been expelled from the Party.

Almost at the beginning of the National Conference of the Left Wing the Michigan State delegates and the delegates of the foreign-language federations insisted on the immediate organization of a new party to be known as the Communist Party. The majority of the delegates, however, were opposed to immediate organization, claiming that it would be much more prudent to wait till the meeting of the National Emergency Convention, at the end of August, as many Left Wing Socialists would refuse to leave the mother party until it became evident that the Convention could not be captured by the Left Wing. The majority of the delegates decided to call a Communist Party Convention on September 1, 1919. The Michigan State delegates and the Russian-speaking federation delegates thereupon broke with the majority of the Left Wing, causing a serious split, which continued till about the end of July, 1919.

In that month, however, most of the members of the National Council of the Left Wing who had been leading the faction of the Left Wing which had refused the call for the immediate formation of the Communist Party, went over to the minority faction, which included the Michigan State organization and the Russian-speaking federations. A compromise had been reached whereby the aforesaid members of the National Council agreed not to insist upon attendance at the National Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party, while the Michigan organization, together with the federations, were willing to wait till September 1, 1919, for the convention of the Communist Party.

Even on these terms John Reed, Ben Gitlow and some other leading members of the Left Wing refused to go over to the Communist Party, having decided to fight for the rights of the Left Wingers in the National Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party. This group of Left Wingers later on, as will be seen, became the nucleus of a third party, the Communist Labor Party. Several statements from the joint call for the convention of the Communist Party, cited from "The Revolutionary Age," August 23, 1919, will interest the reader:

"The party will be founded upon the following principles:

"The present is the period of the dissolution and collapse of the whole capitalist world system, which will mean the collapse of world culture, if capitalism with its unsolvable contradictions is not replaced by Communism.

"The problem of the proletariat consists in organizing and training itself for the conquest of the powers of the state....

"This new proletarian state must embody the dictatorship of the proletariat, both industrial and agricultural, this dictatorship constituting the instrument for the taking over of property used for exploiting the workers, and for the reorganization of society on a Communist basis....

"The dictatorship of the proletariat shall carry out the abolition of private property in the means of production and distribution, by transfer to the proletarian state under Socialist administration of the working class....

"The present world situation demands the closest relation between the revolutionary proletariat of all countries....

"We favor international alliance of the Communist Party of the United States only with the Communist groups of other countries, such as the Bolsheviki of Russia, Spartacans of Germany, etc....

"The party shall propagandize class-conscious industrial unionism, and shall carry on party activity in cooperation with industrial disputes that take on a revolutionary character."

The national organ of the Communist Party was "The Communist" of Chicago. In its issue of August 23, 1919, it thus criticises the Socialist Party:

"The majority of the readers of 'The Communist' are familiar with the form of organization of the old Socialist Party, with its state autonomy and its bureaucratic officialdom. Every state is practically organized as an Independent Socialist party. 'Official socialism' of Milwaukee is entirely different from[6] 'official socialism' in Ohio, both in regard to platforms and form of organization. Every state has a 'Socialism' of its own brand, and even dues are not uniform throughout the country. 'Official papers' of the party are in most cases organs of independent associations, not at all affiliated with the central party organizations. Such important weapons in the struggle of the proletariat are left in the hands of the petty bourgeois ideologists who, in reality, prostitute the labor press. As examples, we have, for instance, 'The Milwaukee Leader,' the 'New York Call,' the Jewish 'Daily Forward,' the 'Appeal to Reason,' and many others scattered throughout the United States, and each contradicting not only the others, but containing in each issue glaring contradictions that an intelligent person who reads them becomes disgusted with the whole muddled mess."

The fight among the revolutionists was a fight to the finish. The leaders all wanted to become Trotzkys and Lenines, all wanted to be bosses. It seems reasonable to conclude that if Bolshevism were ever introduced into the United States, either by the mother Socialist Party or by its offspring, the Communist Party or the Communist Labor Party, the dictatorship of the proletariat, that wonderful piece of nonsense which we hear so much about, would be grasped at by an amazing number of competitors. In Russia Lenine and Trotzky seem to constitute the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In the Socialist Party of the United States Berger and Hillquit, of the old National Executive Committee, constituted a first-class dictatorship. In the Communist Party, Dennis Batt, lately jailed, and Alexander Stoklitsky would surely give the Communist rank and file plenty to do—everything of course being done according to their wills. John Reed and Ben Gitlow would make an ideal "dictatorship of the proletariat," if the Communist Labor Party ever made Bolshevism the law of the land.

"Truth," one of the organs of the Communist Labor Party, published in Duluth, Minn., in its issue of August 29, 1919, devotes nearly two of its eight pages to bitter attacks on the Communist Party. Two short quotations will suffice to show the spirit of envy that exists:

"'Tis said that distance lends enchantment, and perhaps that is the reason why some of you in the East have responded to the cuckoo-call of Michigan-Federations. Frankly, we see nothing hopeful in the alignment presented by the Michigan-Federation combine. We are fearful of the consequence of such leadership. The so-called Communist Party, as it is now constituted and especially with the accretion of a part of the National Council, presents the prettiest bunch of 'eligibles' that man ever laid eyes upon. And as I gaze upon this august array of talent, I wonder where the working class is going to get off at. We of the left wing of Cook County are reluctant to join with an organization under the guidance of a few doctrinaires from Detroit and the would-be Lenine of the United States.[F] We do not consider that the welfare of the revolutionary movement would be zealously guarded in their hands."

From "Truth," of the same date, we also quote an open letter to Louis C. Fraina, which reads in part as follows:

"Do you know how the Russian Federation is being ruled? Do you know that a 'firing squad' is constantly on the job expelling members and branches from the Federation who dare to disagree on anything with the would-be bosses of the Russian Federation?...

"Do you know that a regular secret service system is being employed by these 'bosses' to hunt down the undesirables?

"Do you know that a worse than military censorship is being maintained in the domain of Stocklitzky (the Northwestern States), where it is prohibited to the branches to communicate with each other or to send out or receive any correspondence otherwise than through the hands of the censors, the Executive Committee, and that this censorship committee, like the imperialists in the world's war, are holding up the mail of these branches and do not deliver at all the 'undesirable' mail?"

August 30, 1919, the day for the assembling of the National Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party, at last arrived. Delegates of the Right Wing, and many of the Left, including John Reed, I. E. Ferguson and Rose Pastor Stokes, were present. The Left Wing delegates, to the number of about 84, arrived early at the place of meeting, Machinists' Hall, 113 South Ashland Boulevard, Chicago. Trouble immediately began, for the seats being occupied by the Left Wingers, the members of the Right were crowded out.

Germer and Gerber of the Right seem to have lost their heads. "The Chicago Herald and Examiner," of August 31, 1919, informs us that Adolph Germer, National Secretary of the Socialist Party and one of the leading members of the Right Wing, called in the police, who cleared the hall. "The Chicago Tribune" of the same day tells us that everybody was exchanging fisticuffs when the police arrived. Detective Sergeant Lawrence McDonough, head of the anarchist squad, with the aid of a dozen uniformed policemen, seems to have saved the day for the Right Wingers. John Reed, of the Left Wing, was furious, and "The Call," New York, August 31, 1919, tells us that he issued a statement which he addressed to the delegates of the Emergency Convention:

"We address you to inform you of occurrences this morning which every Revolutionary Socialist on the floor of this convention will protest against.

"Delegates from Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Ohio, Nebraska, California and other states entered the convention floor and took their seats in readiness for the opening of the convention.

"At nearly 10 o'clock Gerber of New York and Goebel of New Jersey, who were at the door and attempted to refuse the above named delegates admission, called the police and these delegations were ejected from the hall by police power, many of them being roughly handled."

Press reports inform us that after the belligerents had calmed down the meeting was again convened, and that Victor Berger, in referring to the Lefts, said: "They're just a lot of anarchists; we are the party." Berger did not say whether or not by the word "we" he meant the old National Executive Committee, which should have gone out of office in July,[G] but seemed to have given itself a "mandate" to run the National Emergency Convention.

On August 31, 1919, the hot-heads and sore-heads again assembled, and a dispute arose as to who called the "cops." As a result the Left Wingers next met by themselves downstairs, on the first floor of the hall, while the Right Wingers remained higher up on the second floor. On the same day the Minnesota group was seated by the Convention, but was denied a vote.

On September 1st the high climbers of the Right Wing purged the party still more by unseating the Washington State delegation and expelled Katterfield "for the good of the party." The California delegates then threw a bomb into the Right Wing Convention by announcing that they would not take their seats until all of the contested delegations were seated and the police were withdrawn from the hall. These delegates finally went down to the first floor and joined ranks with the Left Wingers there, this section henceforth being known as the Communist Labor Party.

On the same day the Convention of the Communist Party assembled at Smolny Institute, 1221 Blue Island Avenue, Chicago. Red flags were displayed and Bolshevist songs were sung until the police of the anarchist squad finally demanded the removal of the blood-colored standards of revolt.

"The Call" informs us that on the next day, September 2nd, the Communist Party, composed of the Michigan crowd, the Russian Federation and the former Left Wing National Council, nearly split in two when, at a concerted signal, there resigned from the emergency committee of the convention, Louis C. Fraina, C. E. Ruthenberg, I. E. Ferguson, Maximilian Cohen, S. Elbaum and A. Selakowich, and, from other offices, A. Paul of Queens and Fannie Horowitz. It seems that these members were anxious to have the Communist Party amalgamate with the Communist Labor Party, but that the foreign federations, fearing that they would be outnumbered by the English-speaking members, were very much opposed to the union.

On this same day Dennis Batt, one of the principal leaders of the Communist Party, was jailed.

Moreover, on the 2nd of September the Communist Labor Party—the group that had first met with the Right Wing, and, later on, down stairs on the first floor of the hall on South Ashland Boulevard—assembled at the I. W. W. Hall at 119 Throop street. This party, heart and soul, is in favor of the propagation of Bolshevism and I. W. W.'ism in the United States, and if not completely broken up by the Government, seems destined to become more numerous than either the rapidly disintegrating Socialist Party or the Communist Party, which is principally made up of foreigners who speak the various Russian languages. The principal leaders of the Communist Labor Party are John Reed, William Bross Lloyd, formerly known as the millionaire Socialist, and Benjamin Gitlow.[H] It seemed likely, too, that Fraina, Ferguson, Ruthenberg and Cohen, prominent "Reds," who resigned from the emergency committee of the Communist Party, would soon be found among the leaders of the Communist Labor Party. At the time of the convention no national organ of the Communist Labor Party had yet begun publication, but "The Voice of Labor," edited by Reed and Gitlow, and "Truth," formerly the Socialist paper of Duluth, were local organs.

Both the Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party are strongly Bolshevist. The Communist Labor Party is decidedly more in favor of the I. W. W. than the Communist Party; but the main differences between these two parties seems to be a matter of race, language, and especially of personal jealousy and dislike among the leaders.

For years the Socialist Party and the Socialist Labor Party have remained separated from each other, so that now, with the two new parties, the Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party, there are four parties of rebels, all plotting a revolution against our National Government, while the great body of the American people sleep and dream.

Quite a number of educated people in the United States, including the editors of some of our leading dailies, seem to think that the remnant of the Socialist Party is not at all a Bolshevist organization and not at all revolutionary in character. They are very much deceived, having let the crafty, deceptive, hypocritical leaders of the Right Wing fool them badly. The Left Wingers have indeed been much more open in admitting their intentions to overthrow our government by force of arms. They are dangerous, but perhaps not nearly so much so as the slippery "Yellows," cunning weasels of the imported Russian Hillquit type, who, though they do not talk as openly as the "Reds," are spreading their subversive principles on every side, and especially among the less educated classes of our people, into whose minds they instil the spirit of hatred between employers and employees, while at the same time encouraging strikes, wherever they can, with the hope of overthrowing our Government when conditions become sufficiently critical. Both parties of the Socialists and both parties of the Communists, along with the I. W. W., are all revolutionary in the strictest sense, and the sooner the American people wake up to the fact and take some intelligent action to stamp them out, the better it will be. It is not yet too late, but soon may be.

The Bolshevist Socialists of Russia and the two new parties of Socialists that at Chicago in September, 1919, seceded from the mother party, have all adopted the name, "Communist," which "The Call," New York, July 24, 1919, informs us was used by Marx and Engels, the founders of modern Socialism, adding that though the name is somewhat confusing, inasmuch as the word has another and a distinct meaning in English, still, "wherever it is used it means revolutionary Socialists as distinguished from Social patriots and mere parliamentary Socialists." Is this definition an alibi for Hillquit and Berger?

Many persons have hastily assumed that the main reason why the Left and Right Wings of the Socialists fought each other like cats and dogs was that the Right Wing members of the party are opposed to Bolshevism. This is nonsense. The Socialist papers of the country, Right and Left, with the possible exception of the once powerful "Appeal to Reason," which in recent years has fallen into great discredit among Socialists because it favored our entrance into the World War—have been and still are advocating Bolshevism every day. If anyone has any doubt, let him read any of the rebel sheets.

The Socialist Party of St. Louis, in its appeal for party unity, published in "The Call," July 19, 1919, informs us that the Socialist Party is whole-heartedly with the Russian Bolshevists and their cause:

"Promptly, and notwithstanding all obstacles and persecution, the Socialist party hurried to the front in defense of the cause of our Russian Comrades. Mass meetings were held, demonstrations in behalf of Soviet Russia were arranged, our Socialist press gave all possible support to counteract the sinister work of the American capitalist press."

Eugene V. Debs, many times the presidential candidate of the Socialists and the idol of "Reds" and "Yellows" alike, has all along been an ardent Bolshevist. Listen to these words of his in his article, "The Day of the People," published in many Socialist papers in the early part of 1919, and taken by us from the March number of "Party News," the official organ of the Socialist Party of Philadelphia:

"In Russia and Germany our valiant Comrades are leading the proletarian revolution, which knows no race, no color, no sex and no boundary lines. They are setting the heroic example for world-wide emulation. Let us, like them, scorn and repudiate the cowardly compromisers within our ranks, challenge and defy the robber-class power, and fight it out on that line to victory or death!

"From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet I am Bolshevik, and am proud of it."

The report of the Right Wing majority of the old National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, made to the National Emergency Convention, and here quoted from "The Call," September 3, 1919, contains the following defense of their Bolshevism, against the aspersions of the Left Wing leaders who had challenged the committee's attitude toward Russia:

"Ever since the revolution in Russia, the party has hailed it as the first great gift of the International. At every meeting of the National Executive Committee held since the second revolution in Russia [the revolution which put Lenine and Trotzky in power] the committee has issued some ringing declaration in favor of the workers' and peasants' government in Russia....

"Rarely has a meeting been held under party auspices that our speakers have not taken advantage of it to present the claims and achievements of the Russian revolution. The party's position may be easily ascertained by consulting the party bulletins and the party press."

The Executive Committeemen who signed this defense of the committee's Bolshevist complexion were Victor L. Berger, Seymour Stedman, James Oneal, A. Shiplacoff, Dan Hogan, John M. Work, Frederick Krafft and George H. Goebel. These, with Morris Hillquit, were the men who had violently expelled or suspended tens of thousands of members of the party without warrant of the party Constitution and without granting a trial or the right of self-defense to those thus dealt with; who had maintained themselves in office after July 1, 1919, in express violation of the party Constitution, having suppressed announcement of the result of the referendum vote by the rank and file to elect executive committeemen, by which vote Left Wing committeemen had been elected, as the report to the National Emergency Convention of the Right Wing committee appointed to investigate this referendum had to acknowledge; and who, by these devices and a similar high-handedness committed by themselves and friendly delegates had seized control of the National Emergency Convention and organized it in their own interest.

In their report to the convention they further defended themselves against the Left Wing charge that this majority of the Executive Committee had allied itself with the Berne Conference. Under this head the above-mentioned committeemen say:

"While no definite date may be set for the beginning of the present party dissension, it is certain that they began to be generally noticeable in January of this year [1919], when the National Executive Committee elected delegates to the Berne Conference owing to the fact that the delegates elected by referendum could not serve, and the assembling of the Berne Conference in March made necessary the election of delegates by the National Executive Committee.

"The so-called Left Wing members of the National Executive Committee participated in the election, nominating and voting for candidates. None of their nominees were elected, and shortly after the election an organized attack was made against the international delegates by the Left Wing....

"The National Executive Committee, in session, decided that if our delegates arrived at Berne in time and the conference failed to take the position of the party on war and imperialism, we were to withdraw with any other elements favoring a genuine working-class International. It was agreed that we would not affiliate with any International that excluded the Russian Comrades, who were fighting world imperialism, or the Comrades opposed to the Ebert-Scheidemann regime in Germany.

"Before our delegates could leave the country, the National Executive Committee learned that the Berne Conference had failed to respond to its opportunity.... Learning this, the National Executive Committee decided to send one delegate abroad to impart information to the Comrades in Europe, informing them of our attitude on international questions."[I]....

"Yet, despite all this, a systematic campaign of falsehood has been waged against the party by a faction within the party. This faction has falsely claimed that the party is allied with the Berne Conference.... They have denounced the party and its officials as an organization of 'Scheidemanns' and 'Noskes,' asserting that if the party were intrusted with public power it would murder our own Comrades with machine guns and hand grenades....

"These slanders have been accompanied with a similar propaganda regarding Russia. The party and its officials, especially the members of the National Executive Committee, have been charged with being 'Kolchaks' and 'counter-revolutionists,' the implication being that the party has been committed to counter-revolution in Russia, allied intervention, and support of Kolchak in Siberia.

"As in the case of Germany, so in the case of Russia, the National Executive Committee and the party in general have opposed intervention in Russia or support of Kolchak and have supported the Russian Comrades at the head of the Soviet power against a campaign of international lying.

"There has never been a single utterance of the National Executive Committee quoted by the Left Wing to support these slanders. The Comrades may rest assured that this faction would quote the National Executive Committee if it could."

It is technically true that the Left Wing writers were not able to quote the Executive Committee as such; but they could and did quote the dominating leaders of the Right Wing majority of the Executive Committee, Hillquit and Berger, through their organs, the "Call" and "Leader"—"The Call" as characterizing the Bolsheviki as "anarchists" and Berger as proclaiming his solidarity with the Mensheviki—and we have nowhere seen any evidence that these leaders could purge the record of these charges. That these leaders were the Executive Committee, to all intents and purposes, seems abundantly shown by their ruthless use of it to smash the party, going so far as to cast out nearly two-thirds of the entire party membership to get rid of their accusers, the Left Wing leaders.

This scandal and disaster to a cause they pretended to serve are logical outcomes of a double hypocrisy—an effort to fool the voting public and our Government officials by a pretense of moderation in papers and electioneering speeches, while at the same time fooling the dues-paying rank and file of their party with expressions of loyalty to radicalism.

The significant facts in estimating the revolutionary character of the American Socialist Party, as recruited and indoctrinated by its double-faced leaders are two: the fact that as lately as September, 1919, some 70,000 of their pupils graduated into the open course of revolutionary violence adopted by the Communist Party of America and the Communist Labor Party, and the fact that the more manageable 40,000 remaining with these leaders were so much like their seceding Comrades that their leaders were compelled to defend their own radicalism in the fashion above shown, and were also compelled, as we shall soon see, to take an open stand for revolution and I. W. W.'ism in order to keep even the remnant of the party from deserting them.

Thus a serious mistake has been made by the many who fancy that the "Yellow" Socialists—Hillquit's Right Wing which still constitutes the Socialist Party of America—are not plotters who work for a revolution to overthrow our Government. Of course they are, and any one who has read the Socialist papers and publications, even to a very limited degree, may easily see that these alleged "moderates" appear such only in contrast with the more rabid "Red" rebels of the Left; and that the one object of Right and Left alike is to stir up discontent and foment hatred of class against class precisely in order that a rebellion may some day break out.

True it is that the crafty leaders of the Right do not act as imprudently as the hot-headed leaders of the Left, for they fear lest rashness should precipitate them in a premature and unsuccessful outbreak; yet they are sowing the seed of revolution as certainly as are the Communists, and perhaps with much more success, because they proceed more prudently. Once in a while, when they are off their guard, the "cat escapes from the bag." As an example we quote from an article that appeared in the May Day, 1919, issue of "The Call," the paper founded and controlled by Hillquit, the foxy leader of the Rights:

"The world revolution, dreamed of as a thing of the distant future, has become a live reality, rising from the graves of the murdered millions and the misery and suffering of the surviving millions. It has taken form, it strikes forward, borne on by the despair of the masses and the shining example of the martyrs. Its spread is irrepressible. The bridges are burnt behind the old capitalist society and its path is forever cut off. Capitalist society is bankrupt, and the only salvation of humanity lies in the uprising of the masses, in the victory of the Socialist revolution, in the revolutionary forces of Socialism.

"The World War, which is now about to be officially closed, has slid into a condition neither war nor peace. However the war of nations has been followed by the war of the classes. The class struggle is no longer fought by resolutions and demonstrations. Threateningly it marches through the streets of the great cities for life or death."

Yet the Right Wing papers, on the whole, are much more reserved than those of the Left. As an example of the openness with which the Left Wing or Communist papers instigate rebellion, a quotation from "The Communist," Chicago, April 1, 1919, will interest the reader:

"The Communist Propaganda League of Chicago came into existence on November 7, 1918, first anniversary of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, and the very day of the German Revolution.

"A group of Socialist Party officials and active party members came together for consultation as to ways and means for giving the American Socialist movement a revolutionary character in harmony with all the significance of November 7th, the most glorious date in all history. At the hour of that little meeting bedlam reigned in the streets of Chicago by premature celebration of peace. The calling of this meeting during the mass tumult of November 7th is prophetic of the revolutionary vision which brought these Comrades together. On that day the seething proletariat ruled Chicago by sheer force of numbers. One thing alone was needed to give this mass expression identity with the proletarian uprisings of Europe—one thing: the revolutionary idea!

"The Communist Propaganda League is an organization for the propagation of the revolutionary idea. The civilization of tomorrow is with unorganized masses who greeted the news of peace and revolution in Germany with what may be safely described as the greatest spontaneous expression of mass sentiment ever witnessed in America. To give direction and inspiration to the advancing and irresistible army of the preletariat is the mission to which this League is dedicated."

This League, with the millionaire Socialist, William Bross Lloyd, at its head, became part of the Communist Labor Party.

The indications are that the Communist Labor Party, had it been left undisturbed by our Government, would soon have surpassed in numbers the remnant left in the old Socialist Party, whose dues-paying membership dwindled from 109,589 in January, 1919, to 39,750 by July of the same year. Evidently, when the Left Wing secession occurred, a few real rebels came out of the Socialist Party, which used to boast in election campaigns that it was merely a party of evolution, not of revolution. Those who still remain in the old party are rebels, too, but the rank and file is restrained by seasoned leaders, who are more prudent but less honest than the hot-headed Communists.

The Socialists now have in the country four revolutionary organizations: the Socialist Party, the Socialist Labor Party, the Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party. The scum of the land, the wrecks and wreckers of civilization, deluded ignoramuses, thus find ample opportunity for selecting an organization of rebellion in which there is "no political corruption." The members of these parties find fault with everything under the Stars and Stripes, and yet hesitate to pass over to Russia and live under the bloody standard of Lenine and Trotzky. If these four rebel parties do not suffice for some of the rebels, there still remains the I. W. W. All are pretty much the same, their principal differences being the varying degrees of hypocrisy, boldness and lust for power of their leaders.

The open and pronounced revolutionary character of the I. W. W., Communist Party and Communist Labor Party, evidenced in their inflammatory utterances and tactics, had established their criminal status with our National and State police and legal departments, while startling wholesale arrests, deportations and indictments of these three classes of law-breakers soon impressed a recognition of their criminal status upon the public mind. It is important to establish the further fact, if it be one, that the only difference between the rank and file of these organizations and the rank and file of the remnant still attached to the Socialist Party of America is the difference between tweedledee and tweedledum.

The late inquiry into the qualifications of five suspended Socialists to sit as law-makers in the New York Assembly created an astonishing furore, disclosing amazing ignorance concerning American Socialism among our most intelligent citizens. The confusion of the public mind was still further increased by the Attorney-General of the United States, whose convincing characterization of the two Communist parties, given out on January 23, 1920, contained the following sentence:

"Certainly such an organization as the Communist Party of America and also the Communist Labor Party cannot be construed to fall within the same category as the Socialist Party of America, which latter organization is pledged to the accomplishment of changes of the Government by lawful and rightful means."

But can the facts so far brought out in this book "be construed" as indicating any substantial difference between the 39,000 or 40,000 Socialists who have kept their old party name and the 70,000 or 72,000 who separated from them in September, 1919? Up to the moment of separation were not all alike under the same "pledge" to use "lawful and rightful means?" But if this public profession of lawfulness meant nothing to 70,000 of them, why think it means more to the rest?

We have the further striking evidence, shown above, that the leaders who had compromised their attitude toward Bolshevism felt compelled, in order to hold any of the rank and file, to argue that "the National Executive Committee and the party in general" had "supported the Russian Comrades at the head of the Soviet power." Yet in spite of this defense the old National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party was rebuked and kicked out of office during the Emergency Convention, even by delegates who were friendly to the compromised leaders. The "Call," September 5, 1919, gives some of the details:

"The rebuke of the National Executive Committee was in the form of an amendment to the original motion to adopt its report. The amendment carried by 63 to 39....

"Perhaps Frederick Haller expressed the general sentiment of the convention when he said:

"'We must endorse this supplemental report of the National Executive Committee, but we must go back to our constituents and tell them that we gave the National Executive Committee hell.'"

These "constituents," the rank and file, determine the character of the party, and not the thimble-rigging games of their political leaders, who support themselves and have "made a good thing" out of Socialism by carrying water on one shoulder for gullible voters, and on the other for their credulous disciples. This is not the first time that self-serving, hypocritical teachers, in compassing sea and land to make proselytes, have made them twofold more the children of hell than themselves.

The National Emergency Convention of 1919 affords still other evidence of the mind of the rank and file of the Socialist Party in the report of the committee which investigated the referendum vote of 1919 which the old National Executive Committee had suppressed. The "Call," September 1, 1919, says:

"The report states that on the face of the returns, referendum B and D were carried by large majorities, and a National Executive Committee, consisting of Louis Fraina of New York, Charles E. Ruthenberg of Cleveland, Seymour Stedman of Chicago, Patrick S. Nagle of Oklahoma and L. E. Katterfeld of Cleveland was elected. The returns also showed on their face that John Reed and Louis Fraina had been elected as the party's international delegates and Kate Richards O'Hare its international secretary."

Thus the party was "Red" or Left-Wingish "by large majorities," and was distinctly Bolshevist, as we learn from the "Call's" explanation of "referendum B and D," which "were carried by large majorities."