The Red Conspiracy Part 9

"Then there are the Communist Socialists, led by John Reed and a few hysterical men and women, who try to bring about a Russian revolution or G.o.d knows what other things, they themselves don't know tomorrow morning.

"And, finally, there is the Communist Party, led by Louis Fraina, which consists mainly of Russians, Ukrainians[7], Slovenic races and other foreign federation members, who have been suspended for stuffing ballot boxes in the last referendum, and who also want revolution of some kind, the wherewith and howwith they haven't been able to explain so far."

Do we exaggerate the humb.u.g.g.e.ry of leadership uncloaked in this Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party of America? Let the reader judge from the supreme example of it, the motive of which we present in the words of the organ of one of the chief conspirators, Hillquit's "Call." The issue of August 31, 1919, declared: "The convention will adopt a stand, expressed in a manifesto that is expected to satisfy all those in the Left Wing who are contending for what they believe to be revolutionary principles." In the issue of September 3 we read:

"There will be a restatement of party principles which is expected to cut the ground from under the feet of the former members and organizations of the party who have read themselves out and will remain suspended in mid-air between the newly formed and still more newly revised Communist-Labor Party and the Communist Party."

In the "Call" of September 5, which published the manifesto, we also have this comment on it by James Oneal: "The American movement can congratulate itself on having produced such a splendid doc.u.ment. It will tend to rally members who have been uncertain of the outcome of the convention, and will eventually bring to us many who are sick of the hypocrisies, the shams and the illusions that have held them in chains for nearly three tragic years."

What hypocrisies, shams and illusions are referred to? Who were their authors? In another column of the same issue we are told: "With every delegate on his feet and cheering, the National Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party unanimously adopted its manifesto this afternoon.

[September 4th.] It was the big moment of the convention. The doc.u.ment is regarded as the most revolutionary the party has ever drawn up, and one certain to bring back into the organization thousands of members temporarily outside of it, either because their local organizations were expelled or by reason of what Lenine has called 'the intoxication of the revolutionary phrase.'"

Thus this manifesto was adopted by the wreckers of the Socialist Party to hold the "revolutionary" rank and file still left them and to draw back the revolutionary seceders--minus their leaders, of course.

Nevertheless the manifesto is truly revolutionary--"most revolutionary"--the revolutionary creed of a revolutionary organization.

It is, of course, carefully worded, so as to deceive if possible that public whose intelligence the cynical Socialists despise at the same time that they appeal to it for votes, and this careful wording we can understand from a comment in the "Call" of September 5, 1919: "Before reading the manifesto, Block told the convention the manifesto was largely based upon one suggested by Morris Hillquit, now ill at Saranac Lake, N. Y."[J]

Seen through its mask of verbiage, however, the manifesto of the Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party of America joins with the famous Preamble of the I. W. W. and the manifestoes and programs of the Communist and Communist Labor Parties in advocating the plundering of mankind by proletarians, the elimination of the private ownership of natural wealth and the machinery of production, and the _wresting_ of "the industries and the control of the government of the United States"

out of their present ownership and control so as "to place industry and government in the control of the workers."

This revolutionary doc.u.ment incites "American labor" to "break away"

from its present leadership, called "reactionary and futile," and "to join in the great emanc.i.p.ating movement of the more advanced revolutionary workers of the world"--the I. W. W.'s and Bolshevists. It is "the supreme task" of "the Socialist party of America," its "great task," to which its members "pledge all" their "energies and resources,"

to "win the American workers" from their "ineffective" leadership, "to educate them to an enlightened understanding of their own cla.s.s interests, and to train and a.s.sist them to organize politically and industrially on cla.s.s lines, in order _to effect their emanc.i.p.ation_,"

namely, "to _wrest_ the industries and the control of the government of the United States from the capitalists _and their retainers_" and "place industry _and government_ in the control of the workers."

Furthermore, "to _insure_ the triumph of Socialism in the United States the bulk of American workers must be strongly organized politically as Socialists, in constant, clear-cut and _aggressive opposition to all parties of the possessing cla.s.s_" and "must be strongly organized in the economic field on broad industrial lines, _as one powerful and harmonious cla.s.s organization_, co-operating with the Socialist Party, and _ready in cases of emergency_ to _reinforce_ the _political_ demands of the working cla.s.s _by industrial action_." (See, a few pages further on, the manifesto itself, from which we have quoted in the three last paragraphs.)

Is this the thing which Berger and Hillquit have let loose--after blocking a much less compromising resolution of long-distance affiliation with Moscow? Does Berger think the people of Wisconsin such blockheads that they will shy at a word like Bolshevism, but are unable to understand the plain, bold English of a conspiracy to bring about industrial organization "to wrest the industries and the control of the government of the United States" out of the hands of the American people and into the hands of a special cla.s.s? Indeed, if the "workers" take everything, what will become of the drones--the Socialist political hacks?

While we reserve the details for Chapter XVI, we add here in pa.s.sing that on February 10, 1920, it was acknowledged in testimony at the trial of the five a.s.semblymen at Albany that affiliation with the Third (Moscow) International had been carried by referendum vote in the Socialist Party of America with a large majority.

Before giving the reader the text of that part of the Emergency Convention manifesto which we have been discussing we must call attention to another piece of evidence--Morris Hillquit's letter in his paper, the "New York Call," shortly after the Emergency Convention, in which he says:

"The split in the ranks of American Socialism raises the question: What shall be the att.i.tude of the Socialist Party toward the newly formed Communist organization?" His letter answering this important question was read out of the "Call" into the record of the New York a.s.sembly's inquiry into the qualifications of the five suspended Socialists to act as law-makers and will be found in the "New York Herald" of January 29, 1920, from which we take it:

"Any attempted solution of the problem must take into account the following fundamental facts:

"First--The division was not created arbitrarily and deliberately by the recent convention in Chicago. It had become an accomplished fact months ago, and the Chicago gatherings did nothing more than recognize the fact.

"Second--The division was not brought about by differences on vital questions of principles. It arose over disputes on methods and policy.

"Third--The separation of the Socialist Party into three organizations need not necessarily mean a weakening of the Socialists. They are wrong in their estimate of American conditions, their theoretical conclusions and practical methods, but they have not deserted to the enemy. The bulk of their following is still good Socialist material. When the hour of the real Socialist fight strikes in this country we may find them again in our ranks.

"Our quarrel is a family quarrel, and has no room in the columns of the capitalistic papers, where it can only give joy and comfort to the common enemy. The unpardonable offense of the Simons-Russell-Spargo crowd [which withdrew from the Socialist Party of America on account of its unpatriotic and un-American opposition to the people and Government of the United States at war, as expressed in the Socialist Party's St. Louis Convention utterances in April, 1917] was not so much their social-patriotic stand during the war as the fact that they rushed into the anti-Socialist press maliciously denouncing their former comrades as pro-German and deliberately added fuel to the sinister flame of mob violence and government persecution directed against the Socialist movement.

"We have had our split. It was unfortunate but unavoidable, and now we are through with it. Legitimate constructive work of the Socialist movement is before us. Let us give it all of our time, energies and resources. Let us center our whole fight upon capitalism, and let us hope our Communist brethren will go and do likewise."

Thus all three organizations, Socialist Party of America, Communist Party of America and Communist Labor Party, have merely had "a family quarrel" and are still one kin, one blood, one "family," without "fundamental" "differences on vital questions of principles," so that the Socialist Partyites and their "Communist brethren" can go on doing "likewise" against our present Government and inst.i.tutions until, "when the hour of the _real_ Socialist fight"--the Great Rebellion--"strikes _in this country_" the members of the Socialist Party "may find" the members of the two Communist parties "again in" their "ranks." Thus by Hillquit, at least, all three parties can only "be construed" to be in one and the same "category."

We end this chapter by reproducing from the "New York Call" of September 5, 1919, a considerable part of the Socialist Party's Emergency Convention manifesto. This offspring of Hillquit's brain declares "solidarity with the revolutionary workers of Russia" and "radical"

Spartacides of Germany and Communists of Austria and Hungary. Let the reader carefully weigh this doc.u.ment's meanings, comparing them with the call for and manifesto of the Moscow Conference, the definition of "industrial unionism" and "ma.s.s action" in the Left Wingers' writings, the Communist and Communist Labor manifestoes and programs, and the principles and tactics of I. W. W.'ism as set forth elsewhere in this volume, and then ask himself if the latest official utterance of the Socialist Party of America can in any way "be construed" as placing that party in any "category" which does not also contain the Communist organizations and the I. W. W. The salient parts of the manifesto follow:

"The capitalist cla.s.s is now making its last stand in its history.

It was intrusted with the government of the world. It is responsible for the prevailing chaos. The events of recent years have conclusively demonstrated that capitalism is bankrupt, and has become a dangerous impediment to progress and human welfare. The working cla.s.s alone has the power to redeem and to save the world....

"It now becomes more than ever the immediate task of international Socialism to accelerate and organize the inevitable transfer of political and industrial power from the capitalist cla.s.s to the workers. The workers must recognize the economic structure of human society by eliminating the inst.i.tution of the private ownership of natural wealth and of the machinery of industry, the essence of the war-breeding system of international commercial rivalry. The workers of the world must recognize the economic structure of human society by making the natural wealth and the machinery of industry the collective property of all....

"The workers of Great Britain, France and Italy, the workers of the newly created nations, and the workers of the countries which remained neutral during the war, are all in a state of unprecedented unrest. In different ways and by different methods, either blindly impelled by the inexorable conditions which confront them, or clearly recognizing their revolutionary aims, they are abandoning their temporising programs of pre-war labor reform. They are determined to control the industries, which means control of the governments.

"In the United States capitalism has emerged from the war more reactionary and aggressive, more insolent and oppressive than it has ever been....

"But even in the United States the symptoms of a rebellious spirit in the ranks of the working ma.s.ses are rapidly multiplying.

Widespread and extensive strikes for better labor conditions, the demand of the 2,000,000 railway workers to control their industry, sporadic formation of labor parties, apparently, though not fundamentally, in opposition to the political parties of the possessing cla.s.s, are promising indications of a definite tendency on the part of American labor to break away from its reactionary and futile leadership and to join in the great emanc.i.p.ating movement of the more advanced revolutionary workers of the world.

"Recognizing this crucial situation at home and abroad, the Socialist Party in the United States at its first national convention after the war, squarely takes its position with the uncompromising section of the international Socialist movement. We unreservedly reject the policy of those Socialists who supported their belligerent capitalist governments on the plea of 'national defense,' and who entered into demoralizing compacts for so-called civil peace with the exploiters of labor during the war and continued a political alliance with them after the war.

"We, the organized Socialists of America, declare our solidarity with the revolutionary workers of Russia in the support of the government of their Soviets, with the radical Socialists of Germany, Austria and Hungary in their efforts to establish working cla.s.s rule in their countries, and with those Socialist organizations in England, France, Italy and other countries, who, during the war as after the war, have remained true to the principles of uncompromising international Socialism....

"The great purpose of the Socialist Party is to wrest the industries and the control of the government of the United States from the capitalists and their retainers. It is our purpose to place industry and government in the control of the workers with hand and brain, to be administered for the benefit of the whole community.

"To insure the triumph of Socialism in the United States the bulk of the American workers must be strongly organized politically as Socialists, in constant, clear-cut and aggressive opposition to all parties of the possessing cla.s.s. They must be strongly organized in the economic field on broad industrial lines, as one powerful and harmonious cla.s.s organization, cooperating with the Socialist Party, and ready in cases of emergency to reinforce the political demands of the working cla.s.s by industrial action.

"To win the American workers from their ineffective and demoralizing leadership, to educate them to an enlightened understanding of their own cla.s.s interests, and to train and a.s.sist them to organize politically and industrially on cla.s.s lines, in order to effect their emanc.i.p.ation, that is the supreme task confronting the Socialist Party of America.

"To this great task, without deviation or compromise, we pledge all our energies and resources. For its accomplishment we call for the support and co-operation of the workers of America and of all other persons desirous of ending the insane rule of capitalism before it has had the opportunity to precipitate humanity into another cataclysm of blood and ruin.

"Long live the International Socialist Revolution, the only hope of the suffering world!"

CHAPTER VI

SOCIALISM IN THEORY

Morris Hillquit, a ring-leader among Socialists of the United States, writing in "Everybody's," October, 1913, page 487, informs us that the term Socialism is used indiscriminately to designate a certain philosophy, a scheme of social organization and an active political movement.

Socialism, used to designate a certain philosophy, may better be distinguished by being called Socialism in theory. Socialism as an applied scheme of social organization may be termed Socialism in practice, and means nothing other than a form of government according to the principles of Socialist philosophy. Socialism, as an active political movement, means the Socialist Party. Thus, when we say that Socialism won several times in Milwaukee, we do not mean that the system of Socialist philosophy was voted upon and accepted by the majority, for most of the voters knew practically nothing about the philosophy of Socialism; nor do we mean that the form of government in accordance with the principles of Socialist philosophy was adopted at the polls, for, as a matter of fact, we know that the government of Milwaukee has never been in accordance with the Marxian principles; but we mean this, and only this, that the active political movement of the Socialists, in other words, the Socialist Party, elected its candidates. No doubt the victorious candidates would have ruled Milwaukee according to the philosophy of Socialism, applying the Marxian principles to their government, if they could have done so, but the Const.i.tution of the United States as well as that of the State of Wisconsin would have stood in the way, as will be seen when Socialism is explained more in detail.

The first form of Socialism to be explained in detail is Socialism in theory. There seem to be about 57 hundred times 57 hundred varieties of Socialists, owing to the conflicting views that members of the party hold on different subjects which they wish to include in Socialism, and also because of their different interpretations of the fundamental principle of Socialism. There is, however, one underlying principle that seems to be held quite generally by Marxians the world over. No matter what other radical measures individual Socialists may favor or wish to see included in the Socialist philosophy, and no matter how many different interpretations are given to the principle of Socialism, the basic principle that stands out above all others and is accepted generally by Socialists the world over may be said to be the demand for a government, democratic in form, under which all the citizens would collectively own and manage the princ.i.p.al means of production, transportation and communication.

The Industrial Workers of the World form one of the few cla.s.ses of Socialists who object to the generally accepted fundamental principle just mentioned. "The One Big Union Monthly," March, 1919, prefers to drop the words "democratic form of government," because the I. W. W.'s are not sure that ownership by the people as a whole would succeed better under a democratic form of government than under a dictatorship of the proletariat.

"The Labour Leader," the organ of the Socialist Independent Labor Party, Manchester, England, February 6, 1919, declares that Socialism is "the complete ownership and control of the means of life by the people, and the development of industry and the distribution of its fruits under a genuine and absolute democracy." In explaining Socialism, it says that "it means that the land shall become the property of the people, not of private individuals. It means that the great industries shall become the property of the people. It means that the railways and the ca.n.a.ls shall become the property of the people. It means that the shipping shall become the property of the people. In short it means that everything essential to the life of all shall become the property of all, and shall be administered not for the profit of the few, but for the use of all.

And it demands intelligent control of public affairs by the people, women as well as men."

Practically the same ideas are expressed in other words by Jaures in "Studies in Socialism," page 32 of 1906 edition, translated by Minturn.