The leaders in control of the executive machinery of the Socialist Party, wishing to retain their lucrative positions, and looking forward to the advantage of political office during the years which might elapse before the time would be ripe for rebellion, were nearly all Right Wingers, and have waged a bitter and unscrupulous fight against the Left Wing organization within the party.
The Left Wing of the Socialist Party of America had its origin, probably, in the year 1916. According to the "International Socialist Review," of December of that year, this ultra-revolutionary faction took form in Boston. About the latter part of the year 1917 it began to develop more rapidly, its progress being more or less proportional to the spread of Bolshevism and the Socialist revolutions in Europe. Its success, of course, was at the expense of the political leaders of the Right.
The Left Wing has certainly been more honest than the Right. The "Reds"
comprising it favor direct action, that is, strikes and disturbances, rather than the use of the ballot, hoping thus to bring our country into such a critical condition that they may precipitate a rebellion, and then, though in a minority, a.s.sume control of the government by a sudden _coup d"etat_, as the Bolsheviki did in Russia. The Left Wingers opposed the "immediate demands" in the Socialist Party platform, preferring to work for dictatorship rather than for social reforms. They despised the politicians of the Right Wing, calling them yellow, reactionary, hypocritical, capitalistic Socialists, and telling them that their place was with the newly formed Labor Party, which had already praised the Socialists and invited them to join its ranks. The Lefts expressed a fear that the leaders of the Right would, if our Government were overthrown, turn against them just as the Scheidemann-Ebert group turned against the German Spartacides. The fight between the two factions became severe about the beginning of the year 1919.
"The Revolutionary Age," Boston, February 15, 1919, speaking of the disturbance in the Socialist Party, and explaining the fundamental principles of the Left Wing said:
"The American Socialist Party is in a condition of feverish theoretical activity. Pressing problems are being met in a spirit of self-criticism. New forms of action in the social struggle are being accepted. Old methods, old tactics, old ideas, which in the test of war have proven incapable of furthering the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, are being seriously a.n.a.lyzed and repudiated.
"The membership of the Socialist Party, the majority, is instinctively cla.s.s conscious and revolutionary. It was this membership that compelled our officials to acquiesce in the adoption of a radical declaration against war--which most of the officials sabotaged or converted into an innocuous policy of bourgeois pacificism. When the Bolsheviki conquered, the majority of our officials were either hostile or silent; some weeks before, the "New York Call" had stigmatized the Bolsheviki as "anarchists."
But the membership responded; they forced the hands of the officials, who became "me too" Bolsheviki, but who did not draw the revolutionary implications of the Bolshevik policy. These officials and their machinery baffled the will of the membership; more, the membership baffled itself because it did not clearly understand the theory and the practice implied in its instinctive cla.s.s consciousness and revolutionary spirit.
"While our National Executive Committee accepts the Berne Congress and refuses to call an emergency National Convention, locals of the party are actively engaged in the great struggle, turning to the left, to revolutionary Socialism. Groups within the party are organizing and issuing proclamations, determined that the party shall conquer the party for revolutionary Socialism. Two of these proclamations were published in the last issue of "The Revolutionary Age." They deserve serious consideration and discussion.
"The manifesto of the Communist Propaganda League of Chicago is a concise doc.u.ment. Its criticism of the party is summarized:
""The Party proceeds on too narrow an understanding of political action for a party of revolution, its programs and platforms have been reformist and petty bourgeois in character, instead of being definitely directed toward the goal of social revolution; the party has failed to achieve unity with the revolutionary movement on the industrial field."
"Its proposals for democratizing the party--ma.s.s action in the party--are excellent; it repudiates the old international and the Berne Congress, and asks:
""Identification of the Socialist Party with cla.s.s conscious industrial unionism, unity of all kinds of proletarian action and protest forming part of the revolutionary cla.s.s struggle; political action to include political strikes and demonstrations, no compromising with any groups not inherently committed to the revolutionary cla.s.s struggle, such as Labor parties, People"s Councils, Non-Partisan Leagues, Munic.i.p.al Ownership Leagues and the like.""
In order clearly to understand the big fight that has disrupted the Socialist Party, further explanations of the principles of the Left Wing are necessary. "The Revolutionary Age," from which the above quotation was taken, was first published in Boston, its editor being Louis C.
Fraina. In the summer of 1919 it combined with "The Communist," of New York City, and, still maintaining its former name, became the national organ of the Left Wing of the Socialist Party.
In the article just quoted reference was made to "ma.s.s action." This, according to "The Revolutionary Age," is to be the main weapon used by the rebels in precipitating rebellion. The July 12, 1919, issue of the same paper explains ma.s.s action and shows how it is to be used. The article, written by Louis C. Fraina, reads in part as follows:
"Socialism in its early activity as a general organized movement was compelled to emphasize the action of politics because of the immaturity of the proletariat....
"All propaganda, all electoral and parliamentary activity are insufficient for the overthrow of Capitalism, impotent when the ultimate test of the cla.s.s struggle turns into a test of power. The power for the social revolution issues out of the actual struggles of the proletariat, out of its strikes, its industrial unions and ma.s.s action."
Industrial unions of course means the union system of the I. W. W., and not the craft unions of the American Federation of Labor.
The article continues:
"The peaceful parliamentary conquest of the state is either sheer utopia or reaction....
"The revolution is an act of a minority, at first; of the most cla.s.s conscious section of the industrial proletariat, which in a test of electoral strength, would be a minority, but which, being a solid, industrially indispensable cla.s.s, can disperse and defeat all other cla.s.ses through the annihilation of the fraudulent democracy of the parliamentary system implied in the dictatorship of the proletariat, imposed upon society by means of revolutionary ma.s.s action....
"Ma.s.s action is not a form of action as much as it is a process and synthesis of action. It is the unity of all forms of proletarian action, a means of throwing the proletariat, organized and unorganized, in a general struggle against Capitalism and the capitalist state....
"The great expressions of ma.s.s action in recent years, the New Zealand general strike, the Lawrence strike, the great strike of the British miners under which capitalist society reeled on the verge of collapse--all were ma.s.s actions organized and carried through in spite of the pa.s.sive and active hostility of the dominant Socialist and labor organization. Under the impulse of ma.s.s action, the industrial proletariat senses its own power and acquires the force to act equally against capitalism and the conservatism of organizations. Indeed, a vital feature of ma.s.s action is precisely that it places in the hands of the proletariat the power to overcome the fetters of these organizations, to act in spite of their conservatism, and through proletarian ma.s.s action emphasize antagonisms between workers and capitalists, and conquer power. A determining phase of the proletarian revolution in Russia was its acting against the dominant Socialist organizations, sweeping these aside through its ma.s.s action before it could seize social supremacy....
"Ma.s.s action is the proletariat itself in action, dispensing with bureaucrats and intellectuals, acting through its own initiative; and it is precisely this circ.u.mstance that horrifies the soul of petty bourgeois Socialism. The ma.s.ses are to act upon their own initiative and the impulse of their own struggles....
"Ma.s.s action organizes and develops into the political strike and demonstration, in which a general political issue is the source of the action....
"The cla.s.s power of the proletariat arises out of the intensity of its struggles and revolutionary energy. It consists, moreover, of undermining the bases of the morale of the capitalist state, a process that requires extra parliamentary activity through ma.s.s action. Capitalism trembles when it meets the impact of a strike in a basic industry; Capitalism will more than tremble, it will actually verge on a collapse, when it meets the impact of a general ma.s.s action involving a number of correlated industries, and developing into revolutionary ma.s.s action against the whole capitalist regime. The value of this ma.s.s action is that it shows the proletariat its power, weakens capitalism, and compels the state largely to depend on the use of brute force in the struggle, either the physical force of the military or the force of legal terrorism; this emphasizes antagonisms between proletarian and capitalist, widening the scope and deepening the intensity of the proletarian struggle against capitalism....
"Ma.s.s action, being the proletariat itself in action, loosens its energy, develops enthusiasm, and unifies the action of the workers to its utmost measure....
"Moreover, ma.s.s action means the repudiation of bourgeois democracy. Socialism will come not through the peaceful, democratic parliamentary conquest of the state, but through the determined and revolutionary ma.s.s action of a proletarian minority. The fetish of democracy is a fetter upon the proletarian revolution; ma.s.s action smashes the fetish, emphasizing that the proletarian recognizes no limits to its action except the limits of its own power. The proletariat will never conquer unless it proceeds to struggle after struggle; its power is developed and its energy let loose only through action. Parliamentarism, in and of itself, fetters proletarian action; organizations are often equally fetters upon action; the proletariat must act and always act; through action it conquers....
"The great war has objectively brought Europe to the verge of revolution. Capitalist society at any moment may be thrust into the air by an upheaval of the proletariat--as in Russia. Whence will the impulse for the revolutionary struggle come? Surely not from the moderate Socialism and unionism, which are united solidly in favor of an imperialistic war; surely not from futile parliamentary rhetoric, even should it be revolutionary rhetoric. The impulse will come out of the ma.s.s action of the proletariat....
"Ma.s.s action is equally a process of revolution and the revolution itself in operation."
The March 22, 1919, issue of "The Revolutionary Age" published the Manifesto of the Left Wing section of the Socialist Party of New York, from which several important quotations are hereby taken:
"We are a very active and growing section of the Socialist Party who are attempting to reach the rank and file with our urgent message over the heads that be, who, through inertia or a lack of vision, cannot see the necessity for a critical a.n.a.lysis of the party"s policies and tactics....
"In the latter part of the nineteenth century the Social-Democracies of Europe set out to "legislate capitalism out of office." The cla.s.s struggle was to be won in the capitalist legislatures. Step by step concessions were to be wrested from the state; the working cla.s.s and the Socialist parties were to be strengthened by means of "constructive" reform and social legislation; each concession would act as a rung in the ladder of Social Revolution, upon which the workers could climb step by step, until finally, some bright sunny morning, the peoples would awaken to find the Cooperative Commonwealth functioning without disorder, confusion or hitch on the ruins of the capitalist state.
"And what happened? When a few legislative seats had been secured, the thunderous denunciations of the Socialist legislators suddenly ceased. No more were the parliaments used as platforms from which the challenge of revolutionary Socialism was flung to all the corners of Europe. Another era had set in, the era of "constructive" social reform legislation. Dominant Moderate Socialism accepted the bourgeois state as the basis of its action and strengthened that state. All power to shape the policies and tactics of the Socialist parties was entrusted to the parliamentary leaders. And these lost sight of Socialism"s original purpose; their goal became "constructive reforms" and cabinet portfolios--the "cooperation of cla.s.ses," the policy of openly or tacitly declaring that the coming of Socialism was a concern "of all the cla.s.ses," instead of emphasizing the Marxian policy that the construction of the Socialist system is the task of the revolutionary proletariat alone....
"The "Moderates" emphasized petty-bourgeois reformism in order to attract tradesmen, shop-keepers and members of the professions, and, of course, the latter flocked to the Socialist movement in great numbers, seeking relief from the constant grinding between corporate capital and awakening labor....
"Dominant "Moderate Socialism" forgot the teachings of the founders of scientific Socialism, forgot its function as a proletarian movement--"the most resolute and advanced section of the working cla.s.s parties"--and permitted the bourgeois and self-seeking trade union elements to shape its policies and tactics. This was the condition in which the Social-Democracies of Europe found themselves at the outbreak of the war in 1914. Demoralized and confused by the cross-currents within their own parties, vacillating and compromising with the bourgeois state, they fell a prey to social-patriotism and nationalism.
"But revolutionary Socialism was not destined to lie inert for long. In Germany, Karl Liebknecht, Franz Mehring, Rosa Luxemburg and Otto Rhule organized the Spartacus group. But their voices were drowned in the roar of cannon and the shriek of the dying and maimed.
"Russia, however, was to be the first battle-ground where the "moderate" and revolutionary Socialism should come to grips for the mastery of the state. The break-down of the corrupt, bureaucratic Czarist regime opened the floodgates of Revolution....
""Moderate Socialism" was not prepared to seize the power for the workers during a revolution. "Moderate Socialism" had a rigid formula--"constructive social reform legislation within the capitalist state," and to that formula it clung....
"Revolutionary Socialists hold, with the founders of Scientific Socialism, that there are two dominant cla.s.ses in society--the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; that between these two cla.s.ses a struggle must go on, until the working cla.s.s, through the seizure of the instruments of production and distribution, the abolition of the capitalist state, and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, creates a Socialist system. Revolutionary Socialists do not believe that they can be voted into power. They struggle for the conquest of power by the revolutionary proletariat....
"The "moderate Socialist" proposes to use the bourgeois state with its fraudulent democracy, its illusory theory of "unity of all the cla.s.ses," its standing army, police and bureaucracy oppressing and baffling the ma.s.ses; the revolutionary Socialist maintains that the bourgeois state must be completely destroyed, and proposes the organization of a new state--the state of the organized producers--of the Federated Soviets--on the basis of which alone can Socialism be introduced.
"Industrial Unionism, the organization of the proletariat in accordance with the integration of industry and for the overthrow of Capitalism, is a necessary phase of revolutionary Socialist agitation. Potentially, industrial unionism constructs the basis and develops the ideology of the industrial state of Socialism; but industrial unionism alone cannot perform the revolutionary act of seizure of the power of the state, since under the conditions of Capitalism it is impossible to organize the whole working cla.s.s, or an overwhelming majority into industrial unionism.
"It is the task of a revolutionary Socialist party to direct the struggles of the proletariat and provide a program for the culminating crisis."
Julius Hammer, in a letter published in "The Call," April 4, 1919, speaking of the Left Wing, says:
"Aside from the discussions as to the principles and tactics identifying the "Left Wing" there is a great deal of acrimonious discussion and opposition to those in the "Left Wing" organization.
They are called "separatists," "secessionists," "splitters of the party," and this in spite of vehement denials that there is intention or desire to split the party. "It is unnecessary,"
say they, "and superfluous; the party machinery is ample for the purpose now; organization within organization is injurious and wrong." Some seem to go even further and fling epithets of "disrupters," "traitors," "direct actionists,"
"anti-politicalists," "anarchists," etc. And there seems to be quite a number who consider that the menace should be met with stern measures--nothing less than expulsion."
In the Left Wing statements of principles and tactics the reader will observe a constant emphasis upon "direct action," or violence, and in favor of "industrial unionism" and the "identification of the Socialist Party with cla.s.s conscious industrial unionism." Chapters VIII and IX of this work, which describe the principles and tactics of the I. W. W., will make the significance of the Left Wing movement perfectly apparent as an effort to combine Socialist Partyism and I. W. W."ism or to place the latter under the political leadership of the former. In the Left Wing we see an enthusiastic consecration of the major part of the American Socialist Party to revolutionary violence--the direct application of anarchistic tactics to the overthrow of the Government and inst.i.tutions of the United States. As we follow the Left Wing movement we shall see the principles and tactics of the I. W. W., as carried out in Russia, adopted as a program by the major part of the American Socialist party, which also finally succeeded in committing the minor part, the Right Wing, to the same principles.
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