THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF AMERICA DEVELOPS A LEFT WING
Some years ago, when the people of the United States were beginning to
suspect that the Socialists were plotting a revolution against our
Constitutional form of government the hypocritical followers of Eugene
V. Debs, fearing that their plot might be nipped in the bud, endeavored
to conceal their conspiracy, and succeeded quite well, by assuring the
American people that the word "revolution," so often used by them, was a
harmless term and was to be taken in a broad sense, without the "r,"
signifying nothing more than "evolution." "Do not be alarmed," they told
us, "we Socialists are striving to bring about reforms in the
government, but solely by constitutional means and the use of the
ballot."[B]
Many proofs could be given to show that, even in the early days of the
American Socialist Party, revolution, in the strictest sense of the
word, was foremost in the minds of many of the Marxian leaders. With the
advent of Bolshevism in Russia, and the successful overthrow of European
governments by revolutionary Socialists abroad, the "Reds" in our own
country became decidedly bolder, both in word and plot, against the
Government of our country. The more outspoken, daring and impatient
plotters in the Socialist Party of America lined up in a Left Wing
faction, whereas the more hypocritical, hesitant, cautious and prudent
revolutionists constituted the Right Wing. The former became known as
the "Reds," the latter as the "Yellows."
The "Reds" made a specialty of "direct action" or violence, had little
confidence in victory through the ballot, and campaigned for a
revolution at an early day. The "Yellows," of course, also rely on a
final victory through rebellion, but in the meantime, during the period
of revolutionary education and organization, insist on political action.
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, assume control of the government by a sudden
_coup d'état_, 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 analyzed and
repudiated.
"The membership of the Socialist Party, the majority, is
instinctively class 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 class
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 document. 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--mass action in the
party--are excellent; it repudiates the old international and the
Berne Congress, and asks:
"'Identification of the Socialist Party with class conscious
industrial unionism, unity of all kinds of proletarian action and
protest forming part of the revolutionary class struggle; political
action to include political strikes and demonstrations, no
compromising with any groups not inherently committed to the
revolutionary class struggle, such as Labor parties, People's
Councils, Non-Partisan Leagues, Municipal 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 "mass 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 mass 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 class 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
mass 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
class conscious section of the industrial proletariat, which in a
test of electoral strength, would be a minority, but which, being a
solid, industrially indispensable class, can disperse and defeat
all other classes 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
mass action....
"Mass 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 mass 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 mass actions organized and carried
through in spite of the passive and active hostility of the
dominant Socialist and labor organization. Under the impulse of
mass 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 mass
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 mass 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 mass action before it could seize
social supremacy....
"Mass action is the proletariat itself in action, dispensing with
bureaucrats and intellectuals, acting through its own initiative;
and it is precisely this circumstance that horrifies the soul of
petty bourgeois Socialism. The masses are to act upon their own
initiative and the impulse of their own struggles....
"Mass action organizes and develops into the political strike and
demonstration, in which a general political issue is the source of
the action....
"The class 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 mass
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
mass action involving a number of correlated industries, and
developing into revolutionary mass action against the whole
capitalist regime. The value of this mass 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....
"Mass action, being the proletariat itself in action, loosens its
energy, develops enthusiasm, and unifies the action of the workers
to its utmost measure....
"Moreover, mass 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 mass action of a proletarian minority. The fetish of
democracy is a fetter upon the proletarian revolution; mass 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 mass action of the proletariat....
"Mass 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 analysis 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 class struggle was to be won in the capitalist
legislatures. Step by step concessions were to be wrested from the
state; the working class 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 classes,' the policy of openly or
tacitly declaring that the coming of Socialism was a concern 'of
all the classes,' 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
class 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 classes in society--the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat; that between these two classes a
struggle must go on, until the working class, 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
classes,' its standing army, police and bureaucracy oppressing and
baffling the masses; 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 class,
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 class 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 institutions 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
"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.