Communists and the Pope (1939)

From the June 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Canadian Labour Herald in its April issue, quotes the following two news items, both from the New York Times of February 13th, 1939: —

NEW YORK—”The New York State Young Communist League Convention was brought to a close yesterday afternoon with a resolution expressing sympathy to young Catholics on the death of Pope Pius XI.”

MOSCOW—”The Soviet press to-day criticised Pope Pius XI, as a defender of capitalism. The newspaper ‘Bezboznik’ also condemned him for his crusade against Soviet Russia beginning in 1930 and for maintaining good relations with the Spanish insurgents, and the Japanese government.”

50 Years Ago: McCarthyism (2004)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our comrades of the World Socialist Party of the United States received an inquiry from a group of Liberals in London about McCarthyism. The following is an extract from the reply which will be of interest to readers of the S.S. . . .

The proceedings before Senate investigating committees are properly called “star chamber proceedings.” The individuals can do nothing but answer questions, and be confronted by witnesses whom they cannot question in rebuttal. As soon as the accused individual attempts to read a statement the Senators do not like, he is evicted from the hearing, and if the individual is foolish enough to persist in his freedom of speech, then he is charged with contempt of court, which can result in six months in prison for each contempt. Phillip Wylie, an outstanding American writer and by no means a Socialist, recently stated the matter correctly when he said that intellectual freedom has been destroyed in the United States, and that the only freedom which remains is political, that is, the right to vote.

    

Even this is being taken away tout de suite, as a bill is now in Congress to deprive the Communist Party of legal status, so that anyone will not be able to vote for the Communist Party candidates, even if he foolishly wished to do so. It goes faster. To get on the ballot here in Michigan, for example, the party must receive a certain percentage of the vote. Failure to do so requires this party to take up petitions and to obtain a specific number of names of registered voters before it can be placed on the ballot. But here is the rub. The subversive squad of the State Police took these lists circulated by the Communists, Trotskyists, Socialist Labor Party, and have placed every signer of the petitions under suspect, subject to later investigation.

(From an article by Karl Frederick, Socialist Standard, October 1954)

Pollitt Forgets the Past (1944)

From the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Pollitt has written a pamphlet on Communist policy in answer to questions asked by a Mr. Duxbury, who describes himself as an “adherent” of the Communist Party. The questioner explains that while he has always tried to understand why Communist policy has suddenly changed, he finds it difficult when “he has to tell people the opposite to that which he has been drumming at them for months.” He comments, aptly enough : “They think—’this fellow is a lunatic.' ” Now, however, Earl Browder’s statement that “Capitalism and socialism have now found a way to peaceful co-existence in the same world” has “knocked the wind out of us.”

His enquiries are met with the fatuous assertion that “the general line of our Communist policy has been proved correct in the course of experience on every major political issue since the foundation of our Party in 1920,” page 6. Correct in what respect? We could, if we wished, examine in detail the contradictory and confusing policies of the Communist Party in those 24 years; it will suffice to mention one issue only. Possibly P.ollitt has forgotten the desperate efforts of the C.P. to keep its policy in line with the rapid changes of Russian foreign policy in the autumn of 1939— we all try to forget nightmares. The Communist Party declared support for the war on September 2nd, 1939 (before it started !—they were eager), but on October 7th they issued a manifesto opposing it because they discovered that it was an “unjust” war. Twenty-one months later they supported the war again. At last it was a “just” war; Russia was fighting in it.

Such major changes cannot be dismissed as merely incidental to their “correct” policy. The truth is that the Communist Party has one aim, and that is support of Russian State capitalism. When Russian interests demand it, Communist policy will change overnight regardless of working-class interests. Perhaps these changes have been beneficial to Russia; if so, Pollitt can claim that their policy has been correct, but it has been a correct policy for Russian capitalism, not for the working class. Socialists do not boast that their policy has been beneficial to capitalist interest. They are concerned with working-class interests only—the Communist Party is not.

In his explanation of Earl Browder’s dissolution of the American Communist Party and his support of Roosevelt, Pollitt says that with a Democratic President peaceful cooperation between Russia, Britain and the U.S.A. is guaranteed. Even were it possible to guarantee peace (and we emphasise that it is not possible), this policy means the support of men who intend to administer capitalism in one form or the other. The Communists are pledged to support the continued exploitation of the working class; no excuse will hide that fact.

One or two points in the questioner’s letter deserve comment. He wants to rally the millions who desire Socialism but will not listen to it if it were preached for 100 years. He wants Socialism before he is 30, and he continues : “I want to catch the fastest bus. Lenin would have made great decisions here.” After advocating unity between the Communist Party and the Common Wealth Party, he says : “The only thing that I can see is Unite and sweep capitalism to hell out of it by vigorous political action.” We want Socialism as quickly as possible, but we know that there is only one fast way—the correct way. These who are merely in a hurry but have little or no understanding of the Socialist case have followed many paths—paths that have led anywhere but to Socialism. Lenin, who is mentioned, was one who wanted to get Socialism quickly. He constantly urged his colleagues to insurrection and emphasised the need for seizing power even with a minority. He also repudiated the need for working-class understanding with the plea that it would take 500 years (Socialist Standard, May, 1921).

Lenin and the Bolsheviks achieved power and made their great decisions; but did they establish Socialism ? Of course not. The economic conditions were not ripe in Russia, but even in a modern industrial system Socialism will not be the outcome of any “great” decisions by leaders or parties. Those in a hurry must realise that Socialism will make headway only when workers are willing to listen to and discuss the Socialist case. Pollitt talks of “unity” so that a division in the “Labour and progressive vote” can be avoided. The Socialist wants votes for Socialisjn. and knows that when the workers want Socialism they will unite and take political action, hostile to all “progressive” or “reactionary” capitalist parties.

Finally, Pollitt says “that the Party is growing, that its meetings, . . . its members are the envy of every political organisation in the country.” Is that so? Do people envy “lunatics”?

Lew Jones

Communist Party of U.S.A. (1973)

From issue number 1 (1973) of The Western Socialist

Gus Hall's Objective: Reorganize Exploitation 

Gus Hall, Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States of America, and the Party’s 1972 Presidential candidate, claims the CP-U.S.A. is again surging to the fore following the trying times it experienced in the 50s under the now repudiated Smith Act. So reports newspaper columnist Philip Nobile who interviewed Mr. Hall (Utica Observer - Dispatch, Oct. 22. 1972).

Mr. Hall credits the alleged surge of new blood in the Party to the fact that the hysteria of the McCarthy period has disappeared and that people choose to have their curiosity about communism satisfied by declared Communists rather than by anti-Communists.

Dues-paying membership is, according to Mr. Hall, someplace between 15 and 16 thousand. Mr. Hall, however, contends there are approximately 100,000 Communists who. for reasons of fear (social, economic, etc.) cannot openly declare themselves as such. The total Communist vote in the coming Presidential election should in large measure confirm or refute this claim since one’s vote is cast in secrecy and there need be no fear of recrimination.

One of the questions put to Secretary Hall by Mr. Nobile was this:

Q. — Have you stopped advocating the violent overthrow of the American Government? 

A. — We never did. We are, and have always been, for the overthrow of the capitalist system. We want to take the country' out of the hands of the big monopoly corporations. Socialism, therefore, is our aim. Naturally, there would be some fundamental changes in the existing government under socialism.

Note that Mr. Hall speaks here of "socialism” rather than "communism." There is a separation of the two. This cleavage is a Leninistic invention, with an unintentional assist from Marx. In the Critique of the Gotha Program Marx speaks of two phases of communism — “lower” and “higher” — though he does not fix them terminologically as “socialism” and "communism.” And in the same source he writes that “between capitalist and communist society” there is a "transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” Now according to Lenin, the period between the transformation of capitalism into communism is called "socialism.”

In 1917 Lenin proposed that the Bolsheviks call themselves the Communist Party. And in support of this proposal he broached the idea that socialism differed from communism. It was the “lower” and “higher” phases of communism and the ”dictatorshlp of the proletariat” which Lenin made central in his The State and Revolution and to which his followers have ever since adhered.

This skilled piece of surgery, this dichotomy of socialism/communism by Lenin perplexed most of all who called themselves Marxists. For they, like Marx and Engels, conceived “socialism” and "communism” as one and the same, used the terms interchangeably. They were correct in doing so.

Keeping in mind the comparatively backward economic conditions at the time of Marx, he reasoned that the transition period from capitalist to socialist society would require the existence of a political state, with the state being utilized solely in the interest of the working class during the transition and existing for only a brief span of time. There would come then that degree of socialism wherein the state no longer existed and distribution of wealth would follow the principle of work performed. Following this phase, there would come into being “higher” socialism wherein all would have free access to the goods produced. No matter how you cut the cake, It is still socialism/communism notwithstanding the stage or phase.

Reading the Critique of the Gotha Program, one easily gets the impression that Marx distinguished between "lower” and “higher” communism in terms of the ruling principle of distribution — with the “lower” phase, as mentioned above, ascribed to work performed, and the “higher” phase acrlbed to needs: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs ” But in the same source Marx, anticipating that he might be misunderstood, expressly cautions that it is “a mistake to make a fuss about so-called distribution and put the principal stress on it” and that “any distribution whatever of the means of consumption is only a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves.”

To Marx socialism encompassed far, far more than the economical improvement of the working class. His criticism of capitalism was not merely centered around the injustice of the distribution of wealth but also entailed the transformation of man under capitalism into a “crippled monstrosity.” In his German Ideology it is pointed out that the aim of socialism is that of developing the total, universal man; that is, the elevation of man above his present crippling specialization.

Marx scoffs at higher wages and hence unmistakably scoffs at the wage system in general. He writes in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (translated by T. B. Bottomore):

“An enforced increase in wages . . . would be nothing more than a better remuneration of slaves. and would not restore. either to the worker or to the work, their human significance and worth.

"Even the equality of incomes which Proudhon demands would only change the relation of the present day worker to his work into a relation of all men to work. Society would then be conceived as an abstract capitalist."

The use of the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat” by Marx was an ill chosen one even in the passing sense he used it and despite its connotative difference as compared to today. But as all know who have studied the writings of Marx, he was a stalwart believer in democracy and personal liberty and most certainly did not mean by this phrase an excuse for the suspension of human rights during the so-called transition or at any other time such as the “Communists” and their followers around the world would have it.

It is Mr Hall’s conviction that a basic difference exists between government by monopoly corporations and government by an elite of the Communist Party, supposedly acting in the interests of the workers through the medium of the State. Mr Hall misses the whole point; to wit, the transformation of meaningless, alienated labor into free, productive labor. Weighing the difference between exploitation by monopoly corporations and exploitation by the State, with the hierarchy of the Communist Party holding the reins, is but a game for statisticians to play. Actually, the crux of the issue is not who or what exploits you or to what degree, but the very existence of exploitation itself.

On the heels of the above question put to Mr. Hall, this one followed:

Q. — But do you countenance violence?

A. — Yes. We have said right along we will seek the least violent path. But there should be no illusions about this question. History and life has taught us that it is an exceptional case where a change in class rule can be totally peaceful. Our Party will take part in violent struggles when the time comes.

And so it is admitted that Mr Hall’s Party countenances violence, though along “the least violent path.” Apparently ever on-going history and life has not taught Mr. Hall that working class violence in a highly industrialized stage of human life is passé, is a suicidal ticket for the rank and file participants. Mr. Hall seems to have subscribed to a postulate which may have been correct under certain conditions but which under changed conditions no longer exists.

Whereas the Communist Party sets Itself up as the vanguard, as the leaders. of the working class and condones violence, albeit along the least violent path, the World Socialist Party attuned to historical reality holds that there can be no socialism without socialists; that the working class cannot be led into socialism, that working class emancipation can only be achieved through conscious (knowing what socialism truly is and hence not leaving the thinking and decision-making to a small, self-appointed elite) and political (securing control of the seat of power, the State, via democratic means and thereupon abolishing it) organizational endeavor. With the vast majority of the workers, which would include all those presently engaged in suppressive endeavors, cognizant of the basic meaning of socialism and actively engaged In promoting it, who would there be to vent violence upon? At the most there might be a handful of reactionaries who would simply be obliviated by the march of events.

Before closing, let us touch briefly on one more question and answer:

Q. — Would American Communism Jail "subversive" writers as Russian Communism does? (Note with dismay and commiseration with the exorcised spirit of Karl Marx that we have "American." "Russian." "Chinese," "Yugoslav." "Cuban," "Italian." etc., communism.)

A. — I don't think so. I have publicly stated here and in the Soviet Union that I would handle these writers differently. Instead of making a criminal case out of it, I would suggest we publish these books and then arrange for competent reviewers to expose them on television in the presence of the author.

We can conclude from Mr. Hall’s answer that he would have extrajudicial trials for writers and other who proved offensive to the ideas of "American Communism.” Isn’t this frightening to contemplate Suppose the author refused to concede the errors of his ways and declined contriteness, what then? Why, off to an insane asylum for corrective treatment or worse. Under international socialism/communism as advocated by the WSP, one may write and have published whatever he damn well pleases without one iota of fear of any authoritative recrimination. Socialism as expounded by Marx is free of authoritative coercion, is completely foreign to government over people. The people, armed with socialist knowledge, will not need "competent reviewers” to instruct them as to what is or is not worthy of their consideration.

The Provocateur (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist 

Away back in those Hungry Thirties there was a sub-committee of the United States Senate, headed by Senator Robert La Follette, that investigated what was popularly known as the labor spy racket. A great deal of evidence was gathered that proved conclusively the employment by industries in the United States of provocateurs to infiltrate labor unions for the purpose of stirring up policies that could lead to violence during proposed strike actions. The motive of some of these was, of course, the smashing of the fast-growing labor union movement through use of weapons of violence against striking workers; and industries such as steel, auto and rubber had stockpiled veritable arsenals of weaponry within their gates. The La Follette Committee also disclosed the fact that other industries, those that manufactured tear gas. barbed-wire fences and so forth, had their agents, too, hard at work to instigate the conditions that would lead to more sales of their commodities.

More recently, in the Fifties, there was a burst of activity on the part of the F.B.I. In the business of infiltrating radical political parties, such as the Communist Party, with its agents. It has been said that there were, at one time, at least as many F.B.I. agents as genuine members within the ranks of that organisation and if such an estimate was made in jest it must be remembered that many a true word is spoken in jest.

In fact, the interested researcher can find—with little effort—evidence of the employment of such tactics by law enforcement agencies from the federal level down to city police departments all through the years of American democracy. And one would have to be naive, indeed, to believe that the planting of agents provocateur by the capitalist state does not still exist, even more highly developed than ever before: right here in this land of liberty.

But we are trying to make an important point. Any organization that can make it possible for police spies to influence its policies is an organization that ought to be shunned by working people. When a political group, for example, advocates the abolition of capitalism; states that it would prefer that the socialist revolution be consummated peacefully; but argues that all evidence points to the so-called “fact" that the capitalists would not permit such an event to happen and that, therefore. the working class must prepare itself to meet capitalist violence with their own; such a group lays itself open for infiltration by police spies. And such a group should be avoided by workers as they would avoid the plague.

For it should be apparent that there are no weapons possible of accumulation by working people that cannot be outmatched a thousand fold by the capitalist class. And it should also be apparent, even from recent history, that the capitalists will not squirm at laying waste whole sections of cities—or whole cities—if necessary, when threatened by violent overthrow by rivals of whatever persuasion. If you think that sort of thing couldn’t happen in America, then think again!

The World Socialist Party is not afraid of infiltration by police spies. Our principles, around which we are organized, make such an eventuality implausible, if not impossible. The provocateur would be wasting his time. We are, and we have always been since our beginnings, organized on a basis of above-ground legality We address ourselves to fellow-workers, urging them to unite on the political field in order that a majority of socialists may be elected to control the central organs of power. Only in this way can a situation be brought about wherein the armed forces of the nation, the states, and the municipalities cannot be used against us, while a majority introduce a brand new way of life. A socialist majority has no need for violence. Let us undermine capitalism by spreading socialist information and using the legal machinery of capitalism, itself. If you think such a policy is a utopian dream, take another look at the scene and think again!

Are we “Commies”? (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

Whenever a socialist begins to present his case, especially if it is with somebody who has not been exposed to the case for scientific socialism, he is almost invariably greeted by at least one of his audience, with the epithet: "Commie!” For there are some who have the knack of listening without following what is being said They can listen to the champions of the Soviet Union or of Cuba and yet fail to see the basic similarity between what these people advocate and what we already have in America. They can also listen for a few minutes. at least, to a scientific socialist and somehow manage to confuse what he is saying with what they thought they heard from the lips of the so-called Communists or whatever they might call themselves.

So let us see if we can put to rest that fallacy, at least for those who will pay attention for a mere four minutes or so to what we are saying.

Let us remind you of some happenings you should certainly have known of if you were around at the time. If you were too young during the days of WW II, or not yet born, there are books and articles dealing with the cooperation and friendship between the bolshevik-style Communists on the one hand, and the professed champions of "democratic" capitalism on the other, readily available.

When the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain were wining, dining, and dealing with Joseph Stalin in the Kremlin, the World Socialist Party and its Companion Parties in other countries were openly opposing the war as a carnage not worth the shedding of a single drop of working-class blood. When the secret police of the Soviet Union and the secret police of the United States (the forerunner of the present CIA) were acting in unison, we were speaking out and writing articles attacking the War. When widely-known political leaders such as Wendell Willkie and widely heralded labor-haters such as Eddie Rickenbacker, the aviator hero, were extolling the virtues of the Soviet Union and of kindly old "Uncle" Joe Stalin — both through written and spoken word — we of the World Socialist Party were denouncing the entire Bolshevik Movement as a menace to working-class interests.

When the Communist Party was recruiting for the war effort, selling Victory Bonds, waving the flag and singing the national anthem of America, as well as that of Russia, we of the World Socialist Party were speaking from our rostrum on Boston Common as our comrades in England spoke in Hyde Park; continuing to urge our fellow workers to organize for the abolition of capitalism everywhere — the basic cause of war.

We were not called "Commies” in those days. It was obvious we were not "Commies” because we were calling for world socialism, not defending Western and Russian capitalism.

We did have our troubles, though, and it wasn’t easy to carry on. The Canadian Government went so far as banning our journal, The Western Socialist, within its borders, for a time, because of our articles that exposed the war for what it was, a fight for supremacy between and among rival capitalist nations. We were harassed, but we continued to speak and to publish.

No. We are not Communists in the popularly accepted meaning of that much-maligned word. We do not support or sympathize with Russian or Chinese or Cuban or any other state capitalism We are communists, though, In the classical meaning of that word. We are scientific socialists who advocate the complete and immediate abolition of the wages, prices, profits, money system in all its forms, everywhere and the immediate introduction of a system of production for use. We urge you to investigate our case.

Clippings (1942)

From the September 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reward for Clean Living

“In Peterhead Prison, the cost of keeping a prisoner for a week is £1 9s. 5d. Why should the Government scruple to give some similar sum to those who are not prisoners, but have lived clean lives and have toiled for the community all their days ?”—(Rev. James Barr in an interview in the “Daily Express.”)

The Tribulations of the Communists

“The Communist Party is expelling members who do not buy war bonds and stamps. An Oregon Communist was the first to go under this ruling’.”—(“New York Nation,” reproduced in “Forward,” August 8th, 1942.)

Labour in the United States. (1924)

From the July 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Army of the Workless.

Glowing stories are current here of the prosperity in America. Work and high wages for all is the tale told by fly-by-night travellers. The facts, however, are quite different. The “boom” which began in 1923 is over, and many leading industries are working on “short” time and with reduced labour. The organ of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers (“The Advance,” June 6, 1924) reports from the great centre of the clothing trade—Chicago—that for every 100 jobs available for the week ending April 5th, 1924, the numbers of workers registered at the Chicago Employment Exchange was 1,587, an increase of 200 over the last week in March.

The huge commercial concern in industrial America, The Stone and Webster Company, writing on conditions in the textile centre of Lawrence, Massachusetts states, in their official “Stone and Webster Journal” for April, that :—

  “the textile industry is in such a state that thousands of people who depend upon that industry for a livelihood are now out of employment. Many families and persons are now in dire want and the outlook is not encouraging.”

They warn the textile workers that they must take lower wages because people have “stopped buying as much in the way of clothes as formerly. Consequently a great unemployment problem was raised at Lawrence.” This is in an industry where about the lowest wages are paid in America, and these starvation rates have been obtained after the most bitter and bloody suppression of millworkers’ strikes in America’s history. Machinery, girl labour and the brutality of the employers have told their tale in Lawrence and the Fall River “she” towns. Starvation wages for a while and long periods of “no wages” makes the life of the worker.

The Present Depression.

America is no exception to the “laws” of capitalist production. The organ of finance, “The Wall Street Journal,” for April, analyses the situation thus :—

  “The fact is that for several years we have been going along smoothly filling out the post-war demand for sundries such as new housing, railroad equipment, automobiles and many other essentials and non-essentials. That demand has to an appreciable extent been satisfied.

  The first point to consider is our manufacturing equipment. On this score there can be no question that in many lines we have too much capacity of production for the demand at hand. Ever since the war it has been a great problem to keep our plants fully and profitably occupied.”

It goes on to state that, without a large foreign market, the highly productive industrial resources become an incubus. The article shows that in all the basic industries demand has greatly declined and will decline further. Production has decreased considerably.

In the “Golden West” the same “slump” has taken place. The Bay Counties (San Francisco, etc.) District Council of Carpenters issues a bulletin for May, which states :—

  “Our unemployment situation, which was large enough throughout the winter, is growing steadily worse. Building operations are being curtailed or postponed, mechanics are being laid off, and are walking the streets with their ranks steadily increasing by the influx of men from other localities looking for work.”

This is in the largest shipping and financial centre of California. The same conditions exist in other centres. The motor-car industry centred in Detroit (a city of over a million people) has piled up production so rapidly since the factories re-opened in 1922 that large vacant plots had to be used to store the cars. Rapid production with a non-expanding market has resulted in a large and growing number of men being thrown out of work, with others on short time. Wall Street capital organised in the “General Motors Combine” and Ford’s practically control the trade, and when they reduce output there is no chance for work elsewhere.

“The Land of Opportunity.”

“Every man has a chance” is a common joke in the U.S.A. The workers’ chance may be gathered from the Report of the Industrial Relations Commission of 1916 which stated that 2 per cent. of the people owned 60 per cent. of the wealth. The control of wealth by the few was made plainer still by this Commission appointed by the Government. Their report states:—

  “With few exceptions each of the basic industries is dominated by a single large corporation, and where this is not true, the control of the industry through stock ownership in supposedly independent corporations and through credit, is almost, if not quite, as potent.

  In such corporations, in spite of the large number of stockholders, the control through actual stock ownership rests with a very small number of persons. For example, in the United States Steel Corporation, which had in 1911 approximately 100,000 stockholders, 1.5 per cent. of the stockholders held 57 per cent. of the stock, while the final control rested with a single private banking house. Similarly in the American Tobacco Company, before the dissolution, 10 stockholders held 60 per cent. of the stock.”

Since 1916, Henry H. Klein, Deputy Commissioner of Accounts of New York City, has written his volume of statistics, called “Dynastic America and Those Who Own It.” In this he shows how the industries of the country are owned and controlled by very few. He names 14 families whose wealth is estimated at 100 millions each, and points out in detail how the financial magnates own a controlling share of the stock of the concerns of the country. The same kind of concentration takes place in agriculture. Senator Brookhart stated in the Senate that 400,000 lost their farms in 1923.

The Economic Trend.

The result of advancing capitalism in America has been the replacement of competition by monopoly. The great capitals invested have enabled the capitalists to build huge plants with the latest machinery and under the most scientific running of industry. There is no chance for the worker starting for himself in industry. The so-called high wages in America, often quoted here, are in reality “high” only in money terms. Their purchasing power is only sufficient to cover the cost of living in a country where rent takes a large part of the wage. The necessities of life are also proportionately “high.” These “high” wages are little when compared to the ever-increasing output of labour, and the high degree of exploitation accounts for the fabulous riches of the employing class. Work there is intensive, and under the Taylor system of shop management, the speed is always increasing. Young men are chiefly recruited, for the older men are “worked out” very soon. Piecework, with its exhausting effects, is widespread, and as soon as output increases, rates per piece are reduced. The speed of modern production is so great that in a short time the market is glutted with goods. In 1921 there were over 6 millions out of work. In the short period since work started again, modern highly-developed methods have once more overstocked the market, and thus the spectre of unemplovment becomes a grim reality. Even when trade is brisk only a fraction of the working class is required in production, and the others are driven to all kinds of commercial pursuits. In this department, too, the Trusts by their close ownership and control, save wages by reducing the number of men required. “Crime” becomes a resort of large numbers who are pushed out of industry, and crimes against private property have become so numerous that they cease to be fully reported. The labour of women, especially married women, is largely used because of its cheapness, and the use of child labour is another powerful force against the worker. “Prosperity” spells little but hard work for our class in the U.S.A. as elsewhere.

The Workers’ “Share.”

The story that most workers own their own houses and their own motor cars is another study in satire. The terrible overcrowding of trams and trains during rush hours is an answer to the motor-car nonsense, and the fact that most workers live in hired rooms answers the “house-owner’s” joke. Even when they do “own” houses they are bought on instalments, and the owner soon seizes his property when “depression” stops the workers’ wages. Most workers’ houses, too, are wooden shacks of a primitive variety. Considering, too, that the secondhand and even new cars the workers buy on instalments are not much higher in price than bicycles here, it does not mean much to be a car “owner.” The expensive limousines and high-priced cars used by the parasites there make the workers’ cars look like tin cans. Life in the U.S.A. shows that, wherever capitalism develops further, it makes a greater contrast in the position of the worker and the capitalist.

When an industrial crisis takes place, as in 1921, the secondhand car dealers are flooded with cars which the “lucky” workers have to sell. The charity societies are packed with applicants clamouring for bread, and outside bakers’ shops long lines form to get a crust. The ranks of prostitution are swelled, and the great numbers involved in the crisis prevent personal borrowing. As soon as the factories re-open the capitalist cuts wages, knowing the large army of workless waiting for jobs. War is declared on unions and strikes are doomed.

“The Socialist Party of America.”

The trade unions in the U.S.A. are largely composed of loyal followers of the Republican and Democratic Capitalist Parties. Sheep-like they blindly elect the nominees of the financial interests, and they support the most servile agents of capitalism as their union leaders. The powerful and widely-read capitalist press carefully moulds the workers’ minds, and the result is that educational work in the trade unions is carried on under difficulties. Little of this Socialist work is now being attempted, however.

“The Socialist Party of America,” formed 24 years ago, has rapidly declined in numbers. Boasting over 100,000 members in 1916, it has to-day not more than 20,000. More than two-thirds of their members were expelled in 1919, and since that date the “Socialist Party” has become so opportunist and reformist that they promoted a Labour Party and joined in conferences of the Committee for Progressive Political Action, whose object is to decide which capitalist politician is most suitable to vote for. Even with all their vote-catching and time-serving methods, their numbers have disappointed them so sadly that quite a number have joined more popular bodies where jobs and notoriety are quicker.

The Socialist Labour Party.

The oldest party in U.S.A. claiming to be Socialist is the Socialist Labour Party. Once very active and advancing, it rapidly declined when it promoted Industrial Unionism. The I.W.W. was formed by S.L.P. efforts on the theory that only economic unity can make political unity. The economic organisation, however, caused immediate conflict in the political party. The theory that only an economic body can “take and hold” the means of production which the S.L.P. laid down, resulted in the I.W.W. being anti-political. Wm. Haywood and a majority of the I.W.W. soon repudiated all ideas of political unity, and the S.L.P. minority formed a new I.W.W. which later changed its name to the Workers’ International Industrial Union. This body still insisted that economic action alone could make the workers victorious. The result was that the. S.L.P. dwindled, until to-day it is a shadow of its former self. The W.I.I.U. refused continually to endorse the political party (the S.L.P.).

The economic organisation of men of all parties and all ideas instead of making for political unity with the S.L.P. caused the S.L.P. members in the union to fraternise with political opponents such as the S. P. of A. The S.L.P. was soon, therefore, driven to expel many of their oldest members, such as Herman Richter, Rudolph Katz, etc. The disbanding of the W.I.I.U., reported elsewhere in this issue, admits all that our party has said in criticism of the S.L.P. But the confusing ideas about the relative value of political and industrial action still exists in the minds of the S.L.P. members, and therefore a correct understanding of the class struggle is still lacking.

The Industrial Workers of the World.

The I.W.W. to-day is but a fraction compared to the 100,000 they once claimed. Although supposed to be revolutionary, it has been compelled to enrol any worker, irrespective of his views. Functioning to-day as a trade union, it is organised for the every-day struggle about wages and hours. Their chief cry is organisation. “Organise on the job” they say, for better conditions. Their war-cry of the General Strike has long been absent from their literature and their official organ, “The Industrial Worker” (September 29, 1919) published the following farewell to their General Strike battle-cry :—

  “It must be apparent to anyone who has given any thought to the matter that a social general strike as the culminating point in the revolution will fail if it ever happens. . . The workers must organise, not so much for a strike, as for carrying on production and distribution, after capitalism has been overthrown. The trouble perhaps with those who formulated the general strike theory, is that they could not free themselves from the dogma that capitalism was to be overthrown by establishing a tremendous picket line around the industries. They rejected craft unionism but couldn’t lose its methods.”

This was written after large numbers of Haywood’s pamphlet on the “General Strike” had been circulated by the I.W.W. This pamphlet has been withdrawn now that they have given up the General Strike idea. Sabotage, which they formerly advocated (see Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s “Sabotage”), they have now publicly repudiated. Their papers and lectures largely consist of appeals for help in defence funds which have become almost an industry in America. Their past reputation for “Smashing the ballot box with an axe” and their spasmodic strikes have resulted in many prosecutions for “Criminal Syndicalism.” The attacks upon the trade union activity of the I.W.W. simply shows the brutality and power of the ruling class in America. The bloody attacks upon American Federation of Labour strikers in West Virginia coalfields and in the steel areas shows that even “respectable” unions are crushed in blood once they resist the employers’ attacks on wages. The I.W.W. to-day is confined to limited areas where the American Federation of Labour is weak. The attacks upon them from the outside and the deliberate Communist effort to break it from within have left the organisation but a few thousand members. Nearly all the prominent men from W. Haywood to G. Hardy have gone into politics and secured jobs from the Communists. The Moscow International once declared its admiration and support of the I.W.W., but later decided that “One Big Unions” are to be opposed and workers should go back to the ordinary labour unions. Hence the disruptive tactics of the Communists in the I.W.W.

The Communist Party of America.

This party was formed by foreign language federations who were expelled from the Socialist Party of America. Largely of Russian and allied nationality, they soon showed their 100 per cent. Bolshevism by issuing a programme similar to that the Bolsheviks issued under completely different conditions. In a country where the outlook of the workers is conservative and where the elementary work of preaching Socialism remains to be done, the International Secretary of the Communists, Louis Fraina, explained the Communist idea thus :

  “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 the 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.” (Revolutionary Socialism).

The Communist Party refused to take any part in the first elections after they were formed, regarding them as a delusion. Their manifesto advocating armed force and minority action resulted in suppression by the Government. Through adopting such a programme they drove themselves underground into a secret society in which police spies played an active part. The Communists thought the revolution was just around the corner, and they foolishly announced (The Communist, No. 16) : “The day of theorising on the necessity of the revolution is past,” and they went on to preach the rule of the few in the organ of the United Communist Party thus :

  “Furthermore, it is impossible to reach and convert the great mass of the workers. Their minds are controlled by the corrupt capitalist press ; their education takes place primarily in capitalist institutions; the capitalist State has the power to close the doors of any proletarian school. This precludes the possibility of reaching and turning to Communism the mass of the workers. (Communist No. 16.)

“The Workers’ Party of America.”

When Moscow decided for legal parties, the Communists emerged into daylight and rapidly changed from a party advocating a “revolutionary upsurge” to the most reformist and opportunist party ever calling itself Communist. They decided soon to disband the Communist Party and form themselves into a vote-catching body called The Workers’ Party. The decisions of the Third International for a “United Front” of all parties and a reform programme resulted in the “minority mass-actionists” putting up candidates like Rose Pastor Stokes with demands like these:

1. Emergency legislation to combat and stop the reduction of wages.
2. Emergency legislation for the relief and amelioration of the condition of the unemployed.

Under instructions from Moscow International their members went into the unions to oust the old leaders. In this work they bargained for positions and supported reactionaries in return for support of their candidatures in the union. The Daily Worker (April 12th, 1924), their official paper, contains some revelations of their class struggle activities on the side of the capitalists. In Michigan their members are prominent in the American Federation of Labour, and have been active in support of Republican and Democratic politicians. This has gone so far that, when told by the Executive of the Workers’ Party to start a Farmer-Labour Party, their members and District Executive, anxious to “keep in” with their fellow office-holders in the A.F. of L., answered they could not fight the candidature of Baker, Republican Candidate for Governor, whom they had previously supported :

  “A decision to fight his candidacy would involve us in a fight with the trade union leaders. But regardless of our possible decision to make this candidacy an issue later on, it is the opinion of the minority that nothing should be done now to provoke a fight.” (Daily Worker, April 12th, 1924).

The party still continues its downward course. They entered the Farmer-Labour Conference at St. Paul (June 17th, 1924), where it was expected that Senator La Follette, Republican, would be nominated for the Presidency of U.S.A.

The Workers’ Party Executive defend their action in the Daily Worker (April 12th, 1924), where the spokesman for the majority of the E.C. produced this reactionary statement: “This step of supporting the candidates of a petty bourgeois liberal Third Party, under the conditions laid down in the thesis of the Central Committee, is a correct one.”

This party of political gymnasts, it is only necessary to add, is affiliated to the Third International !

The Proletarian Party.

Elements of the Socialist Party which differed with the reform and opportunism of the Socialist Party of America formed the Proletarian Party, after the Russian Federations rejected their programme for the Communist Party at the inaugural conference.

The Proletarian Party accepts the Statutes and Thesis of the Third International, and “unreservedly endorses” the twenty-one points of admission. They claim to be Marxians, and conduct many study classes in economics, but their attempt to be Bolsheviks of the Third International and Marxians at the same time involves them in a good deal of confusion. The “united front” policy led them to send delegates to the Farmer-Labour Conference at Chicago, and the Theses of the Moscow International on reforms or immediate demands makes them hesitant about adopting a revolutionary attitude. Their delegate to the Third Congress at Moscow was expelled recently from the Proletarian Party for supporting capitalist candidates, but only after this had been going on for years and had been brought to a head by protests of new members.

The Socialist Educational Societies.

Amidst this confusion and ignorance under the iron heel in America there are signs of promise in the growing study of Marx’s writings. Workers in the U.S.A., as a result of study of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, have seen the necessity of carrying on systematic Socialist education. In New York City and in Detroit there are bodies of students of Marx who, by conducting open-air meetings, study classes, and the spreading of sound literature, have earned themselves a wide reputation in the U.S.A., to say nothing of undying hatred by those who thrive upon the ignorance of the workers. The work of propaganda in America is hard. The abysmal ignorance of labour, the power of wealth, the poison of the Press, and the rise of mob law fostered by such millionaire-ruled bodies like the Ku-Klux-Klan, are some of the forces against us. And with the increasing number of so-called labour bodies like the Farmer-Labour Party and the Workers’ Party, our work is doubly hard.

Adolph Kohn

American Reformists in Difficulties (1934)

From the April 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The Socialist Party of America, among many similar organisations, has on numerous occasions acted in the capacity of a “case history” for the scientific Socialist. It has provided an abundance of evidence to support the Socialist contention that a membership which is ignorant of the basic principles of Socialism can never hope to build up an organisation which has as its object the capture of political power, and its use to abolish capitalism and establish Socialism. Such a membership can at best be used for the capture of political power in order to introduce certain reforms, which, in due course prove themselves futile to solve the basic problems which perpetually confront our class. Such an organisation, whilst it can be most active, cannot, because of its membership's political ignorance, go any further in its objectives than the object of its members without undermining the loyalty of such members.

The above contentions are illustrated by an item which appeared in The New Leader, organ of the Socialist Party of America, of December 16th, 1933, under the caption “ Party Standing Imperilled in California," with also a sub-caption, "Desertion by Sinclair, and Communist Manoeuvres cause Confusion in Party." The writer of this news item, a New Leader correspondent, opens his article as follows:—

   “With the election of Hyman Sheanin as State Secretary of the Socialist Party to succeed Harold Ashe, removed by the State Executive Committee because of recently acquired Communist views, and the desertion of the Party by Upton Sinclair to seek the Democratic nomination for Governor, the Socialist Party in this State faces a new situation. Because of 'united front’ manoeuvres by Communists and their sympathisers within the party, quite a number of party branches have been more or less divided, some verging on disruption.”

This situation is by no means a “new" one in the Socialist Party of America. On several occasions the organisation has been split from top to bottom. Evidence for this can be found in plenty by the student of that party's history. One need only read the work of a Socialist Party member, Nathan Fine, entitled “The Labour and Farmer Parties in the United States, 1828-1928," for such evidence.

The interesting part of the aforementioned article is the attempt to explain the cause of this new division in the ranks of the Socialist Party of America. From the sub-caption it would seem that only two factors, the desertion of Upton Sinclair and the Communist manoeuvres, were responsible. The writer even stresses the latter cause, the "Communist manoeuvres":—

   “ . . . This appears to be the result of plotting by Communists, and it has had its effect upon some members who joined the Party in the last several years. These unschooled members have fallen victims to certain fears which include apprehension that a complete collapse of capitalism is just around the corner, that the Fascists are going to get us soon, and that our only salvation is unity of action with the handful of Communists who are active in California. The psychology is for all the world like those party members who in 1919 flocked to the party faction that was coming under the control of Moscow and which was soon talking of 'Johnny get your gun'. (Italics mine.)

These “unschooled members’’ are not altogether to be blamed for their muddled condition. For, in examining the files of the party organ, The New Leader, we find that influential members whom we are to assume are “schooled“ have subscribed to these self-same views. If "the “unschooled” and newer members were guilty of believing that capitalism is collapsing, so too, were much older members who have had plenty of “schooling.” An example of this belief by one of the older members is the following:

  “Four years of industrial chaos, bottomless misery and general despair under Republican administration have amply demonstrated the pitiable incapacity of the ruling classes to prevent a catastrophic collapse of their much-boasted economic order." (Italics mine.) Morris Hillquit, in the “New Deal,” November, 1933.

In the same paper, Norman Thomas, standard-bearer of the party for the office of President of the United States, says the following on the menace of Fascism in this country:—

  “Moreover, a vote for Socialism this year is a vote against the danger of turning the opportunities which exist under the N.R.A. into a drift toward a Fascist society . . .” (Italics mine.)

Only a week or so back, this organisation called a mass meeting in New York’s famous Madison Square Garden, to demonstrate against Fascism in Austria, which ended in both the Socialist Party of America and the Communists demonstrating against each other, with the Secretary of the Communist Party having a chair broken over his head.

Is it to be wondered at, then, that members of this party, with their views on leadership and their hero worship for the two above-mentioned leaders, should take these leaders’ views seriously? To these misinformed workers the great stir and stew of the Communists over these questions passes as action, intelligent and revolutionary action, and attracts them.

Once again, too, is the theory of leadership, so dear to Socialist Party of America members, tried and found wanting. Once again after many years of activity in this party, during which time he has enjoyed the admiration and adulation of the membership, Upton Sinclair, the leader, deserts his admirers to join an avowedly capitalist party. His name is added to the already long list of “leaders" who have deserted the Socialist Party of America for more profitable fields of endeavour. Sinclair, in California, joins Paul Blanshard in New York. Both will do their best to put over Roosevelt's “New Deal." Once again, too, does the party cover its shame by a posthumous discovery that what they have lost is no loss at all. We are informed by the correspondent already quoted: —

  “The treachery of Sinclair is quite as damaging, as he also has had an effect upon some unschooled members. Sinclair had formerly posed as a left winger, especially in matters relating to Stalin and his fellow commissars. His seeking of the Democratic nomination for Governor has revealed how shallow his political and economic thinking has always been." (Italics mine.)

We are almost tempted to say “sour grapes" ! Not alone is it bad enough that this “comrade," who was torn between Stalin, Norman Thomas and Roosevelt, should finally turn to the last-named leader, but what is much worse, he takes with him others of the Socialist Party, who are, in turn, tom between their devotion to that party and Upton Sinclair. For we are informed:—

  “The result is that we lose some uninformed members who follow Sinclair, while others come under Communist influence.”

After the correspondent has stated what he thinks are the factors responsible for this split in the party's ranks, he then gives the real due to understanding this condition:—

  “Old time comrades who have watched this development have come to the conclusion that the Party has been too careless in admitting people to membership who know little or nothing of Socialist principles. The well-informed younger comrades agree with this point of view. The Party has also been too tolerant and has not exercised that discipline that is necessary to build a growing working-class party.”

Here, then, is the kernel and cause of this and past splits in all such organisations. The scientific Socialist and his party have not paid mere lip service to this view but have seen to it that all who apply for membership in their ranks shall understand and accept at least the Declaration of Principles of Socialism. As is so well stated in the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s little pamphlet, “Socialism and Religion ” : —

  “Hence the test of admission to the Socialist Patty must be neither more nor less than acceptance of the essential working principles and policy of Socialism as a class movement. To demand more is to degenerate into a sect; to require less is to invite anarchy and embark on the slippery incline of labourism and compromise. These essentials of Socialist principles and policy are outlined in the Declaration of Principles of the Socialist Party (of Great Britain). They can be easily understood by the average worker, and they comprise the irreducible minima of the principles and policy of Socialism; narrow enough to exclude all who are not Socialists, yet broad enough to embrace everyone who is. They form, in consequence, a reasonable and sufficient test. . .”

Because the Socialist Party of America, like its kindred parties the whole world over, ignored the above essentials for membership, its history is full of crises when ignorance and confusion have led—as is inevitable—to schism.

It is most doubtful if they have even learned from their recent experiences. For the correspondent whom we have quoted ends his article with the following:—

  “The betrayal of the Party by Sinclair may prove a terrific blow. The Socialist Party vote may be such that it will lose its official standing. In that case the enormous number of signatures required to get on the ballot will make it almost impossible for the Party to nominate candidates. The peril the Party faces as a result of Sinclair’s action is recognised by every real Socialist, and the utmost will be done to avert it.”

Here is the usual plea of the vote-catcher for still more vote-catching when he sees that the votes are turning elsewhere.

Those who place an intelligent membership before a large but politically inexperienced one see in this further proof that the Socialist Party of America is not a Socialist party. For the workers who support it the future can hold nothing but disappointment, and often despair.

To those workers in the United States who seek the only solution to their problems, Socialism, we of the Workers' Socialist Party open our ranks. We have the one thing worth having, an organisation devoted to the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism.

Sid Felperin.

Workers' Socialist Party

Outlook For Socialism In America. (1919)

From the December 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since last writing these notes three conventions have been held in Chicago (Sept. 1-7), and the dyed-in-the-wool social reformers and opportunists have remained in the Socialist Party of America. The great bulk of the delegates, however, formed the Communist Party. This is composed to the extent of about 75 per cent. of foreign-speaking federations, Russians predominating. They adopted a program and manifesto slavishly imitating that of the Moscow Bolshevist Conference in 1919. It is based on the idea that capitalism has collapsed and that now we are in a revolutionary crisis. Mass Action is therefore advocated, and it means the spontaneous instinctive rising of workers, organised or not. It is insurrection doomed to failure. The platform also stands for Industrial Unionism without specifying any organisation supporting it. Educating the workers in Socialism is ignored, and we are told "now is the time for action." The program and manifesto are written in a language all their own, and as far as the average worker is concerned it might as well be written in ancient Greek.

The "left wing" element split, part going with the Russians and forming the Communist Party, another part joining together under the name of the Communist Labor Party, whose strength is mostly drawn from the West. This party contains confusion enough for a dozen parties—reformers and Bolsheviks side by side with avowed I.W.W.s and Nationalists. The leading spirits are Jim Larkin, the supporter of a Labour Party for America, Jack Carney, late of the London Daily Herald League, John Reed, the Bolshevik envoy who never acted, Max Eastman, pacifist and dilettante utopian. Later these two parties may unite, as both of them are but echoes of the Bolshevik movement, however little they understand its significance. The Communist Labor Party endorses the I.W.W. and is Syndicalist in tendency.

The combined activity of these two parties is having little more effect than causing police raids and arrests, and making it harder to hold meetings and conduct educational work.

Apart from these groups there is growing, slowly but surely, a number of groups throughout the country holding to the Marxian position. Study of the classics of Socialism combined with reading the Socialist Standard and the work of those who have been connected with the Socialist Party of Great Britain, are large factors in the Marxian movement here. The "Proletarian," a monthly of Detroit, promoted by the Proletarian University, has been doing good work, but some of the elements associated with it are not yet fully conscious of the correct policy for the workers. The delegates of the Michigan State worked together with Russian Federations to organise the Communist Party, but found themselves in a hopeless minority. Michigan's platform and policy drawn up specially for presentation as the basis of the new party was superior to that of the Russians, which was adopted. The Michigan platform, however, was a mixture of excerpts from Bolshevik manifestoes, Industrial Unionism, etc., which fitted in strangely with the Marxian ideas also inserted. These confusing ideas were a concession to the Russians and the Mass Action element of Louis Fraina and his satellites. If the Michigan delegates had kept to the former and fairly clear position long since conciated with the "Proletarian" the chances for a new party here would be brighter.

The Socialist Party of the United States was formed in 1916 in Detroit from a group of comrades who seceded from the Socialist Party of America together with some members of the Socialist Party of Canada and the Socialist Party of North America. They afterwards took the name of the Worker's Socialist Party of U.S. They promoted lectures and study classes, and conducted much educational work, but lack of preparation outside the motor city hampered their activities, and the entry of America into the war drove the most active workers to distant parts of this and other lands doing "war" work.

When the Michigan State of the S.P. of A. showed signs of becoming Socialist and was expelled, many of the remaining members joined the expelled S.P. and looked forward to seeing a real party at last! Proletarian or Marxian clubs have been formed in New York City, Cleveland, Portland (Oregon), and San Francisco, and intensive educational work is going on which may result soon in the secession of the Marxian minority element from the Communists and their linking up with others in the building of a Socialist Party on sound lines. At present persistent criticism and education of the best elements is the road ahead.

Great strikes are the order of the day here as elsewhere. Judge Gary, the head of the Steel Trust, has driven the steel workers to strike and refuses to allow them to organise or arbitrate. These are the men who worked night and day to make the steel to win the war. The strike is gradually dying under the influence of armed force and hunger. This is a A.F. of L. strike as the steel workers have only just been organised and the organiser of the strike is a Syndicalist, William Z. Foster.

The Workers' International Industrial Union is progressing—backwards. It adopted a resolution, demanding Irish self-government, which is full of national sentiment, and another resolution advocating steps being taken to secure unity between the W.I.I.U. and the I.W.W. Such is the clarity of our De Leonites !

William D. Haywood has been released on bail from prison pending an appeal to the Supreme Court. He at once gave the Associated Press the following statement (July 28, 1919):

This is strictly in line with their tactics at the trial, when they tried to show their loyalty by producing soldier members as witnesses.

The Non-Partisan League in the North West is growing amongst the farmers and so-called Radicals. Many prominent S.P. men have joined it to get the pickings in the way of fat jobs. Arthur LeSueur and Walter Thos. Mills are two ex-members of the S.P. Executive who have secured plums and are touring for the league in the two Dakotas, Montana, etc. This body promotes reform agitation of an agrarian kind, especially amongst the farmers and their slaves. It has a program of capitalist reforms, and owing to pacifist and Syndicalist tendencies it has many supporters among the I.W.W. and so-called Socialists. It has many members elected to State legislatures.

The present position of the S.L.P. of A. reminds one of Huxley's picture of the prospects of the Catholic Church, once so fair, now facing disaster. The lowest ebb that has ever been reached in its career was recorded recently when practically all its prominent members sailed out into other fields. Edmund Seidel, the Editor of the "Weekly People," was expelled and is now the candidate for New York for the rotten S.P. of A. Rudolph Katz, author of "With De Leon since '91," and an official of the I.W.W, was expelled after nearly 30 years in the S.L.P. Like Siedel he began to flirt with the S.P. as he thoughtlessly imitated, the unity craze of the S.L.P. The Presidential Candidate of the S.L.P. at the last election (1916), Arthur E. Reimer, resigned as he thought the war might have a democratic tinge and he no longer believed Industrial Unionism was essential. The Vice-Presidential candidate, Caleb Harrison, was expelled, and the Chicago Local were expelled because they would not expel Harrison —Harrison was a delegate to the spurious Communist Labour Party. The Philadelphia Local was dissolved, also New York City, and had to be re-organised as Industrial Unionism mixed up with Socialism causes gymnastics and ideas fruitful of confusion.

Not satisfied with repeating De Leon's nonsense about religion being a private matter against Marx's idea that it was the "opium of the people," the S.L.P. and the W.I.I.U. are discovering fresh "facts." Verily, as Marx says in the "Eighteenth Brumaire," man makes history, at least, the S.L.P. man does, and makes his facts as he goes along. The "First of May Magazine," issued by the W.I.I.U., tells us in an article on Marxism and De Leonism:

"Great as the achievement of the system of Marx is, it nevertheless contains a serious flaw or defect, which if left unnoticed would have caused considerable disorder and chaos in the ranks of the working class. In fact, it already in the past was a great source of mischief and confusion, and would have inevitably led the movement into disaster, if not in time noticed and rectified by the great American thinker, Daniel de Leon. De Leon has supplemented, or rather complemented Marxism; he has, so to speak, re-enforced this wonderful theoretic structure."

And later we are told :

  "It is the HOW of the revolution, the HOW of the transformation, the HOW of the collapse of Capitalism that Marx fails to supply an adequate answer to and the solution of which we are indebted to De Leon."

Such is the dementia produced by Industrial Unionism. Previously they used to argue that Marx supported Industrial Unionism, and they invented imaginary conversations Marx "had" with imaginary people in the land of Nod, to prove their point. But they now find Marx was wrong—only a De Leon could discover the "value" of organising a revolutionary union without revolutionists to take and hold that which the armed forces will keep from them.

Truly the S.L.P. and W.I.I.U. are for weakly people.

Adolph Kohn

On Illegal Organisations. (1921)

From the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the July issue reasons were given for our opposition to the Communist Party. Among other things, the opinions were expressed that "it is impossible to organise the working class secretly," and that, with the possible exception of politically and economically backward countries, no necessity for illegal methods of propaganda exists, and no useful purpose is served by devoting energy to them.

America provides interesting confirmation of the inevitable failure of the illegal organisation. In that country a serious attempt was made to apply the Moscow policy, and it was in fact the, boast of the American Communists that "the United States is the only country in the world where the Communist movement, as such, is an underground movement."

In the October Liberator (New York), Max Eastman, himself a supporter of the Third International, examines the present deplorable condition of the American Communist Party, and endeavours to explain it. His appreciation of the result of their work is this: "Two years have passed (since the secession from the Socialist Party), and except for the deepening and confirming of that split, nothing of appreciable value to the cause of Communism has been done by the Revolutionists. A good deal has been done to the detriment of the cause." This is all the more striking because the conditions considered, favourable to Communist propaganda have been present to a degree perhaps never previously known. "In spite of an 'increasing misery' that surpasses the demands of any theory, the workers in America seem to be less friendly to Communism than they were two years ago."

The mistake lay in the acceptance of the fallacy that capitalism had broken down beyond hope of recovery, and the supposition that the form of activity dictated by the semi-Feudal Russian autocracy must have application to the capitalist democracies. The first simply is not true, and the experience has again proved the falseness of the second.

There never was any necessity for propaganda to be illegal in America, any more than in this country. "It is not so much the ruthlessness of the American capitalists as the romanticism of the American Communists which accounts for their being underground. The majority of the leaders want to be underground. They enjoy disciplining the devotees of a rebellion, but educating the workers for the revolution is a less interesting task, and they are not fulfilling it."

The Communists "formed an elaborate conspiratorial organisation excellently adapted to promote treasonable and seditious enterprises, although they have no such enterprises on foot"; yet when subjected to police persecution for their activities they, like the Communists over here, are forced into the position of using the ordinary legal machinery for their protection. "The folly of this policy becomes tragically apparent when members of this underground organisation defend themselves in Court with the eloquent and perfectly truthful assertion that the propaganda they are conducting is not in violation of the laws." It becomes still more tragically apparent when they resort to the distribution of circulars advocating methods of terrorism—for the mere purpose, so far as we can judge, of sustaining and justifying the illegality of their organisation." This degeneration into the futility of sabotage has always been the fate of those who have never been nearer to an appreciation of the class struggle than that of throwing broken bottles at policemen.

Their failure is that they will not recognise the realities of the present situation, and the attitude of the workers towards capitalist institutions.

The capitalist class is, and will remain, in power until such time as the class conscious organised workers are strong enough to wrest that power from them. That power depends on the support of the great mass of the workers, unthinking though that support may be. Capitalist domination will not be overthrown because some relatively weak organisation declares its preparedness to defy constitutionalism, and to damn the consequences. It is a question not of intention, but of effectiveness, and the object of the revolutionary organisation is to strengthen itself until it is a force which cannot be ignored or suppressed. This means neither more nor less than the spreading of the knowledge of Socialism— the unexciting task of making Socialists. The Bolsheviks came to power in Russia because, for the objects they had in view, they had the mass of workers, peasants, and soldiers behind them. Those supporters were not Socialists, and those objects were not Socialism; but the position elsewhere with regard to the needs of the Socialist revolution is the same. The workers of America and Britain have not yet the requisite knowledge of, and sympathy with, Socialism ; in short they do not want it.

The Communist Party therefore, in its insurrectionary attitude to the American Government, alienates those very people for whose ears its propaganda is intended. In the eyes of the average worker the Government which he elects represents his interests, as its proclamations do actually mirror his opinions. It is a fact, and not a surprising one, that the average unthinking worker believes that the existing machinery of Government does give expression to the will of the people. What, then, is he to think of those who deliberately set themselves against what appears to him as the forces of law and order?

It would not matter so much if the Communists bore the burden of their own mistakes ; but the harm they do is much wider than that. They provide the Government with the excuse it desires for repressive legislation such as at ordinary times it would be difficult to introduce; and this legislation is used against every revolutionary propaganda body. They provide the openly capitalist political parties, and more particularly the reactionary "Labour" parties, with easy material for their attempts to discredit Socialism. They confuse, without educating, those workers who are reached by their propaganda, and antagonise the much larger number who hear only the misrepresentation to which it so readily lends itself.

It is a slow and difficult task to remove from the mind of the typical wage earner the pathetic belief in the inevitability of his sufferings, and in the permanency of political institutions and economic forms of society; but there is only one way, the educational way, and to think of challenging those who are now in control, before this educational work has been accomplished, is mere foolishness.

Knowledge of the evolution of human society, and of the origin and development of existing political institutions on the one hand, and knowledge of the present economic structures which makes possible the exploitation of the workers, an exploitation not superficially observable, are the necessary forerunners of successful organisation for the emancipation of the workers. Spectacular defiance of the powers that be has no place in this scheme of things.

P. J. L.

For the record (1965)

From the December 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

The record of the twists and turns of the so-called communist parties throughout the world are well-known to those who bother to study working-class political history. In view of the prominence currently given to the colour problem both here and in America it will be useful to recall one incident in the history of the American party. It is taken from a review in the Weekly People (September 13th, 1958) of New York of The American Communist Party: A Critical History (1919-1957) by Irving Howe and Lewis Coser.

In the 1930's the American party went all out to get Negro support using as a bait the fantastic demand for “self-determination in the Black Belt”

  “World War II changed also this. In September of 1941, Benjamin Davis, soon to become a prominent Negro Communist, wrote that The CP is disturbed by the increasing struggle of Negroes for jobs in defence plants.’ (Authors' italics). The CP dissolved its Southern branches (those that did not exist solely on paper) during the war in order to mollify the Southern wing of the Democratic Party by showing its zeal to help prosecute the war with no ‘dissension’ in the South.
   “Another bit of CP history from the mass of material presented by Coser and Howe deserves to be included here. The authors describe it as ‘one of those peculiarly symptomatic incidents that reveal more than any number of party documents.’ In 1945, four Negro WAC's at Fort Devens discovered a group of wounded Negro soldiers who had been left unattended. When they complained to the camp authorities, the Army’s answer was a court-martial!
  “The protests from all sides were so vigorous that the Army reversed its decision. This reversal, which brought some satisfaction to those with normal feelings of good will and a sense of fair play, brought only pain to Ben Davis. In the Daily Worker of April 8th, 1945, the official organ of the CP., he reprimanded the WAC’s for disturbing the Communist hoped-for serenity of the domestic scene.
  “The US general staff has on many occasions . . . proved that they deserve their full confidence of the Negro people . . . We cannot temporarily stop the war until all questions of discrimination are ironed out.’”

The Acid Test of History (1930)

From the January 1930 issue of The Socialist

The old adage, “The course of true love ne’er runs smooth," may be well applied to the course of the “History of the Communist Movement in America." We are prompted to this conclusion after attending a lecture on the above subject, given by the National Secretary of the Proletarian Party on. Nov. 30, 1929. We heard a lengthy discourse dealing with the formation of the Communist Party of America, and the various intrigues on the part of different groups in their efforts to gain control of that organination. Of small interest to us is the claim made by the Proletarian Party to being the "real communist movement" in America. Seeing that they receive no recognition from the Third International, we cannot see how they substantiate this. Of more importance to us is their claim to being a Marxian organization equipped with an almost complete monopoly of Marxism. It is on this point that we base our criticism.

We have endeavored to obtain a definite program or declaration of principles by them but have failed to find anything of the sort in their official organ, “The Proletarian.” We are therefore compelled to look mainly to the verbal utterances of their speakers. The nearest we can arrive at anything resembling a program is a series of statements made by their National Secretary at the afore' mentioned lecture. He pointed out that the Proletarian Party stands for “Dictatorship of the Proletariat," the setting up by armed insurrection of some sort of “Workers’ Government;" also that they “realize the limitations of Parliamentary action." Being anxious to know, we questioned their speaker as to what these limitations consisted of. In reply, he premised an imaginary condition that a substantial majority of the working class having become conscious of the need for taking over the means of wealth production, and establishing Socialism, express their desires by the vote, and are met with resistance by the capitalist class in the form of military force. Therefore the workers will be compelled to organize a counter military force to enforce their desires. For proof of this their speaker asserted that the Army and Navy are officered by bourgeois and therefore would be used by the capitalist class against the working class.

Had our ultra-Marxists of the Proletarian Party an understanding of the basic principle of Socialism, the Materialistic Conception of History, as they claim to have, they would realize that, the economic conditions of capitalism having evolved to a point at which a substantial majority of the working class have reached an understanding of Socialism, the Army and Navy forces would also be imbued with the same ideology as the civil population, since the immense majority of those forces including the officers are members of the working class. They would be poor material for the capitalists to rely upon to prevent the intelligent working class from asserting its will. However, the working class has not as yet voted for Socialism; until it does we cannot formulate any utopian detailed plans for dealing with an imaginary condition in the future.

We were further told that the Communist Party in Russia is carrying toward completion, and in the same spirit, the movement begun by the Paris Commune in 1871. Both the Communist Party of America and the Proletarian Party in making this claim are either ignorant of the conditions obtaining in Paris during the few short months of the Commune, or they are deliberately distorting the facts concerning conditions existing in Soviet Russia which is a resort to the old time method of all political forces of reaction.

As far back as 1920 we find this quotation in an article, “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat," by N. Bucharin, published in the “Workers Dreadnought" (April 12, 1920).

   “Nevertheless we do not for a moment deny that our apparatus is rigidly centralized; that our policy towards the bourgeoisie and towards the parties of the compromising Socialists is repressive in character; that the organization of our own party, as a ruling party which exercises a dictatorship through the Soviets, is of a 'Militarist type.’ “

This is a direct negation of the claim made by the official and unofficial communists of America, that the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat" in Russia represents control by the masses. It is the position maintained by the Blanquists prior to the Paris Commune, and which they were compelled to abandon and act directly contrary to, during the tenure of the Commune. In the introduction to the “The Civil War in France,” (S. L. P. ed.) Engels points out that:

   “The members of the Commune were divided into a majority of Blanquists, who had also predominated in the central committee of the National Guard, and a minority, which consisted for the most part of members of the International Working Men‘s Association, who were adherents of the Proudhonian school of Socialism."

Engels then goes on to show how both the Blanquists and Proudhonists did the very reverse of which their schools advocated, thus:

  "The Blanquists fared no better. Brought up in the school of conspiracy, held together by the rigid discipline essential to it, they started from the conception that a comparatively small number of resolute, well organized men would be able not only to grasp the helm of State at a favorable moment, but also, through the display of great energy, and reckless daring, to hold it as long as required, that is, until they had succeeded in carrying the masses of the people into the revolutionary current and ranging them around the small leading band. To accomplish this, what was necessary, above all else, was the most stringent, dictatorial centralization of all powers in the hands of the new revolutionary government. And what did the Commune do, which in the majority consisted of these very Blanquists? In all its proclamations to the French people in the provinces, it called upon them for a free federation of all French communes with Paris for a national organization, which for the first time was to be the real creation of the nation. The army, the political police, the bureaucracy, all those agencies of oppression in a centralized government, which Napoleon had created in 1798, and which since then every new government had gladly used and kept up as ready weapons against its enemies, were to be abolished everywhere, as they had been abolished in Paris.”

To compare the above condition existing during the Paris Commune, to that existing in Russia, one would have to be a wish thinker like the members of the official Communist Party of America and the unofficial “real" communists of the Proletarian Party. The Red Army has not been abolished, neither has the bureaucracy nor the political police. Witness the rise of the Opposition groups and the wholesale expulsion and exile of many of those prominent early in the Russian Revolution. Is this analogous to the Paris Commune?

Again let us look at Paris during the Commune, to see the attitude of the Communards towards parliamentary action and the value of the vote. According to Engels the Commune "filled all positions of administration, justice, and instruction, through election by universal suffrage, the elected being at all times subject to recall by their constituents" (op. cit.), a system which our “communist" friends would mistake for bourgeois democracy. Engels' concept of the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” is also expressed in the conclusion to the same work, page 20, “ . . . look at the Paris Commune. That was the dictatorship of the proletariat.” The conditions existing in Russia bear little resemblance to those obtaining in Paris during the Commune. Neither, for that matter, do they resemble the conditions in America, England or any other developed capitalist countries. In Russia, where primitive peasant agriculture prevails, the institution of Socialism is at present an impossibility, because there is lacking the highly developed productive forces and the enlightened proletarian majority, both of which axe necessary for that purpose. Where matured capitalism exists and where the workers are therefore the majority of the population, they can achieve their emancipation as soon as they understand what Socialism is and desire it, and they will effect this by the simplest, and in fact, the only means available—the democratic conquest of the political forces of society—at present used for their subjection.

“He who tells the people revolutionary legends, he who amuses them with sensational stories, is as criminal as the geographer who would draw up false charts for navigators.” (Lissagaray, preface to History of the Commune.) 

Alf.

Socialist Educational Society