There are more bogus socialist organizations around today than you can shake a stick at. To begin with: the traditional long-established, reformer-type so-called socialist is still with us, although not nearly so vocal or numerous as in former days. That era when the Socialist Party of America and the Communist Party U.S.A. could run national tickets, calling for radical reform of capitalism and receive relatively good press and media coverage, is all but gone. They certainly sowed a great crop of confusion in their times. But the case for what they imagine socialism to be was clear-cut. It was either a desire to operate basic industry in the manner of the British Labour Party and, for that matter, of the British Tories, through nationalization, or to emulate the system in the Soviet Union — also nationalization, but with a one-party oligarchy styled the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Yes, the false image of socialism in operation sown by America's social democrats and bolsheviks—as well as the entire bourgeois media—is still the order of the day.
But much confusion on tactics and organisation has been added by other organisations that have either become greatly activated and more widely-known than they once were, or have sprung up rather suddenly. On the one hand there is the tendency to merge more disreputable bolshevik-type tactics of the past with the more respectable variety of so-called socialist program; to present a more traditional type of campaign. On the other hand, there are the more flamboyant sort of phoney socialists who magnify the bolshevik psychology of tabloid-journalism together with frequent attacks on the principle of freedom-of-speech by disruption of public meetings. And there is also the hit-and-run commando and kidnap tactic of the guerrilla fighter. Because the unusual is what constitutes news, the gatherers and disseminators of news are the unpaid press agents of all of these phoney socialists. They provide the sort of publicity that genuine socialists can never get.
The main problem in building a mass movement for a new social order is the need for conscious understanding of socialism and what it entails by those who support such a movement. The mere fact that tabloid-style sensationalism in radical journalism exists is no indication that the mass of workers are ready to accept socialism. But let’s organize them, anyway, argue the phonies The mere fact of commando and sharp-shooter tactics in the so-called revolutionary movement signifies widespread political reaction. Whether right wing or left wing in ideology is of no real consequence. Let’s not talk about taking the means of production and distribution from the capitalists and vesting them in society as a whole, say the bogus socialists. Let’s just compel individual capitalists to organise free-food programs for a section of the working class who can qualify as poor.
How, then, does one go about spotting a bogus socialist? Whether the old-style confusionist of the social democratic or the Communist variety; the new-style merger of those two tendencies; the loud and active advocate of scare-type organisation against individual capitalists; or the left-wing commandos whose bag of tricks consists of kidnap, ransom and extortion; them is a common thread that runs through all of them. They all see socialism as a continuation of the system of production for sale on the market; for wage-labor; for capital; for buying and selling; all vested in a state rather than in individual capitalists. And until the present basis of production is abolished and productlon-for-use only introduced, it makes little difference how the various bogus socialists organize their tactics. They may even be successful in driving the present exploiters out of political control. But they will have done nothing at all for socialism and that is the only thing that really matters.
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