Part 4 (2/2)
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.
CHAPTER IV
THE FREE-FOR-ALL FIGHT BETWEEN THE RIGHT AND LEFT WINGS
Emanuel Blumstein, a member of the Right Wing, in a letter published in ”The Call,” April 9, 1919, bitterly complained against the tactics of the Left Wingers--in trying to wrest control of the Socialist Party from the ”Old Guard” of Berger and Hillquit, which had acquired the habit of domination:
”The reason that the so-called Left Wingers are concentrating at meetings, making motions to recall delegates, and carry their motions through, is very simple. Anyone who attends the meetings can easily understand it. They shout down every honest thinking Socialist with slurs and abuse. They make it so intolerable that the meeting hall appears to be, instead of a Socialist meeting, a room frequented by rowdies of all types and descriptions. In this way they drive the most active Comrades out of the meeting hall, as these Comrades get disgusted with the tactics pursued and leave the meeting. Then they drag the meeting on to all hours of the night until those left, having no opposition, carry all their destructive actions through, and this they call democratic decision for the Comrades of the branch--deciding the policies for them.”
Morris Zucker, a member of the Left Wing, defends his faction in a letter that appeared in ”The Call,” New York, April 11, 1919:
”In regard to Lee's objection that the Left Wing may bring about a premature revolt, the reply is that no real revolution, no social revolution, is ever manufactured. It must be spontaneous. It must be real. It must be an overwhelming, impulsive demonstration of the popular will. Revolutions may be manipulated but not manufactured.
Trotzky shows in his 'From October to Brest-Litovsk' that the Bolshevist Revolution was not manufactured.
”The problem is to manipulate the revolution, to guide it, to counsel it. And herein lies the importance of proper Socialist education, of knowledge and understanding, and from these of proper Socialist tactics.
”The Left Wing believes it has the proper program. And it wants the Socialist Party to adopt its program. The Left Wing not only preaches revolutionary Socialism, it believes that the economic and social forces that have made half Europe Socialist, and threaten momentarily to engulf the other half are at work in America also.
It believes that a revolutionary outbreak in America is not a matter of the far and distant future. And it desires to make that revolution as easy and as successful as it can possibly be. For that reason the Left Wing has evolved its manifesto and program, and now calls upon the Socialist Party to discuss it, perfect it, and adopt it.”
In April, 1919, the New York State Committee of the Socialist Party, by a vote of 24 against 17, resolved that it was ”definitely opposed to the organization calling itself the Left Wing section of the Socialist Party, and to any group within the party organized for the same or similar purpose;” and it instructed ”its executive committee to revoke the charter of any local affiliated with any such organization or that permits its subdivision or members to be affiliated.”
”The Call,” April 23, 1919, publishes a long letter from F. Basky in which he defends the principles of the Left Wing and attacks the New York State Committee for the above resolutions. We quote a part:
”Aside of these arguments the Left Wing is not a counter-organization to the Socialist Party. On the contrary, it is the only active force to save the party from going into decay and finally to the sc.r.a.p heap as a tool not adapted to the task. If the Left Wing is the party, then and only then can we answer the criticism of the syndicalist that a political party is nothing else but a vote-catching machinery for middle-cla.s.s politicians. If the principles enunciated in the manifesto will be the principles of the party, then it will enjoy the confidence of those who, through their bitter experience realized the fallacies of the Second International, led and dominated by the social-patriots, reformists of the German Social Democratic Party. If we follow the line of uncompromising revolutionary activity indicated by the Left Wingers, then we can rest a.s.sured that the party will be cleared of the would-be Scheidemanns, Eberts, Kerenskys, Brantenburgs, and the rest of the traitors of our principles and our cla.s.s.
”They will be eliminated anyway. The fight is on. And I welcome the attack of the state committee. We at least know some of those we would have to face in the critical hour. Might as well fight it out now; whether they or the Left Wing represents the party. Let us find out right now who is with us and who is against us.”
”The Call,” April 30, 1919, published a resolution then recently pa.s.sed by the Socialist Party of Ess.e.x County, New Jersey, which had adopted the Left Wing program. Part of the resolution is hereby quoted:
”While the need for new orientation is clearly apparent, there is an element within the party which is either unwilling or unable to adjust itself to the new world conditions and the new tactics required by these conditions. Unfortunately, this element has controlled the party national executive committee and the party machinery, with the consequence that the national organization, in place of furnis.h.i.+ng the leaders.h.i.+p and urging the locals forward to take advantage of the present world crisis in building up the proletariat movement, has conspicuously lagged behind.”
By the early part of May, 1919, conditions in the Socialist Party became so serious that the Executive Committee of Local New York, according to ”The Call,” May 8, 1919, issued the following statement on the Left Wing:
”To the Members of Local New York:
”Comrades.--A critical situation has arisen within Local New York.
Your executive committee is compelled to take unusual and vigorous measures to combat the disruptive efforts of an internal faction which seeks to dominate the party by undemocratic and unsocialistic methods. The executive committee addresses itself to you, the members.h.i.+p, to explain the gravity of the crisis and to urge your support in saving the organization which has been built up with so much sacrifice by thousands of Comrades.
”The very existence of the party is at stake--its existence as the democratically self-governed party of the working cla.s.s, laboring to awaken and educate the proletarian ma.s.ses and to express their cla.s.s interests on the political field....
”This organization, i.e., the Left Wing, is not open to all party members, nor even to all who accept the ideas set forth in its manifesto and program. Only such persons are admitted as can be counted on to set the authority of the 'Left Wing Section' above that of the party itself. Its meetings are held in secret, and their business is that of a permanent closed caucus to lay plans for controlling the action of the party branches and committees, and of obstructing their activities when it cannot control them.
”Even within the 'Left Wing Section' itself democratic methods are not used. The admission of members, the choice of delegates to Left Wing conferences, and the framing of instructions to those delegates are intrusted to committees composing an inner circle.
All members and adherents of the 'Left Wing Section' are called upon in their action as party members and as members of party committees, to give explicit obedience to orders issued by the inner circle. A sufficient sample of this is the appointment of a 'steering committee' for the Left Wingers in the central committee of the local, and the issuance of instructions to delegates affiliated with that section as follows:
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