Communism; Industrial Workers of the World; Socialism
Naturally "co-operatives" are favored as a step toward the "Co-operative
Commonwealth," which is what the Socialist dreamers want. But in order
to set up this new state, the Socialists want "the workers" to do a big
job for them, namely, to "wrest the control of" the present Government
of the United States and get it out of the way. Thus "the workers" are
the means, the tool, which the hair-brained Socialists hope to use,
while the proposed method of using these "workers" is to make Socialists
of them and line them up in one big "industrial union" ready for
"industrial action" when the Socialists crack the whip. We do not think
America's "workers" intend to burn their fingers in pulling Hillquit's
chestnuts out of the fire; but the lazy drones, the Socialist
"intellectuals," as the Hillquitites love to style themselves, certainly
hope to ride into power on the back of American labor just as the
Bolshevist "dictators," Lenine and Trotzky, rode into power and are
still riding on the galled back of the labor slaves of Russia.
It appears, then, that the Socialist Party of America is not merely
affiliated with Moscow's "programs and methods" by a referendum vote,
but has adopted a similar program and method for its own "supreme task."
The only difference is that the Bolsheviks have made their revolution,
while the American Socialists are forging the weapon for theirs. Debs'
motto is their motto: "I am law abiding under protest--not from
scruple--and bide my time."
Perceiving the peril of his party, Hillquit, on the witness stand in the
Judiciary Committee's inquiry at Albany, sought in every way to belittle
the significance of his and his party's Chicago Manifesto, the Moscow
Manifesto, and the evident connection between the two, belittling, also,
his party's affiliation with the Third (Moscow) International. How
unscrupulous and hypocritical his testimony seems in the light of all
the facts!
In his testimony at Albany on February 19, 1920, Hillquit acknowledged
the Chicago Manifesto, adopted September 4, 1919, as his own child. "At
least ninety per cent of it is my authorship," he proudly said. Having
himself imprudently led his party to make open confession, by manifesto,
of its plot "to wrest the industries and the control of the government
of the United States" out of their present keeping and so completely
into the hands of the Socialist Party that it would be able "to place"
them "in the control of" a special class, did Hillquit feel that he
would be justified on the witness stand in using any extreme of craft
which might help to bury the plot out of sight again?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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