Communism; Industrial Workers of the World; Socialism
Is it now in order for our American Bolshevists, Gene Debs, Morris
Hillquit (_alias_ Hilkovitz) and Vic Berger, solemnly to inform us that
Russian Bolshevism never was Socialism, nor anything like it, but only a
base counterfeit? And will they also inform us that Lenine and Trotzky
are unprincipled adventurers and cold-blooded blackguards who have
hidden behind the mask of Socialism to blackjack a great people and
filch a wealth they never did a day's work to accumulate?
When our American wavers of the Red Flag try to hide their shipwrecked
theories behind a repudiation of Bolshevikiland, we shall have to remind
them of their many, many utterances jubilantly assuring us that
"Bolshevism is Socialism in practice." A specimen will do, taken from
one of the books published by the Jewish Socialist Federation of
America, a "part of the Socialist Party" of the United States piloted by
Debs, Hilkovitz and Berger, which we quote as cited on page 34 of the
"Outline of the Evidence Taken Before the Judiciary Committee" of the
New York Assembly:
"Bolshevism is not a new Socialist theory, but the practical
carrying out in life of the old Socialist theory.
"Bolshevism especially is not a theory. Bolshevism is a method of
how to establish Socialism in life.
"Bolshevism is practical Socialism, the Socialism of today, and not
of the remote future day."
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST RELIGION ABROAD
It is but proper to begin this chapter by conceding that there are many
church-going members among those who vote the Marxian ticket--not as an
indorsement of the teachings of international Socialism, but merely as a
protest against political corruption and the abuses of capitalism.
Justice, moreover, demands that we acknowledge the existence of a small
minority of dues-paying members of the Socialist Party who neither
attack religion nor tacitly approve of the atheistic propaganda carried
on in the official Marxian press, as well as in the books, pamphlets and
magazines on sale not only in the leading Socialist book-stores of
America, but even at the National Office of the party in Chicago.
In most countries of Europe, where the war against religion is much more
open and widespread than in America, the Socialists are frank in
confessing that their movement is atheistic and anti-religious.
In our own country some of the more violent Socialistic enemies of the
church admit both in their speeches and in their writings that they
would be extremely happy to see the very idea of God become a matter of
ancient history. Christian Socialists of the old Carr faction, who
constitute a minority of far less than one per cent of the Socialist
Party of the United States, have not only conceded the existence of an
atheistic propaganda within the ranks, but have attacked it and utterly
failed to suppress it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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