Communism; Industrial Workers of the World; Socialism
The fight among the revolutionists was a fight to the finish. The
leaders all wanted to become Trotzkys and Lenines, all wanted to be
bosses. It seems reasonable to conclude that if Bolshevism were ever
introduced into the United States, either by the mother Socialist Party
or by its offspring, the Communist Party or the Communist Labor Party,
the dictatorship of the proletariat, that wonderful piece of nonsense
which we hear so much about, would be grasped at by an amazing number of
competitors. In Russia Lenine and Trotzky seem to constitute the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In the Socialist Party of the United
States Berger and Hillquit, of the old National Executive Committee,
constituted a first-class dictatorship. In the Communist Party, Dennis
Batt, lately jailed, and Alexander Stoklitsky would surely give the
Communist rank and file plenty to do--everything of course being done
according to their wills. John Reed and Ben Gitlow would make an ideal
"dictatorship of the proletariat," if the Communist Labor Party ever
made Bolshevism the law of the land.
"Truth," one of the organs of the Communist Labor Party, published in
Duluth, Minn., in its issue of August 29, 1919, devotes nearly two of
its eight pages to bitter attacks on the Communist Party. Two short
quotations will suffice to show the spirit of envy that exists:
"'Tis said that distance lends enchantment, and perhaps that is the
reason why some of you in the East have responded to the
cuckoo-call of Michigan-Federations. Frankly, we see nothing
hopeful in the alignment presented by the Michigan-Federation
combine. We are fearful of the consequence of such leadership. The
so-called Communist Party, as it is now constituted and especially
with the accretion of a part of the National Council, presents the
prettiest bunch of 'eligibles' that man ever laid eyes upon. And as
I gaze upon this august array of talent, I wonder where the working
class is going to get off at. We of the left wing of Cook County
are reluctant to join with an organization under the guidance of a
few doctrinaires from Detroit and the would-be Lenine of the United
States.[F] We do not consider that the welfare of the revolutionary
movement would be zealously guarded in their hands."
From "Truth," of the same date, we also quote an open letter to Louis C.
Fraina, which reads in part as follows:
"Do you know how the Russian Federation is being ruled? Do you know
that a 'firing squad' is constantly on the job expelling members
and branches from the Federation who dare to disagree on anything
with the would-be bosses of the Russian Federation?...
"Do you know that a regular secret service system is being employed
by these 'bosses' to hunt down the undesirables?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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