Communism; Industrial Workers of the World; Socialism
Quite a number of educated people in the United States, including the
editors of some of our leading dailies, seem to think that the remnant
of the Socialist Party is not at all a Bolshevist organization and not
at all revolutionary in character. They are very much deceived, having
let the crafty, deceptive, hypocritical leaders of the Right Wing fool
them badly. The Left Wingers have indeed been much more open in
admitting their intentions to overthrow our government by force of arms.
They are dangerous, but perhaps not nearly so much so as the slippery
"Yellows," cunning weasels of the imported Russian Hillquit type, who,
though they do not talk as openly as the "Reds," are spreading their
subversive principles on every side, and especially among the less
educated classes of our people, into whose minds they instil the spirit
of hatred between employers and employees, while at the same time
encouraging strikes, wherever they can, with the hope of overthrowing
our Government when conditions become sufficiently critical. Both
parties of the Socialists and both parties of the Communists, along with
the I. W. W., are all revolutionary in the strictest sense, and the
sooner the American people wake up to the fact and take some intelligent
action to stamp them out, the better it will be. It is not yet too late,
but soon may be.
The Bolshevist Socialists of Russia and the two new parties of
Socialists that at Chicago in September, 1919, seceded from the mother
party, have all adopted the name, "Communist," which "The Call," New
York, July 24, 1919, informs us was used by Marx and Engels, the
founders of modern Socialism, adding that though the name is somewhat
confusing, inasmuch as the word has another and a distinct meaning in
English, still, "wherever it is used it means revolutionary Socialists
as distinguished from Social patriots and mere parliamentary
Socialists." Is this definition an alibi for Hillquit and Berger?
Many persons have hastily assumed that the main reason why the Left and
Right Wings of the Socialists fought each other like cats and dogs was
that the Right Wing members of the party are opposed to Bolshevism. This
is nonsense. The Socialist papers of the country, Right and Left, with
the possible exception of the once powerful "Appeal to Reason," which in
recent years has fallen into great discredit among Socialists because it
favored our entrance into the World War--have been and still are
advocating Bolshevism every day. If anyone has any doubt, let him read
any of the rebel sheets.
The Socialist Party of St. Louis, in its appeal for party unity,
published in "The Call," July 19, 1919, informs us that the Socialist
Party is whole-heartedly with the Russian Bolshevists and their cause:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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