Communism; Industrial Workers of the World; Socialism
"Then there are the Communist Socialists, led by John Reed and a
few hysterical men and women, who try to bring about a Russian
revolution or God knows what other things, they themselves don't
know tomorrow morning.
"And, finally, there is the Communist Party, led by Louis Fraina,
which consists mainly of Russians, Ukrainians[7], Slovenic races
and other foreign federation members, who have been suspended for
stuffing ballot boxes in the last referendum, and who also want
revolution of some kind, the wherewith and howwith they haven't
been able to explain so far."
Do we exaggerate the humbuggery of leadership uncloaked in this
Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party of America? Let the reader
judge from the supreme example of it, the motive of which we present in
the words of the organ of one of the chief conspirators, Hillquit's
"Call." The issue of August 31, 1919, declared: "The convention will
adopt a stand, expressed in a manifesto that is expected to satisfy all
those in the Left Wing who are contending for what they believe to be
revolutionary principles." In the issue of September 3 we read:
"There will be a restatement of party principles which is expected
to cut the ground from under the feet of the former members and
organizations of the party who have read themselves out and will
remain suspended in mid-air between the newly formed and still more
newly revised Communist-Labor Party and the Communist Party."
In the "Call" of September 5, which published the manifesto, we also
have this comment on it by James Oneal: "The American movement can
congratulate itself on having produced such a splendid document. It will
tend to rally members who have been uncertain of the outcome of the
convention, and will eventually bring to us many who are sick of the
hypocrisies, the shams and the illusions that have held them in chains
for nearly three tragic years."
What hypocrisies, shams and illusions are referred to? Who were their
authors? In another column of the same issue we are told: "With every
delegate on his feet and cheering, the National Emergency Convention of
the Socialist Party unanimously adopted its manifesto this afternoon.
[September 4th.] It was the big moment of the convention. The document
is regarded as the most revolutionary the party has ever drawn up, and
one certain to bring back into the organization thousands of members
temporarily outside of it, either because their local organizations were
expelled or by reason of what Lenine has called 'the intoxication of the
revolutionary phrase.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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