September 27, 1919 Page Ten THE COMMUNIST The Communist Party and Communist Labor Party T HIERE are no doubt many who will ram of immediate severance from the Social Ruthenberg that the first order of busi.
ist Party and a call for a convention on Sep ness be the consideration of unity with the find it diffieult to understand how it Communist Party Convention which was to came about that two new parties tember first to form the Communist Party.
This call was quickly accepted not only by meet the next day. But this was voted down were formed at Chicago the first week of September instead of one. The breakup of the groups represented by these delegates, 37 to 31. There were some who still had in but by practically all of the disfranchised mind negotiations with the Right Wing, and the old Socialist Party, under challenge of Socialist Party.
there were others determined at all odds to revolutionary experience, came much more rapidly than anyone anticipated.
It was at once apparent that the bulk of make out of this chance grouping of bolting the active Left Wing forces could have no delegates a third party in opposition to the There was such startling quick and sure Communist Party. At all times there were part in the Emergency Convention. There response to the Left Wing propaganda that a few in this body who sincerely believed the advanee guard of the Left Wing found might be argument about whether this min ority group should have severed itself from that it was their special mission to start the itself constantly prodded and pushed from the old party or not, but there could be no new party, regardless of the lineup of over behind. On the other hand the frantic ef.
argument about the fact that this had hapfify thousand members in the Communist forts of the old party officialdom to stave pened.
The Left Wing National Council Party. And there were still a few others off personal retirement and the reorganiza could interpret its mandate from the Left who did not recover from their confusion tion of the party along the lines of revoluWing Conference as related to this memberuntil this Communist Labor Party Conventionary Socialism precipitated the crisis.
ship no less than to any other Left Wing tion was nearly over and they realized that The demands for new policies and a new officialdom, voiced in a series of referen. membership. Indeed, it was precisely this they had been misled under momentary en.
thusiasm.
solid array of suspended and expelled ordums, was answered by wholesale expulganizations which had carried the Left Only after this meeting of bolting dele.
sions of the aggressive membership. The Wing to the stage of its National Confer gates had been given the semblance of a new breach was made complete; the old party ence. Or the Left Wing National Council party organization was the question of the rulers disavowed the militant membership; could close its eyes to the realities of the Communist Party given consideration. inspensions and expulsions followed quickly situation, insist upon the literalness of an committee was appointed to confer with the upon the first discovery of organized effort instruction to use the Emergency Convention Joint Organization Committee of the Comto change the character of the party. In pending contingencies already fulfilled, and munist Party Convention on the possibiliturn, those who had repudiated the oppor thereby satisfy several small groups inter ties of uniting the two conventions. On tunistie compromises of the official Social.
ested for various extraneous reasons in keepMonday morning the two committees met.
ist Party, its refusal to align itself with the ing up a fight against the group definitely After the written answer of the Joint Orrevolutionary groups of the Communist Instanding out for the Communist Party Con ganizaion Committee was made, it was unternational, and its complete failure to convention.
derstood that the bolting delegates would sit form its policies with the living reality of The Left Wing National Council severely in a reserved section of the Communist the world Social Revolution finally learned criticized the minority group upon two Pary Convention hall until this Convention that their fight against a reactionary party had time to organize itself and take up the officialdom must become a fight against the grounds, one the seeming desire to start the new party as a clique affair, without fair question of unity as a body. This never hapSocialist Party.
representation to all Left Wing groups; the pened; it was only after the work of both Here was the issue upon which the Left other ground, an apparent indifference to Conventions had gone to an advanced stage Wing forces split. There was the persistent Communist principles in joining together that a few members of the Communist belief that the militant membership could elements opposed in fundamental viewpoint Party Convention other than the original find the right method by which to tear the but agreed on the starting of a new party.
committee of five came into contact with Socialist Party organization out of the clut The first objection was answered by the the Communist Party Convention.
ches of the old officaldom. With over agreement on representation which went in The following are the documents inter50, 000 members of the party disfranchised, to the Joint Call for the September first changed between the two conventions; a and with the Right Wing openly proceeding Convention. The second objection was ans committee of five having been appointed by to call into its Emergency Convention care wered by the reunion of the Federation the Communist Party Convention for the fully selected henchmen from the Eastern groups with the Left Wing, which preclud purpose of these negotiations: and Central States, where most of the memb ed the least possibility of deviation from the STATEMENT OF COMMUNIST ers could no longer vote, there were still fundamentals of revolutionary Socialism at CONVENTION some Left Wingers who counted upon using the Communist Party Convention. Only the the Emergency Convention as the organ for small Michigan group had failed to accept Before the beginning of the war in Aug.
revolutionizing the Socialist Party.
the full implications of the Manifesto and ust 1914 sharp differences in principles and tacties had made themselves apparent in the At the Left Wing National Conference, Program of the Left Wing Conference.
parties within the Second International. In held at New York, June 21st to 24th, the The Joint Call went out twenty days beeach counry ere was the faction which majority plan included the use of the Emer fore the September first Convention. It was placed its reliance upon the parliaments of goney Convention. However, under pressure acceped by the Massachusetts State Conven the bourgeois state for the transformation of of vigorous argument in favor of immediate ion of August 11, with practically no Fed capitalism into Socialism. This faction, the organization of a new party, there was the eration representatives present, by vote of dominant element in the Socialist Party in general admission that the Right Wing 62 to It was accepted throughout New practically every country, directed its tacwould not let itself be pushed into an York. It was accepted in Cleveland and tics and agitation to the end of attaining a Emergency Convention which it could not Philadelphia. It ended all controversy on majority in the parliaments. They argued easily control. The majority argument was the question of the September first Conven that this majority, through legislative action that there was value in the use of the Emerg tion in many other important locals. would end the power of the capitalists in eney Convention campaign as a means of carrying forward the Left Wing propaganObviously the time was too short for acindustry and build up the structure of the da; but even the majority was careful to tion upon the Joint Call in the Western new society.
state a series of definite contingencies upon States. But it is beyond challenge that the In harmony with conception it considered strategists who inaneuevered the Communist the activities of its parliamentary represen which the Left Wing must go ahead with the formation of a new party. It was unani.
Labor Party Convention were fully informtatives for reform measures intended to ed about the Joint Call. Benjamin Gitlow improve the position of the workers under mously agreed, among other alternatives, of New York was a member of the National the capitalist system as the method by that if the representatives of the suspended and expelled organizations were refused Left Wing Council, John Reed was an Aswhich Socialism would be established.
seats in the Emergency Convention, then all sociate Editor of The Revolutionary Age, In sharp conflict with these Moderate the Left Wing delegates would join tothe official Left Wing paper; Alfred Wag. Socialists stood the Revolutionary minori.
gether to organize the Communist Party.
enknecht, Ludwig Lore, Edward Lindgren, ties, which rejected the idea that the class Katterfeld, Jack Carney, Alex Bilan struggle could be won in the bourgeois par.
The vote in the Left Wing Conference on all these were fully informed of the situathe proposition of forming the Communist liaments. The Revolutionary Socialists Party on June 22nd was 55 to 38. This tion, and most of them were under direct contended that the emancipation of the minority vote, assuming its acceptance by munist Party Convention.
membership mandate to go into the Com working class could not be achieved through the membership represented, meant at once the capitalist state but only through the an alignment of over 30, 000 members in When the bolting delegates from the Emoverthrow of the capitalist state by the favor of immediate formation of the new ergency Convention came together Sunday mass power of the workers and the estabparty. group of 31 out of this minority, night, August 31st, determined that there lishment of a new organ of state power by made up largely of Federation and Michigan could no longer be any basis of compromise the working class, in the form of the Dictatdelegates, orgenized separately upon a prog with the Right Wing, it was proposed by Corship of the Proletariat, for the transfor.