The Revolutionary Age against the union of idle.
to come. 2 THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE Saturday, August 23, 1919 against the President, against Congress, All dreams of a The Plumb Plan placid reconstruction period are now at an Combined with The New York Communist end: it is clear that our is an epoch of militant struggles.
THE controversy precipitated by the Railway National Organ of the Left Wing Section The discouraging feature of the situation exposing many aspects of that social problem Workers is a vital and interesting one, Socialist Party is that there is no unified revolutionary group which must become the great issue in the days Louis FRAINA, Editor to use this critical situation for aggressive agitation and militant action. The Socialist Party still looks to action from the bourgeois state, Progress is implied in the Brotherhood proOwned and Controlled by the Left Wing and indulges in its petty bourgeois liberal pro posal because of recognition of the determining Section of the Socialist Party paganda; the has its nose to the fact that labor cannot permanently improve its NATIONAL COUNCIL grind stone of petty strikes and organization status by dickering with wages and prices. But insularity, not realizing the necessity of uniting the proposal does not develop the implications John Ballam Ruthenberg all the militant forces of the proletariat; while the necessity of breaking the power of the Max Cohen Benjamin Gitlow the Left Wing is still in process of constructing capitalists and placing control and manageJames Larkin Ferguson itself for action in the days to come, unable ment of industry in the communistically orBertram Wolfe as yet to act.
ganized producers.
This situation will be the test of the Com The Plumb Plan proposes that the United Ferguson, National Secretary munist Party now in process of organization. States Government shall purchase the railAfter the organization of the Communist ways and place them in the control of a gov5c. a copy. Six months, 50. One year, 00.
Party will come a movement conscious of its ernment corporation, the Board of Directors Bundle orders, 10 or over, 342 cents a copy. purposes, capable of merging in the general of which shall consist of fifteen men, five 43 West 29th Street, New York City. proletarian movement while maintaining its chosen by the government, five by the officials revolutionary independence and directing the of the railways and five by the workers. The proletariat to conscious revolutionary action owners are to be given bonds paying four per against Capitalism cent. interest, these bonds to be retired after a period of years. Profits, up to a certain point, Owing to the simultaneous resignation from are to be divided between the government and Communist and Socialist the staff of The Revolutionary Age of John the workers, to retire the bonds and to lower Reed, Eadmonn MacAlpine and Ben Gitlow, An instructive feature of the situation in rates. Financiers are to be dispossessed of managing powers, the roads to become actual due to opposition to the joint call issued by Hungary is that the Allies were willing to organs of transportation instead of material the National Council for a Communist Party negotiate with a Socialist Government but refused any negotiations with the Communist for speculation.
Convention on September 1, and financial Soviet power. The new President of Finland, This plan has certain features which, while disorganization, this paper appears in half its in an interview cabled to the New York Times promoting a more efficient Capitalism (and usual site. We shall resume sixteen page pub October 9, said: The Entente friends, the State Capitalism) would not promote the lication with our next issue. But money is Progressives and the Agrarians, combined with workers emancipation: needed.
the Socialists, elected me to prevent a threa1) The roads would still pay a tribute to tened new outbreak of Red turbulence.
capital, which would posses the means for Kolchak Collapses In Hungary and Finland, accordingly, as in exploitation.
Russia and Germany and Austria, the SocialSIMULTANEOUSLY with the fall of the Soviet ists are against a proletarian revolution, against privileged cast, united with chains of iron to 2) It would make the railroad workers a Government in Hungary through a monarchproletarian dictatorship, become the friends ist coup engineered by the Rumanian army the capitalist state against the whole workng of the bourgeoisie and the Allies against the and the Allies, comes the confirmation of the class.
complete collapse of the military power if the revolutionary Communist proletariat. This is emphasized by the Socialists in all other na 3) The application of this plan to the whole Government of Admiral Kolchak in Siberia.
tons repudiating the necessity of a revolution of industry is not feasible, since capital must This collapse is the answer to the tempoary, Communist reconstruction of the proleta have opportunity for investment, and these rary success of the counter revolution in Hunrian movement.
would be denied under a universal Plumb Plan gary. Kolchak, the Czarist adventurer and in industry.
murderer of the Siberian workers and peasSocialism, originally a revolutionary moveants, who has been financed by the Allies and ment, is now ultra reactionary. It is the enemy 4) The government representatives on the Board of Directors would necessarily represent acclaimed by the bourgeois press, is now no of the militant proletariat and the revolution.
longer a formidable enemy of the Soviet power It is a traitor to the revolutionary ideals of general capitalist interests, as would the representatives of the railway officials, who are soin Russia. And as long as Soviet Russia per traditional Socialism. It is now, in the eyes sists (and Imperialism prevails) the world of the masses and the consciousness of the cially, politically and economically integral revolution is still an issue that must challenge militant proletariat, the bulwark of Capitalism, parts of the capitalist class.
the proletariat of all countries.
directly and indirectly.
5) The plan does not break the power of the capitalists or the capitalist state; and the So complete is the military disaster of KolCommunism, in accord with Marxism and power of the state must first be broken before chak thac nis government is reported about the ideals of the first Communist International there can be an actual socialization of industry to evacuate Omsk, the capital of the counter and united in the new Communist Interna by and for the workers.
revolutionary government. The Kolchak tional is now the carrier of the proletarian force have retreated more than eight hundred revolution. The Communists everywhere are In effect, the Plumb Plan proposes a modimiles, and lost thousands of prisoners to the in the front of the great struggle against Impefication of the power of the capitalists and the Soviet forces, which are thoroughly discip rialism, and their worst opponents are the old lessening of their profits in the railway induslined and inspired by the revolutionary sprit. Socialists.
try. But capital is a unity; and you cannot socialize one industry while the whole of inThere must be a separation of the revolu dustry is under the domination of financeThe Yeast Ferments tionary forces from the dominant Socialist capital. The Plumb Plan, even if it did promovement. The Communist International pose to socialize the railways which it does Congress and the President are discussing gathers unto itself all the virile elements of plans to end the general unrest. The press the old Socialist movement and the new revnot would be equivalent to sneaking in at the back door.
is yelling frantically, now that something olutionary accessions from the conscious proshould be done, now that too much is being letariat; it accepts all that is vital in traditional The railway workers, as other workers, vadone, always ending with a screech against Socalism, restoring it to its original revolu guely realize that their burdens are imposed Bolshevik, agitators.
tionary integrity plus the new experience of upon them by the profit system. They must Strikes are multiplying, food prices soaring, the proletarian revolution in action.
end this system. They can end it only by a and an ugly temper developing among the general assault upon the citadel of Capitalism, The Socialist who is faithful to his revoluworkers. Union men are becoming insurgent, tionary ideals must organize in the Communthe conquest of the power of the state, an while union officials boast of holding down the socialization of industry by means of workist Party. Any other course is compromise the lid. There are explosions of resentment ers control and the industrial administration and a repudiation of the revolutionary task. proposed in Communist industrial unionism.