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Farewell! to the Socialist Party! An Appeal to Its Remaining Members! С STATEMENT BY THE COMMITTEE FOR effort and missing no opportunity to carry its pont it to be of no concern to the party, considering it in COME PARTY OF POLITICIANS INduring the months of agitation prior to the Detroit opportune, and providing for no stand on the prin STEAD OF PARTY OF THE WORKTHE THIRD INTERNATIONAL OF THE Convention. But it did not confine itself to mere ad ciple, were all defeated in monotonous and systematic ERS. THAT POLICY MUST BE CHECKSOCIALIST PARTY TO THE MEMvocacy of affiliation with the Third. An animatec order.
BERS OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY discussion of all the principles and tactics involver Prompted seemingly by the same yearning for ED, NOT ENCOURAGED.
was forced to the fore. The spirit of the Third wa: unity the Convention tabled the resolution dealing The policy or tendency in the party to become a OMRADES. For three years a constant strug held up as the big subject for discussion.
with immediate demands, sabotage, political action, party of politicians instead of party of the workgle has been carried on within the Socialist Of course the party leaders did not welcome ou direct action, etc. And what was not tabled went to ers was not checked. The party went the full Party to secure an adaptation of its principles, activity. They met the Committee with animosity the next Convention, when study reports and sur length of it, until it is no more a tendency. It is an policies and program to the new conditions growing The Party chiefs, who on numerous occasions claime veys will be submitted. Thus went for study the accomplished fact.
out of the world war and the Russian Revolution. to be desirous of the party affiliation with the Thir question of party organization, propaganda and the Political compromise and abandonment of the SoIn three national conventions, at Chicago, 1919, International were particularly venomous in thei party daily press. The party still wants to study and cialist faith did not save the party from thorough New York, 1920, and at Detroit, 1921, as well as be attacks upon the advocates of the Third. Speaking investigate it is so young and inexperienced, collapse. With a doubled electorate the party ticket tween conventions, the fight has been kept up, to place the minds of the party officialdom, the National SecreAnd yet the convention managed to overreach itself equalled only its vote in 1912. The organization once the Socialist Party in the front rank of the interna tary placed on the agenda of the Detroit conventior by adopting the Hillquit motion, which opens the way 120, 000 strong came to the New York Convention tional labor movement, in the vanguard of the world the infamous resolution which proposed to expe for fusion and political trading with all the highest with 38, 000 and to Detroit with 17, 000 members. The struggle for Socialism.
every member favoring affiliation as one who work bidders in the field of political radicalism. There was accelerated withdrawal of groups and individual memThe last National Convention of the Socialist Party either for the Communist International or for the De the Hoan proposition for immediate fusion. The bers since Detroit, which has still further reduced its at Detroit, in June, definitely displaced the party as a partment of Justice and in either case in the inter Hillquit motion was to investigate the possibilities of numbers, is a testimonial to the party leaders for their force working for Socialism, definitely aligned it with ests of American capitalism.
fusion.
achievements at the convention.
those elements in the labor movement that refuse to No wonder that this Convention demonstrated The Task Ahead profit by the experiences of the world war and the The Detroit Convention more unity of opinion than any before it. Unity of years of the imperialist peace which followed it. It At the Convention the leaders strategically retreate exists, and this was notoriously a convention of no opinion should be easily attained where no opinion Our agitation in the party has aroused a great many threw overboard the rich lessons of the establishment members. It bore all the fruit it could. There is no of the first great Workers Republic, of its years of from the position of doubtful vantage that the adop opinion.
further need for influencing the remaining members in tion of this resolution would have given them. The heroic and successful struggles against a world wide The Background of Detroit.
the party thru working from within. There is no made it clear, however, that the expulsion motion alliance of the forces of imperialism and treacherous longer the danger of leaving the membership in the would be enforced locally, the prevalent state an. Undoubtedly the Detroit Convention did not present would be Socialism. The Socialist Party has thus custody of a leadership that either leads it nowhere local autonomy giving the local chieftains the righ a totally new and radical change of attitude in our become a hindrance rather than an aid to working or in the wrong direction.
to do what the national leaders thought wise polic party. The Detroit actions were largely foreshadowed The truly Socialist eleclass progress.
ments in the party are rushing out of it, disgusted, not to stress too strongly.
by the National Convention of 1920. It was that disheartened. They lack, however, a constructive The Committee for the Third The Convention, reduced to 35 delegates, most o convention that marked the retreat of the party from plan of action. Merely leaving the party to those who The Committee for the Third International within whom were national office appointees and retainer ts advanced position in the world of labor and Soapprove of its reformist policies and tactics is insuffithe Socialist Party was organized for the explicit purvoted 31 to against unconditional affiliation with the cialism. The 1920 Convention yielded to the demands cient. We must organize to get out and get out to Third. By this act the Socialist Party read itself ou of the membership and nominated for the Preorganize.
pose of bringing about the party joining the Third of the fold of the international revolutionary workin sidency our noble martyr Eugene Debs and simulInternational on the basis of the announced 21 This is why we say to all the true Socialists in the class movement. The Convention decisions o taneously forced on the party and its revolutionary Socialist Party: Points. Yet the Committee did not at all assume that its task to arrest the actual process of disintegraother matters of principle and tactics were reaction candidate a reactionary national platform. The cryThe Committee for the Third International tion of the party would be solved by merely having ary enough to make the party unfit to join the so ing shame of that convention followed upon the heels called Second International. Even that body o of the Albany, ouster proceedings where the party sees no further reason for staying in the Sothe party accept the 21 conditions of application. In fact, the Committee did not pretend to accept all and counter revolutionary and bourgeois government Sc defence proclaimed obedience to bourgeois legality to cialist Party. It believes the Socialist Party cialists is too revolutionary for the Betroit majorit be the cardinal virtue of a revolutionary movement has completely and beyond recovery outlived every opinion expressed by the Third on conditions of the Socialist Party.
and respectability its reward. It was the work of the in and tactics to be applied to the United States. It its usefulness as an agency for propaganda, and The Detroit Convention sounded the death knello New York Convention that forced Comrade Debs to merely held: an instrument for the realization of Socialism. That all discussion as to the applicability in the Socialist Party. It lives today only as a painfu say to the party committee which tendered him the survival, a reproach to its own past. Even the officia nomination for the Presidency: We prophecy the early demise of the Socialist the United States at the present time of one party press could no longer hide its bankruptcy, ani. must be perfectly frank with you. have Party and call upon all those who read the future as or the other point of tactics as proposed by the proceeded to boast of their shame.
read the platform and wish might say that it we do, to get ready to quit the ship that no longer sails Third International, should be carried on with The Call, the New York party daily, summed up had my unqualified approval. It could have the flag of working class Socialism.
the work of the Detroit Convention as a return been made more effective if it had stressed the But then the next step must follow. new home the International, not outside of it.
normalcy. The paper discovered that the Conven? class struggle more prominently and if more The issue at stake was not merely an affiliation with for constructive revolutionary Socialism must be built.
tion made progress and that it demonstrated mor emphasis had been laid on industrial organthe Third. Principles and tactics of outstanding imAnother political party of the working class must be ization. established with the passing of the Socialist Party.
portance were involved. The issue of international unity of opinion and policy than any gathering sinc And he added the very significant words of grave It must be alive to the problems of the revolutionary affiliation was but the clarion call, the Third Internathe war swept over the world age, as well as imbued with the keen sense of tional standing out as the symbol and the incarnation That unity of opinion had been gloriously demon warning: reality without which a working class party will be of a world party of aggressive Socialist action. The strated in the action on the question of the Dictator! have always been a radical, never more so built on a rope of sand. To the fulfillment of this inevitability of the reorganization of the party and its ship of the Proletariat, where, according to the off than now. have never feared becoming too task we call all of you, comrades, in and out of the adaptation to new conditions was pointed to, lest it cial party and publicity manager, the convention wa radical. do fear becoming too conservative. Socialist Party. To the work along these lines we voluntarily sign its own death warrant, and acquiesce so bent on taking no stand at all, that it too! We must guard against any policy or attitude pledge our own energies, loyalty and service.
in its own burial.
no action on a motion committing the party to a stan of fear to state our position clearly.
Comrades: Organize for the purpose of getting that says that it takes no stand.
The Recent Past Socialist platforms are not made to catch in touch with us and prepare for a conference, which On the question of proletarian dictatorship th votes. Our purpose should be to state principles will be called in the near future and where definite With the issue of affiliation with the Third Inter Convention turned down all five motions placed befor! of the party clearly to the people. THERE IS plans will be worked out and the foundation laid national the committee set out to work, sparing no it. The resolutions favoring it, against it, proclaimin TENDENCY IN THE PARTY TO BE (Continued on Page 112.