108 THE WORKERS COUNCIL (SEPTEMBER 15, 1921 SEPTEMBER 15, 1921)
THE WORKERS COUNCIL 109 Ship on the Rocks more By LOUIS ENGDAHL The Socialist Party has held its 9th and probably the Branstetter resolution that did not mean that its last National Convention. It is impossible to they were opposed to it.
discuss the fatal acts of the Detroit gathering in We ll take care of this situation when we get June without also commenting on the effect that back home, is the way the Socialist boss of Milthose acts have already had on the party member waukee put it.
ship and the party sympathizers.
And Berger does take care of every situation that Two years ago the Socialist Party went on the arises. He already has interpreted, in the colunins rocks. It is still there, only it is much worse for of the Milwaukee Leader, the Detroit neutrality the battering it has received.
resolution on international relations, by continuing The experienced mariner, sticking by his ship, his attack on the Third International, and all that usually struggles to get it off the rocks and into it stands for. Other reactionary forces within the deep water again, where it can be successfully and party will do the same.
safely navigated Timidity is not one of Berger characteristics.
Not so with those who have control over the Brazen opportunism is his chief stock in trade. He the destinies of the Socialist Party ship. They sent opposes the dictatorship of the proletariat, sneers it on the rocks in Chicago, in 1919; they kept it at soviet rule, and seeks to ridicule other fundathere at the New York Convention in 1920, and in mentals of the working class struggle for power, Detroit, this June, 1921, they made absolutely cer because they are not needed in the race for the jobs tain that that ship would never leave the rocks, in Wisconsin.
except as a mass of shattered wreckage.
Berger Lines Them Up.
The struggle at Detroit for a closer alignment with It is Berger brazen opportunism that lines up the Third International was overwhelmingly de the adventurous delegates who would wander into feated. Affiliation without reservations, on the the jungles of the class struggle.
basis of the 21 points, as advocated by the writer, There were four delegates therefore, who drifted was snowed under by a vote of 31 to far enough away from the ideas of the discredited Affiliation with reservations, as approved by the Second International to proclaim themselves for New York Convention, one year ago, was defeated the so called Vienna Working Union of Socialist in this convention by a vote of 26 to 13.
Parties, the 27 International. There was Hoehn, The Neutrality Fake.
of Missouri, and King, of California, as shining Don think for a moment that there is any neuchampions of the Vienna gathering that, in order to trality involved in the proposition that appear radical and revolutionary, had adopted the adopted, declaring for a Hands Off policy toward principles of the dictatorship and of soviet rule.
alt Internationals, until the party in this country But when these two subjects came up for discusshall have developed a strong organization.
sion and action, Hoehn, King and the rest quickly Communications from the Second International sought the protecting shelter of the Milwaukee were received, read and acted on at the August band wagon. The convention took no stand on the meeting of the Socialist Party Executive Commit questions of the dictatorship of the proletariat and tee. Questions of international relations are referred of soviet power, two more neutral positions that to Morris Hillquit, who definitely proclaims, as his will leave the party forces free to attack these two opinion, that the communist wave is receding.
fundamentals of the working class struggle whenThe position is clear. The Detroit declaration ever occasion requires. Leave the definition of these terms to leaves every party editor, every party speaker, every party writer, free to attack and villify the grandchildren, said Berger, who, of course, is not Third International, to his own satisfaction. That willing to wait for his grand children to tell him is already being done.
what position to take, even on the question of the This situation is developed in the action on the realization of Socialism, far beyond the period of resolution of National Secretary Otto Branstetter, dictatorship and transition. What Berger means.
unanimously re elected by the party N, in of course, is hands off this question, everybody, exAugust, to expel alt Third Internationalists from cepting himself.
the party, Hillquit Discovers Dictatorship.
With all the noise that was made in favor of this It was last year at the New York convention that resolution before the convention took place, we find Morris Hillquit bitterly attacked the principle of only two votes cast in favor of it, and one of these the dictatorship. It meant violence, bloodshed, the came from Delegate Flanagan, Georgia, who voted red terror, everything that all true Socialists for the 21 points. Flanagan announced that if it should turn away from. It was Hillquit big atwas a crime to favor the Third International, then tack on the minority declaration of principles. His he was guilty of that crime. The other vote came position then was that the idea of the dictatorship from Delegate Lewis, Socialist mayor of Elwood. was alien to all Socialist philosophy.
Ind. Most of the Third Internationalists in the At Detroit, 1921, we find Hillquit trying to deconvention refrained from voting.
fine the meaning of the dictatorship. It is, he Yet the fact that Berger and others voted against says, The political rule of the working class in the period of transition from the capitalist system to officials and over the party press. Meyer London, the Socialist order. It is not necessarily associated the lone Socialist congressman, didn even take the with a restriction of the political rights of oppo trouble to attend the convention. Instead he sent a nents, or with violence or terror.
letter. And the New York Call, the Milwaukee Hillquit was even willing to make this slight Leader and Oklahoma Leader, not to mention the concession to the effort to get the Socialist ship off various weeklies, will suit their policies to their local the rocks and back to Socialism. But in vain.
conditions and local leaderships. There will be no There were five propositions on the question of the Moscow discipline in the party, not even at the exdictatorship before the convention.
pense of having 57 varieties of Socialist Parties Kill em all! shouted the Socialist mayor of throughout the country.
Milwaukee, the Communist eater, Daniel Hoan.
That is where the Socialist Party finds itself after And kill them all, they did.
two years on the rocks, a position perfectly satisfacFor the first time a mild declaration on the use tory to most of its present leadership. The convention of the general strike for political and economic purissued a call for 20, 000. 00 in 30 days. The call deposes was favored by a Socialist Party convention. clares that, we raise this minimum of 20, 000. 00 Shades of the Albany trial of the ousted Socialist within not more than 30 days or the National Office assemblymen, where it was denied that the Socialist quits its activities and closes its doors.
Party favored the use of the strike weapon for polit That is blunt enough. The struggle for Socialism, ical purposes. according to the Detroit Convention, is not one of But this was one of those flukes that sometimes spirit and sacrifice. It is a mere matter of dollars and occur. Mayor Hoan, of Milwaukee, was cents. If the money is forthcoming, the party lives, anxious to secure the adoption of a fusion plan than whether or no it has Socialist spirit or principle. That he was opposed to a mild general strike declaration.
was the thought of the Spargoes, Russells and others, He schemed accordingly.
who built the Social Democratic League and similar Open Way to Fusion.
organizations to wreck the Socialist Party during the war. Spargo, Russell, et al, had money. It will be To serve his end, Hoan became a raving ex shown that they were subsidized by the government.
tremist, offered a resolution to call all working. But they got nowhere. The renegades failed to rally class organizations together next year, in lieu of the a corporal guard in their support.
annual Socialist convention, and thus get together What will the of the Detroit convention on a plan for a General Strike Program for the polit desertion of principle be upon the party? Although ical prisoners.
a favorable attitude was taken on the question of Then speaker after speaker attacked the policy of foreign language federations, we find that two of isolation of the Socialist. Party. And King, of Cali these federations, the Bohemian and Jewish, paying fornia, forgot all about the general strike for the no attention to this sop thrown to them, have voted to political prisoners, urging hurry up fusion to take leave the party.
advantage of the congressional elections next year.
Deserting the Ship.
Hillquit again tried to save a few pieces from the The Bohemian and Jewish federations refuse to go wreckage of the Socialist ship, being battered now down with the wreckage. Others will join them. It harder than ever. He urged that the Party National was last winter that the national executive committee Executive Committee merely get in touch with discovered the theory that the Third International other organizations, and then report next year. It was one thing, that the Russian Soviet Republic was was a move for delay, nothing more. And in the something else, apart from it and even hostile to it.
meantime the local organizations of the party will Few could understand this theory, especially the memdo pretty much as they please on the question of bers of the Finnish Federation, 8, 000 strong. So they fusio left the party. But a few hesitated. Wait for the To be sure, Nikolai Lenin urged that the British Detroit convention, they said. Perhaps the theory Communist Party, formerly the British Socialist of the national executive committee will be exploded.
Party, apply for affiliation with the British Labor But it wasn And any Finns that might have reParty, on the basis of no surrender of principle. The mained in the party, now join the exodus.
Labor Party, at its recent congress, refused that Time will show that what is true of the Bohemians, affiliation. On the basis of no surrender of Socialist Jews, Finns, and other foreign nationalities, is also principle, not one political organization, so called, true of large numbers of members in the English of the workers in America, would co operate with branches.
the Socialist Party. But the surrender of principle The more than 100, 000 members that the Socialist has proceeded so far that coalition would be super Party had two years ago are on the march. They have fluous. Complete fusion is inevitable, and this means left the Detroit Convention stalled far in the rear, the end of the Socialist Party.
groping about in the quagmires of indecision and Where the convention did take a stand, the effort stupidity, where the renegades in the Farmer Labor was meaningless in view of the prevailing local Party and other similar organizations are also flounautonomy within the party.
dering, fretting and fuming.
remains In the meantime the Socialist Party sh Centralization vs. 57 Varieties.
upon the rocks, battered and helpless, unable to Similarly the so called powers of supervision weather the seas where old Socialist ideas battle to given the national executive committee over elected meet new conditions.
was our