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226 THE CLASS STRUGGLE EDITORIALS 227 New York locals, which are dominated either by the right or by the center, a mass movement of the membership has produced the organization of a Left Wing Section, the Manifesto and Program of which have already been adopted by a number of locals of the party. There is a real revolt against the bureaucracy of the party, against the reactionary against a policy that is not uncompromisingly revolutionary in the Bolshevik and Spartacan sense.
The forces which are producing this left movement are not of recent origin. There has always been a struggle in the party between the moderates and the revolutionists, between the right and the left. This struggle has been powerfully accelerated by the war and by the actual coming of the proletarian revolution. The great fact of the war and of the proletarian revolution in Russia and in Hungary has been the miserable, counter revolutionary policy of petty bourgeois, moderate Socialism. And this moderate Socialism has been officially dominant in the Socialist Party.
But, the critic may ask, did not the Socialist Party, unlike inoderate Socialism in Europe, oppose the war? It did; but, officially at least, it was an opposition based upon petty bourgeois pacifism and not upon revolutionary Socialism, Moderate Socialism comprises not only the extreme right Ebert, Scheidemann, Thomas, etc. but equally the center the Independent Socialists and the tendency they represent. The Independents, captained by Hugo Haase and Karl Kautsky, opposed the war after they had previously accepted it, but it was an opposition of petty bourgeois pacifism; and the fact that the Independents are not united with the Spartacans, that they do not uncompromisingly accept the revolutionary policy, proves that they are not real revolutionary Socialists.
Now the official policy of our party on the war in spite of the activity of the membership was petty bourgeois and pacifist.
The officials and bureaucracy of the party baffled the will of the membership; they refused through the to accept the Bolshevik proposal for an armistice on all belligerent fronts; they were silent on the Bolsheviki until the upsurge of the revolutionary sentiments of the membership compelled them to speak, and then they spoke the language of evasion and bourgeois liberalism.
After the armistice, the most important need of the party was to hold an emergency national convention. But the refused to act. For three months, while great events were happening and the world was shaking under the attack of the proletarian revolution, the was silent and inert, the party was unable to meet and formulate a policy. This was treason to the Russian and German proletariat, to revolutionary Socialism. And when the met in January, it refused to call a convention and issued nothing of a vital character on the international situation.
The avoided committing itself on the revolutionary events. But it did commit itself on the question of the International by aligning the party officially with the Congress of the Great Betrayal at Berne, with the gang of socialpatriots, with the Eberts and Scheidemanns, the Hendersons and Longuets. The selected, illegally and in flagrant violation of the party constitution, three delegates to represent the party at Berne. This was again treason to international revolutionary Socialism, a shot in the back to the Bolsheviki and Spartacans fighting and dying then in the great struggle against Capitalism and Imperialism, against moderate, petty bourgeois Socialism.
And again the refused to call an emergency national convention, to the tune of those who ask for a convention are Anarchists and party disrupters.
But the demand for a convention developed insistently, and in spite of the sabotage of the and National Secretary Germer, it is now before the membership in a referendum: but five, and more, precious months will have been wasted. The party membership vigorously repudiated participation in the Berne yellow congress, local after local of the party doing this officially. And now the through International Delegate James Oneal, explains that it was a mistake to believe that the meant participation in the Berne Congress, that Oneal is going over to secure information. This is subterfuge. We have enough information to know that the Berne Congress is counter revolutionary, and that the Bolshevik Spartacan International alone is worthy of the revolutionary Socialist.
All these events are a challenge to the militant Socialist.
In an epoch in which Capitalism is verging on collapse, in which the proletarian revolution has conquered in Russia, is preparing to conquer in Germany, is developing its action everywhere for the conquest of power, our party is without a definite revolutionary policy, our party bureaucracy is sabotaging revolutionary Socialism. There must be a clear division, an uncompromising policy. To realize this is the task of the developing left wing in the Socialist Party.