THE COMMUWTS2 Page Tivo as THE majorities afflicts the Socialist Party THE COMMUNIST The Right to Strike well as Capitalism. Precisely as the capitalNational Organ, Communist Party, HS law and order game is producing LOUIS FRAINA, Editor centages that the Socialists were beaten and many wierd pranks of law and order FERGUSON, Associato Editor bourgeois reaction conquered, so the Social nowadays. In fact the law and order moralist Party is trying to prove also by means ists can no longer keep pace with the perPublished Weekly, and owned and controlled, of percentages that Socialism made enormformance. We have come to the time when by the Communist Party of America.
ous strides onward. The Socialist Party is the law and order fangs are cutting too RUTHENBERG, Executive Secretary developing the percentage conception oi the deep into the flesh to make any successful LOUIS FRAINA, International Secretary revolution pretence of purposes other than gigantic cents a copy, 00 six months, 00 a year, But these experts in percentages are mere piracy and suppression of the masses.
Bundles, 10 or more, 370 a copy, froth upon the surfnce of events. They are Note the clumsiness of the efforts to de not in contact with reality, with the dynamic fond the lise of the courts and the army Address all communications forces that shape social and political devel and all the prestige and influence of the 1919 Blue Island Ave. Chicago, III, opments. They are afflicted with the par. Federal government against the coal strike.
The Elections liamentary idiocy scored by Marx, which The Chicago Tribun draws the line beimagines that destiny is determined by an tween the lawful strike and the unlawful HE political campaign this year, while electoral majority and resolutions in parlia strike as a division between strikes in pureordinary in itself. occurred under ment.
ly private, noncssential industry and strikes extraordinary conditions. The campaign as The revolutionary Marxist, in considering in essential industries.
such possessed no vital issues; but circum the social topography, the measure of develThe Chicago Daily News marks the diststances imposed issues upon it. issues, opment of the revolutionary movement, inction as between a number of free men.
however, which appear incidentally and no: pierces through parliamentary forms and in the absence of a contract voluntarily enconsciously clectoral illusions. It is the play of social tered into choosing to leave their work and One fact stands clear in the recent can forces behind these forms and illusions that a combination, with organization and leadpaign: in spite of opportunity for mobilizing must be analyzed in order to appreciate the ers, which conducts a general strike with revolutionary issues politically, there was no revolutionary lay of the land.
the intention and known effect of paralyzing such mobilization. The Communist Party The electoral majority secured in the reindustry.
did not participate in the elections; while cent elections by the parties of order will In other words, a strike is lawful when the Socialist Party campaign was more than encourage them to repress still more, and usually a petty bourgeois campaign about this repression must necessarily hasten the it is small. of no particular consequence.
humanity, milk, democracy and such issues. proletarint awakening to revolutionary capitalism. But it is unlawful when it is and of no threatening aspect to the general The campaign and the elections were of the consciousness, regulation cheap political character. This electoral majority will not mine coal organized so effectively that it can tie up Another fact that stands clear is that for Capitalism, nor produce steel, nor prean entire industry. And the degree of unlawthe revolutionary surge among the masses, vent the workers from securing out of life fulness apparently increases it is unlawful conspiracy, according to Mr. Taft. when itself the courage and inspiration for more expressed in dynamic strikes, did not exenormous combinations of workmen deliberpress itseli politically, could not express it aggressive struggles against Capitalism.
self since there was no real opportunity for The votes and public offices secured by ately enter upon a countrywide plan to take the nation by the throat.
expression, and since, moreover, the revo the Socialist Party will not alter that party lutionary surge or the masses is still econo reactionary character, act will lasten its Undoubtedly the eneral strike will be mic and has not yet acquired a political rer development into an opes parts peti bu illegal. The business of law and order is to olutionary consciousness, urgeois progressivism and laborist there make everything illegal and immoral which But there is still a third fact, and that is by hastening the workers realization of the is contrary to the fundamentals of the privthe mass of the voters are reactionary. In necessity for Communism.
ate property exploiting system, New York City, where a number of Socia At this moment the most vital, and potenBut the general strike will happen just lists were élected to public office, they are tially revolutionary tendency is the strike the same. Capitalism will compel the genetypical reactionary biatherskites and this movement oi the workers. This movement.
inl strike, or a series of general strikes, just is another expression of reaction, much developed out of the economie circumstanso surely as capitalist ethics will brand any more dangerous than an outright capitalist ces of Capitalism, is a real menace to the dosuch strike as a criminal conspiracy. When the enormous combinations of workmen minant social system. But the revolutionary The re election of Governor Coolidge in importance of this strike movement is not really do take the nation by the throat Massachusetts on the issue of stem re in its direct threat to Capitalism, but in its what then? Why, they will quickly realize pression of the recent police strike in Boston influence upon the ideology of the workers.
that the overwhelming degree of suffocation has evoked the congratulations of men all The American Federation of Labor, under is on the part of the working class, and they over the country, including President Wil the pressure of Capitalism and the nslitnut will relax the grip, but not entirely. That son and other Democrats, who consider the workers, is rapidly approaching disintegra part of the national life, in institutions and re election a victory for law and order. tion, thereby accelerating the impetus topractices, which compels the general strike, The police strike was considered an assault ward industrial unionism. The fact that will be held by the throat and choked to upon law and order. Governor Coolidge these strikes clash with the power of the death.
uncompromising policy of breaking the state is developing a political consciousness Revelation upon this all jurists agree strike was enthusiastically approved by apo among the workers, and preparing concii is a law unto itseli. The Communist revologists of Capitalism, and his re election tions for the political strike of the masses lution will inaugurate a system of Law and against a candidate who mildly favored the which is more vital and powerful than the Order founded upon the needs of expansive police is considered a blow at Bolshevism. largest electoral majority.
human life. The law and order of Capitalism And, peculiarly, the clection is generally The strike is being broadened and deep is founded upon the needs of investment for considered by the capitalist press as a re ened, the workers moving toward the con profit.
pudiation of Bolshevism. Repudiation incept of mass action. The impulse for the Between these two systems is the transiwhat way?
revolution comes out of the mass struggles tion period of the class struggle. Until a Bolshevism was not represented in the of the proletariat, out of its actual clash certain day the working class, in its mass elections surely the Socialist Parts did not with Capitalism and the state in its mass manifestations of power, will be compelled represent Bolshevism!
strikes. not out of electoral majorities.
to act under the cloud of the law or in direct But still the bourgeois take flattering This mass movement of the workers is defiance thereof. Upon the next day the unction to their souls and sigh happily about acquiring feverish speed and larger con present sanctified processes of labor exploitthe defeat of Bolshevism during the recent sciousness: the electoral majority of Capi ation will become the most serious of crimes.
campaign. This comes from the inherent talism can not stop its onward sweep. To This does not prove that Might is Right.
bourgeois idea that electoral majorities are impart to this strike movement a larger It only proves that Might is Right at certain the final indication of class power.
and more conscious character, to develop times and under certain circumstances.
Electoral majorities, however, are not the out of its circumstances definite revolution. There is a profit right and a life right; there final indication of class power. The capital. ary demands, to develop the understanding is a profit might and there is a life might.
ist press claims a great victory for Capital and action of the political general strike it Communism as a goal is the social expresism in the recent elections; but in spite of is this task that calls the revolutionist tosion of the life right. Communism in act.
that American Capitalism was never as near action, it is upon the measure of fulfillment ion is the social expression of the life might a crisis as it is at this moment. Not votes of this task that we can gauge the maturity the action of the great working masses but social forces are the determining factor.
This superstition concerning electoral the conquest of power, of the American proletariat for action and bursting asunder the chains of slavery to Capital.
vote.