THE COMMUNIST HAS IT BEEN WORTH WHILE?
broght into adjustment with this calendar test, HAS IT BEEN WORTH WHILE? but they had been in Russia They had witno matter what they may have thought about Ry nessed the tablets, almost had they seen the any of the fundamental principles of Communism.
Editar Notrz We print ntie article as an exwriting of the new scriptures they had been in The Centrist swamp of July and August was pression of the thearetical background of the posiRussia And who dared to say them nay?
rehabilitated as the perfect expression of Boltion of the minnrity; the nxhor is the leading The Comunist Labor Party came into being theoretician or that krok Following this artile shevism during the first week of September, will be found a critical analysis hy one of the alongside the Communist Party as the confused The perfect Bolsheviks of July and August (the editor protest of the Left Wing against its absorbtion Michiganders)
became counter. revolutionary into this religiosity oi word Bolshevism. There Mensheviks at some unrecorded hour on the After seven months of existence of the Com has been the persistent voice of protest within 6th or 7th of September, when their usefulness munist Party can we say whether it has been the Communist Party, but it has been officially in the fight to conquer the Leit Wing had success or a failure? There must be tests of stilled.
ended. In other words, when the Federation the worthwhiteness of a party, just as there are We must take a reckoning of the seven months, politicians had assured themselves of control of tests of the success of other entrprises. Comof our efforts and their results. We must conthe new party.
munist Party does not simply happen; it is made sider the Communist Party as an organ of the All of the English speaking clements in both by collective volition. It may be well made class struggle in the United States, not as an the Communist and Communist Labor convenand it may be bugled. There is a social evolution institution for the holding of ritualistic incantations were reduced to an absurdity by the Fedwhich accounts for the appearance of a Com tions to the Russian Revolution. And what do eration caucus. One feature of the Communist munist party at a given epoch of history. But we find?
there is nothing about that which fore.
Party Convention which will leave a bad taste ordains whether any particular attempt to build for some time to come was the cheap cynicism The accident of the suspension of seven Fedeabout the revolutionary worthlessness of all the such a party will be good, bad or indifierent.
rations of the Socialist Party at one stroke, most It is important at the outset of this discussion English speaking clements in America.
of them Russian speaking, threw these FederaJust why some of us did not carry out our to insist upon this objective attitude toward the tions together into a provisional highly centralCommunist Party. We have suffered a great ized organization which gave a handful of persons initial impulse to leave this Convention is a deal to the detriment of the Communist move. complete control of the Loit Wing. This conperplexity which can only be explained to day ment in this country by the imposition of a trol has been used in such manner by the Fedby the big bluff of Bolshevism. The writer religious attitude of fatal inevitability upon the has resolved never to enter either the Communeration politicians that the Communist movewhole process. few undefined slogans have ist or the Leit Wing Conventions, being deterred ment in the United States has gone BACKWARD served like hallelujahs at a revivalist meeting.
on the one hand by hopeless arbitrariness and since June 1919, and is presently yoked with a Hell las gaperl before us in all its feariulness, miserable heritage of internal factional and peron the other by hopeless confusion.
The Left even more terrifying than the portrayals by Billy sonal squabbles which will require much patient Wing Council had accepted the September ist Sunday, the hell of being the minutest fraction effort to overcome.
call for a Communist convention because it was under one hundred percent Bolshevik. To escape obviously supported by the overhelining majority This is a most serious charge to make against this fearful peril most of us have been consistentof the Left Wing membership It seemed that men who call themselves Communists. It is a Ty more than one hundred percent Bolshevikthis was the forum in which to fight against charge of almost unbelievable pettiness and vansomewhat to the leit of the leit of the Leit ity during months of the most heroic struggle domination of an aggressive, active, hopeful Communists of other countries.
mebership by a small clique of vain poloticians.
and sacrilice by Communists in all countries. It Of course someone will answer: this is what Once in Communist convention, there appeared the Right Wingers said about year ago; is not a question of good intentions or good motives. The net result of the Federation leaderno escape from the dilemma except a Left Wing if it is true now, why was it not true then?
It is true now; it was true then. But the Right ship has been an absolute pushing backward of conquest of the Communist Party.
the revolutionary Socialist movement in the UnitThe unity issue which has been in the foreWingers used this sarcasm not to characterize a particular phase of the revolutionary Socialist ed States. Hi this is the truth it must be faced front of Communist discussion since last August movement in this country.
has epitomized the fundamental conflict in cur They aimed their as the truth. It means that in addition to all shafts at revolutionary Socialism itseli.
other difficulties we hahe lost ground to regain, ranks. Tb federation question has only been What has dominated the Communist movement but defeats are only disastrons when we fail a subterfuge for the revolt against exotic domiin the United States up to this time may be to acquire a new wisdom and a new determinanation of the Communist movement in this rescribed as the big bluff of Bolshevism. The tion out of them.
country. There has been no idea of attacking process has been a perfect parallel to Joseph The Left Wing Conference of last June was the federations as units of foreign language orSmith discovery of the tablets upon which really the starting of a new party. The overganization and agitation. Only the demagogic were revealed the eternal truths of Mormonism.
helming representation at that Conference was Russian and Jewish nationalists have had the Joseph Smith secured many followers ior his oi membership expelled or about to be expelled requisite pettiness to insinuate that there is schemes oi colonization because there were many from the Socialist Party. It became apparent prejudice against foreigners as such within ready for so fortunate a combination of spiritual almost as soon as the Conference opened that the American Left Wing movement. It is only and economic adventure. ready made Bolshethere was a strong minority opposed to any the remoteness of our phrase Bolshevism from vism was superimposed in this country upon further efforts within the Socialist Party, though the class struggle in America against which there Left Wing movement of many years standing.
it was obvious that the Conference did not inis resentment, and it is this resentment which The adventure element with revolution in proc.
clude within itseli all the Left Wing elements has directed itself against the federations as an ess in Russia. in Germany in Hungary was in the old party, instrument of intrigue, not against federations so alluring that none stopped for questioning Just what was involved for the furtherance as organs of propaganda.
or analysis. There were to be sure, the scoffing of Communism in America in the formal estabNow we approach more directly the work of Right Wingers, but their concern was not the lislument of a Communist Party at one precise the Communist Party itself.
better progress but the destruction of the Leit date or another, just what was involved for (End of first installment which the nuthor promises Wing movement. There were the crities from to continue. Communism in the inauguration of the new party Detroit. the Proletarian University group of by one form of campaign rather than anotherMarxiani students, but their criticism was in this has not been made clear even until today. HAROLD LORD VARNEY OF THE COM effective because of its contemptuous manner But on June 22d, 1910, it became Centrism not MUNIST PARTY of presentation and fundamentally, because their to favor the formal establishment of a Com(THE POLITICAL OBITUARY or criticism was not responsive to the true vitality munist Party on June 22d. The pronunciamento COMMUNIST)
of the Left Wing movement.
to this effect had 11ot been announced on June BY W In May 1910 there was the discovery that there 21st, so that many found themselves transformed was a Leit Wing within the Socialist Party which overnight from Bolsheviks to Centrists.
The laurels won by Harold Lord Varney, forcould control the party. Immediately upon this Put the Federation caucus met again and lifted mer chiei editor and theoretician of the discovery came the expulsion of a majority of the ban of excommunication as against all who who published a sensational article in the New the Socialist Party membership by the Right would at once join a new party call for Septem York World on February 8th of this year in Wing executive officers. Within a few months ber first. But this call must be just as dictated; which he denounced the gods whom he had appeared the Communist Party, particularly it must take no account of the Soc worshipped before and extolled the gods whom Bat just as the Communist Party emerged ialist Party of which many of the delegates were he had previously dennounced, by proclaiming from its cocoon came a new discovery. The still members. Purity in Bolshevism had shiited his conversion to the capitalist faith. aroused Communists were not the Left Wingers of the from June 22d to September 1st, but the shift the envy of also a former editor, but who Socialist Party, but spurned this Left Wing along in dates was not a response to the demand with the rest of the Socialist Party!
still remains the theoretician of the present that the process of Left Wing development within The Communists, lo and behold, were the minority group of the Communist Party of the Socialist Party be taken into consideration.
America. So he also decided to iminortalize his bearers of a new revelation! And ever since the It was an admission that September ist was just name by the same great deed.
Summer of 1919 we have had an official Com. as good as June 22d for the fornial announcement manism in the United States which proceeds by The article of y. which is printed in this of a Communist Party, but tne insistence was incantations, counting of beads. salaams to the that Polshevism prescribed in June just what issue of the Communist under the significant East, jubilees of phrases and slogans, pieties untitle HAS IT BEEN WORTH WHILE (that must occur in September, regardless of interending to Bolslevinto a Bolshevism consistis, has it been worth while to organize the mediate developments.
ing of a mysterious compound of words and Communist Party of America) is a certain means ritual which could only be known to its high It is assuredly not the desire at this date to the attainment of such immortalization, being to quarrel with the fact of the starting of the priests!
unquestionably the political obituary of its author Communist Party at any particular time Wha: The supreme high priests of this new revela is here pointed out is a different illustration of as a Communist.
tion had seen the divine flame with their own It is true that in this first article at the the arbitrary logic of pseudo Bolshevism which eyes. They had been in Russia. Many years end of which the reader is encouraged by a has held the Communist Party in its grip ever aro, perhaps, in a world of circumstances only since its inception. The Centrists of June became promise of its continuation) he does not attack dimly akin to those of 1910 in the United States, Communism with the same frank vehemence and perfectly good Bolsheviks the moment they were malice as does his colleague Sarney against