Two THE COMMUNIST THE COMMUNIST To crush capitalist resistance and disarm the capitalist class, to confiscate capitalist pro perty and turn it over to the WHOLE WORKING of the Proletariat, in which the workers, through ernment is necessary state, the Dictatorship their Soviets, can uproot the capitalist system with an iron hand.
Is not this sufficient proof of the necessity of a Werkers state in the transition period?
Of course this Workers State, a temporary institu. ion, cannot abolish capitalism and the classes at one stroke.
IC that were possible there would be no need for the state. The pro letarian state functions both politically and eco nomically. On the one hand it builds up the economic administration of the workers, for the workers and by the workers; and on the other it crushes counter revolution, expropriates and suppresses the bourgeoisie as a class and he duces them to the labor strata, neutralizes the intermediary classes and wins them over to the side of the proletariat; isolates the rich Dea sants who align themselves with the speculators in witholding their grain and wheat from the Workers Government for speculative purposes, etc.
Those who cannot or will not see this double role of the proletarian state. in reality they are simply both sides of one shield, both equally important and equally necessary in the process of bringing the Communist society. are either fools or rascals, or both.
To rail against the political function ofthe Proletarian State ile minimizing its economic reconstruction is. display a complete lack of revolutionary consciousness, which unfits any man or organization from leadership of the class.
conscious workers or any part of them. Nor will the policy, adopted at the last convention of the of refraining from attacking the Comimunists, change the situation. Neutrality is even worse.
There can be no such thing as neutrality in the revolutionary movement. Neutrality invariably leads to the camp of the opposition. Are the prepared to go that far?
We urge the revolutionary rank and file of the to read the literature of Communism, to study the question of proletarian dictator.
ship, and force their leaders to change the attitude of the before it shall become too late.
Those who make this argument, whether they label themselves Socialists or or are all of the same stripe.
Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Official organ of class of exploiters, capitalists and landowners was not disappeared and could not have dig.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERICA appeared. The capitalist class has been overpublished by the thrown but not abolished. They have been replaced as the ruling class, but the class struggle CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE itseli has not disappeared. The class struggle does not disappear under the proletarian dictaVol.
August 1, 1920.
No.
torship It takes a different form.
The exploiters retain the basis of international capitalism, of which they are part and parcel. They still possess some means of proThe and the duction, as well as money and extensive social Proletarian Revolution. creased a hundred, nay, a thousand told by the military and economic administration, alords The July issue of the One Big Union Monthly them a great superiority, so that their impor. carries an article with the caption What is tance is considerably out of proportion to their Bolshevism and proceeds to answer the quesnumerical strength, as compared with the whole tion in true styis 100 only exposing population. Lenin. their ignorance of Bolshevism, but displaying an The proletarian revolution, by the act of conantipathy and hatred of Bolshevism or Communquering and destroying the capitalist state and ism which can only be equalled by Right Wing establishing the proletarian dcitatorship, has only Socialists, or bourgeois pacifists the Betrand taken step in the direction of establishRussell type.
ing the Communist society. The process is long After taking the usual fling at the American and difficult, requiring superhuman courage, will Bolsheviks (Communists) they continue: and determination. Right here the In their revolutionary ardor (with their jaw. differ with the Communists. The are they have plumb forgotten to look np what Bol.
opposed to all forms of the state, to the proleshevisin really is, what it has done and what tarian state as well as the capitalist state. Ostit tries to accomplish. Should this magazine fall rich like, they refuse to see the netessity of a into the hands of some of these soviet maniacs, workers state in the transition period from they will have a good chance to enlighten themCapitalism to Communism, The are selves by reading these official accounts.
content to keep on building their industrial The official accounts which the One Big Union unions under the rule of capitalism, until such Monthly reprints are taken from some May time as the great majority of the workers have issues of the magazine Soviet Russia dealing been organized into industrial unions, when with the socialization of agriculture, the econothese organized workers simply are to seize the mic reconstruction and the co operative moveindustries and lock out the capitalists who must ment in Soviet Russia.
then go to work or starve.
Having diligently perused the accounts in But the process is not as simple as that, question, the editor, with the perspi even if it were possible and deesirable to wait so cacity of his kind, discovered. that Bolshe. long. It is impossible to organize all the work.
vism is not a political theory, but a poor imita ers, or even a majority of the workers into intion of the theory of industrial unionism applied dustrial unions under capitalism. The power of to an industrially backward and largely agricul. the capitalist class, their control of the press, tural country, with little or no succes.
the schools, the colleges, the church, the halls, And he proves this by posing the following etc. to say nothing of the capitalist state machifour questions and answering them all in the nery, the army, navy, police, the courts, the negative. 1) Is private ownership abolished in bureaucracy, give them sufficient power over the Russia. 2) Is private control of the means of working class both mentally and physically, to production and distribution abolished in Russia? make this process as utopian an undertaking as (3) Is wage slavery abolished in Russia. 4) trying to emancipate the working class by means Is Socialism established in Russia. of the ballot box.
But there is another and more cogent reason Were we inclined to be facetious we might at this time, why it is impossible for the class retort that there is a little pamphlet entitled conscious workers to attempt the hopeless task AX APPEAL BY THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE of organizing all the workers into industrial COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST INTERunions in order to abolish capitalism one NATIONAL TO THE issued in Mosstroke.
cow and published by the Communist Party of Capitalism ruined by the world war, unable America, which takes up the question of what any longer to contain within itself the tremendBolshevism or Communism really is; should this ous forces it es created, is breaking down. The pamphlet ever fall into the hands of these antihour of the the working class has struck. The Bolshevik maniacs they will have a good Social Revolution has begun, and. on the Ruschance to enlighten themselves by reading this sian plain, the first vanguard battle is being official document addressed to themselves by the fought.
His does not ask whether we like leaders of Bolshevism in Russia. But we refrain it or not, wh er the workers are ready or not.
for obvious reasons. chief among which is the Here is the conviction that the leaders and the theoreticians rtunity. Take it and the world will belong to e workers; leave it there may of the are impervious to learning. Like not be another generations. Now is no time Bourbons, they forget nothing and learn no to talk of build the new society within the thing.
shell of the old. THE OLD SOCIETY IS CRACK John Sandgren and his type are not new INK ITS SHDLL. THE WORKERS MUST ESopponents of Bolshevism. Their antagonism TABLISH THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROdates back to the days when the Bolsheviki LETARIAT, WHICH ALONE CAN BUILD THE overthrew the Kerensky regime and established NEW SOCIETY.
the Workers Government the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of the Soviet GovernThose who, at this late date, after the world ment in Russia. They have fought the Bolshewar, after the establishment of the dictatorship vik Idea in this country as bitterly as the Right of the proletariat in Russia, with the incontrovertible fact of the collapse of world capitalism Wing Socialists, whose spiritual brothers they are. They have never missed an opportunity of staring them in the face, still deny the necessity damning Bolshevism in Russia and have fought of throwing aside all preconceived utopian schemees for the emancipation of the working the Communists in this country in the most class through industrial unionism or the ballot approved Scheidemann manner 10 lie was too strong, no insinuation too base to fling at them.
box, are inherently OPPOSED TO THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION, OPPOSED TO MASS In this same July issue, Sandgren in a signed article, fairly reveals in the dirtiest kind of ACTION CULMINATING IN ARMED INSURRECTION AND CIVIL WAR AGAINST THE mud slinging at the Communist movement and its representatives both here and abroad.
CAPITALIST STATE, OPPOSED TO THE DES That such vile creature can still edit the TRUCTION OF THE CAPITALIST STATE, OP.
official organ of e is the best kind POSED TO THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE of proof of the reactionary character of its lead.
PROLETARIAT AS THE ONLY MEANS OF INTRODUCING THE COMMUNIST SOCIETY and ership and the counter revolutionary tendencies THEREFORE OPPOSED TO THE EMANCIPAL of the organization.
TION OF THE WORKING CLASS ITSELF.
Our answer is not intended for the leaders and would be teoreticians of the We Either you ore for the workers revolution or address ourselves cctly to the revolutionary you are against it. There cannot be two ways Tank and fils, over the leads of their opportunabout it. All the opposition to the by the 1st, reactio ry leaders. yellow Socialists or the is so much sand thrown into the eyes o! the working class, It is a: arent that the membership of the are not quite conscious of what Bolsheto hide their opposition to the proletarian revolution itself and the only means by which to vism really is, else such articles as its magazines accomplish it armed insurrection and civil war and papers have published for the last two end a half years would have ceased long ago.
against the capitalist state.
Nor could the non revolutionary decisions of its last Capitalism cannot be abolished at one stroke, convention (whis have placed their organizaand the destruction of the capitalist state does tions in the same category with all other labor not mean that capitalism automatically and imunions) ever have been enacted had its membermediately disappears. The tapitalists still have ship a clear understanding of the meaning of arms, which must be taken away from them; Bolshevism.
they are still supported by hordes of loyal bu.
The makes the same error as all reaucrats, managers, superintendents. foremen, other bourgeois and petty bourgeois opponents and trained men of all sorts, who will sabotage of the dictatorship of the proletariat, that is.
industry and these must be persuaded or comthey confuse proletarian dictatorship with Compelled to serve the working class; they still have munism. And since the Soviet Government, army officers who can betray the Revolution, which is the dictatorship of the proletariat in preachers who can raise superstitious fears Russia has not yet abolished classes, has not against it. teachers and orators who can mis.
yet taken all the means of production and disrepresent it to the ignorant, thugs who can be tribution out of private hands, has not yet comhired to discredit it by evil behaviour, newspletely destroyed the profit system and estabpaper editors who can deceive the people with itshed Communism, ergo, the Soviet Government floods of lies, and yellow Socialists and Labor Is a frauc imposed upon the workers and pea.
fakers who prefer capitalist democracy to the sants of Russia by the Bolsheviki!
Revolution. All these people must be sternly suppressed.
RESOLUTION ON UNITY WITH THE Adopted by the Second Convention of the Communist Party of America.
Unity with the as a party of Centrists, is impossible. We can unite only with such membership, or parts of the that will repudiate their Centrist leadership and join the Communis. Party on the basis of our principles, program, and tactics.
SOME DECISIONS OF THE New rate on dues stamps shall take effect on September 1st, Organization Committees instructed to take up the question of organizing the Pacific Coast and report about sume at the next meeting.
Secretary instructed to send letter to the demanding return of funds and property turned over to the by Damon Editorial Department is instructed to prepare and submit a revised copy of the Manifesto to thee next meeting.
The Communist, official organ, shall be cold for five cents in the future.
To issue a call for One Day Pay as passed by the convention.
To issue the next Commuaist as a Convention Number.
All heads of departments and district organizers were appointed.
Departmental heads to report at every meeting 0EXERPT FROM THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL STATEMENT ON THE ABOLITION OF THE AMSTERDAM SUB BUREAU.
The Committee declares that it has unant mously recognized that to refuse to utilize the parliamentary arm, to renounce the effort to promote the revolutionary spirit of the labor unions from within all this comes from an insufficient appreciation of the role of the com munist parties as agents of universal revolution ontradiction interests of the working class, and will end in transforming the struggle for dictatorship lato an empty phrase. The executive committee has charged com: rades Boukharin, Radek and Zinoviey with com posing a memotre and thesis on these questions It has unanimously decided to annul the charter of the Amsterdam Bureau, it being granted that the bureau maintains on all these questions a point of view opposite to that of the Executive Committee.
with the