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The New York COMMUNIST Vol. I, No. New York, Saturday, April 26, 1919 Price cents The Left Wing and the Revolution By Louis Fraina to be parketa bat ere este cel in the hope marcha HE distinguishing feature of the controversy tactics of the class struggle, of the unrelenting an bring proletarian pressure upon Government.
and the Left Wing, between the moderates and the the bourgeoisie, function in normal as well as to other shops to pull out the workers there, get revolutionists, is that the Right Wing refuses to in revolutionary times.
out in the streets in mass demonstrations, that is develop and defend its real program. This is It didn require an actual revolutionary crisis mass action we can use now, whether or not we are partly fear, partly camouflage, and partly sheer to oppose the imperialistic war.
in an actual revolutionary crisis.
stupidity.
It didn require a revolutionary crisis to make In proletarian dictatorship is implied the necesThe moderates have a program, and a consistent Lee acceptance of the war in order to save the sity of overthrowing the political parliamentary program It consists of parliamentarism, of re Russian Revolution a betrayal of Socialism. state, and after the conquest of power organizing forming Capitalism out of existence, of municipal It didn require a revolutionary crisis to make new proletarian state of the organized producers, ization and nationalization of industry on the basis Lee voting for Liberty Bonds, a betrayal of So of the federated Soviets. These concepts were imof the bourgeois parliamentary state, of the theory cialist practice.
plied (if not fully expressed) in revolutionary that the coming of Socialism is the concern of all It didn require a revolutionary crisis to make industrial unionism, which equally contained in the classes, in short, the policy of the moderates Lee voting for a Liberty Arch, on which is itself the implication of mass action. Revolution(which is in itself consistent, while inconsistent inscribed Murmansk as a glory of the American ary industrial unionism placed parliamentarism in with fundamental Socialism) is a policy of petit troops, a betrayal of the international proletarian its proper perspective. The acceptance of and the bourgeois, liberal State Capitalism. But this revolution in general, and the Soviet Republic in propaganda for revolutionary industrial unionism policy broke down miserably under the test of the particular.
did not require an actual revolutionary crisis: yet great crisis of Imperialism; it broke down under It doesn require a revolutionary crisis to con the moderates refused to accept this vital Amarind the test of the proletarian revolution, and revealed demn the policy of petty bourgeois reformism and contribution to revolutionary theory and praptist itself as fundamentally counter revolutionary.
compromise pursued by Algernon Lee and his (even refused to accept industrial uniqbiles But the moderates, essentially, still cling to this confreres in the Board of Aldermen.
necessary in the immediate economic strugplaqowa reactionary policy, although they are compelled And it doesn require an actual or immediate No! It is miserable sophistry to affequate by circumstances to disguise it, tu camouflage it revolutionary crisis to accept the Manifesto and Left Wing policy accords only with adotweb with cheap talk about being left wing and a Program of the Left Wing; but this acceplance is lution. That is precisely what thestreder soweit shift to the left in the international movement, necessary for the immediate struggle of the moment, Europe said. When the war broke, the moderates compelled to wait until normal times in order and as a preparation of our forces for the revolu. led by Scheidemann, Cunow, Plekhanov and Kautopenly to defend their reactionary policy. So the tionary struggle that is coming.
sky. declared that the Basel Manifesto had proven moderates refuse to discuss the fundamentals of Let us discuss this problem more fully. It is wrong in expecting an immediate revolution, that the Left Wing Manifesto and Program; they refuse necessary to completely expose the miserable argu the masses had abandoned Socialism, therefore to oppose their real policy to ours; they darements of the Right.
they had to support an imperialistic war! But the not.
The central concepts of Left Wing theory and Basel Manifesto did not assume an immediate revoAccordingly, the Right Wing indulges either in practice are mass action and proletarian dictator lution; it asserted that war would bring an ecovituperation of our revolutionary comrades, in ship. From these concepts flow three sets of tac nomic and social crisis, and that Socialism should threats of expulsion (guardians of the unity of tics: before, during and after the Revolution. The use this crisis to hasten the coming of revolutionary the Party. or in sophistry.
immediate moment in the social struggle may action, Characteristic of this sophistry was Algernon compel a different emphasis; but the tactics are a The moderates in Germany said it was absurd to Lee letter in the Call of April 2nd. Lee implies unity, adaptable to the particular requirements of expect a revolution; and then they used all their that the acceptance of the Left Wing policy der the social struggle.
power to prevent a revolution. And when the propends upon an actual revolutionary crisis, and says: Mass action implies the end of the exclusive letarian revolution loosed itself in action, the mod.
Have we reason to expect a revolutionary crisis concentration on parliamentary tactics. It implies erates acted consistently and ferociously against in this country in the proximate future, aside from the possibility of such a crisis being voluntarily awakening the industrial proletariat to action, the the revolutionary proletariat.
precipitated by one element or another? In such bringing of mass proletarian pressure upon the In Russia, the moderates said a proletarian revoa crisis, if it should be precipitated (no matter by capitalist state to accomplish our purposes. It lution was impossible; but when it came, they acted whom) would the majority of the people probably means shifting the centre of our activity from the against the revolution.
be actively with us or against us? Or would the parliaments to the shops and the streets, making That is the attitude of the moderate Socialists majority remain neutral and inert, ready to accept the outcome of the combat between a revolutionary our parliamentary activity simply a phase of mass everywhere, who are riveted with chains of iron minority and a reactionary minority? In this action, until the actual revolution compels us comto the bourgeois parliamentary state, who are ab.
latter case, taking into account only the supposed pletely to abandon parliamentarism. Mass action sorbed in futile petty bourgeois reformism and active minorities, which of them would probably has its phases. It isn necessary to have an actual the gradual penetration of Socialism into Capi.
win in a decisive struggle at this time? On the revolution in order to use mass action. before the talism. Their arguments may appear plausible, basis of our answers to these questions, have we reason to seek or welcome a hastening of the final form of mass action we may use its prelimi until the test of the proletarian revolution reveals crisis?
nary forms, in which, however, the final form is them as sophistry. Lee arguments and policy These are fundamental questions. Upon the potential. Take, for example, our class war pris are characteristic of the Scheidemanns, the Hen.
answers we give to them must rest our decision oners. It is necessary to compel their liberation. dersons and the Vanderveldes.
on detailed problems of methods and tactics. They are unescapable questions.
The Right Wing depends upon appeals to the GovImperialism, roughly, appeared in 1900; and It is important to understand the immediate ernment which has imprisoned our comrades, upon with its appearance developed the revolt against moment in the great social struggle as a basis for liberal public opinion, upon co operation with parliamentary Socialism, Syndicalism, Industrial action; but Lee uses it to make arguments against bourgeois and essentially reactionary organizations Unionism, Mass Action, Bolshevism, the Left Wing.
action.
in Amnesty conventions. upon every thing ex. Imperialism, as the final stage of Capitalism, obThe policy of the Left Wing, in general, which cept the aggressive mass effort of the proletariat. jectively introduced the Social Revolutionary epoch.
is the policy of revolutionary Socialism, is not a The Left Wing proposes a mass political strike to But the dominant moderate Socialism did not adapt policy only for an actual revolutionary crisis. The compel the liberation of our imprisoned comrades. Continued on page 3)