8 THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE Saturday, April 19, 1919 Left Wing or The Way to Unity mass action.
ideologies speaks shop. lt unity which World.
In Ruswords.
pol0 NE cannot but regret the growing coolness bet By Harold Lord Varney groups are shaping themselves into permanence, it is ween our revolutionists of the Left Wing and (See Editorial, Page Three)
vital that they strike the keynote of the hour. The our revolutionists of the The bonds only insurance that the present Left Wing movement of sympathy seem straining. The hope for unity does not go the ephemeral way of its forerunners, will seems doomed. Aloofness is giving way to rivalry longer debatable. Russia gave to the American In be the economic soundness of its program. Will it and a situation which, a few brief weeks ago, seemed dustrialists the unanswerable argument of fact.
Like a tidal wave, the beliefs of the Socialist Party Yes course of the masses? Will it hew to the ruthalignment of all revolutionary forces, now threatens began to reverse themselves. Haltingly at first then, My criticism is that the Left Wingers have already to repeat the old time time weakness of divis: under and perpetuate the old tumultuously, as the passing months gave permanence stumbled at this identical point. Their program is to the Bolshevik regime, the political Socialists ab splendid in its internationalism, but it has missed the often it has happened in the labor movement of America band wagon and they scrambled aboard. Like all new etariat. It is obsessed with Russia and it blinds itapart. How manifold have been the struggling little converts to ideas which time has made hoary, they be self to the truth that Russia and America are economic groups which only lived to glut the vanity of their entities, abysmally dissimilar. It ignores the surge of egoistic chiefs. They crowd the museum of our men Possibly, the of all the world move the American proletariat toward unionism, rather than ories. The tragedy of labor has not been written by ments, was shaken least by Bolshevism. The its adversaries. It has been self created, and every welcomed the Bolshevik triump. theory had been language and American labor does not understand.
with the joy of the concrete it overlooks the problems of the a European defeat has been self inflicted by labor fatal division. expected. The final link in For generations, one ineffable need has clangored in forged at last. But there was nought in the new That movement will win in in America which reflect our ears. It has we Not that the labor movement has not realized the WW. had happenings to compel a revision of belief. The American economic conditions. Such a movement been anti parliamentary. The cànnot be created by a theory. Such a movement canW. had always sought Industrialism. The not be jetted out to us from Russia problem. Picas for unity have been prolific. ProIt must be a had preached Bolshevism while the Bolshesire to unite. Conferences have been summoned and wiki themselves were still groping. And the Wabbly of American industrial toilers. Emissaries and resto delegates have gathered and departe due buevalwaysrom ideologic truth, as he watched the Russian swimmer felt like one who had long since swum to an island of olytes from Bolshevism need not create it. It is here. full grown and conscious.
ram. The divisions have been too stark.
the Industrial And so the labor history of America has run its the new left Wing American Socialists began to prop Workers of the World which has caught the genius turbid course. Secessions have followed secessions, who had fought the Industrialist battle for nearly a agate Industrialism, was naturally amusing to those of the American Proletarian revolution have learned nothing as economists if we have Social Democracy and Socialist Party: and shevism was but the Rassian name for and rarian; another maritime: a third, industrial. America sprouted into autonomy. and generation, Bolsheviki the new Left Wingers stylnot learned that nations are industrial organisms each ed themselves, but well the knew that Bol with a different economic skeleton. One nation is agW. Syndicalist League and One. Big Union that, after a few fights of Left Wingism, the Social is both industrial and agrarian.
Bolshevik. These are but the notable names in a long, ution leads inevitably to the Industrial Workers of the ing a livelihood. Quite naturally then, the American Men thoughts are moulded by their means of makfogotten scroll of But for this dischism.
there has hitherto been a certain justification. Apart from personalities, the labor ky. How utterly powerless are words. And yet, which reflects the immense contrast How wonderfully eloquent are facts, says Trotz sian. There is a contrast of thought and instinct moveinent has been muddled in its ideology. On one the vagueness of their program suggests that the Left and Anglo Saxon cconomic institutions.
of Russian issue at least, there has been a traditional cleavage of Wingers of America thought. On one side were the Parliamentarians. on stand at the turnstile of sia, the psychology of the situation indicated mass the other were the Industrialists.
itical action as the means of proletarian expression.
The Parliamentarians were obsessed with a political, Now, in this formative period, while the Left Wing In America and Britain, mass political action is una perpetuation of the existing state. Their propaganda The Collapse of the Old World Winger must himsel aligns withoni the wishes to put By Gregory Weinstein teeth into workers as. consumers rather than to the workers as theories.
producers. They reduced the revolution to the absurd VEN before the Russian revolution it had become straddled this issue. And, in so doing, they doomed The programs of the. Left Wing groups have simplicity of the casting of a vote. Through long, clear to every observant revolutionary Socialist the future of their cause.
sterile years, they exhausted their momentum in hectic that the world would enter upon a road of great social With a deliberate evasiveness, they have endorsed all the political Socialists and many of the present Left be the victor, would result in revolutions in all coun ingless. The Socialist Party in its political platforms attempts. In this group, belonged changes, and that the war; Tegardless of who would revolutionary industrial unionism. But this is meanThe Industrialists, on the contrary, were anti Stat will not be able, after the wat, social life. Thrown tries. The large masses. affirmed those Socialists this before them. But what union? Why to returri to their old ists.
They sought an industrial democracy not a forms of political millenium. The future society, to the Indust out of their conventional places, worn out by the pro Left Winger should join, to gain revolutionary induseconomic, own suppress the name?
political Is it the American Federation of Labor which the super industrial union. Representation would follow in the innermost recesses of their heart a deep hatred Workers, which has so cravenly begged to be admitted minds of the Industrialists had already emancipated the base ledes e enten gegen which forced them to die on to the of 2is it the besede: Wiena din rear.
ful handful of old men. themselves from the fetish on the parlia. enre of battle and learning how to use arms, theThey Capitalism, it would seem, has answered the questmentary and the industrial forms of Socialism. The sufficient means to end this order of things. it would penalized. There is already envisaged the later, conclude that they have ion. There is only one union which Capitalism has industrial point of view found its reflection in a succession of left wing secessions: the against the adherents and defenders of the old social and into that union revolutionary labor be necessary only to turn the weapons in their hands an agressive, uncompromising assault upon Capitalism, is the the Red split of 1912.
surging. In order turned them into slaves and fratricides. seeking for an ally, why look furtlier Left WingerUntil 1917, this breach was insuperable. It was a The march of the Russian Revolution has completely than the unconquerable columus of the gehienet isang stoutily to their formulas, justifying their Neither the magic of the both ovis high priest their thote na tle and shore Hain and the murdered ones of theoretical contrast and Parliamentarians and Industri vindicated the opinions of the revolutionary Socialists.
If it is revolutionary industrial unionism which you belief cticaly: both sides proved their case. The future is through invasion by international Capitalism, could Everett and the crushed rebels an intellectual bank account which can never be over interfere with the process of the Russian people tak paid the price and formed it for you. If. it is Bolshesmashing argument of fact had intervened, to give the the ruthless and unjust society of oppression and vio capitalist class who shout that the only form of Polverdict of finality.
erecting on its ruins a society of Socialist, frat shevism which is to be feared in Ancrica is the And so, during this pre 1917 period, the divisions in crnity and Communistic labor. If it is revolutionary numbers that seek, In the Farliamentary Right, stood the Socialist party, the same tendency are the Spartacans follow the Bol tour fond larger than you to wonu mind if couragefrom pervious to change. And on the Left, the Industrial revolution is triumphant. All power there is in the of mastering America, it is yours and at hand when you minor groups and seemingly im shevik policy. In Hungary and Bavaria the proletarian titude and stamina mean anything to you, who dream ists, after many racking controversies, had gradually hands of And so, inclines were not absolute. fringe of Parliamentar. ingoin concert with the Russian Bolsheviki. Workers ians could be found in the and a similar pirc arc rcady to join the revolutionary Hungarian and on the issue. Events move too rapidly.
Wingers stand today at the crossroad of decision. They must commit theniselves upfringe of Industrialists in the Socialist Party. And a Bavarian proletariat. Even Czechoslovakia, which has issues are too tuit to be silent. The crying shame of negligible portion of the more impossibilist type lurked heen the inain hope of the Allies, is seething with un Leavenworth calls for recress and the on the outside in the and the But, rest.
inevitably act with the Left must generally speaking the Socialist Party and the The Allies have their hands full. And in their own if possible Necessary. Either will le iv. were the miniatures of the state of intellectual countries revolutionary unrest is brewing. Italy and or the programs of the Left Wing groups will cemen.
unity contrast in this period.
France are on a volcano. And even America, having a new division. The splendid hope of the present, Then came Bolshevism. With immortal letters of suffered less than the rest from the war, is not calm. the hope of a super labor movement which shall unite blood and iron, it wrote the answer to the problem. The strike wave is not decreasing, but rises higher and the revolution stands or falls with this issue of the With the ruthlessness of destiny, it closed the doors higher. Shall we be Bolsheviki in Russia and crasan epoch. Socialism was no longer hypothetical. The old world is in the grip of a red revolutionary ionists in America? Let our Lcft Wing program It came. And when it came, it was not Parliamentary. movement, which is growing larger and larger from speak. On one hand is the of on the other Victorious Bolshevism scrapped the State and pro day to day. And it is not able to disengage itself from the They are fighting the final struggle.
claimed itself Industrialist. The controversy was no the fiery grip.
The Left Winger must choose between them.
Wingers.
Jone has had the in the distinction would vou the Left without them, if of