THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE Saturday, June 21, The Control of Government satisfied VERY action, whether in the press or in words, By Nicholas Hourwich scrap of paper, certainly a defiance of lawfully stituted authority; and the World, moreover, e ful authorities of the United States is now aattacks the Senate with ironic remarks to the effect days severely punished. The prisons are filled with submitted to Germany by the Council of Four of Wall Street care very little whether or not the Se.
political prisoners, and new laws are being proposed the Allies.
ratifies the treaty!
to preserve our government by law. Not Whatever, in this instance, liappen to be the motives with the number of politicals in prison, the bourgeois of the Senate majority, the very fact of its refusal to This attitude of the World toward the Senate, press accuses the government of leniency, almost of of the highest institutions of the American state, criminal favoritisn, toward the seditious elements in the final analysis, be explained on political conside and demands more repressive measures and severer ations: the Il orld adherence to the Democratic Pai penalties. More than one organ of the press recomThe Communist International to the and its campaign to discredit the Republican inajor mends that the citizens take the law into their own Proletarians of the World in the Senate. But, upon closer scutiny, the Work hands; which, translated into ordinary human lanThe Third Communist International on April position in this case discloses a much deeper and moi guage, means: that instead of the court law there addressed the proletarians of the world in the followsignificant social fact than party rivalry between th should be a resort to Lynch Law, burnings, hangings Democrats and the Republicans. It appears as anothe ing circular letter, entitled The Latest Atrocity of and depredations by mob violence.
the Socialist Government at Berlin. demonstration of the mockery of the bourgeois parThe German Social Democratic Government has liamentary representative form of government, which Bourgeois justice exists and is directed against the is the object of praise as a manifestation of the higher undesirable elements of our class society, against recently perpetrated a crime. The government of wisdom and eternal justice by the journalistic and worker strikers, Socialists, revolutionary agitators, Scheidemann mercilessly caused Leon Tyshko to be executed. Comrade Tyshko had represented the Polish academic mercenary guard of Capitalism, when this against all who rise in protest at the infamy of capitalist order and parasitism. Bourgeois justice is praise promotes its purposes.
Social Democratic Party in the Second International.
chiefly directed to preventing the liberation of the For more than thirty years Tyshko fought in the ranks When a disagreement arises between Congress or working masses from exploitation, misery and oppresof the workers for the Social Democratic Cause. He the Senate and the Socialists. let the rebels be punishsion.
was at the head of the heroic Prlish proletariat when ed by the law. But when such a disagreement arises the first barricade was erected at Warsaw and Lodz. between the legislative organ of the government and But the indignant adherents of severe and strict He spent many years in prison because he had come Wall Street. the attitude changes, and the slogan jusstice cease indignating as soon as the role of viol out for the interests of the workers. In 1906 he was becomes: To hell with the Senate! Long live Wall ators of the lawful. institutions and authorities of the sentenced to eight years at hard labor; as soon as he Street!
land is usurped by Capitalism. The bourgeois press succeeded in escaping from captivity, he resumed his in this case, forgetting its duty as the vigilant eye of share in the struggles of the Sotialists.
What does all this mean? It again confirms the cor aw and order, becomes the apologist of the respectThe Ebert revolution found him in a German jail, rectness of the revolutionary Socialist concerning the able violators of government by law, and even greets into which the Government of Wilhelm li had con substance of bourgeois parliamentarism. as indicated these violations with the joy characteristic of a was one of the most unselfish com by Marx and adhered to by the Communists of to day.
mercenary guard.
batants and an important factor in the German çevolution, standing in the same rank with Karl LiebIn all so called parliamentary states, affirms the Consider, for instance, what such a respectable knecht and Rosa Luxemburg. He was one of the revolutionary Socialist, the actual power of governnewspaper as the New York World, actually an organ chief leaders of the Spartacus group and later of the ment is vested in big capital the capitalists and the of the Wilson Administration, says in its editorial of German Communist Party. International Socialism banks: parliament Congress and the Senate that is, June to: had no more unselfish, more energetic comrade than the law making bodies, exist only in order to deceive Tyshko, who has now been shot by order of Schei the people, to oppress and exploit the people, that is. What difference will it make in the United States demann and his cohorts, who yet still dare to call the working class; and this oppression is carried on whether Germany refuses to sign the treaty or the themselves Socialists. Comrade Tyshko was a faith in the name of the people, as it were.
Senate refkses to ratify it? In either case the technical the interests of the working classes and state of war will continue. At the worst Wall Street of communist ideas. He was executed because he And so long as a legislative body performs this funchas 110 rore to fear from the protesting German Gov. was a mortal enemy of the bourgeoisie. The Comtion, inherent in the substance of the capitalist state, the will of this legislative body is heralded as sacred, ernment than from the United States Senator suho in munist International is convinced that the day is and sist that there shall be no treaty of peace unless they approaching when the working class of Germany will every person who violates it as a measure is a seditious person and blasphemer. But, write it.
mete out justice to the hangmen of the Communists, as soon as the legislative body becomes suddenly capto Scheidemann, Ebert and Noske.
ricious, or its mechanism is out of gear and refuses to Let us, first of all, explain the issue in question. In (Signed) The President of the Executive Committee work normally in the direction indicated by the capitalaccordance with the Constitution of the United States, of the Communist International, Zinovieff ists. the impertinent parliament or Congress is diswhich at other times the World defends with foam solved, its decisions are vetoed or simply completely frothing at the mouth, every treaty of the United States ignored.
with a foreign power can come into force only after being ratified by the Senate. The Senate; having just make the World declare the treaty. null and void. in the hands of Wall Street, that is of finance capital; treaty should prove to Parliament, or Congress, is nothing but a marionette publicans, refuses, out of purely political consider treaty is not a treaty unless ratified by the Senate, in ations based upon opposition to the Democratic Party accord with the Constitution. It would seem, therefore, government. This is the Socialist conclusion derived administration, to ratify the peace treaty as drafted and that the Il orld proposes making the Constitution a from the utterances of the World.
signed him. He ful warrior as a working class that they The Party Repudiating the THE seven reactionary autocrats of the Nationa! The expulsion of nearly 50, 000 menibers by seven ary sentiments of the rank and file within the party as Executive Committee, who suspended or expelled men of the National Executive Committee is an exhi manifested in the St. Louis program on the war; be it 40, 000 members of the Socialist Party, in an effort to bition of bureaucratic stupidity unparallelled even by therefore, control the Party for a small clique of counter revthe processes of capitalist governments. Resolved, that the Socialist Party local delegates olutionary petty bourgeois, reckoned without their host. We, the members of Local Philadelphia in General blast of indignant protest is sweeping through the Meeting assembled, condemn the outrage perpetrated endorse the Manifesto and Program of the Left of Union County of the State of New Jersey, herewith Party, which is determined to become revolutionary by the and regard it as a challenge to the Wing. spite of a. the autocrats in the Party or out of it. self. respect and revolutionary class consciousness of The State Executive Committee of the Socialist This protest was started by Local Cleveland, which the rank and file. We, therefore, call upon every local of the party to communicate to the nitiated referendums to repudiate the acts.
Party of Ohio, through its Secretary, Wagenknecht, is carrying on a campaign of education against the Then the Convention of the Socialist Party of Mass. do not recognize their ukase against the rank and file repudiated the tyrannous acts of the seven, and that they will, in their actions totally ignore the traitorous Seven, repudiating their miserable acts.
four of whom were pro war and against the St. Louis decisions of the National Executive Committee.
Resolution.
Local Union County (Elizabeth, adopted a Local McKeesport, Pa. resolves: That we condemn At the same time, the German Federation of the resolution, 36 against to protest and ignore the the action taken by the National Executive Committee Socialist Party was in convention at Rochester, action taken by the and to count the so called and demand that the immediately re instate storm of protest swept the convention when the del suspended comrades as members of the Socialist the suspended organizations, and we further demand that the party membership and the party membership egates were informed by a telegram from national Party. Local Union County emphasized ils action only, shall decide the matter of the suspension of these committeemen Katterfeld and Wagenknecht by further adopting the following: that seven members of the had organizations. Local McKeesport then proceeded to usurped the Whereas, the trend of world events and the experi adopt, unanimously, the Left Wing Manifesto and right and power to suspend and expel 40, 000 members ence of the revolution in action have demonstrated the program.
of the Socialist list Party Resolutions were adopted necessity for a clear cut definition of the Socialist against the outrage. The German Federation adopted position; and The has sent Otto Branstetter to re organthe Left Wing Manifesto and Program, which is the ize the party in Michigan, but is meeting with no crime of the expelled Federation. Will the Whereas, the growth of opportunism and bour results, in spite of Adolph Germer whistling bravely Savage Seven now expel the German Federation. gois parliamentarism within the Socialist Party las to keep up his courage.
Local Philadelphia has adopted resolutions stigmatmade a re statement of the revolutionary Socialist Let the party act. Let it repudiate the reactionary izing the acts of the as a deliberate and position imperative; and, Let it realize the fruits of its conquest of the treacherous assault upon the revolutionary rank and Whereas, the tendency of the officialdom within party for revolutionary Socialism. To the Left Wing file of the Party, and concluding: the party has been in contradiction with the revolution. the party, the future, and Socialism!
executive