BourgeoisieCapitalismCominternCommunismDemocracySocialismSocialist PartySovietStrikeSyndicalismTerrorismWorkers MovementWorkers PartyWorking Class

8 THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE July 5, 1919 (Continued from Page 7)
investors, the professions, in short, the of fusing affiliation with the Communist Interinternational revolution of the proletariat, the ficial Socialist Party actually depended upon national of revolutionary Socialisin.
war having initiated the epoch of the proletari the petite bourgeoisie for the realization of PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN SOCIALISM an revolution.
Socialism.
The revolution in Germany decided the con The concentration of industry in the United which is now a world power. It is developing Imperialism is dominant in the United States, troversy. The first revolution was made by States gradually eliminated the small produc a centralized, autocratic federal government, the masses, against the protests of the domi ers, which initiated the movement for govern acquiring the financial and military reserves for nant moderate Socialism, represented by the ment ownership of industry and for other reSocial Democratic Party. As in Russia, the forms proposed to check the power of the plu aggrandized American Capitalism, instead of zgression and wars of conquest. The war has first stage of the Revolution realized a bour tocracy; and this bourgeois policy was the ani neakening it as in Europe. But world events gois parliamentary republic, with power in m:ating impulse of the practise of the Socialist will play upon and influence conditions in this the hands of the Social Democratic Party. arty.
Country dynamically, the sweep of revo utionAgainst this bourgeois republic organized a This party, moreover, developed into an ex ary proletarian ideas; materially, the coming new revolution, the proletarian revolution di pression of the unions of the aristocracy of constriction of world markets upon the resumprected by the Spartacan Communists. And, labor. of the of The party refused tion of competition. Now all mighty and suprecisely as in Russia, the dominant moderate to engage in the struggle against the reac preme, Capitalism in the United States must Socialism opposed the proletarian revolution, tionary unions, to organize a new labor move meet crises in the days to come. These conopposed all power to the Soviets, accepted par ment of the militant proletariat.
citions modify our immediate task, but do not liamentary democracy and repudiated pro. e While the concentration of industry and tarian dictatorship.
social developments generally conservatized the alter its general character; this is not the The issue in Germany could not be obscured. skilled workers, it developed the typical pro revolutionary struggle. American Capitalism moment of revolution, but it is the moment of Germany was a fully developed industrial na letariat of unskilled labor, massed in the basic is developing a brutal campaign of terrorism tion, its economic conditions mature for the industries. This proletariat, expropriated of against the militant proletariat. American introduction of Socialism. In spite of dissimil all property, denied access to the of Capitalism is utterly incompetent on the probar economic conditions in Germany and Rus wnions, required a labor movement of its own.
lems of reconstruction that press down upon sia, the dominant moderate Socialism pursued This impulse produced the concept of in society. Its reconstruction program is a similar counter revolutionary policy, and re dustrial unionism, and the But the simply to develop its power for aggression, to volutionary Socialism a common policy, indi dominant moderate Socialism rejected induscating the international character of revolu trial unionism and openly or covertly acted aggrandize itself in the markets of the world.
These conditions of Imperialism and of multionary proletarian tactics.
against the tiplied aggression will necessarily produce proThere is, accordingly, a common policy that Revolutionary industrial unionism, moreletarian action against Capitalism. Strikes are characterizes moderate Socialism, and that is over, was a recognition of the fact that extra developing which verge on revolutionary acits conception of the state. Moderate Social parliamentary action was necessary to accomism affirms that the bourgeois, democratic par plish the revolution, that the political state dictatorship is apparent, the striker workers tion, and in which the suggestion of proletarian liamentary state is the necessary basis for the should be destroyed and a new pro. etarian state trying to usurp functions of municipal governintroduction of Socialism; accordingly, it con of the organized producers constructed in order ceived the task of the revolution, in Germany to realize Socialistn. But the Socialist Party struggle of the proletariat is coming into being.
ment, as in Seattle and Winnipeg. The mass and Russia, to be the construction of the not only repudiated the form of industrial democratic parliamentary state, after which the unionism, it still more emphatically repudiated the trades unions organizing a Labor Party minor phase of the awakening of labor is process of introducing Socialism by legislative its revolutionary political implications, clingreform measures could be initiated. Out of this ing to petty bourgeois parliamentarism and rein an effort to conserve what they have secured as a privileged caste.
formism. Labor Party is not conception of the state developed the counterrevolutionary policy of moderate Socialism. United with the aristocracy of labor and the the instrument for the emancipation of the Revolutionary Socialism, on the contrary, inmiddle class, the dominant Socialism in the what is now the official policy of the Socialist working class; its policy would in general be sists that the democratic parliamentary state Socialist Party necessarily developed all the can never be the basis for the introduction of evils of the dominant Socialism of Europe. Party reforming Capitalism on the basis of Socialism; that it is necessary to destroy the and, particularly, abandoning the immediate the bourgeois parliamentary state. Laborism parliamentary state, and construct a new stite revolutionary task of reconstructing unionism, letariat as moderate, petty bourgeois Sọcialism. the two being expressions of an identical the bourgeoisie of political power, and function Socialism could emerge.
as a revolutionary dictatorship of the prole It stultified working class political action. tendency and policy. There can be no comtariat.
by limiting political action to elections and par promise either with Laborism or the dominant moderate Socialism.
The proletarian revolution in action has con ticipation in legislative reform activity. In clusively proven that moderate Socia ism is in every single case where the Socialist Party has But there is a more vital tendency. the capable of realizing the objectives of Social elected public officials they have pursued a con tendency of the workers to initiate mass ism. Revolutionary Socialism alone is capable sistent petty bourgeois policy, abandoning strikes. strikes which are equally a revolt of mobilizing the proletariat for Socialism, Socialism.
against the bureaucracy in the unions and for the conquest of the power of the state, by means of revolutionary mass action and pro representatives were petty bourgeois, moderThis was the official policy of the Party. Its against the employers. These strikes will constitute the determining feature of proletarian letarian dictatorship.
ate. hesitant, oblivious of the class struggle Socialism must use these mass industrial reaction in the days to come. Revolutionary AMERICAN SOCIALISM.
in its fundamental political and industrial imvolts to broaden the strike, to make it general The upsurge of revolutionary Socialism in plications. But the compulsion of life itself the American Socialist Party, expressed in the drew more and more proletarian masses in the and militant; use the strike for political objectives, and, finally, develop the mass political Left Wing, is not a product simply of Euro party, who required simply the opportunity to initiate a revolutionary proletarian policy.
strike against Capitalism and the state.
pean conditions. It is, in a fundamental sense, Revolutionary Socialism must base itself on The war and the proletarian revolution in the product of the experience of the American the mass struggles of the proletariat, engage movement the Left Wing tendency in the Russia provided the opportunity. The Sociaclirectly in these struggles while emphasizing Party having been invigorated by the experi list Party, under the impulse of its membership, the revolutionary purposes of Socialism and ence of the proletarian revolutions in Europe. adopted a militant declaration against the war.
the proletarian movement. The mass strikes The dominant moderate Socialism of the But the officials of the party sabotaged this of the Aunerican proletariat provide the maInternational was equally the Socialism of the declaration. The official policy of the party terial basis out of which to develop the conAmerican Socialist Party.
on the war was a policy of petty bourgeois cepts and action of revolutionary Socialism.
The policy of moderate Socialism in the pacifism. The bureaucracy of the party was Our task is to encourage the militant mass Socialist Party comprised its policy in an at united with the bourgeois People Council, movements in the of to split the ald tack upon the larger capitalists, the trusts, which accepted a Wilson Peace and betrayed unions, to break the power of unions which înaintaining that all other divisions in society those who rallied to the Council in opposition are corrupted by Imperialism and betray the including the lesser capitalists and the mid to the war.
militant proletariat. The of in its dle class, the petite bourgeoisie are material This policy necessarily developed into a dominant expression, is united with Imperifor the Socialist struggle against Capitalism. repudiation of the revolutionary Socialist posi alism. bulwark of reaction, it must be The moderate Socialism dominant in the So tion. When events developed the test of acexposed and its power for evil broken.
cialist Party asserted, in substance: Socialism cepting or rejecting the revolutionary implica Our task, moreover, is to articulate and oris a struggle of all the people against the trusts tions of the declaration against the war, the ganize the mass of the unorganized industrial and big capital, making the realization of So party bureaucracy, immediately exposed its proletariat, which constitutes the basis for a cialism depend upon the unity of the people, reactionary policy, by repudiating the policy of militant Socialism. The struggle for the revoof the workers, the small capitalists, the small the Russian and German Communists, and re(Continued on page 14.