6 THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE Saturday, July 26, 1919 Morris Hillquit and the Left Wing HE Left Wing position has been firmly By Sen Katayama Wing movement. No wonder he speaks of it THE established in the American Socialist move Left Wing movement in America. Its present in Russia and as a schismatic and disinteas a purely emotional reflex of the situation ment as a result of the National Convention situation need not be told in this article. The held recently in New York City. The position writer disagrees with Hillquit expressions non Socialistic and that it would lead us grating movement, essentially reactionary and of the official Socialist Party was somewhat about the Left Wing movement. Of course, nowhere.
chaotic until Morris Hillquit contributed the Hillquit is a clever lawyer and an extremely the now historic document The Socialist able man. He has made a profound impres He is mistaken in so styling the Left Wing.
Task and Outlook, printed in The New York sion on the Socialist Party (official) of Ame It is not a purely emotional reflex of the situCall. Before Hillquit utterance keynote rica and has many followers and even woration in Russia. It is not emotional but rational, of the Right Wing was unity within the So shippers. He can command the policy of the not disintegrating but constructive.
cialist Party, and they attacked the Left Wing Party at his will, as in the case of the Left Further Hillquit says: Its leaders do not as disturbers and separatists. Hillquit state Wing boycott. The policy against the Left want to convert their comrades in the Party.
ment reversed the official policy and attitude, Wing was directed by Áillquit article in Convert them to what, we would like to know?
which now resolved itself into the dictatorship The New York Call. am one of the last The large majority of the rank and file of the of the Party officialdom over the Party and men in the Party he says to ignore or mis Socialist Party are on the side of the Left resulted in expulsion and suspension of Left understand the soand revolutionary impulse Wing already. We, the Left Wing, do not Wing members.
which animates the rank and fle of this new co operate as Hillquit would like with the soIt may prove interesting to say a few things movement, but the character and direction cial patriots like Algernon Lee or the opportabout Hillquit attitude.
which it (the has assumed, its program unistic Berger, who was pro war on the MexiThe writer has known him since 1904 and and tactics, spell disaster to our movement. can question and anti war against Germany!
took part with him in the International Cong am opposed to it nct because it is too radi Hillquit wants the Socialists of America to ress of that year. Moreover, have taken a cal, but because it is essentially reactionary wait patiently until the bad after war condipart in the Left Wing movement in America. and non socialistic; not because it would lead tions arouse the American workers from the meeting of Left Wingers was held early us too far, but because it would lead us no narcotics of their leaders empty phrases.
in the winter of 1917, in Brooklyn. There where. To prate about the dictatorship of The workers of America look for new light were some seventeen or twenty comrades pre the proletariat and of workers soviets in and guidance, and then the Socialists of Amesent: Comrades Leon Trotzky, Kollontay, the United States at this time is to deflect the rica will have their hearing and their opportN. Bukharin, Rutgers, Lore, Socialist propaganda from its realistic basis. unity. fine Fabianism! The workers of Fraina, B. Boudin, myself and others. At He goes on to say that social reforms are America are already looking for the new light that time the Left was constituted of those the concrete expressions of the class struggle. and guidance that abundantly emanates from Socialists who stood against the defense of The Left Wing movement, as see it, is Russia and Hunga We need defend the fatherland, the anti patriotic Socialists. purely emotional reflex of the situation in the position of the Communist Congress at Comrade Williams, representing the Propa Russia. The cardinal vice of the movement Moscow against Hillquit emotional criticganda League of America, which had been is that it started as a wing, e. a schismatic ism. The revolutionary Socialists of the world started by. Boston Comrades and published and disintegrating movement.
are better judges than he. When he says the The International, was present. The Propa The Left Wing movement is a sort of bur Socialist movement of the world has been in ganda League was at the time only a waver lesque on the Russian Revolution. Its leaders the state of physical disunion, moral ferment ing Left Wing movement, later it became de do not want to convert their comrades in the and intellectual confusion, he speaks for himcidedly Left and published a new organ, The Party.
self and his like.
New International.
Such are Hillquit opinions about the Left The delegates to the Communist Congress We intended to organize the Left Wing Wing and he complains that the Left Wing at Moscow were not men and women of intelunder the direction of Comrade Trotzky, and leaders refuse to co operate with the afore lectual confusion, but were sound in their Madam Kolontay, who was going to Europe, said stage Centrists and Right Wingers. judgment as is evidenced in their wise choice was to establish a link between the European Again he thinks that the Socialist Party of of Eugene Debs instead of Morris Hillquit as and American Left Wing movements. But America as a whole has stood in the fore the leader of the American Socialist movesoon the Russian revolution flamed in action. front of Socialist radicalism ever since the ment!
Comrade Trotzky left for Russia and later outbreak of the war, and many of its offiBukharin. America entered the war against cers and leaders have exposed their lives and Hillquit may be a good lawyer, who can win a case with his remarkable skiil in using Germany, then came the St. Louis Convention liberties to imminent peril in defense of the which engrossed the attention of the American principles of international Socialism.
English, and has been no doubt a good interComrades.
To the writer Hillquit Socialist radicalnational Socialist with perhaps the exception But with the Bolshevik revolution the phy ism and principles of international Socialof the question of Asiatic immigration, just sical as well as the spiritual relati ism do not seem clear. In effect Hillquit as his colleague Berger, but his judgment and the American Left Wing movement and the says that the Russian Soviet Government has entirely wrong and outrageous. am one criticism of the Left Wing movement are Russian Bolshevik Party was firmly estab a legitimate place in the International Socialof the last men in the Party to ignore or mislished. The group which first met in Brook ist movement, so has Hungary and the class lyn continued its existence, with some hesi conscious, radical Socialist movement of Gerunderstand the sound revolutionary impulse which animates the rank and file of this new tation and lingering. With the success of the many, but he wants the American Socialist Bolshevik revolution it assumed more and movement to be of a moderate type that the movement. By saying this Hillquit is really more the Left Wing principles, expressed in socialization of industries and national life ccndemning himself.
its organ, The Class Struggie.
shall not be attempted by one master stroke The Left Wing has a big but inspiring task: The revival of the Left Wing movement is but shall be carried out gradually and slowly. adopted at the recent National Left Wing To preach the principles and tactics that were due primarily to the Boston comrades. As The working class shall not immediately asBoston has been the home of revolutionary sume the sole direction as a working class Convention among the members of the Party.
But we must first tell the members how their movements in the past so in this case the (even if it were possible. but it shall share foremost leader, Morris Hillquit, thinks and Boston comrades started The Revolutionary government power and responsibilities with Age as the organ of the Boston Branch of the the capitalist class at least during the period Socialistic.
attacks the Left Wing as reactionaty and nonSocialist Party, which made a profound and of transition. He does not say exactly these widespread impression on the minds of the words but this is the inference from what he During the coming weeks before the Socomrades all over the country. The New 11 does say. He wants to keep all social reform cialist Party Emergency Convention, Hillquit ternational, the organ of the Socialist Propa planks in the Party platform as the every day and his followers will attempt to mislead the ganda League, had been boycotted by the New practice of the concrete class struggle. Hill Party members by desperate attacks upon the York branches on the excuse that it was the quit must have approved Lee position on Left Wing movement. But falsehoods and organ of a separate organization, but the the war with Germany and his voting for Li misrepresentations will not succeed in destroyRevolutionary Age was the official organ of a berty Bonds in the Aldermanic chamber. If ing the truth about the Left Wing movement.
Party Local so the Socialist Party officialdom this is so then his position seems practically To attack and misrepresent the Left Wing is could not very well boycott it, with results the same as that of Scheidemann and the so to serve the capitalist class, and such attacks that are unnecessary to detail here.
cial patriots of Europe.
are welcomed in the pages of the bourgeois Such in brief is the development of the No wonder Hillquit does not like the Left newspapers. Don be misled, comrades!