BolshevismBourgeoisieCapitalismDemocracyRussian RevolutionSocialismSocialist PartySyndicalismViolenceWorkers MovementWorking Class

July 12, 1919 THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE (1 The Left Wing Answers (Continued from page 7)
action from the angle of array of the revolu efficient Capitalism, a better ordered slavery only a constant swelling of the ranks of un tionary proletariat outside the capitalist state of the wage worker.
skilled, transit labor, in correspondence with to coerce its actions, and, in final terms, to The only constructive element of such the progress of the machine process and the capture the state power in its entirety. platforms is that they may induce a few perspasmodic character of the market demands. This difference is crucial. If the objection sons to vote for the Socialist candidates who Capitalist mastery tends rapidly to a stage is that the Left Wing is not seriously con are not in opposition to Capitalism as a sysof military feudalism, turned to ruthless labor cerned with the system of capitalist politics as iem. They give the appearance of a practical suppression and regimentation of the entire a system, ranging in detail from the most aris program because they contain features which national life on the basis of a universalized tocratic conservatism to the most radical Lab appeal as reasonable within the terms of militarism. The labor revolt rapidly acquires orism, that is correct. Within this play of cap. Capitalism. In so far as they are practical, consciousness of the desperate nature of the italist po. itics, there is little of consequence the enlightened capitalists assure their encombat, and of the futility of all processos to the development of the Socialist movement. forcement. This is part of the general social except its own mass defiance.
It is the outside array which is of consequence, progress, not in any way the particular mission The Socialism which proceeds in conscious against proletarian mass power. It is the item of the Socialists. On the contrary, it is a ness of this process the Socialism the liv of proletarian consciousness which throws the perversion of the Socialist movement to let ing class struggle, not of the illusory game of balance one way or the other. That conscious it fall into the mesh of advocacy of capitalist capitalist parliamentarism, a play of words ness can be affected by the use of the capital reforms, most of which have a reverse effect while the real decisions are made in the Star ist political machinery, and it is upon this against the fundamental interests of the workChambers of finance. this Socialism must be basis that the Socialist Party enters into the ing class.
supremely aware of its own function in rela regular political campaign, through it visu The constructive work of the Socialist Party tion to this cataclysmic social conflict. The alizes the real conflict as outside the parlia is to develop the proletarian consciousness correct statement of the proletarian policy and mentary and administrative circles.
upon which depends the overthrow of Capitaltactics in relation to this crisis, whether abism; to develop the organization and tactical rupt or prolonged (which depends on the dev Objection: The Left Wing offers no const basis for expression of this consciousness, elopment of revolutionary class consciousness)
ructive plan.
and to formulate the general program for the is the iminediate obligation of the Socialist Answer: Making a catalogue of occupation proletarian manoeuvres both in winning power movement. The mass expressions evolving al and administrative reforms, as in our Ame and in using this power to make the basic out of the Socialist organization itself should rican Socialist Party platforms, is certainly economic changes upon which the Socialist take on the essential character of the general no constructive program of Socialism. It is order of society depends.
mass assertion upon which the revolution it constructive of. nothing, unless it be a more The Left Wing denies that there is any self depends. constructive policy of Socialism within the In other words, the school of revolutionary Unionism and Mass Action formulas of capitalist management. The Left understanding and revolutionary activity canWing declares that the first constructive step not await the morning of the social revolution. Continued from page 14)
is the establishment of the Dictatorship of the else the proletarian mass protest against im that it frees the energy, while it co ordinates Proletariat. Only after this step can there perialistic exploitation will yield only blood. the forces, of the proletariat, compels the probe proletarian democracy and socialization of letariat to act uncompromisingly and reject industry.
Objection: The Left Wing wants to subs the rights of any other class; and action The thing to construct today, in the United titute violence for political action.
destroys hesitancy and a paltering with the States, is an accurate understanding and consAnswer: Violence, in the labor movement, revolutionary task.
ciousness on the part of the militant proletaarises either by capitalistic provocation or by The great war has objectively brought Eurians of the character of the struggle in which individual act unrelated to the organization rope to the verge of revolt. Capitalist society they are engaged and of their organization repropaganda or tactics. In the United States, at any moment may be thrust into the air by quirements in relation to this struggle. An today, we find the illustration of brazen cap an upheaval of the proletariat. as in Russia.
accurate understanding of the class struggle italistic efforts to incite desperate workingmen Whence will the impulse for the revolutionof itself indicates the general character of the to acts of violence, by fake examples and by ary struggle come? Surely not from the moSocialist transformation by which privateconstant suggestion of acts of individual viol derate Socialism and unionism, which property exploitation is to be ended.
ence as part of the program of the revolution united solidly in favor of an imperialistic ary movement. We find also the wholesale war; surely not from futile parliamentary Objection: The Left Wingers are mostly organization of violence as the answer to pro rhetoric, even should it be revolutionary November Bolsheviks. They are emotionletarian propaganda, with its compulsion of rhetoric. The impulse will come out of the ally carried away by the Russian Revolution.
quitting or resistance on the part of the work mass action of the proletariat. And it is this Answer: Yes, many of the Left Wingers are mass action alone that can sweep aside the November Bolsheviks. None the worse, if The Left Wing wants to make the political hesitancy and the risks, that can topple ove: they are Bolsheviks.
active of the Socialist Party of the character the repressions and power of the bourgeois cialism as that of the Russian Revolution, a There has never been such a lesson in Soof revolutionary Socialism. That is, the plat state.
forms of the party and the role of its members of the revolutionary proletarian struggle, lesson made universal by the experience of in public office must be part and parcel of the whatever the specific form it may assume; in Germany in November 1918 and afterwards.
entire prop anda of the party; all in the the actual revolutionary period, mass action It is a lesson that is being intensified every direct line of the revolutionary class struggle. unites all forms of struggle in one sweeping day and in all countries. It is neither tranOur conception of political action must not action against Capitalism, each contributing sient nor unique. Even the Opportunists are be based on the rules and models of bourgeois its share as integral phases of the general willing to admit its appropriateness for pracpolitics, but must be in adaptation to the pro mass action. as in the proletarian revolu tically every country except their own! Anu letarian conditions of mass functioning. That tion in Russia. In a crisis, the state rigidly this is true of the Opportunists in each counis, the proletariat develops modes of power controls all the available forces of normal ty. Even in Russia. peculiar to its own circumstances, as its power action; parliaments become impotent, and a Naturally the new life of the Socialist moveto check the industrial processes by means of state of siege prevails that can be broken ment comes as a direct response to the immestrikes, or its power to check military adven through only by revolutionary mass action, liate revolutionary inspiration. This response tures by non refusal of service. Whatever equally during war and in any revolutionary must be given increasing consciousness and the method of expressing the proletarian mass situation.
effective organization character.
power, everything comes within the terms of Mass action is dynamic, pliable, creative; Assuredly there is a large element of emopolitical action just so soon as it is turned to the proletariat through mass action instinct tionalism in the response to the Russian Reva political object, that is, the object of winning ively adapts itself to the means and the tactics olution, and emotionalism which is not harthe state power, or of coercing the state power necessary in a prevailing situation. The forms nessed to understanding is apt to prove efferin relation to a particular policy.
of activity of the proletariat are not limited vescent. But such emotionalism is the very The Reformists conceive of political action and stultified by mass action, they are broad. life of our movement. It must be tempered in terms of a modification of the political and ened, deepened and co ordinated. Mass action and tested. But without it we would be not economic regime of Capitalism. The Left is equally a process of revolution and the a movement of flesh and blood, but a sectarian Wing, on the other hand, regards political Revolution itself in operation.
creed of abstract dogma.
are ers.