July 19, 1919.
THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE The Party Fight Political Mass Strikes The political strike, according to Collier is hostile to democracy. Their legitimate instrument is the citizen vote, not economic THE proposed general strike to compel the civil war. Democracy is hostile to the poli THE Michigan Federaton call to organize release of Tom Mooney and other class tical strike, since the function of democracy of war prisoners has not, as yet, materialized. is to reconcile the workers to their oppression sidered elsewhere in this issue, contains this Sabotaged by the bureaucracy of the American and assure the supremacy of Capitalism. Eco utterly misleading statement. Federation of Labor and its necessity blurred nomic civil war is a repudiation of democracy: Their policy (that of the National Left by the liberal Socialist campaign for am but capital uses this civil war to impose its Wing) is one of endeavor to capture the old nesty, the proposed mass strike is now a thing will equally upon the workers and the state. Party machinery and the stagnant elements of regrets. The bourgeois press is jubilant Capital threatens the workers with unemploy who have been struggling for a false unity since a strike to compel the release of class ment and starvation unless its supremacy is and who are only ready to abandon the ship war prisoners would constitute a political assured; and capital threatens the state should when it sinks beneath the waves of reaction.
strike, the first use by American labor of this the state act contrary to its will. Capital im The amount of misrepresentation in this aggressive and potentially revolutionary form poses its will upon the state since it controls short paragraph is truly astonishing: of action.
the financial and economic power; labor must 1) The policy of the National Council of But as econorr. ic pressure and revolutionary impose its will upon the state by means of its the Left Wing is not to capture the old agitation proceed, the political strike will beassertion of economic power in political mass machinery. The Left Wing struggle is to strikes.
come familiar to the American proletariat, get the revolutionary masses in the Socialist Party.
since class antagonisms and class struggles are Democracy prevails in France, Italy and 2) The Left Wing is not after the stagbeing emphasized, necessitating emphatic England. But this democracy does not preaction.
vent conscription, it did not prevent the war, nant elements who have been struggling for In Europe, where the political strike is a it does not prevent the starvation of the Rusa false unity in the Socialist Party. The revolutionary masses in the party are not familiar form of proletarian action, the worksian people and supplying Kolchak Co. with stagnant; the intensity of their struggle ers are preparing for the mightiest of all poli. Realizing these fruits of democracy, the work; munitions to murder the Russian people.
against the Right Wing is a proof that they tical strikes a political strike simultaneously are not concerned with a false unity. It is in France, Italy and England on July 21 to ers are concluding: To hell with democracy!
not the state of Michigan nor the Central compel the end of intervention in Russia. The Capital controls the state and the press, it Committee of the Russian Federation which proletariat of Italy is using the political strike controls all the available means of social ex has made a national issue of revolutionary to act on the food crisis; while the Seamen pression and can sabotage the will of the Socialism in the Socialist Party, but precisely Federation at Naples prevented the steamer masses expressed in the citizen vote. The these revolutionary masses in the Left Wing Cablons, bound from London to Vladivostok, from leaving the port because it carried munione real social expression capable of being who are now stigmatized as stagnant eleused by labor is the mass political strike, which ments.
tions for the counter revolutionary forces in may, at the right moment, impose its own gov 3) To maintain a contact with the masses Siberia fighting the Soviet Republic.
ernment forms upon society. Democracy, as in the Socialist Party for some time longer, British labor is being agitated by the issue of it prevails is not the rule of the majority, but in order to agitate and rally the revolutionary the political strike. The moderates oppose this rule over the majority, it is the particular form elements for a Party of Communist Socialaggressive form of proletarian action. James of expression of bourgeois requirements and ism, is not a policy of false unity, but of Sexton. Labor Party member of Parliament, supremacy. If the mass political strike an actually carrying on the struggle for revolu favors a revolution social in character, but nihilates this fraudulent democracy, so much tionary Socialism.
opposes using the strike for political purposes the better for the political strike. Votes can 4) To accuse the Left Wing of being as it would be letting mad dogs ioose. But be disregarded, but not the political mass composed of elements which have been the more radical representatives of British strike of the proletariat.
struggling for a false unity in the Socialist labor urge the use of the mass political strike to end conscription, to compel the return of characteristic of Capitalism, an expression of clique which is acting on the basis of false In the economic civil war which is a natural Party, is not in accord with the facts, and disgraceful. It is the Michigan Federation all troops from Russia and to stop the shipment of munitions to the troops of Kolchak and other counter revolutionary elements. Government, national and municipal, suspends the Federation delegates are in favor. To and capital, democracy is always repudiated. unity, since the Michigan delegates repudiate The bourgeois (aped by the Socialist mo all civil 1ights; the courts, the police and often derates) are against the political strike. An hell with consistency and revolutionary ineditorial in Collier of July 19 says: Always strike; the issue becomes an issue of power, the army are used against the workers on tegrity!
up to the present (strikes) have attempted There is no democracy during a strike. and The character of the Left Wing struggle claims only in regard to the workman own within the Socialist Party is determined needs. his wages. hours, and right to organize. power, recognize democracy, it stultifiles itself equally by means and bý purposes. The purNow the strike has been brought from the and defeats its own purposes. Power is the pose is to construct a Party of Communist sofield of economics into that of politics. Instead cialism: the means, at the immediate moment, final answer to Capitalism.
of defending the pay of a group, it is to dictate must consist of a struggle to secure the masses the policy of a state.
In the general strike in Canada, particu in the Socialist Party.
Precisely: it is militant labor purpose to larly in Winnipeg, the municipal government In other words, a Party of Comunist Souse its economic might by means of political practically disappeared as a force. This mass cialism must issue either out of the conquest strikes to impose its will upon the state. In strike was not a political strike; it was a strike. the Socialist Party, or out of a mass sethe intensity of the class struggle, with the for direct economic objects; but it necessarily cession to organize a completely new Party, machinery of government deliberately calculclashed with the state power and assumed a This policy has characterized the struggle of ated to baffle the will of the masses, labor can political character. Instinctively, necessarily, the Left Wing within the Socialist Party.
conquer only by the assertion of its economic the strikers usurped municipal functions of The Left Wing made an issue out of an might in political mass strikes.
government; while the petty bourgeois and It is just because strikes have been localized bourgeois citizens organized their own forces cialist Party: it forced the issue. Our policy, Emergency National Convention of the Soto wages and hours that labor has not secured and equally usurped government functions ;determined by objective facts, was that the power and control over its own life. As poli the government of the strikers and the gov Convention. But now that the struggle is on the strike developing into a contest between Party struggle would come to a climax at this tical problems are at basis economic problems, ernment of the bourgeois citizenry.
just so the economic problems of the workers he verge of final crisis, a small clique insists are political problems in the sense that these The political strike develops out of the that we abandon the struggle at the crucial problems are products of exploitation and ex usual economic strike the usual strike neces moment!
ploitation is defended by the political power of sarily developing political characteristics when The utterly slanderous character of the the capitalists. But these problems of the it becomes general and clashes with the state. Michigan Federation policy is indicated in workers are political in the larger sense, not The political strike is conscious of its purposes another mis statement: The majority of the simply in the parliamentary sense. they imply and, moreover, it develops out of the impulse delegates to the Left Wing Conference negthe necessity of coercing the state, of impos of the mass struggle itself the tendency toward lected to sever their connections with the ing labor will upon the state, and the initial proletarian dictatorship all power to the reactionary The was not form of accomplishing this purpose is a mass workers by means of their own government recognized; it was repudiated. it was made stoppage of work in order to compel the state organs, as against all non proletarian social clear that the Conference proposed a Party to come to terms.
groups.
of Communist Socialism.