BolshevismCapitalismCominternCommunismMarxismSocialismSocialist PartySovietWorkers MovementWorking Class

APRIL 1, 1921.
THE WORKERS COUNCIL APRIL 1, 1921.
11 THE WORKERS COUNCIL 10 and the Third International, decided at least in these masses we shall cooperate wherever they appart in favor of the reformist leaders and against pear in the great struggle. With their readers we the Communist International. The fact that the shall fight relentlessly wherever and whenever they workers who stand behind Serrati are firmly con. are misleading the masses, wherever and whenever vinced that they have nevertheless remained true to they fail the masses in the fight.
the Communist International, is a proof of the The history of the Right International of Gergravity of the centrist danger in the international many after the split in Halle has shown how much labor movement.
and how rapidly they swing still further toward the The poison of the centrist idea has eaten deeply right, when once they have lost the ballast of the into the body of the working class. Only the future revolutionary workers. This self revelation of development of the world revolution can be the the centrist elements will hasten the victory of the means of driving out this poison. It cannot be Communist International. The 242 International overcome by means of theory and propaganda. It is a product of the revolutionary process through can be overcome only by the struggle that shall which the entire world is passing. But it is not a fill the masses with the determination and the con product in which the creative spirit of the world viction that hesitation at the decisive moment means revolution expresses itself. It is a decoctus historiae, death. But the realization that the centrist spirit a waste product of the world revolution. Hence the can be overcome only with and by the world revolu 21 International is destined to be washed away by tion does not mean that the Communist Internation the stream of the world revolution as soon as that al must adopt this spirit so that the revolution may mighty current gains greater impetus. Until that proceed to overcome it. It is self evident that wher time we must combatit as a burdensome tradition ever within its organism the centrist poison has which retards the awakening of the workers to the found a place the diseased members must be re consciousness of the revolutionary struggle.
moved, so that they may not be the cause of infecting the entire body.
ACCEPTING THE THIRD The Communist International is the revolution.
ary advance guard of the proletariat. And the more Committee on the Third International, conscious it is of the fact that it must maintain the of the Socialist Party of America.
closest contact with the mass of the workers while Right now the advanced section of the world that mass is slowly developing, the more careful workers are being called upon everywhere to decide must it be to maintain in its ranks, in the ranks of whether they are for or against the revolution, this advance guard a calm sure consciousness of whether they favor the change from capitalism aim and direction. Ceratinly, whoever desires to to Socialism not only in theory but in practice.
lead the masses into a revolutionary struggle must This condition applies to the United States as well be in close contact with them. He must not desire as other countries. The answer determines whether to determine the direction of their spontaneous you are with the Third International of world labor movement. This the Communist International has or against it, for the revolution or against it, for never done. It adopts its aims on the basis of its the dawn of Socialism or against it. Stripped of understanding of the tendencies in the development all verbiage, that is the situation as it appears to of the world revolution. To adhere to the aims of us and it is because the Third International points the Communist International does not mean to ad the way, the only way to the Socialist era that we vance one own aims in a doctrinaire fashion to the are for it, that we feel the Socialist Party ought to working class; it means rather thainking in the affiliate with it. It is in this spirit also that a group present day of the working class in terms of its of comrades have organized into the Committee of morrow, it means looking out beyond the meander the Third International within the party, their opinings of the road and keeping the goal in sight. ion being that the actual processes of disintegration It means forming a firm, solid advance guard in that our party is going through can only be arrested the movement of the revolutionary masses who are by the party adopting as guidance for its action still uncertain of step, still fearing the consequences the principles enunciated by the Third International, involved in their struggle, still going through a We favor affiliation without reservations with the period of development, and with the aid of this Third International. The announced twenty one advance guard urging the masses ever onward and articles of affiliation are not in our opinion a hinleading them to victory. This situation implies the drance toward affiliation. All discussions as to the necessity not only of maintaining connections with applicability in the United States at the present the still hesitating masses, but also the duty of time of certain principles or tactics proposed by carrying on a merciless struggle against all their the Third International should be carried on within illusions, all their hesitation, and above all the International not from without.
The party against the ideologies of the Center, its leaders and should and must if it would survive as a revoluits organizations. The relation of the Communist tionary working class organization give its wholeInternational to the 212 International must there, hearted support to the Third International and must fore be above all a relation of open hostility. arrange its organizatoin and propaganda accordingThe more relentlessly, the more thoroughly we ly. Let party members interested in the work of combat the lying the stalling, the hesitation and the Committee communicate with the Secretary, the vascillation of the 21 International, the more fourteen hundred North Kedzie Avenue, Chicago, firmly shall we close our ranks and the more strong Illinois.
ly shall we make our influence felt among the masses LOUIS ENGDAHL, Chicago, Ill.
that stand back of the 242 International. With STEVEN BIRCHER, Newark, the states of Europe. Not the Capitol but Wall Press Review Street can wreck the treaty and the League if it wishes to. This parallels the recent uterance of The two liberal weeklies, the Nation and the New Signor Ricci, the new Italian ambassador, said to Republic, express scornful amazement at the rebe something of a corporation lawyer in his own spectful manner with which President Harding country. Having looked over the ground, after his inaugural taradiddle was treated at home and arrival, he remarked with refreshing, frankness: abroad. After citing the rapturous encomiums of Re see already that for some years at least the republican Senators the Nations says: Our metro lations that representatives of European powers will politan press, too, long accustomed to meaningless have with American bankers and manufacturers and words, treats the inaugural with greatest respect exporters will be of far greater importance than even the World doubting politely each one in those with officials of the government. It is interpreting Mr. Harding phrases about world af. teresting that well informed Europeans know where fairs to its own tastės and desires. At the risk of the power lies here, even though the mass of the our lives we set down our pious wish that no one American people, and particularly the so called will laughi. for if any man should begin to laugh leaders of organized labor, are ignorant of it. To aloud the country would rock. We wonder what control the industry of a nation is to control the life our liberal friends expected the capitalist senators of its people. The political state is merely an adand the capitalist press to say about the inaugural junct of that control. How do the master minds of the political head of the capitalist state? If Mr. of the of think the workers can have anyHarding had stood up in front of the Capitol and thing to say about the conduct of the country or the merely remarked Eeny, meeny, miny mo. omit conduct of their own lives as long as a litle group ting the next line in deference to his southern con of bankers are permitted to be the czars of industry?
stituents. the capitalist senators could have done no less than cried Magnificent. and the capitalist In the New Republic, Sidney Howard has been press would be bound to extol his wisdom. But we running a series of illuminating articles entitled think the liberal brethren have not been exactly fair The Lahor Spy. The editors in an introduction to Mr. Harding. It is true that he probably is not to the series explained that in gathering his material accustomed to think very deeply, or even very much. Mr. Howard talked with certain of officers It is ertie that he uses our language with the awk who denied that industrial espionage exists.
wardness of a Zulu chieftain trying to eat with a Samuel Gompers thereupon wrote a letter to the fork. But these are not substantial matters. Were publication denying the deniers. He declared it President Harding a Machiavelli for wisdom and inconceivable that any officer of his organization the subtlest of stylists, in his present position he had made such a statement to Mr. Howard, and he could not be substantially different from the trans doubted if Mr. Howard conld mention the name of formed small town editor from Ohio. The forces To this the New Republic has come back that placed him in office would be the same, and lie editorially as follows: We can furnish Mr. Gomcould represent nothing else. Merely he might be pers with an affidavit showing that on several ocmore successfully hypocritical. Eight years casions, local and national thë of officials ago his predecessor, representing substantially the denied all knowledge of espionage to Mr. Howard.
same forces, was inducted into office and spoke his We are also prepared to supply him with informastage piece. Then as now the groundlings gaped tion showing with reasonable certainly that, in one their approval. No sane person to:lay would main large industrial city, a visit paid by Mr. Horrard tain that Mr. Wilson refined plirases, his alluring and Mr. Dunn to the Federation was reported to a generalities, had any relation to reality. Yet the detective agency by one of the union officials with Nation was almost hysterical in its praise of his whom they talked. It would now seem ip to Mr.
inaugural, its transparent sincerity, its clear and Gompers to demand the affidavits forth with and sagacious intelligence, its promise of a new day. make public the names of these precious representaHad the New Republic been born at that time it tives of labor. If the head of the of does would doubtless have vied with the Nation in lauda not give them short shrift, he will simply be detion. But the difference between a Wilson and a monstrating anew his tenderness towards the labor Harding is only a matter of phraseology. As we read fakers in his organization.
the Nation adoration of the Wilson rhetoric we George Bernard Shaw, one of the few British registered our pious wish that no one would laugh. writers who preserved their sanity throughout the war, in an article in the London Nation, neatly It is perfectly obvious, says the London New strips the rags of respectability from HynStatesman, that without the consent of American man, leader of the British social patriots. It is finance (rather than American diplomacy. no in Hyndman attitude towards Russia that Shaw goes demnity agreement can be made to work. American after, and he marvels that since Russia has brought finance holls the whip hand over all Europe wit to reality what Hyndman has been preaching for ness only the applications, foreshadowred or actual, many years, Hyndman can so vigorously attack the for loans in the current year from more than half Soviet Government. If, as Mr. Hyndman conpeasant proprietary which froms the bulk of the tends. Bolshevism is not real Marxism, but a murderRussian nation is unconverted. This is true; but ous imposture, what does he think the real thing if Socialism is to wait until farmers become class will be like? asks Shaw. He then continues: If conscious Marxists, it will wait forever. The bour one may infer his answer from his indictment of geoisie did not wait for the approval of the farmers Bolshevism, he relies on the fact that the colossal one.