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87 JUNE 15, 1921 THE WORKERS COUNCIL 86 THE WORKERS COUNCIL JUNE 15, 1921 The Detroit Convention of the Socialist Party By LOUIS ENGDAHL Secretary, Committee for the Third International of the Socialist Party It is now two years since the forced exodus froni Instead of first submitting it to the Chicago orthe Socialist Party began. During that time the ganization for its consideration, as all the other party has dwindled from a powerful organization, branches had done, Branstetter put the heresyattacked by all the organs of American capitalism hunting document in his pocket and took it along and applauded by the advanced guard of America with him to the March meeting of the National workers, until now it is a mere skeleton, almost Executive Committee, in Boston, Mass. that preignored by friend and foe alike.
pared the convention agenda for publication. He Under the circumstances one would think that then secured its insertion in the agenda.
the officialdom of the party would be busying itself In a discussion of this resolution appearing in the with gathering together the broken remnants, with Chicago Socialist, Branstetter declares: trying to build anew to meet the problems of the So far as my position is concerned, am for the adoppresent and the future. It would be the natural tion of the resolution. introduced it in my ward branch and am glad of it.
conclusion, after considering the party condition, that that should be the aim and purpose of the similar resolution was originated in the 7th party annual national convention to be held this Ward Branch (Chicago. of which Seymour Stedyear at Detroit, Michigan, starting Saturday, June man is a member. It urged that the National Ex25th, ecutive Committee refuse to seat any delegate at But such is not the case. The outstanding feature the Detroit Convention who avows his intention to of the convention agenda, just published in the favor the acceptance of the terms laid down by the Socialist World, official monthly of the party, Third International, or to seat any delegate so intells a different story. More members of the party structed. It arrived after the March National Execare to be expelled, more organizations are to be utive Committee meeting had adjourned.
shattered, if not voluntarily, then under the direcIt is a peculiar fact that this very important Brantion of the National Executive Committee. This is stetter resolution received but a line or two in the the meaning of the resolution placed on the Conofficial party press service as sent from Boston. It vention agenda as follows: is also peculiar that instead of publishing the con Whereas, the Communist International is attempting vention agenda in March, following the meeting of to disrupt and destroy the Socialist Party of the United the national executive committee, its publication States as evidenced by numerous declarations to that effect, was delayed more than two months until late in and May. Whereas, in their reply to the application of our party for affiliation they make the following appeal to their symDuring those two months the delegates were bepathizers among our membership: ing elected to the Detroit Convention. Believers in Workers. Leave the American Socialist Party. It is the Third International were charged with trying your enemy and ours. Already in America there is a revo to split the party. Candidates for delegates who lutionary party, the United Communist Party, the American Section of the Communist International. These are our declared themselves for the principles of the Rustrue comrades. Thousands of them have suffered for the sian Revolution were attacked as disrupters. And revolution. This is the party of the revolutionary working during all that time the National Executive Comclass. JOIN THE UNITED COMMUNIST PARTY! mittee had a card up its sleeve that said: Expel And, Whereas, those of our membership who are all believers in The Third.
honestly in accord with the Communist International and who accept its conditions and dictation will, in response to These comrades are not to be expelled for unthe above appeal, either withdraw and join the United Com conditional faith in the 21 Points. They are to be munist Party or will remain in our party only for the pur thrown out of the party not only for supporting pose of creating dissension and attempting to destroy our or endorsing the Communist International, but even organization. And, Whereas, it is our duty to protect our party for advocating affiliation with it.
against such treachery on the part of the unprincipled and Perhaps the climax of this perfidy to the world unscrupulous members serving the interests of either the working class is contained in the declaration that: Communist International or the Department of Justice, and in either case serving the interests of the American It is our duty to protect our party against such treachery on the part of the unprincipled and unscrupulous memcapitalists; bers serving the interests of either the Communist Inter Therefore, Be It Resolved, that until such time as the Communist International has officially withdrawn the above national or the Department of Justice, and in either case serving the interests of the American capitalists.
appeal and others of a similar import, members of the Socialist Party supporting or endorsing the Communist Inter What a ghastly charge, that the Third Internanational or advocating affiliation therewith, shall be sub tional, springing to life out of the agonies of the ject to expulsion by their respective branches. And be it Russian Revolution, serves the purposes of Amerifurther Resolved, that the National Executive Committee be can capitalism, through inspiring its adherents in instructed to enforce this decision.
this country. Yet that charge is written down by The above resolution was written by Otto Bran men who call themselves Socialists. And it is ofstetter, the present national executive secretary of fered for serious consideration to a Socialist Party the party. He introduced it in his branch, the 13th National Convention. Its utter mendacity will deWard Branch (Chicago) and secured its acceptance feat itself, if not in the convention, then before the there, party membership.
It can very plainly be seen that, through this This means handing over large numbers of the resolution, the party national executive committee party membership to the federal authorities. It itself becomes the staunch ally of the department of means converting the American Socialist Party into justice. It sets before itself the task of signaling the only 100 per cent anti Third International Party out every Third Internationalist in the party. Ex on earth. Very apparently, the national executive pulsion from the party easily becomes the basis for committee wishes to convert the Detroit Convena court prosecution and conviction, and there is tion into the funeral of the Socialist Party of the then short shift from party membership to memberUnited States.
ship in some state prison or federal bastille. A11 The present national executive committee may with the aid of a party executive committee that urge the alibi that it does not stand back of the has voluntarily converted itself into a Capitalist Branstetter resolution. But Branstetter, as naExtraordinry Commission for the Suppression of tional secretary of the party, is the creature of the Bolshevism in America.
executive committee, and the circumstances under The backbone of this unique proposition, con which the Branstetter resolution was inserted in trary to anything even suggested by any other the Convention Agenda, no opportunity being ofworking class political party in the world, is a para fered for a contrary proposition, are so extraordigraph from a statement, the authenticity of which nary that the executive committee must accept full has never been established, which is supposed to sponsorship for it.
have been issued by the Executive Committee of This is the same national executive committee the Third International, following the 1920 Con and national secretary that did not raise a finger vention of the Party in New York City.
when Victor Berger came out in his Milwaukee During all of its nearly two years in office, the Leader urging working class voters to cast their present national executive committee has never ballots for a non Socialist candidate for judge at the been in official communication with the officials April elections.
of the Third International. The statement of affil Neither has it said a word about the policy iation rejected by the September, 1919, Party Con adopted by the Oklahoma Leader, an alleged Sovention, but approved by the membership, reached cialist daily, that has declared itself for independMoscow nearly a year later, and then only through ent political action, which means support of the a visitor to the Soviet Republic who was im Nonpartisan League, the Farmer Labor Party, or prisoned for counter revolutionary activities. any other fly by night organization that may loom The 1920 (New York) Convention elected and over the horizon.
instructed a delegation to go to Soviet Russia as Neither has it a word to say about the campaign the official representatives of the party. The mem to raise funds for a St. Louis daily to champion bers of the delegation applied for and received their independent political action, although party passports. But they never started the journey. members are using party forces and party prestige The Party National Executive Committee, there to build a publication that may betray the party on fore, has seized upon an alleged condition, which it the morrow.
refuses to investigate, in order to find the basis for It is to the left that the Branstetter resolution expulsion of party members supporting or endors turns in hunting down radicals, never to the right ing or advocating affiliation with the Third Inter to watch the forces that turn traitor to the party national with impunity.
From the Italian Front BY CLARA WOLD Milano, May, 1921.
According to Serrati, if the socialist party gets by at least one hundred. Rather dismally it notes that the shoals of collaborismo the Socialists of Italy the only result of arousing Rome, the government seat, will go to power and will take over the parliamentary to go to the polls was to increase the Red vote. In government across the new eleetion.
less than two years the Socialist vote changed froni There is unquestionable, however, a strong section 12, 081 to 15, 727. Add to this the Communist vote and of the party holding out for collaboration with the the figures mount to 19, 664, making the entire socialist bourgeois government as many as half the strength vote almost double what it was in Rome in 1919.
of the party, perhaps. Never with Giolitti to be sure, little more cheerfully the press comments on the but possibly with his successor. There is no question apparent defeat of the Communists and the support that the success of the Socialist Party in electing prac of the less red program of the Socialists. In Torino, tically its old quota of parliamentarians in the face of the strongest center of Communism, the Communist a white reaction as bitter as that just gone through; lost heavily. It must be remembered, however, that is one of the out standing events of recent proletarian thousands of workingmen abstained from voting: history.
While the bourgeois press, a little gloomily, Italy bourgeois press finds slim comfort after all munches over the statement that Constitutionalists can in the fact that the Reds lost only 17 or 18 seats rejoice in the knowledge that the Right Socialists at least twelve of these were lost because Fascisti at the the peace abiding, unrevolutionary, sane Socialists, point of guns prevented workingmen from voting, if you please won in preference to the Communists, when the first expectation was that they would lose everyone else is celebrating a notevale vittoria. Not