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156 THE WORKERS COUNCIL DECEMBER 15, 1921. DECEMBER 15, 1921 THE WORKERS COUNCIL 157 The Socialist Party Victim of Inner Contradictions By ALEXANDER TRACHTENBERG ΤΗ HE forced and voluntary exodus of revolution ment of the other was only a pro forma change. Real ists from the Socialist Party did not make power always rested with the same interests the two the party entirely useless.
parties only taking turns in representing them and Tho only a shadow of the old organization, the carrying out their commands.
party can yet serve a necessary purpose in AmerJUMP TO SOCIALIST PARTY ican political life.
The party has become too discredited among Those who sought to promote political and economic the militant portion of the American working class improvements and realized that that was not possible to parade as a revolutionary organization.
of accomplishment thru either of the two political parIf it should attempt to play such a role, it would ties, wended their ways to the Socialist Party, because be our duty to mercilessly expose it and warn the there was no intermediary agency better suited to these workers against the snares and delusions of the political interlopers and their pet millennial reforms.
party reformism.
Those who desired to check the control of government by the vested interests and believed they could RESPECTABLE PARTY accomplish it thru direct election of Senators, On the contrary, the ruling elements in the the initiative, referendum, recall, woman suffrage, the party are now anxious to advertise the organization primary, corrupt practices acts, civil service regulaas thoroly cleared of all anarcho communists (a tions, public ownership of public utilities, etc. or those darling expression of a Socialist historian who lost who wanted to make the burden of the worker lighter his historical sense in the scuffle) and that it is or protect his life and limbs by compensation and ready to accept the adherence of all those who safety legislation, minimum wages, shorter hours, reprefer the native Jefferson to the foreigner striction of woman and child labor and other labor Marx, and are willing to do something for poor laws, and found that they could not obtain these rebrother Labor.
forms thru either the Republican or Democratic Party, It is precisely this function that the can looked to the for succor.
now perform without fear of being disturbed by During the period of muck raking in various fields troublesome elements within its fold, and it should of political and economic endeavor, the was do the job most admirably.
receiving numerous additions to its ranks from among Many theories have been advanced to explain the disillusioned doctors of variegated social ills.
disintegration of the Socialist Party as a revoluFARMERS AND SOCIALISM tionary organization.
When the farmers of the middle and southwest The sundry reasons always appeared to the writer as results rather than causes of the party became once more embattled (this time against the railroads and the banks) and clamored for lower undoing. The Socialist Party was never a homofreight rates, state elevators, cheaper credit and ingeneous organization, and its attempt at Socialist efforts was neutralized by the incessant struggle of surance, they found that they could not obtain these remedial measures thru the old parties and joined the two mutually antagonistic elements which comthe in droves.
prised the organization.
When the European war broke out, the beA POLITICAL CONGLOMERATION came the rallying center for anti militarists, pacifists, The party never had the chance. It was never and free speech defenders of all sorts.
allowed to develop as a revolutionary and class Had there been a liberal party when the leftward party.
migration of erstwhile Republicans and Democrats Middle class social reformers and proletarian revobegan, the would have been spared this assortlutionists made the Socialist Party the vehicle of their ment of reformers and radicals who entered it not political activities and aspirations.
because of its Socialist program, but because it was Jeffersonian ideologists, who were trying to adapt the third party: bourgeois democracy to the class struggle were found To those with whom the party was a vogue durin the together with Marxian Socialists who ing that period, the ultimate aim to abolish the capidenied the existence of abstract liberties and put forth talist system thru a social revolution did not matter.
proletarian hegemony as against capitalist dictatorship.
PARTY SERVED AS OASIS All parties of the Second International had an admixture of elements fundamentally hostile to the ulti In the midst of a corrupt political desert the mate aims of revolutionary Socialism, but the Amer was an oasis for all who heard the call of social ican party was blessed with an overdose of them. service and civic duty.
Unlike other countries, there never developed in the As far as they were concerned the party stood for United States a liberal political party which could act clean government and for improvements in the as a receiving station for the disillusioned in the con various fields of social and economic relations.
servative camps.
It served the purpose which European liberal Both the Republican and Democratic parties were parties served for many years and, tho the docinstruments of capitalism and reaction. The periodic trinaire attitude of the Marxian contingent often change from the administration of one to the govern gave the radicals cause for worry, they were willing to put up with their obdurate fellow members returns showed an increase in the vote, or the election in order to have a political roof over their heads. of a candidate, great was the glory of the party and It is needless to say that such elements could not happy were the leaders.
furnish proper material for the building of a well The methods used in the campaigns never worried knit and disciplined revolutionary party. In those who controlled the destiny of the party. Electimes of peace the organization, which looked more tions were not means for Socialist propaganda, but like a social club than a political party, was able to ends in themselves, and no chances were to be taken get along. But when it was put to the test, the with the outcome of the campaigns.
structure collapsed like a house of cards.
The emphasis on parliamentary action was primarily WRITE THE LAST CHAPTER due to the influence of the middle class reformers, who The Detroit Convention was the last chapter the were out for results. Didn they join the party was able to write under the old nom de plume.
because the other parties would not listen to their Complete disintegration followed.
importunities?
The American Socialist Party bargained away its Socialist soul in its hunt for popularity thru political PRACTICAL POLITICS WON success. It stands now before the American workers, Being the most articulate portion of the member deprived of its Socialist heritage and barren of even ship, because of their ability to speak and write, they those political results which it set out to achieve.
directed the course of the party along the road of The inner contradictions have brought the party practical politics.
to its Socialist Waterloo.
Instead of revolutionary Socialist propaganda and The withdrawal of all the Socialist elements makes participation in the struggles of the workers, vote it impossible for the organization to serve as a dumpcatching became the alpha and omega of the party ing ground for all the nondescript liberals and radicals.
activity. Everything was directed toward that end. The American revolutionary movement cannot but All the resources of the party were saved for the most profit by it. It will be removed from the danger of important period of the year election time, and if the being contaminated by these elements.
HYNDMAN PILLAR OF REACTION By LUDWIG LORE FROM England comes the news of the death of Friedrich Engels once jokingly remarked: This one of the outstanding figures of the Socialist Hyndman is a splendid internationalist except when movement of pre war days. Hyndman, at the the Germans are under discussion. Then he becomes a age of 79, is dead.
violent nationalist.
Hyndman was the founder of the social democratic Such being the case, it is hardly surprising that movement in England. He created the Social Demo Hyndman, when the war broke out, became one of cratic Federation, which later became the Social the most violent jingoes in the International. He Democratic Party.
poured the vials of his wrath not only upon the GerIt is a well known fact that he came into the So man leaders who openly supported the war camarilla, cialist movement and remained unceasingly active inits but he was equally bitter against those Germans ranks thru more than a generation at the greatest sac who opposed the war policies of the German Socialrifice of his own personal ambitions.
Democracy.
For Hyndman was the son of a well to do family He was firmly convinced of the justice of the and received the well rounded out education that is Allied cause and defended it with blind vehemence traditional in the class from which he sprung.
against all who opposed him.
With his brilliant political insight, his capabilities When the Russian Revolution broke out he had both as a speaker and as a writer, Hyndman, had he no patience with the peace demands of the Russian remained true to the standards of the class from people, and urged Russia to help the Allies to carry which he came, would have become one of the leading the war to a victorious conclusion.
statesmen of the nation.
honest social patriot, he had for the Bolsheviki He was, however, constitutionally in sympathy with only disapproval and contempt.
the under dog. As a very young man he took the part Hyndman went the way of so many of our orthoof oppressed India against its British exploiters. When shortly afterward, in the capacity of newspaper dox Marxists, who have lived with their theories so correspondent, he was sent to the front in the war long that they have lost touch with the spirit of between Italy and Austria, in 1888, he met Mazzini the revolution, lost the spark that gives these and Garibaldi, and was so attracted toward them that theories life.
he formed a life long friendship. The outbreak of Like Jules Guesde in France, like Karl Kautsky the Paris Commune and his acquaintance with Karl in Germany, like Plechanov in Russia, he became Marx during this critical period in European history the spokesman of the enemies of Soviet Russia and led Hyndman into the Socialist movement.
of the Third International.
But, in spite of his long experience in the British The Paris Commune brought Hyndman, the movement and in the International, Hyndman always young revolutionist, into the proletarian moveshowed a marked preference for Latin peoples, tra ment. Hyndman, the party leader, died as one of ditions and customs.
the pillars of capitalist reaction.
Like every