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390 THE CLASS STRUGGLE 391 CONVENTION IMPRESSIONS Socialists to watch for and extirpate all efforts at counter revolution.
This use of and co operation with the police is a notable instance of socialist participation in the class struggle. But under which flag? The dozens of handsome, expensive flags of the capitalist government of the United States decorating the convention hall, put there by those in charge of the convention, not those owning the hall, the two scanty strips of cheap red cloth so stretched as to be almost hidden, gave eloquent answer.
California delegates were contested. The state executive committee had voted unanimously to take the vote of the expelled federations, tabulating that vote separately. scheme of preferential voting was also adopted, which caused some confusion, some marking their ballot simply with a cross instead of properly with numbers. But excluding all federation and other improperly marked ballots, the delegates were overwhelmingly elected. No contesting delegates were present, the contest resulting from a letter from two members of the State Executive Committee defeated in the election for delegates. The contest committee, with a Judge for chairman, its members mainly lawyers, was hostile. Its queries were like an examination before the Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, or government cross examination of a defendant in an espionage law trial.
Do you believe; do you think; will you be bound by the acts of the convention. Note what was done. The vote tabulation showed votes from the Russian branch of San Francisco regularly counted. Ha! Contempt of the National Executive Committee and its order expelling the Federations and ground for exclusion. But no, it developed the branch had a regular branch charter nearly twenty years old. California delegates were left wing delegates. The committee therefore needed no grounds to justify its vote to exclude. True, the convention overturned the committee; true, the convention seated Minnesota three hours before adjournment when the delegates had worked for a week in the two other conventions.
Such matters do not alter the fact that the convention was packed. Packed by a process of eliminating all known left wing delegates, packed by delegations from Massachusetts, New York, and Michigan, which had delegates proportioned to a membership, most of whom had been expelled. The Michigan case is the most glaring example. Its seven delegates, the quota due its thirty five hundred expelled members, represented actually one hundred and thirty nine.
The resolutions, platform and other documents have not seen. It is not necessary. Any good scholar can write revolutionary phrases. As Boudin wittily remarked, The convention will give you Moscow, so that they may keep control of Chicago.
The membership of the Socialist Party voted more than ten to one to join the Third International the convention refused. In spite of that the convention did not give Moscow, so absolute was the control of a little group of men bent on perpetuating their control and keeping their jobs. Reckless of aught else, they have killed the Socialist Party as a working class organization. Not that it will disappear. Controlled by its ruling clique, financed by capitalism, it will remain an interesting, well preserved mummy.
Of the Communist Convention, saw nothing, nor have seen its program. With the Left Wing Program as a model, with Ferguson and Fraina to write it, beyond doubt the program will be excellent. More than that is needed to make a revolutionary Socialist Party. What went into the making of the Communist Party eliminates it from that catagory.
The party is controlled by the Russian Language Federations, with a membership of thirty five thousand out of a total of fifty eight thousand party members accepting their own figures. admit it ill becomes an internationalist, a revolutionary Socialist to complain of foreign control. That is not the point at all. If those Russian comrades scattered through the branches, mixed with the other members and acting through the branches, controlled the party, no one would, think, object. Such is not the case. The control lies in the hands of executive committees through whom go the only avenues of communication. The Executive Committees to all intents and purposes are the Federation. They are a machine just as pernicious as the old National Executive Committee. That is the situation which is the fundamental cause of the disunion of today.
The other main elements of the Communist Party are the expelled state organization of Michigan and the followers of the National Council of the Left Wing. That council came out of the Left Wing Conference of June in which both Michigan and the Federations participated. This conference was called to formulate a statement of Left Wing principles, to form a council for propaganda, securing and spreading information and to discuss the crisis in the party and action thereon; the conquest of the party, for revolutionary socialism. Not a word expressed or implied about forming a new party. As the Communists say in a communication to the Communist Labor Party