440 THE CLASS STRUGGLE EDITORIALS 441 ing, of losing their respectability in the eyes of the general public. Since bitter experience in the German and Austrian Revolutions has taught us the necessity of educating the workers to the right kind of revolutionary methods, unless this is done the American worker will be just as unready and unable to take care of its interests as were the workers of those countries.
This lack of understanding or shall we call it cowardice on the side of the Socialist Party is of utmost importance. working class movement whose slogan is not: all power to the workers and to the workers government, can never be anything else but pseudo proletarian and distinctly anti working class.
The question of affiliation with the Second or Third International is therefore of the greatest importance. Parties which do not stand squarely upon the dictatorship of the proletariat, cannot and, of course, will not be admitted to the International formed at Moscow. The of the says that it, cannot remain in the Second International and will not join the Third.
It claims that a new alignment of socialist elements must take place to unite all forces of revolutionary Socialism and invites these forces to form a Fourth International. But so long as the leaders of the count among the Revolutionists of their new order Socialists of such decidedly moderate, yes anti revolutionary conceptions as Karl Kautsky, who has just published a book attacking the unsocialistic theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the courageous but purely pacifist MacDonald, who is still an opponent of the philosophy of the class struggle, the Social Patriot Henderson, and many more of that type, their wish for a unification of all the forces of revolutionary Socialism must remain a dream, and not a beautiful one. It is true, the Independent Social Democrat Party of Germany hailed the American idea with great joy; but since this party is also hopelessly divided on this issue, its support is rather of doubtful value.
We have already touched upon another vital difference between the and the the different attitude toward political action. The political action of the is pure and simple parliamentarism, identical in character with that of the capitalist parties. Both use the machinery of the bourgeois state for the achievement of their political end. The has no such illusions. It knows that the ballot will never open the door to Socialism and that the petty reforms which may be attained by many long and weary struggles and compromises with corrupt politicians of the old parties can be of no considerable benefit to the workers. We, therefore, will use the parliamentary platform for propaganda purposes only. The representatives elected upon the ticket will go to the legislative halls not to legislate, not as statesman, to fritter away their time with dickering and bargaining. They will be charged with the important task of showing up the forces of law and order, the society of godliness and morality, in all their ugly nakedness and hy! risy. They go there as educators of the masses, as teachers of the working class, and for no other purpose.
In place of the all important parliamentary political action, as understood by the old line Socialists, will come political mass action. Strikes, general strikes, heretofore used in this country exclusively as working class weapons on the industrial field, will be just as effectively employed on the political field for the enforcement of political demands, such as the liberation of classwar prisoners (Mooney, Debs, etc. against the abrogation of working class rights (abolition of the right to strike and boycot, freedom of press, assemblage and free speech. For while we all recognize that the ruling classes cannot be forced into granting working class demands as long as the workers are only insufficiently organized, we also appreciate the possibility of frightening the powers that be into submission by the show of great numerical strength. Here again the Socialist Party politician tells us, that he also is in favor of mass action as soon as the masses are ready for it. But he ridicules the idea of propagating mass action without the masses. It never enters his mind that mass action like all other weapons of the workingclass necessitates education and training on the part of the prole tariat and that unless this preparatory work is done the time and especially the working class will never be ready for it.
The last Convention that the Social Democratic Party of Germany held before the outbreak of the war, resolved unanimously in favor of political mass action as one of the weapons to be employed by the German workers. It was the glorious end of a fight carried on for almost a decade by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and others. But the victory of the revolutionary Socialists in the German Party came too late. The masses of the German proletariat stood behind the Party, the organizations were there to organize and lead such a fight. But the time was too short for the training and education of the masses to prepare them for their new role in the class struggle before the world war started, and the Socialists of Germany submitted without even showing fight. What might have happened had the Jena resolution been adopted ten years earlier, is, of course, open to conjecture. But this much seems certain, the more de