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The unity of purpose between the Socialist Party of America and the revolutionary forces of Soviet Russia was clearly expressed by Alexander Trachtenberg, (who has several times been referred to,) at a public meeting arranged by the Socialist Local of New York to celebrate the Second Anniversary of the founding of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic at Park View Palace, 110th Street and Fifth Avenue on November 7, 1919, when he said:

"Now, comrades, we will have to celebrate this matter very swiftly. Comrades, we will have, I say, to celebrate the Anniversary of the Russian Revolution very swiftly tonight, because we have the several meetings to cover with the same number of speakers. By the way, there are tonight, perhaps, a dozen meetings being held throughout the city, celebrating the very same occasion, but here in this very hall we have a meeting here, a meeting downstairs, and I understand that people are going now to the cellar. We will have a meeting there and then one outside (laughter).

"This meeting has been arranged by the Socialist Party of New York County, to celebrate the Second Anniversary of the proletarian revolution which took place in Russia on November 7, 1917. Those of you who are members of the party, those of you who are Socialist sympathizers, those of you who read the "Call" or "Forwarts," or any other Socialist publication, are well acquainted with the history of the Russian revolution beginning March, 1917, up to the uprising in 1917, in November, and the establishment of a Soviet government. When we celebrate the Second Anniversary of the Russian revolution, as we celebrate the first anniversay and in fact as we celebrate the establishment of the Soviet government, we always try to draw a few lessons for us in America, for the organized Labor and Socialist movement in this country, because there is no use having revolutions somewhere else if the workers of the other countries cannot profit by it.

"The reason for such a thing as an isolated revolution in some corner of the earth, where the people of the other parts of the world will not profit by it and therefore, on this Second Anniversary, we ought to think, and think very deeply as to what the meaning is of that revolution; what it means not only to the Russian worker; what it means to

the workers of the world; what it means to the movement we have been working for and fighting for for so many years, and what it means for us in the future. It seems to me as it seems to the Socialists of America that this establishment of the workers' government in Russia proves one thing, that if the workers are organized, organized politically and economically, and organized in a way we have to understand not only their immediate conditions, not only their immediate requirements, but understand the great purpose of an organized labor movement, with them to understand the great mass of the working class and what they have to perform in this world then we can have not only a Soviet Russia, but a Soviet government in England, Germany, and a Soviet America, just as well. (Applause.) We can, comrades, take great heart in what the Russian workers have accomplished; and at this very minute when we are celebrating the Second Anniversary, we are celebrating not only the establishing of some ethereal thing, not an idle thing, but some very concrete proposition. (Applause; here the flag of the Russian Soviet was exposed amidst loud applause.) And we are really celebrating the working out of the Socialist revolutionary program, which the Russian workers have been promulgating for the past twenty-five or thirty years.

"We are now celebrating the working out of the practical dream, not a purely idle dream, but a practical dream, of those of the Russian revolutionists who have organized the Russian Socialist movement away back there and have now borne fruit.

"We must now take this lesson, but if the American working class were organized on the same basis as the Russian workers were, fully understanding the mission of the working class, we probably today in America would perhaps be celebrating our own establishment of a working government, our own establishment of a Soviet government, instead of only celebrating what has happened there on the other side of the ocean.

"The Socialist Party is very anxious in organizing these meetings, in putting forth proclamations on this subject, to call attention to the workers of America, that the Russian Socialist revolution in November, 1917, teaches the workers of the world that great lesson, that solidarity, class con

sciousness, sacrificial idealism which the Russian workers have manifested in this great work, is not only purely a Russian method, but it is an international method; and if our hearts and our minds link together with those Russian comrades and we understand them, then we know what it is up to us to do in this country.

"I have no more to tell you. You reason it out for yourselves."

And August Claessens, referring to this speech of Trachtenberg, said as follows:

"Yes, as Comrade Trachtenberg said, when we read and when we hear of these things, we immediately begin to grasp the significance of what Socialists call the social revolution.""

The membership of the Socialist Party is given in the American Labor Year Book of 1917-18 from 1903 to 1917. These are the latest figures available. The following table shows the average paid up membership for each year, beginning with 1903:

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The membership given for the foreign language federations, from 1907 to 1911 inclusive, is as follows:

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEDERATIONS OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY

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Contrasted with this limited membership is the large Socialist vote cast at the polls. The rapid growth of the movement is illustrated by states in the following table, which appears in the American Labor Year Book for 1917-1918:

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The Vermont vote of 547, in 1908, was for the State ticket. No electoral ticket was in the field. The vote in New Mexico and Arizona, in 1910, has never been compiled by the State authorities.

APPENDIX

CHAPTER II

Official Documents

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1. National Constitution Socialist Party of America. 2. State Constitution of Socialist Party of State of New York. 3. By-Laws of Socialist Party, New York County.

4. War Proclamation and Program, Socialist Party adopted at St. Louis Convention, April, 1917.

5. Manifesto of Socialist Party-Chicago Convention, September, 1919.

6. Majority Report rejected by Membership of Party by Referendum after submission to the Emergency National Convention held at Chicago, September, 1919.

7. Minority Report adopted by overwhelming party vote on Referendum after submission to Emergency National Convention held at Chicago, September, 1919.

Document No. 1

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY

"The Socialist Party of the United States is the political expression of the interests of the workers in this country, and is part of the international working-class movement.

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