and program immediate and ultimate in scope, that provides for the immediate class struggle against Capitalism, in its revolutionary implications, and for the final act of the conquest of power.

The old order is in decay. Civilization is in collapse. The proletarian revolution and the Communist reconstruction of society-the struggle for these is now indispensable. This is the message of the Communist International to the workers of the world.

The Communist International calls the proletariat of the world to the final struggle!

CHAPTER V

The Communist Party of America *

In the previous chapter dealing with the development of the Left Wing movement in the Socialist Party, mention was made of a divergence of opinion which manifested itself in the First National Conference of the Left Wing, which was held in New York on the 25th day of June, 1919.

At that conference the delegates representing the Russian Socialist Federation and the Michigan delegates, together with some others, numbering thirty-one in all, insisted that the conference should take immediate action looking toward the formation of a Communist Party in the United States. The majority of that conference, as we have already shown, still believed there was a prospect of gaining control of the machinery of the Socialist Party, and was reluctant to abandon the organization at that time. The minority immediately withdrew from the conference, and formed a National Organization Committee to issue a call for a convention with the object of organizing a Communist Party. This move had the full support of the Russian Socialist Federation.

This organization committee, which consisted of Dennis E. Batt, D. Elbaum, O. C. Johnson, John Keracher, S. Kopnagel, I. Stilson, and Alexander Stoklitsky, opened offices at 1221 Blue Island Avenue, Chicago, Ill. The call issued by this committec was printed in the "Novy Mir" in the issue of July 7, 1919, a translation of which is as follows:

"CALL FOR A NATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE PURPOSE OF ORGANIZING A COMMUNIST PARTY IN AMERICA

"In this, the most momentous period of the world's history, capitalism is tottering to its ruin. The proletariat is straining at the chains which bind it. A revolutionary spirit is spreading throughout the world. The workers are rising to answer the clarion call of the Third International.

"Only one Socialism is possible in this crisis. A Socialism based upon understanding. A Socialism that will express in action the needs of the proletariat. The time has passed for temporizing and hesitating. We must act. The Communist call of the Third International, the echo of the Communist Manifesto of 1848, must be answered.

See Addendum, Part 1.

"The National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America has evidenced by its expulsion of nearly half of the membership that they will not hesitate at wrecking the organization in order to maintain control. A deadlock has been precipitated in the ranks of revolutionary Socialism by the wholesale expulsion or suspension of the membership comprising the Socialist Party of Michigan, locals and branches throughout the country, together with seven Language Federations. This has created a condition in our movement that makes it manifestly impossible to longer delay the calling of a convention to organize a new party. Those who realize that the capturing of the Socialist Party as such is but an empty victory will not hesitate to respond to this call and leave the 'Right' and 'Center' to sink together with their 'revolutionary' leaders.

"The majority of the delegates to the Left Wing Conference in New York meekly neglected to sever their connections with the reactionary National Executive Committee. Rendered impotent by the conflicting emotions and lack of understanding present they continued to mark time as Centrists in the wake of the Right. Their policy is one of endeavor to capture the old party machinery and the stagnant elements who have been struggling for a false unity and who are only ready to abandon the ship when it sinks beneath the waves of reaction.

"This condition confronting the minority delegates representing the following organizations Socialist Party of Michigan; Left Wing State Convention of Minnesota; Locals, Buffalo; Chicago; Union Local, N. J.; Cudahy, Wis.; Rochester, N. Y.; Rockford, Ill.; Kenosha, Wis.; New York; Providence; Nanticoke, Pa.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Boston, Mass.; Polish, Lettish, Russian, Jewish, Lithuanian, Esthonian Federations at the Left Wing Conference has been met by this call for the organization of a Communist Party in America.

"No other course is possible, therefore, we, the minority delegates at the Left Wing Conference, call a convention to meet in the city of Chicago on September 1, 1919, for the purpose of organizing a Communist Party in America. "This party will be founded upon the following principles:

"1. The present is the period of the dissolution ..nd collapse of the whole capitalist world system; which will

mean the complete collapse of world culture, if capitalism with its unsolvable contradictions is not replaced by Communism.

"2. The problem of the proletariat consists in organizing and training itself for the conquest of the powers of the state. This conquest of power means the replacement of the state machinery of the bourgeoisie with a new proletarian machinery of government.

"3. This new proletarian state must embody the dictatorship of the proletariat, both industrial and agricultural, this dictatorship constituting the instrument for the taking over of property used for exploiting the workers, and for the reorganization of society on a communist basis.

the

"Not the fraudulent bourgeois democracy hypocritical form of the rule of the finance-oligarchy, with its purely formal equality -but proletarian democracy based on the possibility of actual realization of freedom for the working masses; not capitalist bureaucracy, but organs of administrations which have been created by the masses themselves, with the real participation of these masses in the government of the country and in the activity of the communistic structure this should be the type of the proletarian state. The workers' councils and similar organizations represent its concrete form.

"4. The dictatorship of the proletariat shall carry out the abolition of private property in the means of production and distribution, by transfer to the proletarian state under Socialist administration of the working class; nationalization of the great business enterprises and financial trust.

"5. The present world situation demands the closest relation between the revolutionary proletariat of all countries.

6. The fundamental means of the struggle for power is the mass action of the proletariat, a gathering together and concentration of all its energies; whereas methods. such as the revolutionary use of bourgeois parliamentarism are only of subsidiary significance.

"In those countries in which the historical development has furnished the opportunity, the working class

has utilized the regime of political democracy for its organization against capitalism. In all countries where the conditions for a workers' revolution are not yet ripe, the same process will go on.

"But within the process the workers must never lose sight of the true character of bourgeois democracy. If the finance-oligarchy considers it advantageous to veil its deeds of violence behind parliamentary votes, then the capitalist power has at its command in order to gain its ends, all the traditions and attainments of former centuries of upper class rule, demagogism, persecution, slander, bribery, calumny and terror. To demand of the proletariat that it shall be content to yield itself to the artificial rules devised by its mortal enemy, but not observed by the enemy, is to make a mockery of the proletarian struggle for power-a strug gle which depends primarily on the development of separate organs of the working-class power.

"7. The old Socialist International has broken into three main groups: (a) Those frankly social patriots who since 1914 have supported their bourgeoisie and transformed these elements of the working class which they control into hangmen of the international revolution.

"(b) The Center,' representing the elements which are constantly wavering and incapable of following a definite plan of action, and which are at times positively traitorous; and

"(e) The Communists.

"As regards the social patriots, who everywhere in the critical moment oppose the proletarian revolution with force of arms, a merciless fight is absolutely necessary. As regards the 'Center,' our tactics must be to separate the revolutionary elements by pitilessly criticizing the leaders. Absolute separation from the organization of the 'Center' is necessary.

"It is necessary to rally the groups and proletarian organizations who, though not as yet in the wake of revolutionary trend of the Communist movement, nevertheless have manifested and developed a tendency leading in that direction.

"Socialist criticism has sufficiently stigmatized the bourgeois world order. The task of the International Communist