A Statement and
a Challenge
a
By Nicolai Lenin
WILN compared with feudalism, Capitalism is a historical advance along the line of liberty, democracy, civilization. But, nevertheless, Capitalism is and remains the system of wage-slavery, of enslavement of millions of toilers, of workers and peasants, to a little minority of modern slave drivers ; the landowners and capitalists.
Bourgeois democracy has changed the form of this economic slavery, as compared with feudalism, and has created an especially splendid cover in order to conceal it, but has not and could not change its essence. Capital-ism and bourgeois democracy are wage-slavery.
The gigantic progress of things in general, and of means of communication in particular, the boundless growth of capital and of the banks, have resulted ill Capitalism's becoming mature and over-mature. It has out-lived itself. It has become the most reactionary hindrance to human progress.
It has reduced itself to the almighty power of a handful of milliardairs and millionaires, who send the people to the shambles in order to decide whether the German shall supersede the English influence, for "mandates for administration," and so on. During the war of [914-i S' tens of millions of human beings were killed or mutilated for that purpose and for that alone.
The recognition of this truth is spreading with in-superable force and swiftness among the masses of toilers in all countries, and the more in consequence of the fact that the war has everywhere resulted in exhaustion and poverty, and that the war interests and debts have to be paid everywhere, even among the people called "victors." And what are these interests? They are the tribute of the masses to the millionaires, because the latter have been so kind as to allow to the tens of mil-lions of workers and peasants to kill and mutilate one another.
The most that the Capitalists the bourgeoisie can do. is to delay the victory of Socialism in one or the other separate country, at the price of the extermination of thousands more of workers and peasants. To save Capitalism is impossible for them.
Its successor has become the Soviet Republic, which gives power to the toilers, and only to the toilers, which entrusts the proletariat with the guidance of the work of their liberation, which abolishes private property of land,
.1
factories and means of production, because this private property is the source of the exploitation of tile many by the few, the source of the misery of the masses, the source of the predatory' wars among peoples, and en-riches only the Capitalists. The victory of the Inter-national Soviet Republic is sure.
The American bourgeoisie delivered the people, and boasts of the liberty, equality and democracy, reigning in its country. But neither this nor any other bourgeoisie, neither the American nor any other Capitalist Government in the world, will be able or will dare to take up a challenge with our Government in the matter of real liberty, equality and democracy.
Let its suppose, for example, that it treaty between nor f oneru-oient and sonic Capitalist Government allows to both liberty of exchange of pamphlets, which, in the neolr of the respective governments, are to be published in any language, and to contain- the text of the laws of the respective country and of its constitution with. the explanation of their superiority as compared with others.
No bourgeois government in the world will dare to adopt .tali a. peace)i.ii, goal and democratic treaty with as. lI%liy not' Bemuse all the governments, ~citla the exception of the Soviet government, rest upon oppression and deception of the masses.
But the great war of 1914-1918 has smashed the great falsehood.
\ote:-Late in ,July the L cited Press obtained an interview with Lenin by wireless from Buda Pesth. Lenin prefaced his answers to their questions with the following sentence; "I answer the five questions put, to me under the condition that the written promise given me be fulfilled, that my' answer will he published without alteration or mutilation in over one hundred papers in the United States of North America."
After answering the five questions Lenin said: "In addition I would like to make the following statement to the American people." This gave the United Press a loop-hole, and they sent out his answers as they had promised, but suppressed his statement as "unadulterated Bolshevist propaganda."
The above is an accurate copy of his statement. Is there ant American patriot who can answer it?
mil
LIiiEl:A'1'(11t, a monthly magazine, October, I;I1'I. 'twenty cents a copy, i12 a year. Vol. 2, No. 10, Serial No. 20. Published by '['hr, Liberator Publishing Co., 3# Union Square, New York, N. Y. Application pending for entry as second-class matter at the post office at New York, N. Y., tinder the Act of iliareli 3, 1879. Copyright. 1919.
4 THE LIBERATOR
Germany shall be compelled to deliver 140,000 milch cows to the victors.
-The Peace Treaty.
Is This the Real Wilson ?
THE milk supply of Germany is one-fifth of normal.
German babies have a nominal ration of one and three-fourths pints per day, and they receive about one-fourth of that nominal ration.
"In Berlin there are scores of thousands of children who have never tasted milk," says the correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, who describes these children as "all head and no body, thin necks and grey ghastly skins."
Professor Starling, an English expert, states that the lack of milk is responsible for the prevalence of rickets among the children of "practically all classes." Colonel Pollock reports that "tuberculosis has increased enormously and is still increasing. It is practically always fatal, as owing to scarcity of milk and almost total absence of cod-liver oil and proper nourishment, the treatment of these cases is almost hopeless."
A correspondent of the London Daily Express says : "I have seen women rummaging through dust bins
to find potato peelings. They have no clothes for their new born children ; one finds them wrapped in pieces of sacking. 30% of German women die in confinement. I have encountered dozens of children two years of age who have never tasted milk."
One hundred and forty thousand milch cows is roughly one-quarter of the cows in Germany. The loss will re-duce the milk supply another 25%.
It is estimated that this will bring starvation, torture and death to fioo,ooo more babies.
In the Paris cafes everybody has milk in his coffee.
Reparation to France could he made by importing cows from America and charging them against the German indemnity.
"There is no need to kill German babies.
Put the Versailles Treaty, with the consent-and ac-cording to a persistent rumor in London, upon the special insistence of President Wilson, condemns 6oo,ooo of them to this kind of death.
THE LIBERATOR
Vol. 2, No. 10 (Serial No. 20) October, 1919
By Max Eastman--Drawings By Art young
T IiE convention of the old Socialist Party began with a belligerent apology by the national secretary, Adolph Germer. The convention of the Left Wing began with a great singing of the "Internationale," three cheers for Revolutionary Socialism, three cheers for the Russian Soviet Republic, three cheers for Debs, and three cheers for the I. W. W. The convention of the Communist Party began with an announcement that "the management committee has decided that there shall be no smoking during the convention," followed by an accurate rendition of the "Internationale" with full orchestra and brass.
These different ways of beginning were characteristic. In the old S. P. convention, the "parent body," the emotional tone was a little apologetic throughout, a little wan and anxious, and yet at the same time indignant of criticism-about what you might expect of the mother of twins.
The Left Wing convention-which became the Com-
munist Labor Party-had a little of the quality of a
revival meeting. The delegates were always singing and
shouting and feeling that the true faith was about to be
restored in their hearts and homes. At least they were,
until the Program Committee made its report, training
some big guns from the Mani-
festo of the Third International
on them, and they realized that
they must either put their names
to a program of deliberate, hard-
headed revolutionary science, or go back where they came from. They took a long, hard breath then, and most of them "came through," but they did not come through singing.
The Communist Convention-more properly called the Slavic-American Communist Convention-was characterized through-out by a spirit of yotith
ful but sophisticated efficiency. It was a consciously expert convention. It showed the rest of them what a convention ought to be. It was almost incredibly neat and clean and regular. I was sitting there some time before the formal opening, admiring the way the big sheets of heavy yellow paper were spread over the delegates' tables and folded and tacked underneath; I was admiring the smooth high railing of new wood which divided the delegates' stalls from the audience room at the back ; in particular I was admiring the soda-waterfountain shine and polish on the white oil-cloth which covered the press-table where I had laid my hat; I was just reflecting that these things had surely been pre-pared and arranged by an unmarried lady of advanced years, when a young Russian comrade carne up with a damp cloth and asked me kindly to remove my hat so that he could "clean" that oil-cloth!
A Little History
In order to understand how these conventions came to be, and what they came to be, it is necessary to apply the mind to some rather complicated history. I will generalize that history as clearly and fairly as I can.
There have always been elements in the American
Socialist Party who were more revolutionary than the majority, and in a state of continual pro-test against the official conduct of the party. They were more devoted to the principle of the class struggle, less willing to waste energy in office-seeking, . reformism, and parliamentarism. They believed in the I. W. W. They believed in the Communist Manifesto of 1848. These elements were for the most part distinctly American ; they were never very conspicuous in' the "f o r e i g n federations" affil-
r-
"simony."
1221 Blue Island Ave.
6 THE LIBERATOR
iatecl with the American party. And also they were never very strong.
The proletarian revolution in Russia and the surrounding countries-proving the literal truth of almost every word in the Communist Manifesto-gave them their strength. It sent a wave of militant or Bolshevik, or Communist, Socialism around the world. And this wave naturally reached the Slavic federations first, and affected them the most. They became almost unanimously and automatically Bolshevik. At the same time their membership increased enormously-the gospel being accepted by thousands of new recruits, both through a genuine emotion not unrelated to patriotism, and through expediency, it being generally understood that a Russian would not amount to much at home unless he had been a socialist here. This very willing membership was organized into a magnificent political machine by the brainy officials of the Slavic Federations, and it sup-plied both revolutionary will and revolutionary power to the scattered elements of the American Left Wing.
These officials were able to cast the vote and appro.. priate the funds of about 40,000 out of the roo,ooo members of the Socialist Party. They made Louis C. Fraina's paper, The Revolutionary Age, and its wide circulation, possible. They made it possible, in spite of the Postoffice censorship, to carry the "Left Wing Manifesto and Program," and the motto, "Capture the Party for Revolutionary Socialism," into the hands of almost every Socialist in the country. No one can estimate the amount that this propaganda accomplished-as compared with the direct effect of the European revolutions upon the party membership-but it is certain that by last May or June an overwhelming majority of American Socialists were committed to the Left Wing Program in gen-
Louis C. Fraina
Isaac E. Ferguson
eral, and the Slavic Federations formed the solid and well-organized heart of this majority.
That all sounds very simple, but it was not so simple. In the first place the Left Wing took to itself a degree of organization and autonomy, which gave the Right Wing officials who controlled the party, plenty of emotional, and not a few legal, grounds for expelling Left Wing members. The Slavic Federations were expelled in a body; the State of Michigan was expelled ; other states, locals, branches and members were expelled. The membership of the party. was reduced by and during these proceedings -according to the report of its own secretary-from 109,000 to 39,000.
In the second place, the leaders of the Slavic Federations-partly as a result of their expulsion, partly through a thinly veiled nationalistic egotism, and partly through a sincere if somewhat theological desire to exclude all wavering or "centrist" elements from the new organization, decided at the national Left Wing conference in June, that the idea of capturing the American Socialist party, or even attempting to capture it, was wrong, and that a call should be issued for the immediate organization of a "Communist Party."
In the third place the expelled "Michigan Crowd"-although really too political-minded to be called communists-joined with the Slavic Federations in this particular demand, and the Federation Leaders made every use of this increase of their voting power in the Left Wing, although privately condemning the Michigan ideas and intending to suppress them when it came time to adopt a platform.
Even so, however, they were unable to control the Left Wing conference. It decided by a considerable majority to adhere to the original program of capturing the party,
OCTOBER, 1919
7
and it elected a "Left \Ving Council" to carry this out. The Slavic Federations and the "Michigan crowd" then decided to ignore the decision of the conference and call a Communist Convention, whether the rest of the Left Wing agreed to do it or not.
The majority of the "Left Wing Council," together with the Revolutionary Age-the organ of the whole movement-denounced them as "traitors" for a week or two, but then suddenly capitulated in the middle of the summer. abandoned the slogan, "Capture the Party for Revolutionary Socialism," upon which their paper had built up its constituency and united the American revolutionaries, and joined in the call for an immediate Communist Convention to meet in Chicago on September 1st.
This sudden change of front occurred so late that there was no time left, even if there had been a moral possibility, for those who had united upon the original plan to unite upon the change. For better or worse, the Left Wing was split into two camps.
On the one hand there were the heads of the Slavic Federations and the Michigan Socialists, with the Revolutionary Age and all the National Machinary of the Left Wing organization, in the hands of Louis C. Fraina of Boston, I. E. Ferguson of Chicago, C. E. Ruthenberg of Ohio. Maximilian Cohen of New York, John Ballam of Massachusetts, Hiltzik of the Left Wing Jewish Federation, jay Lovestone, Rose Pastor Stokes and a few other non-Slavic delegates.
On the other hand, adhering to the original program of attempting to capture the party, there was the minority of the National Left Wing Council, Ben Gitlow and John Reed of New York, with other prominent Socialists of the Left like Kate Greenhalgh (Kate Sadler) of Washington, Joe Coldwell of Rhode Island, Fred Harwood of New Jersey, Max Bedacht of California, Jack Carney of Duluth, William Bross Lloyd of Chicago, Ludwig Lore, Editor of the Volkszeitung of New York, Margaret Prevey of Ohio. Tichenor of St. Louis. Owens of Illinois,'Wagenknecht of Ohio, Katterfeld of Indiana, Mrs. Harmon of Kansas, and 92 other delegates from 22 States. To this group there was also promised the adherence of the Italian Socialist Federation, and the Scandinavian and Left Wing German Federations, together with 19 Slavic Federations who were expelled from the major organization for resisting the machine.
Each of these groups would like to think that the rank and file of the American Communist movement was rep-resented in its convention. But it is impossible to decide that question now. The rank and file never had time to consider and act upon the issue between them. It was a division among leaders, and a very vague and queer one too. Delegates were wandering from one convention to another under indefinite instructions, or no instructions at all, except the understanding that they were to form a party in accord with the Manifesto of the Third Inter-national. Out of this unhappy confusion almost every-
body hoped and strove for a unity of the revolutionary elements, except the heads of the Slavic Federations, whose absolute control would have disappeared if unity had been achieved, and who maintained that their absolute control was necessary to the formation of a pure and perfect party of communism.
The Parent Body
If this confusion of elements represented is exasperating, it is at least a relief to know that the conventions occurred in some historic order. The Socialist Party Convention was convened in Machinists Hall on Saturday morning, August 30. The Left Wing delegates who 'were seated in that convention, walked out, and joined with the rejected delegates waiting in a room downstairs, to form the Convention of the Communist Labor Party, on Sunday afternoon. The Convention of the Communist Party was called to order in "Smolny Institute," a hall leased by the Russian Federation of Chicago, on Monday, September 1st, at about noon.
Art Young and I arrived at Machinists' Hall early Saturday morning-early enough to find Julius Gerber looking like an unsettled thundercloud, and jack Reed beaming. This is not because Julius was vanquished and Jack Reed victorious, but because Julius doesn't enjoy a fight and Jack does. It seems that some of the Left Wingers arrived early at the building, and decided after a caucas to go upstairs and take possession of the hall, putting their own national secretary, Wagenknecht, in the chair when the time came, and proceeding to organize the Convention. Having elected their National Executive Committee by an overwhelming majority, and having through their committee duly appointed their secretary, they felt justified in this procedure, notwithstanding that the election had been set aside as fraudulent by the old National Executive Committee. So they proceeded upstairs in a rather formidable frame of mind. They were met and opposed at the door by Julius Gerber, the secretary of local New York. and it seems that Gerber in his turn was "set aside." We heard a good many different stories of this incident by eye-witnesses, and none of them were quite so blood-curdling as what we read in the news-papers. It seemed to one of our informers that "Gerber could have licked Reed, if Reed hadn't held him so far up in the air that he couldn't reach down." Another comrade said that Reed acted just like a nice big dog, shaking
Left and Right
Reed.
OCTOBER, 1919 rN
himself. Another reported that there was "a little wind-pipe work on both sides." Gerber stated to the convention that he made Reed understand that swinging a sledge-hammer with the proletariat is just as good a preparation for life's battles as playing foot-ball at college. At any rate the "Left Wingers" got in, and there they were, and what was the right wing going to do about it?
Some of them didn't know what they were going to do, but Adolph Germer knew. He may not have consulted anybody when he arranged to have the police there, but he consulted the membership figures and the record of recent votes for officers, and votes on referendums, which were in his possession, and he decided that if the official minority were going to exclude the voting majority from the convention, they would have to do it with the forces of the capitalist state. In that he was entirely right.
Germer never denied that he had arranged to have the police there, although some members of the national committee denied it for him. When he was asked point-blank across the floor of the convention whether the officials of the Socialist Party had brought the police to that building he said, "What officials do you mean?" and withdrew his attention while some interrupter took up the talk. But he did deny that he told the police to "treat 'em rough," as two passionately indignant delegates subsequently informed the convention. He said that he asked the contested delegates two or three times "in a comradely spirit" to leave the room, before he told the police to put them out, and that he didn't tell the police anything else.
Two women who were among those put out, swore to the truth of the following account ; one of them, Mrs. Harmon of Kansas, was later seated in the Convention. and made the convention believe what she said :
"The first thing I saw was that they were trying to eject Reed through the door. Soon after that Germer came up to us where we were sitting, and said, `You'll have to clear the room.'
" 'I'm a delegate,' I said.
" 'It don't make any difference,' he said. `Clear the
room. If you don't I'll call the police.'
"I said to myself, 'Well, I have a right to the convention floor, and I'm going to sit here till the police tell me to go.'
"Pretty soon a policeman came up to me and said, 'You'll have to go, Misses.' ' "I went, but I went kind of slow, and I heard Germer say, 'Officer, clear the hall, and if
they don't go, policemen, do Dan Hogan of Arkansas your duty!'
"So the delegates who were with Berger and Germer stayed in the hall, and the rest of us went out, and our delegate who received the largest vote in the State of Kansas was put out of the Socialist Convention by the police !"
Perhaps these excessively lively preliminaries accounted for the unceremonious opening of the convention. With a beautiful upstairs hall like a little theatre, one whole side a great sunny sky-window, and decorations containing twenty-five American flags, I expected a c e r t a i n
amount of introductory hallelujah of some kind. But Germer simply stood up, looking like a big well-dressed police-sergeant off duty, hanged the gavel on the table, and started in.
He stated to a round of applause that "We intend to follow the splendid example set by our comrades in Russia", and added in a severe silence, "By that I want it distinctly understood that we do not intend to adopt the same methods."
He struck the key-note of the convention there. And he struck another key-note when he said, "The St. Louis program and the jail-sentences of our officials prove the revolutionary and non-Scheidemaun character of the party."
It is characteristic of old people to attach a great importance to what they have done in the past. And the majority in this convention were old. Even some of the young ones were old. They seemed to think it was personal and impertinent for any one to be chiefly concerned about what they were doing now, or what they were going to do in the future.
"There is no issue at stake"-"We are all agreed in principle"-"It is all a matter of personal jealousy"-"I f a few so-called leaders would get out of the way, we could have a united party"-that was the burden of the talk and feeling in the ante-rooms of the convention. I suppose it will be a rather exasperating thing to say, but I felt sorry for a good many of the delegates. They had served their time, they had born the heat of battle when some of us were in our cradles, and then to crown it all they had stood up under the bitter test of the St. Louis declaration, going around their home towns for two years, solitary, vilified, whipped with the hatred of their
Germer Explains
10 THE LIBERATOR
vs
neighbors, beaten and worn clown by the uni, versal war-madness of a nation, and not flinching. They could not understand why they should be shoved aside. And T could not either, any more than I can understand detth. But it is significant that in the conventions of the young, the conventions whose eyes were on the future and their muscles ready for action, there was not a single person to be found who would say that the split was personal, and that there were no vital issues at
stake. They could not think of saying it; they were whol+(y absorbed in the issues at stake.
Germer's speech did not sail very clear after he began denouncing the Left Wing leaders as "Harry Orchards of the Socialist movement," describing them as going about "in the dark like midnight thieves sneaking from car to ear, whispering, indubitably hoping thereby that the comrades may think there is something wrong with those selected by the comrades to manage the affairs of the party." Cries of "Count the Ballots!" "Is it in the Constitution that you have to make a speech ?" brought his defense to an end, and the balloting for temporary chairman began.
Seymour Stedman, the Right Wing candidate, received SR votes, and J. M. Coldwell of Rhode Island, the Left Wing candidate. 37. There were enough Left Wing dele gates in the building to have elected Coldwell with a substantial majority, even though 40,000 of their members had already gone over to the Communist Party, but only these 37 had trickled through the official sieve. The rest were "contested," and most of them never got through the credentials committee, and many of them never tried.
The pulse of the convention rose noticeably when Stedman took the chair. His sturdy anti winning grace of utterance made the delegates feel a little sure they were not wrong. But his speech, like Germer's. was a summing up for the defense. And his defense. like Gcrmer's. rested upon a record that is past, and, in this lime of rapid movement, stale and ready to be forgotten. He did not say that the Socialist Party would join the Third International and loyally stand up with our Russian corn - rades who are starving and dying and pouring out their blood in battle for socialism, and everybody knew that it would not.
Stedman scored a point as chairman when some im-
pertinent delegate, "rose to inquire" why we should elect a sergeant-at-arms when we have the police force?
"Well," he said, "that election was provided for at a time when it was understood that all the comrades would he gentlemen at least." But the police question would not down. It would not let itself be forgotten for two hours at a time. Once it was a white-faced ministerial comrade in the audience room, at the side of the hall.
"Comrades, I demand the attention of the delegates!" he shouted. "I just heard one of these policemen threat-en to throw a comrade clown-stairs, and he said 'You won't light on your feet either, you'll think you came down in an aeroplane.' 1 ask you if that is the way visiting Socialists are going to he treated by this convention ?"
"What kind of Socialists are they"" from the New York delegation.
From Stedman : "I should suggest that it would be a good idea to forget what occurred this morning. At the present time Chicago is under the police department, whether you like it or not."
From George Goebel : "[ say anybody who says we invited the police here are God damn liars !"
From Germer : "I'm glad they're here !"
And this second storm was no sooner past, and the troubled hearts quieting themselves a little, when in pops a letter from the Chicago Machinists-that one dread sovereign of all political socialists, a real labor union :
Dear Comrades and Friends:
On behalf of the Die and Tool Makers Lodge No. 113, International Association of Machinists, and the Machinists Society of Chicago, we protest against the harboring and use of police in this hall. This hall is the property, as well as the sanctuary, of a progressive and militant labor organization, based upon the class struggle. We do not permit our members to work under police protection; we can not conceive how we can let any meeting in this hall be carried on under police protection, when we as an organization condemn it and oppose it. While we are not represented in your con
vention as individual mem-
bers or representatives of an organization, we nevertheless are with you in spirit. For all these reasons we can not let the police remain as your protectors, or perhaps as your invited guests, without submitting our deepest protest. We call upon you to take steps to remove the police or make such arrangements as will satisfy us that you are not responsible for the presence of the police.
We are not asking this to put hardships on you, but for the best interest of the Socialist party and the labor movement in general.
Yours for International Solidarity,
Executive Board Die & Tool Makers Lodge No. 113.
L. P. Vance, Carl Harig, G. T. FranckeI, P. Pokara.
Seymour Stedman
Victor Berger
OCTOBER, 1919 11
omrade Chairman!
The New York Statesmen-dominant power in the Right Wing Convention-Ex-Assemblyman Waldman, Alderman Algernon Lee, Ex-Assemblyman Shiplacoff, Judge Panken, Assemblyman Claessens, Alderman Beckerman, Assemblyman Solomon, Alderman Bronstein.
After a serious pause one of the delegates proposed a resolution stating that it is "the sense of this convention" that the police are not here at the invitation of the party officials. Another remarked that such a resolution would prove that the convention had no sense, for they would be stating something that they could not know.
Claessens of New York offered a resolution "that the police department of Chicago shall be and hereby is disbanded."
Mayor Hoan of Milwaukee asserted that ."they came 'here under the invitation of Germer for the purpose of protecting our legitimate rights and purposes," and pro-posed that no apologies should be made.
"We in Milwaukee," said Berger, "would have done it a good deal better than Germer did, because we have our own police." His speech was the straightest one I heard. "I've never tried to be revolutionary," he said, "but I've tried to be honest. If the police weren't here, none of you would be, so what's the use of all this hypocrisy !"
It was finally voted to send a communication to the Machinists union stating the facts, but just what the facts were, nobody knew-unless it was the policeman who told a reporter that Germer had called up the chief and asked that they be on hand early.
In the midst of this storm a telegram arrived from some rustic local: "Peace and harmony will lead us to success-hurrah for International Socialism!"
The Left Wing Delegates-about 30 of them-walked out of this convention after it adopted a motion to consider (but not act upon) the report of the National Executive Committee, before the status of all contested delegates was determined. J. M. Coldwell of Rhode Island simply rose in his chair and said, "At this point I am going to leave this convention and I .call upon all delegates of the Left Wing to withdraw."
"That is your privilege," said Stedman, and the business of the convention proceeded.
It was a business largely as I have indicated, of self-justification upon the part of the official machine for re-
