sufficient information has been presented to give the reader a clear conception of the meaning of the movement.

It is the object of this party to destroy the Government of the United States, and to substitute therefor a dictatorship of the proletariat involving the exclusion from participation in government of all classes of society, except the property-less classes. From this follows the expropriation without compensation of private property, all natural resources, instruments of production and means of distribution. This program is sought to be carried out by industrial action, namely, the general strike and the consequent paralyzation of industry and transportation. The practical methods by which this mass action and general strike are to be brought about is, first, the preaching of class hatred and discontent among the workers; the organization of shop committees within conservative organizations of labor for the purpose of destroying such organizations and the American Federation of Labor, and the transformation of trade unions into industrial unions, and ultimately into one big industrial union. This form of labor reorganization is sought because it gives the power to a small executive committee to call a general strike, whereas in the trade union form of organization, the officers and committees of a large number of trade unions must agree upon the necessity of such strike before it can be called. In outlining this program the leaders of the Communist Party have followed scrupulously the plans laid down by the Russian Communist Party, the revolutionary parties of Hungary, the Spartacides of Germany, and other similar groups.

This Committee having come into possession of information relative to the purposes and objects of the Communist Party through correspondence and the publications of that party falling into its hands, felt that in order to check the process of organization, positive and drastic action must be taken. In consequence of this determination, evidence as to the location of the various branches which had been opened by the party in Greater New York, and the nature of the seditious activities being carried on, having been obtained, search warrants were prepared by counsel to the Committee for all these branches, and the same were issued by Chief Magistrate William McAdoo. The hearty co-operation of the Police Department of the City of New York having been obtained, and also that of the New York State police, plans were laid for the service of the search warrant on each of the headquarters simultaneously.

On the evening of November 8, 1919, sixty-five branches in four boroughs of the Greater City were entered simultaneously. Pursuant to the direction of the search warrant all literature and matter of a seditious nature, or evidence of seditious activities, were seized, together with all male persons found in the various branches. These were brought to Police Headquarters in New York City. In all something over a thousand persons were taken into custody. These were examined by counsel for the Committee, and those who admitted being members of the Communist Party, or upon whom was found evidence that they were members, were placed under arrest at the request of the Committee, the remainder being allowed to return to their homes.

In the course of the examination of these persons it was found that not more than 2 per cent. were American citizens, and a large percentage of them had to be interrogated through an interpreter.

Among those taken into custody were Benjamin Gitlow who had formerly been a Socialist Assemblyman from the Borough of the Bronx, New York City, and James Larkin, a noted labor agitator both here and in England; also Jay Lovestone.

On the evening of December 28th the Committee caused to be issued and executed search warrants on all Communist headquarters in the cities of Buffalo, Rochester and Utica.

On Saturday, the third of January, this Committee caused search warrants to be issued against the premises of the "Elore,” the Hungarian daily paper, at 5 East Third Street, New York City, at which plant the "Communist World" was also pub lished; "Der Kampf," 179 East Broadway, New York City; and the "Robitnik," the official organ of the Ukranian Federation, 222 East Fifth Street, New York City.

The action thus taken by the Committee at the very inception of the party's organization, has done much to frustrate its plans for developing a strongly organized and closely knit revolutionary body in the United States. Subsequent to the action taken by this Committee the State's attorney in Chicago raided the headquarters of the Communist Party in Chicago, and the Federal Government undertook nation-wide raids which have effectually crippled the organization. Many of its leaders have been indicted, others are fugitives from justice. In New York City the executive secretary, Harry M. Winitsky, has been tried and convicted on the charge of Criminal Anarchy and sentenced to the peniten

tiary for not less than five nor more than ten years. The leaders of the party, however, have not given up their work.

Various of the party publications are appearing sporadically, published clandestinely in different plants, and it is evident that constant vigilance must be exercised in order to prevent the party from effecting a reorganization and pursuing its destructive plans. Up to the time when the party fell under the band of the authorities it reported 58,000 dues-paying members, of which 35,000 belonged to the Russian Federation. It is estimated that not more than 16,000 were members of English-speaking branches.

Before closing the description of the activities of this party, it is necessary to refer to the action taken by the Young People's Socialist League in a National Emergency Convention which was held in the city of Rochester on the evening of December 28, 1919. A new constitution was adopted at this convention, which resulted in an affiliation between the Young People's Socialist League and the Communist Party of America. We quote from this instrument as follows:

"We call on the youth of America to join with us in exerting every effort and making every needed sacrifice toward the realization of these aims.

"ARTICLE I. NAME

"Section 1. This organization shall be known as the Independent Social League of America affiliated with the Third International.

"ARTICLE II. OBJECT

"Section 1. The object of this organization shall be to draw into a compact body all young people interested in the emancipation of the working class. Its foremost and primary function shall be to train them in the principles of International Communism."

(Stenographer's minutes, Committee Hearings, page 1888

1889.)

This organization is of particular interest because it shows the systematic way in which the leaders of the Communist movement seek to influence the minds of young people so as to train them to take part in the revolutionary program which they have adopted.

APPENDIX

CHAPTER V

Official Documents

1. Joint Call for Constituent Assembly. 2. The Communist Party Manifesto.

Document No. 1

JOINT CALL FOR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY TO ORGANIZE COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERICA (Issued by the National Organization Committee and the National Council of the Workers Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party).

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 the 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.

The National Exécutive Committee of the Socialist Party of America has evidenced by its expulsion of nearly half of the membership that it will not hesitate at wrecking the organization in order to maintain control. A crisis has been precipitated in the ranks of revolutionary Socialism by the wholesale expulsion or suspension of the membership comprising the Socialist Party of Michigan and Massachusetts, 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 leaders.

No other course is possible; therefore, we, the National Left Wing Council and the National Organization Committee, 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 and 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.

Not the fraudulent bourgeois democracy -the 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 administration 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 trusts.

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 worker's revolution are not yet ripe, the same process will go on.