X. CONVENTIONS

Section 1. National Conventions shall be held annually during the month of June, the specific date and place to be determined by the Central Executive Committee. The Central Executive Committee may call Emergency Conventions, and such conventions may also be called by referendum vote.

Section 2. Representation at the National Convention shall be upon the basis of one delegate for each 500 members or major fraction thereof; provided, that when the number of delegates would exceed a total of 200 the Central Executive Committee shall increase the basis of representation so that the number of delegates shall not exceed that figure.

Section 3. Delegates shall be apportioned to the State or District Organizations on the basis of one delegate for each such organization, and the apportionment of the balance on the basis of the average membership for the six months prior to the issue of the call for the convention. Delegates shall be elected at the Convention of the State or District Organization.

Section 5. Delegates to the National Convention shall be paid their traveling expenses and a per diem of $5.00.

Section 6. The call for the convention and the apportionment of delegates shall be published not later than April 1.

XI. REFERENDUM AND RECALL

Section 1. Referendums on the question of party platform policy or constitution shall be held upon the petition of twentyfive or more branches representing 5 per cent. of the membership; (2) or by initiative of the Central Executive Committee; (3) or by initiative of the National Convention.

Section 2. All officers of the National Organization or those elected to public office shall be subject to recall upon initiative petition of twenty-five or more branches, representing 5 per cent. of the membership. A recall vote of the membership may also be initiated by the Central Executive Committee.

Section 3. Each motion and resolution shall be printed in the official bulletin and remain open for ninety days from the date of first publication, and, if it has not received the requisite number of seconds, it shall be abandoned. The vote on each referendum shall close sixty days after its submission.

Section 4. Referendums shall be submitted without preamble or comment, but the party press shall be open for discussion of the question involved during the time the referendum is pending.

XII. INTERNATIONAL DELEGATE AND SECRETARY

Section 1. Delegates to the International Congress and alternates and an International Secretary and alternate shall be elected by the convention.

SCHEDULE

Any branch of the Socialist Party or Socialist Labor Party which endorses the program and constitution of the Communist Party and applies for a charter before January 1, 1920, shall be accepted as a branch.

The provisions of Article III, section 4, shall not be enforced until after December 1, 1919, except as to the two signatures.

RECOMMENDATION

That this convention authorize the secretary immediately to issue a Special Organization Stamp to sell at fifty cents to create a fund for the organization of the party.

CHAPTER VI

Communist Labor Party

In the latter part of August, 1919, a divergence of opinion arose in the National Left Wing council over the issuance of a joint call for a convention to organize the Communist Party which has previously been described.

The majority of the delegates of the Left Wing conference held in New York City in June, 1919, had decided that the policy of the Left Wing should be to organize for the purpose of capturing the national emergency convention of the Socialist Party which had been called for the latter part of August in that year.

The delegates to that conference from the Language Federations having withdrawn because of this decision, succeeded later ir inducing the majority of the National Council of the Left Wing to abandon its attempt to control that convention, and to issue a joint call for a convention to organize a Communist Party. Certain members of the National Council, as well as a large number of locals and branches which had endorsed the Left Wing movement, still retained the hope of capturing the Socialist Party machinery, or at least, of influencing its decision at the coming convention.

The August 23d issue of the "Revolutionary Age" announced the simultaneous resignations from its staff of John Reed, Eadmonn MacAlpine and Benjamin Gitlow, due to their opposition to the joint call referred to above.

Pursuant to the policy of attempting to participate in the Socialist Party Emergency Convention, certain of the Left Wing delegates presented themselves as delegates to that convention when it convened on August 30, 1919, in Chicago.

Reports of that convention, from various party organs, indicate that the credentials committee of the Socialist Party refused to seat these delegates and they were excluded from the convention.

A description of what transpired there appears in the "Class Struggles" issue of November, 1919, page 389, in an article entitled " Convention Impressions" by William Bross Lloyd. The excluded Left Wing delegates thereupon met in a separate convention.

"The first thing the Left Wing delegates to the Emergency Convention did," says William Bross Lloyd, "was to appoint a

* See Addendum, Part I.

committee of five to meet the Organization Committee of the Communist Party and later a like committee of the Communist Convention for the purpose of seeking unity." These regotiations came to nothing, and the delegates organized themselves into a Communist Labor Party Convention. The Communist Party is criticized for several reasons. First, because it is controlled by the Russian Language Federation with a membership of 35,000 out of a total of 58,000 of that party's membership. Second, because the remaining portion of the Communist Party were members of the expelled State organization of Michigan and the followers of the National Council of the Left Wing which approved of the call of the Communist Convention. Mr. Lloyd, commenting on the situation, says, "These Russian Federations openly regard themselves as the only Simon-pure Bolsheviks' in the world not even excluding Russia. Yet they broke from the Conference on a question not of principle but one of clique control. Yet they united with Michigan, a purely political parliamentarian non-Bolshevik organization, disbelieving in industrial unionism, industrial organization of working class political power and in mass action. All through July the Federations were maligning the Left Wing Council as centrists, as a fetid swamp. Meanwhile, the council was maligning Michigan as parliamentarian and non-Bolsheviks and both Michigan and the Federations as petty political intriguers.

The National Council (Left Wing) was elected under carefully drawn instructions which made it an administrative, ministerial body and in no sense an Executive Committee with power to act on questions of policy. Those instructions were to organize to capture the Socialist Party at the Emergency Convention, and, failing that, afterwards to organize a Communist Party. The Council advertised for money to carry on that work. And in August, the Council publicly renounced the struggle to control the Socialist Party and joined with Michigan and the Federations in calling the Communist Convention. In so doing it violated its instructions and exceeded its authority and if any unexpended funds so secured by advertisement were expended in the Council's new venture, these funds were misapplied." (Pages 392 and 393 of "Class Struggle.")

These are the reasons given for the failure of the promoters of the Communist Labor Party to unite with the Communist Party

Convention. The convention elected A. Wagenknecht executive secretary; and as members of the National Executive Committee, M. Bedacht, of California; Alexander Bilan, Ohio; Jack Carney, Minnesota; L. E. Katterfeld, Kansas; and Edward Lindgren of New York. Alternates, L. K. England, Illinois; Edgar Owens, Illinois. Labor Committee, Charles Baker, Ohio; Benjamin Gitlow, New York; R. E. Richardson, Utah; and Arne Swabeck, Washington. International delegates, John Reed, New York, and A. Wagenknecht, Ohio.

National Headquarters were opened at 3207 Clark Ave., Cleveland, Ohio.

The convention adopted a platform and program for the party. The platform contains the following provision:

"The Communist Labor Party of the U. S. A. declares itself in full harmony with the revolutionary working class parties of all countries and stands by the principles stated by the Third International formed at Moscow. . . . The Communist Labor Party proposes the organization of the workers as a class, the overthrow of capitalist rule and the conquest of political power by the workers. The workers organized as the ruling class, shall, through their government, make and enforce the laws; they shall own and control land, factories, mills, mines, transportation systems and financial institutions. All power to the workers! . To this

end we ask the workers to unite with the Communist Labor Party for the conquest of political power to establish a government adapted to the Communist transformation."

The program of the party restates the principles of the Third Moscow International:

"1. The present is the period of the dissolution and collapse of the whole system of world capitalism. Unless capitalism is replaced by the rule of the working class, world civilization will collapse.

"2. The working class must organize and train itself for the capture of state power. This capture means the establishment of the new working class government machinery, in place of the state machinery of the capitalists.

"3. This new working class government the Dictatorship of the Proletariat - will reorganize society on the basis of Communism, and accomplish the transition from Capitalism to the Communist Commonwealth.