WORKERS MUST TAKE INDUSTRIES

The great purpose of the Socialist Party is to wrest the industries and the control of the Government of the United States from the capitalists and their retainers. It is our purpose to place industry and government in the control of the workers with hand and brain, to be administered for the benefit of the whole community.

To insure the triumph of Socialism in the United States the bulk of the American workers must be strongly organized politically as Socialists, in constant, clearcut and oppressive opposition to all parties of the possessing class. They must be strongly organized in the economic field on broad industrial lines, as one powerful and harmonious class organization, co-operating with the Socialist Party, and ready in cases of emergency to reinforce the political demands of the working class by industrial action.

To win the American workers from their ineffective and demoralizing leadership, to educate them to an enlightened understanding of their own class interests, and to train and assist them to organize politically and industrially on class lines, in order to effect their emancipation, that is the supreme task confronting the Socialist Party of America.

To this great task, without deviation or compromise, we pledge all our energics and resources. For its accomplishments we call for the support and co-operation of the workers of America and of all other persons desirous of ending the insane rule of capitalism before it has the opportunity to precipitate humanity into another cataclysm of blood and ruin.

Long live the International Socialist Revolution, the only hope of the suffering world!

Document No. 6

MAJORITY REPORT REJECTED BY THE MEMBERSHIP OF PARTY BY REFERENDUM AFTER SUBMISSION TO THE EMERGENCY NATIONAL CONVENTION HELD AT CHICAGO, IN SEPTEMBER, 1919

The Second International is no more. We repudiate the Berne Conference as retrograde and failing to act in the interests of the working class. It is the duty of the Socialist Party of the United States actively to participate in the speediest possible convocation of an International Socialist Congress and to make every effort to reconstitute the functioning of the International.

In the reconstituted Socialist International only those organizations and parties should be given representation which declare their strict adherence by word and deed to the principle of the class struggle.

To such an International must be invited the Communist parties of Russia and Germany, and those Socialist parties in all countries which subscribe to the principle of the class struggle. No party which participates in a government coalition with the parties of the bourgeoisie shall be invited.

In such Congress our party should urge the reconstruction of world-wide organization of the Socialist proletariat upon closer and firmer lines than have prevailed in the past, to the end that the revolutionary proletarian forces of the world may at every critical moment be effectively mobilized for simultaneous and harmonious action.

Document No. 7

MINORITY REPORT ADOPTED BY OVERWHELMING PARTY VOTE ON REFERENDUM AFTER SUBMISSION TO THE EMERGENCY NATIONAL CONVENTION HELD AT CHICAGO, SEPTEMBER, 1919 We consider that the Second International ceased to function as an International Socialist body upon the outbreak of the World War.

All efforts to bring together the elements that made up the former International have only added strength to this conviction. The Berne Conference was a notable example of this collapse, especially with reference to its failure to take a helpful attitude toward Russia, and its policy of hanging onto the tails of the Peace Conference in Paris and placid acceptance of rebuffs given it by members of that conference, the refusal of Russian passports, for instance.

Any International, to be effective in this crisis, must contain only those elements who take their stand unreservedly upon the basis of the class struggle, and their adherence to this principle is not mere lip loyalty.

When leading Socialists join their national governments upon a coalition basis they accept and sanction policies which hinder Socialists and the working class generally from taking full advantage of the opportunities for deep-seated change which the war creates. This makes the workers content with superficial reformist changes which are readily granted by the capitalist class as a

means of self-protection from the rising tide of working class revolt.

And when Socialists use the military organization of the master class as a means of crushing the agitation of their more radical comrades, they flatly take their position with the counter-revoluaries whom they serve.

The Second International is dead. We consider that a new International which contains those groups which contributed to the downfall of our former organization must be so weak in its Socialist policy as to be useless.

The Socialist Party of the United States, in principle and in its past history, has always stood with those elements of other countries that remained true to their principles. The manifestoes, adopted in national convention at St. Louis (1917) and Chicago (1919), as well as Referendum "D" 1919, unequivocally affirm this stand. These parties, the majority parties of Russia, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Bulgaria and Greece, and growing minorities in every land, are uniting on the basis of the preliminary convocation, at Moscow, of the Third International. As in the past, so in this extreme crisis, we must take our stand with them.

The Socialist Party of the United States, therefore, declares itself in support of the Third (Moscow) International, not so much because it supports the "Moscow" programs and methods, but because:

(a) "Moscow" is doing something which is really challenging world imperialism.

(b) "Moscow" is threatened by the combined capitalist forces of the world simply because it is proletarian.

(c) Under these circumstances, whatever we may have to say to Moscow afterwards, it is the duty of the Socialists to stand by it now because its fall will mean the fall of the Socialist republics in Europe, and also the disappearance of Socialist hopes for many years to come.

CHAPTER III

Activities of the Russian Soviet Regime and its Sympathizers in the United States*

In order to appreciate the significance of the activities of the Russian Soviet regime and its sympathizers in the United States, a careful study should be made of those chapters of this report which deal with the Russian revolution, and the formation of the Third International. It must also be remembered that the Russian Soviet regime is founded upon the principles of International revolutionary Socialism and is simply an achievement of part of the plan for world-wide social revolution. It is the international character of this great movement which renders the activities of the agents of Soviet Russia in this country, and those who aid and abet them, a real menace to the institutions of this country.

For a number of years prior to the Russian proletarian revolution in 1917 a large number of members of the Social revolutionary party in Russia and the Social Democrats emigrated to the United States, coming in particularly large numbers after the unsuccessful revolution of 1905. Revolutionary organizations were formed in the Russian colony for the purpose of assisting the movement to overthrow the Czar in Russia and also to carry on an extended propaganda among the workers of this country in order to win recruits for the International Revolutionary cause. The activities of these radicals centered largely about the Russian Socialist Federation, which was a branch of the Socialist Party of America.

An official organ was established, published in the Russian language, called the "Novy Mir," which was edited by Nicholas Bucharin, now one of the foremost leaders of the Soviet regime in Russia. It was with this publication that Leon Trotzky was associated while staying in this country. Prior to the overthrow of the Kerensky government in Russia, the plans for the coming proletarian revolution in that country were fully discussed and perfected by revolutionary committees of the Russian Socialist Federation in the United States.

During his stay in America Leon Trotzky, then known as Leon Braunstein, was an active propagandist, delivering numerous

See Addendum, Part I.

lectures before radical audiences throughout New York City and elsewhere. He appears to have been particularly welcome to the German Socialist groups at the Labor Temple in 84th Street and Second Avenue, New York City, and in the Harlem River Casino, 127th Street and Second Avenue. He spoke in both the German and the Russian languages.

On February 2, 1917, in the course of a speech delivered at Beethoven Hall, 210 East 5th Street, New York City, he said:

"You do not want any militarism or any government which is not of any help to the working class, but which is always prepared ready to fire on the working class, and is the enemy of the working class. It is now time that you do away with it once and forever."

On the evening of March 26, 1917, Leon Trotzky delivered his last speech in this country, prior to his departure for Russia, at the Harlem River Casino, New York City. The audience consisted of about 800 German and Russian Socialists. Speaking in Russian, after having delivered an address in German, Trotzky Baid:

"Those who are going back to Russia are going to push the revolution ahead, and those that remain in the United States should work hand in hand in the revolutionary movement in order to bring about a revolution in the United States."

The admonition here given was fully in accord with the principles of revolutionary Socialism. On the eve of his departure to overthrow the democratic regime of Kerensky, Trotzky urged his comrades to continue their efforts to undermine the institutions of this country, so that a proletarian dictatorship might be erected on these shores. The object thus expressed more than three years ago has never been lost sight of by the leaders of the Russian revolution, and the subsequent conduct of its agents and sympathizers in this country has made perfectly clear their purpose to carry out the injunction thus given.

On March 27, 1917, Trotzky, accompanied by his wife, sailed on a Norwegian liner for Russia.

On the following evening at 534 East 5th Street, New York City, a meeting was held at which a committee was appointed to pass upon the character of Russian revolutionaries and