LENIN THE COMMUNIST

Hero-worship of Lenin is a very different thing from revolutionary Socialism. And yet Lenin is in the position of leaderPin, and he not only leads, but in his mind and character he types the proletarian revolution-its scientific spirit, its aban& Lment of ideologies and stage-eloquence, its inflexible will, its simplicity, and courage, and generosity, and consecration. Therefre a slander against Lenin is an offense to all revolutionists, and it is surprising to find such a slander in "Pearson's Maga

Frank Harris is not a scientific Socialist, but he is a od literary rebel, and he is enough the man of the world to know t. at this exceeding prig and little political Oscar Wilde portrayed his May issue as "Lenin the Aristocrat," could not by any aprice of destiny have become the leader of a proletarian Ievolution.

Issue of June, 1919, page 8.)

(Editorials)

The final act of revolution in Hungary, establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat, was accomplished without the killing or Lading of a single man or woman. It was a judicious surler by the ruling class in the face of superior power. Some of us had hoped that when half the world was communist, such nts might happen in the remaining half. That they should en so soon is a higher tribute to the success of Russia's experient than our imaginations had dared to pay.

Socialists who understand the underlying forces which made the Harian revolution inevitable, may be excused for smiling at the

rts from Paris that it was due to a misunderstanding of the A peace terms! It was due to a contradiction in the very tre of our economic system, a contradiction will give rise to lar revolutions or attempts at revolution, in every capitalist atry, at every grave economic crisis that shall arise, until the new system is established throughout the world.

Issue of May, 1919, Vol. 2, No. 5, Serial No. 15.)

THE INVINCIBLE I. W. W.

Sometimes the look of a man or a place is more significant than of statistical information. And the statistics about the ber of I. W. W. members who have been arrested, and the

months of their imprisonment, seem to me to be rather beside the point, since I went into the I. W. W. headquarters the other day. and talked to some of the men just released from Ellis Island. I had gone in there looking for the victims of our latest form of governmental tyranny. The statistics of their suffering seemed to me important. But I didn't find any victims. Nothing like it! I never hope to see anything less like victims than that crowd there. They had suffered, it is true suffered all that flesh and blood can suffer from the brutality of an infuriated employing class. But they were not beaten men. They were men who could never be beaten. They were not a sorry crowd of persecuted unfor tunates, just released by a lucky chance from prison and the doom of exile, and left stranded without money or decent clothes a thousand miles from home. They were something else and something very distinctly not to be pitied. They were, somehow, the winners not the losers, of the late unpleasantness; not because they had got released from Ellis Island and were not going to be deported that didn't matter at all. No, they were part of an organization that whether here in New York, or there on Ellis Island, or back in the filthy jails of the Northwest, or in the lumber camps and cities from which they came, was pushing the enemy back further and further every day. They were part of a great army which didn't retreat — which could fight in a prison as well as in a forest or a town, and in England or Sweden or Russia or Scotland as well as here, and which never stopped fighting These men carried with them, wore visibly, the sense of that invisible internationalism. These that I saw were simply a company of skirmishers, victorious skirmishers-resting, talking quietly of the next day's work, and thinking of the Big Push to

come.

The headquarters of the I. W. W. at 27 East Fourth street is a big bare room, severe as an early New England church. A blackboard on the wall set forth in neat white lettering like a text the declaration of the I. W. W. preamble: "The working class an! the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people, and the few who make up the employing class have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a stru gle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class. take possession of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system. - and the announcement of a

.

Sunday morning meeting. Seated over by a window was an old trugged man, reading. He read, not as the tired clerk reads newspaper in the subway, or as a tramp reads in the public rary on cold days, but as a student reads: the book he was read12 was a volume on economics by Professor Ely. He was a lumk, and one of the released deportees. Another came in, g and ruddy, a miner; he had been picked up in Colorado and d joined the "Red Special" at Chicago. The others, who came ne by one, were mostly from the lumber industry. And they had about them a pioneer quality — the hard-handed, kindly, fident, quiet strength of those who are accustomed daily to put rie and guts and everlasting patience into the job of conquerthe wilderness. They are what one thinks of as "American" tits best-what that word meant while it still meant something, i when America took her fame from the free strength of her ward-cutting frontier edge. These were men of that stampthe sort of men who would sink without a protest into the very of capitalism, believing what they were taught and trying te respectable. They were the other sort-workingmen and rs, proud of their class, loyal to its interests, ready to look es in the eye and tell him to go to hell. But they had been rant of two things-just what was wrong, and just how to out it to set it right. They learned these two things from I. W. W. And then, in the lumber camps of the Northwest, in every place where these teachings have reached, there was a krd of strike. FLOYD DELL. Ise of May, 1919, Vol. 2, No. 5, Serial No. 15.)

ROBERT MINOR IN RUSSIA

In p'y to an editorial of ours we have received many interestabout Robert Minor and about anarchism-including very lovely one from Emma Goldman, which we mean to publish the near future. More important than all these letters at the ent, however, are Minor's own words in personal correspondw.h a friend in this country. We have read more than we . and on the basis of what we have read, we urge his to form no opinion at present of the motives which actuablegrams to the American press.

e of May, 1919. Vol. 2, No. 5, Serial No. 15.)

WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT THERE?

This magazine goes to two classes of readers; those who are in jail, and those who are out. This particular article is intended for the latter class. It is intended for those who wish to prove themselves friends of American freedom rather than those who have had it proved against them.

The relation between these two classes of people is embarrassingly like that in the old anecdote about Emerson and Thoreau. Thoreau refused to obey some law which he considered unjust, and was sent to jail. Emerson went to visit him, "What are you doing in here, Henry?" asked Emerson. "What are you doing out there?" returned Thoreau grimly.

That is what the people who have gone to prison for the ideas in which we believe seem to be asking us now.

And the only self-respecting answer which we can give this grim, silent challenge, is this: "We are working to get you

out!"

That is our excuse, and we must see that it is a true one. We are voices to speak up for those whose voice has been silenced.

There are some silences that are more eloquent than speech. The newspapers were forbidden to print what 'Gene Debs said in court; but his silence echoes around the earth in the heart of workingmen. They know what he was not allowed to tell them; and they feel that it is true.

It would be wrong to think of this as an opportunity to do something for Debs; it is rather our opportunity to make ourselves worthy of what he has done for us.

There is nothing more important before the friends of American freedom at this moment than the task of effecting the release of the political prisoners who have been sent to jail during the

war. .

It is hard to speak of these men without paying them the tribute of admiration which such conduct as theirs must necessarily arouse in any lover of heroism. During the war the expres sion of such admiration laid one open to an indictment under the Espionage Act; for the bureaucratic mind, which cannot understand heroism, is incapable of realizing that such courage cannot be created by pamphlets or speeches any more than it can be destroyed by curses and kicks. But if hearing the story of the conscientious objectors will not make the public feel disposed to emulate their conduct, it will nevertheless arouse in that public

just anger against the government which subjects them to such estment; for though few of us have the stuff of martyrdom in cur souls, we all have a sense of fair play. The whole story of the treatment of conscientious objectors is one which the government might well wish, for its own sake, to be left untold; and our aucracy will, if it is wise, see that the scandal is obliterated before it receives too much publicity. FLOYD DELL.

(Issue of January, 1919, Vol. 1, No. 11.

22. THE MARXIAN

Published by Marx Institute at 469 Schenck Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y. Business Manager: Harry Fish.

AIM OF "THE MARXIAN"

As the name of this magazine implies, its primary purpose will e to spread among the working class a deep, fundamental and

prehensive knowledge of Socialism as understood and taught by Marx. In the universe light is latent everywhere, yet it requires a sun to manifest that light on a great scale. Likewise, in society ght is latent everywhere, yet it requires a Marx to manifest that t on a great scale. The class struggle assumed historic signifi, and the course of social evolution became apparent, and the rking class came into ever greater power, only then when Marx thed the light of a master mind on the inner mechanism. fcial life. And it is this light which the working class need in eir onward march towards their historic goal. It is the aim

The Marxian" to foster in the working class a desire and :: cultivate in them a capacity to seek after such knowledge and understand it thoroughly, so that the members of the working As should not need to look into the mouth of self-styled Marxists reputed leaders in the Socialist movement for light and knowl, as they were compelled to do until now. It will be the am of this magazine to make the members of the working class tent enough to read and understand the truths and the iples of socialism and to judge of them in the light of our greater master minds.