"Unless some such changes as these are made in the next four years, it does not take a prophet to see that there would be nothing left of what we now know as the Socialist Party. If we cannot control our own petty autocrats, how can we ever hope to control the infinitely more powerful and resourceful autocrats of the Capitalist system?"
"The Communist," formerly the Left Wing organ of the Chicago Socialists, in its edition of April 1, 1919, bitterly assails Victor L. Berger of the Right Wing:
"A vote for Berger is a vote of pitying contempt for our Bolsheviki and Spartacan comrades. A vote for Berger is a vote approving his repeated and uncalled-for condemnation of our class-war comrades of the I. W. W.--condemnation persistently offered to prove Berger's own eminent respectability. A vote for Berger is a vote of scoffery against the St. Louis platform--a vote of apology for the platform, dissipation of its meaning, and disavowal of its essential spirit. A vote for Berger is a vote for the International of German Majority Socialism. A vote for Berger is a vote for petty bourgeois progressivism as the essence of Socialism; it is a vote against identification of the Socialist Party with the revolutionary mass aspirations. A vote for Berger is a betrayal of all the efforts, sacrifices and dreams of those whose lives have gone into the socialist movement as torch-bearers of proletarian triumph over capitalist exploitation, from Marx to the humblest comrade fighting today in the ranks of the revolutionary class struggle.
"As far as this election is concerned there is nothing to be considered about Victor Berger, past and present, except the ideal Socialism which has become unchangeably attached to his name. If the American Socialist Party is to be a party of Berger-Socialism, then indeed, the Socialist movement will not die in America. No, it is the Socialist Party that will die."
As we shall see presently, these prophecies of disruption were soon fulfilled.
The representatives of the Socialist organizations of the different countries of the world have from the time of Karl Marx met together at more or less regular intervals, being banded together in what is called the "International."
The official organ of the National Office, Socialist Party, "The Eye Opener," in its issue of February, 1919, gives a detailed explanation of the "International":
"It is an organization of Socialist Parties and labor organizations, meeting periodically in international conferences. In order to be eligible for membership, an organisation must meet the following test, adopted by the International Congress of Paris, 1900.
"Those admitted to the International Socialist Congresses are:
"1. All associations which adhere to the essential principles of Socialism; namely, Socialization of the means of production and exchange, international union, and action of the workers, conquest of public power by the proletariat, organized as a class party.
"2. All the labor organizations which accept the principles of the class struggle and recognize the necessity of political action, legislative and parliamentary but do not participate directly in the political movement.
"This definition includes every Socialist Party and propaganda organization in the world and it further takes in those enlightened unions that recognize the need for political action. It excludes conservative unions that do not yet admit the soundness of the principles of the class struggle."
The First International was thoroughly Marxian and revolutionary. According to "The Revolutionary Age," April 12, 1919, it accepted the revolutionary struggle against capitalism and waged that struggle with all the means in its power. It considered its objective to be the conquest of power by the revolutionary proletariat, the annihilation of the bourgeois state, and the introduction of a new proletarian state, functioning temporarily as a dictatorship of the proletariat. The First International collapsed after the Franco-Prussian War.
The Second International was formed at Paris in the year 1889. Its tendencies were much more moderate than those of its predecessor. "The Revolutionary Age," April 12, 1919, criticises it for being "conservative and petty bourgeois in spirit," and states that "it was part and parcel of the national liberal movement, not at all revolutionary, dominated by the conservative skilled elements of the working class and the small bourgeoisie. It was hesitant and compromising, expressing the demands of the 'petite bourgeoisie' for government ownership, reforms, etc."
In 1900 an International Socialist Bureau was established at Brussels for the purpose of solidifying and strengthening the work of the Second International and for maintaining uninterrupted relations between the various national organizations.