In that month, however, most of the members of the National Council of the Left Wing who had been leading the faction of the Left Wing which had refused the call for the immediate formation of the Communist Party, went over to the minority faction, which included the Michigan State organization and the Russian-speaking federations. A compromise had been reached whereby the aforesaid members of the National Council agreed not to insist upon attendance at the National Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party, while the Michigan organization, together with the federations, were willing to wait till September 1, 1919, for the convention of the Communist Party.

Even on these terms John Reed, Ben Gitlow and some other leading members of the Left Wing refused to go over to the Communist Party, having decided to fight for the rights of the Left Wingers in the National Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party. This group of Left Wingers later on, as will be seen, became the nucleus of a third party, the Communist Labor Party. Several statements from the joint call for the convention of the Communist Party, cited from "The Revolutionary Age," August 23, 1919, will interest the reader:

"The party will be founded upon the following principles:

"The present is the period of the dissolution and collapse of the whole capitalist world system, which will mean the collapse of world culture, if capitalism with its unsolvable contradictions is not replaced by Communism.

"The problem of the proletariat consists in organizing and training itself for the conquest of the powers of the state....

"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....

"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....

"The present world situation demands the closest relation between the revolutionary proletariat of all countries....

"We favor international alliance of the Communist Party of the United States only with the Communist groups of other countries, such as the Bolsheviki of Russia, Spartacans of Germany, etc....

"The party shall propagandize class-conscious industrial unionism, and shall carry on party activity in cooperation with industrial disputes that take on a revolutionary character."

The national organ of the Communist Party was "The Communist" of Chicago. In its issue of August 23, 1919, it thus criticises the Socialist Party:

"The majority of the readers of 'The Communist' are familiar with the form of organization of the old Socialist Party, with its state autonomy and its bureaucratic officialdom. Every state is practically organized as an Independent Socialist party. 'Official socialism' of Milwaukee is entirely different from[6] 'official socialism' in Ohio, both in regard to platforms and form of organization. Every state has a 'Socialism' of its own brand, and even dues are not uniform throughout the country. 'Official papers' of the party are in most cases organs of independent associations, not at all affiliated with the central party organizations. Such important weapons in the struggle of the proletariat are left in the hands of the petty bourgeois ideologists who, in reality, prostitute the labor press. As examples, we have, for instance, 'The Milwaukee Leader,' the 'New York Call,' the Jewish 'Daily Forward,' the 'Appeal to Reason,' and many others scattered throughout the United States, and each contradicting not only the others, but containing in each issue glaring contradictions that an intelligent person who reads them becomes disgusted with the whole muddled mess."

The fight among the revolutionists was a fight to the finish. The leaders all wanted to become Trotzkys and Lenines, all wanted to be bosses. It seems reasonable to conclude that if Bolshevism were ever introduced into the United States, either by the mother Socialist Party or by its offspring, the Communist Party or the Communist Labor Party, the dictatorship of the proletariat, that wonderful piece of nonsense which we hear so much about, would be grasped at by an amazing number of competitors. In Russia Lenine and Trotzky seem to constitute the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In the Socialist Party of the United States Berger and Hillquit, of the old National Executive Committee, constituted a first-class dictatorship. In the Communist Party, Dennis Batt, lately jailed, and Alexander Stoklitsky would surely give the Communist rank and file plenty to do--everything of course being done according to their wills. John Reed and Ben Gitlow would make an ideal "dictatorship of the proletariat," if the Communist Labor Party ever made Bolshevism the law of the land.

"Truth," one of the organs of the Communist Labor Party, published in Duluth, Minn., in its issue of August 29, 1919, devotes nearly two of its eight pages to bitter attacks on the Communist Party. Two short quotations will suffice to show the spirit of envy that exists:

"'Tis said that distance lends enchantment, and perhaps that is the reason why some of you in the East have responded to the cuckoo-call of Michigan-Federations. Frankly, we see nothing hopeful in the alignment presented by the Michigan-Federation combine. We are fearful of the consequence of such leadership. The so-called Communist Party, as it is now constituted and especially with the accretion of a part of the National Council, presents the prettiest bunch of 'eligibles' that man ever laid eyes upon. And as I gaze upon this august array of talent, I wonder where the working class is going to get off at. We of the left wing of Cook County are reluctant to join with an organization under the guidance of a few doctrinaires from Detroit and the would-be Lenine of the United States.[F] We do not consider that the welfare of the revolutionary movement would be zealously guarded in their hands."

From "Truth," of the same date, we also quote an open letter to Louis C. Fraina, which reads in part as follows:

"Do you know how the Russian Federation is being ruled? Do you know that a 'firing squad' is constantly on the job expelling members and branches from the Federation who dare to disagree on anything with the would-be bosses of the Russian Federation?...

"Do you know that a regular secret service system is being employed by these 'bosses' to hunt down the undesirables?

"Do you know that a worse than military censorship is being maintained in the domain of Stocklitzky (the Northwestern States), where it is prohibited to the branches to communicate with each other or to send out or receive any correspondence otherwise than through the hands of the censors, the Executive Committee, and that this censorship committee, like the imperialists in the world's war, are holding up the mail of these branches and do not deliver at all the 'undesirable' mail?"