The Red Conspiracy

by Joseph J. Mereto

Thus this manifesto was adopted by the wreckers of the Socialist Party to hold the "revolutionary" rank and file still left them and to draw back the revolutionary seceders--minus their leaders, of course. Nevertheless the manifesto is truly revolutionary--"most revolutionary"--the revolutionary creed of a revolutionary organization. It is, of course, carefully worded, so as to deceive if possible that public whose intelligence the cynical Socialists despise at the same time that they appeal to it for votes, and this careful wording we can understand from a comment in the "Call" of September 5, 1919: "Before reading the manifesto, Block told the convention the manifesto was largely based upon one suggested by Morris Hillquit, now ill at Saranac Lake, N. Y."^[J]

Seen through its mask of verbiage, however, the manifesto of the Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party of America joins with the famous Preamble of the I. W. W. and the manifestoes and programs of the Communist and Communist Labor Parties in advocating the plundering of mankind by proletarians, the elimination of the private ownership of natural wealth and the machinery of production, and the wresting of "the industries and the control of the government of the United States" out of their present ownership and control so as "to place industry and government in the control of the workers."

This revolutionary document incites "American labor" to "break away" from its present leadership, called "reactionary and futile," and "to join in the great emancipating movement of the more advanced revolutionary workers of the world"--the I. W. W.'s and Bolshevists. It is "the supreme task" of "the Socialist party of America," its "great task," to which its members "pledge all" their "energies and resources," to "win the American workers" from their "ineffective" 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," namely, "to wrest the industries and the control of the government of the United States from the capitalists and their retainers" and "place industry and government in the control of the workers."

Furthermore, "to insure the triumph of Socialism in the United States the bulk of American workers must be strongly organized politically as Socialists, in constant, clear-cut and aggressive opposition to all parties of the possessing class" and "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." (See, a few pages further on, the manifesto itself, from which we have quoted in the three last paragraphs.)

Is this the thing which Berger and Hillquit have let loose--after blocking a much less compromising resolution of long-distance affiliation with Moscow? Does Berger think the people of Wisconsin such blockheads that they will shy at a word like Bolshevism, but are unable to understand the plain, bold English of a conspiracy to bring about industrial organization "to wrest the industries and the control of the government of the United States" out of the hands of the American people and into the hands of a special class? Indeed, if the "workers" take everything, what will become of the drones--the Socialist political hacks?

While we reserve the details for Chapter XVI, we add here in passing that on February 10, 1920, it was acknowledged in testimony at the trial of the five Assemblymen at Albany that affiliation with the Third (Moscow) International had been carried by referendum vote in the Socialist Party of America with a large majority.

Before giving the reader the text of that part of the Emergency Convention manifesto which we have been discussing we must call attention to another piece of evidence--Morris Hillquit's letter in his paper, the "New York Call," shortly after the Emergency Convention, in which he says:

"The split in the ranks of American Socialism raises the question: What shall be the attitude of the Socialist Party toward the newly formed Communist organization?" His letter answering this important question was read out of the "Call" into the record of the New York Assembly's inquiry into the qualifications of the five suspended Socialists to act as law-makers and will be found in the "New York Herald" of January 29, 1920, from which we take it:

"Any attempted solution of the problem must take into account the following fundamental facts:

"First--The division was not created arbitrarily and deliberately by the recent convention in Chicago. It had become an accomplished fact months ago, and the Chicago gatherings did nothing more than recognize the fact.

"Second--The division was not brought about by differences on vital questions of principles. It arose over disputes on methods and policy.

"Third--The separation of the Socialist Party into three organizations need not necessarily mean a weakening of the Socialists. They are wrong in their estimate of American conditions, their theoretical conclusions and practical methods, but they have not deserted to the enemy. The bulk of their following is still good Socialist material. When the hour of the real Socialist fight strikes in this country we may find them again in our ranks.

"Our quarrel is a family quarrel, and has no room in the columns of the capitalistic papers, where it can only give joy and comfort to the common enemy. The unpardonable offense of the Simons-Russell-Spargo crowd [which withdrew from the Socialist Party of America on account of its unpatriotic and un-American opposition to the people and Government of the United States at war, as expressed in the Socialist Party's St. Louis Convention utterances in April, 1917] was not so much their social-patriotic stand during the war as the fact that they rushed into the anti-Socialist press maliciously denouncing their former comrades as pro-German and deliberately added fuel to the sinister flame of mob violence and government persecution directed against the Socialist movement.

"We have had our split. It was unfortunate but unavoidable, and now we are through with it. Legitimate constructive work of the Socialist movement is before us. Let us give it all of our time, energies and resources. Let us center our whole fight upon capitalism, and let us hope our Communist brethren will go and do likewise."

Thus all three organizations, Socialist Party of America, Communist Party of America and Communist Labor Party, have merely had "a family quarrel" and are still one kin, one blood, one "family," without "fundamental" "differences on vital questions of principles," so that the Socialist Partyites and their "Communist brethren" can go on doing "likewise" against our present Government and institutions until, "when the hour of the real Socialist fight"--the Great Rebellion--"strikes in this country" the members of the Socialist Party "may find" the members of the two Communist parties "again in" their "ranks." Thus by Hillquit, at least, all three parties can only "be construed" to be in one and the same "category."