The Department of Justice naturally was most vitally interested in the promises of violence against the United States Government contained in the manifesto of the Communists of the Third International, which was held at Moscow, March 2 to 6, 1919. Among the passages in the Moscow manifesto which most interested the Department of Justice were the following:
"Socialist criticism has sufficiently stigmatized the bourgeois world order. The task of the International Communist Party is now to overthrow this order and to erect in its place the structure of the Socialist world order. We urge the workingmen and women of all countries to unite under the Communist banner, the emblem under which the first victories have already been won.
"Proletarians of all lands! In the war against imperialistic barbarity, against monarchy, against the privileged classes, against the bourgeois state and bourgeois property, against all forms and varieties of social and national oppression--unite!
"Under the standard of the Workingmen's Councils under the banner of the Third International, in the revolutionary struggle for power and the dictatorship of the proletariat, proletarians of all countries--unite!"
The manifesto is signed by Lenine, Trotzky and other revolutionaries. Several references are made to the United States, indicating this country as one of the objectives of the revolutionaries. Describing the methods to be used, the manifesto says:
"Civil war is forced upon the laboring classes by their arch enemies. The working class must answer blow for blow, if it will not renounce its own object and its own future, which is at the same time the future of all humanity.
"The Communist parties, far from conjuring up civil war, artificially, rather strive to shorten its duration as much as possible--in case it has become an iron necessity--to minimize the number of its victims, and above all to secure victory for the proletariat."
Under the caption, "The Way to Victory," the manifesto says:
"The revolutionary era compels the proletariat to make use of the means of battle which will concentrate its entire energies, namely, mass action, with its logical resultant, direct conflict with the governmental machinery in open combat. All other methods, such as revolutionary use of bourgeoisie parliamentarism, will be of only secondary significance."
The principles of the American Communist Party set forth in their seized records and made public by the Department of Justice, are:
"The Communist Party of America is the party of the working class. The Communists of America propose to end capitalism and organize a workers' industrial republic. The workers must control industry and dispose of the products of industry.
"The Communist Party is a party realizing the limitations of all existing workers' organizations and purposes to develop the revolutionary movement necessary to free the workers from the oppression of capitalism. The Communist Party insists that the problems of the American worker are identical with the problems of the workers of the world.
"The Communist Party is the conscious expression of the class struggle of the workers against capitalism. Its aim is to direct this struggle to the conquest of political power, the overthrow of capitalism and the destruction of the bourgeois state.
"The Communist Party prepares itself for the revolution in the measure that it develops a program of immediate action expressing the mass struggles of the proletariat. These struggles must be inspired with revolutionary spirit and purposes.
"The Communist Party is fundamentally a party of action. It brings to the workers a consciousness of their oppression, of the impossibility of improving their condition under capitalism. The Communist Party directs the workers' struggle against capitalism, developing fuller forms and purposes in this struggle, culminating in the mass action of the revolution.
"The negro problem is a political and economic problem. The racial oppression of the negro is simply the expression of his economic bondage and oppression, each intensifying the other. This complicates the negro problem, but does not alter its proletarian character. The Communist Party will carry on agitation among the negro workers to unite them with all class conscious workers."
Little need be added concerning the Communist Labor Party. As its manifesto and program are practically identical with those of the Communist Party of America, while all its members are likewise affiliated with the Third or Moscow International, the foregoing characterization of the Communist Party applies without essential modification to the Communist Labor Party. The identical character of these two parties was asserted by A. Mitchell Palmer, Attorney-General of the United States, in a statement given out January 23, 1920, and printed in the "New York Times" of the next day, as follows:
"These two organizations are identical in aim and tactics, the cause for their separate existence being due to the desire of certain individuals connected with the so-called Left Wing elements of the Socialist Party to be leaders. For the sake of convenience I shall refer to members of the Communist Party of America and the Communist Labor Party as 'Communists.'"