The Red Conspiracy

by Joseph J. Mereto

Attorney-General Palmer then quotes from the manifesto of the Third International, adopted March 6, 1919, at Moscow, to show, as he says, "that their sole and intimate aim was to accomplish not only the conquest but the destruction of the idea of the 'State,' as understood by loyal American citizens," and that "this destruction was not to be accomplished by parliamentary action, for it is specifically stated that it is to be by armed conflict with governmental authority." The Attorney-General's statement then continues:

"It is this manifesto which was adopted by the Communist parties in the United States as their program of action....

"In the program of the Communists in the United States we find such statements as the following:

"'Communism rejects the conception of the State; it rejects the idea of class reconstruction and the parliamentary conquest of capitalism....

"'The objective is the conquest by the proletariat of the power of the State. Communism does not propose to capture the bourgeois parliament of any State, but to conquer and destroy it.'

"We thus find stated in very clear and plain language the fact that the aim of the Communists of America is for the destruction of the government. This shows clearly that the organizations of Communists in this country aim, not at the change of government of the United States by parliamentary or political methods, but in the overthrow and the destruction of the same by mass and direct action, by force and violence.

"Another point of particular significance to which I feel I should call your attention, is the fact that the organizations of Communists in the United States are pledged to destroy the great and loyal labor organization of America, namely, the American Federation of Labor, which, according to the Communist Party of America is considered to be reactionary and a bulwark of capitalism. Another particularly significant pledge of the Communists of America is to carry on agitation of the negro workers of America."

The I. W. W.'s and the members of the Communist and Communist Labor parties are all openly confessed conspirators against the United States Government. The members of the Socialist Party are just as bad, and worse, for they are hypocrites, besides being conspirators.

The Socialists, as we have seen in a former chapter, have for many years given unlimited support to the I. W. W., knowing full well that it was an organization pledged to revolution by violence.

The Socialists, moreover, are heart and soul in favor of the Bolsheviki of Russia, who have issued the manifesto of their International expressly to stir up revolutions by violence in all countries, including our own. The Socialists of the United States call themselves Bolsheviki, are spreading the doctrines of the Bolshevists of Russia and openly admit that Bolshevism and Socialism are identical.

Until very recently the Socialist Party nursed within its bosom about 70,000 dues-paying members, out of 109,586, who went over to the Communist and Communist Labor parties. Hence, at least till lately, nearly two-thirds of its membership consisted of avowed rebels. Has it changed since the break with the Communists? No, not at all. It is just as bad as ever, only more hypocritical, more prudent and biding its time so as not to start a premature revolt. After the wholesale arrests of the members of the Communist and the Communist Labor parties on January 2, 1920, the Publicity Department of the Socialist Party, 220 South Ashland Boulevard, Chicago, said: "The Socialist Party herewith raises its voice in emphatic and solemn protest against these activities on the part of the hot-headed and overzealous guardians of the safety of the United States."

Now listen once more to the words of Morris Hillquit, who poses before the public as in a different class from the American Communists and Communist Laborites. In "The Call," May 21, 1919, in a long article in large type covering half the editorial page, Morris Hillquit said of the "Left Wing" movement: "I am one of the last men in the party to ignore or misunderstand the sound revolutionary impulse which animates the rank and file of this new movement, but the specific form and direction which it has assumed, its program and tactics, spell disaster to our movement. I am opposed to it, not because it is too radical, but because it is essentially reactionary and non-Socialistic; not because it would lead us too far, but because it would lead us nowhere. To prate about the dictatorship of the proletariat and of workers' Soviets in the United States at this time is to deflect the Socialistic propaganda from its realistic basis, and to advocate the abolition of all social reform planks in the party platform means to abandon the concrete class struggle as it presents itself from day to day." (Italics mine.)

The wisdom of this crafty, go-slow policy is now apparent, with the "Left Wing" leaders in jail, and Hillquit's chameleons now posing as angels of light, the saviors of "representative government" in America. The fact that the Socialist Party of America "goes into politics" does not make it less dangerous than the other revolutionary bodies, but more dangerous, for it thus expects to have men in political positions to seize the reins of government when the hour of blood and violence arrives. That this is its definite policy, the meaning of its political activity, was apparent as far back as its National Convention of 1908, when, in opposing those who would dismiss the use of the ballot in favor of "direct action"--violence--exclusively, Victor L. Berger said:

"I have no doubt that in the last analysis we must shoot, and when it comes to shooting, Wisconsin will be there.... In order to be able to shoot even some day we must have the powers of political government in our hands, at least to a great extent. I want that understood. So everybody who is talking to you about direct action and so on, and about political action being a humbug, is your enemy today, because he keeps you from getting the powers of political government." ("Proceedings of the 1908 National Convention of the Socialist Party," page 241.)

In the "Social Democratic Herald" of Milwaukee, July 31, 1909, Berger wrote: "It is easy to predict that the safety and hope of this country will finally lie in one direction only, that of a violent and bloody revolution. Therefore, I say, each of the 500,000 Socialist voters and of the 2,000,000 workingmen who instinctively incline our way, should, besides doing much reading and still more thinking, also have a good rifle and the necessary rounds of ammunition in his home, and be prepared to back up his ballot with his bullets if necessary. This may look like a startling statement. Yet I can see nothing else for the American masses today." In the same paper, August 14, 1909, he wrote: "We should be grateful if the social revolution, if the freeing of 75,000,000 whites, would not cost more blood than the freeing of 4,000,000 negroes in 1861."