Logic of the Socialist Case Against Capitalism
Krzycki, Leo
Logic of the Socialist Case Against Capitalism Old Style Industrial Order Below to the Past and We Must Go To the Masses Our Message By Leo Krzycki National Chairman of tkt...
...If the Guardian is right, then any Socialists we elect to legislative office should be ranged with capitalist organizations in opposing such legislation...
...That's an old story, ar old as the movement itself," laid Bill...
...Capitalism it aaked to check its voracious appetite and return a little more of the loot to the people...
...I remember the leader of the American Communists in 1919 writing that one must never be satisfied with being left...
...asked Joe...
...The Bridgeport victory, our strong vote in Arizona, the further increase of our vote in Reading are a few of the common denominators we can see in the recent elections which for the most part were confused by second-rate issues like municipal reform...
...The French Communist "La Verite" and the American "Militant" (Trotskyite organ, issue of Nov...
...The Tolpuddle Martyrs.—The British trade unions are preparing to hold a great gathering next summer in memory of the six workingmen of Dorchester who were prosecuted in 1884 for having tried to organize the cruelly exploited agricultural laborers, and for this crime against the sacred a rights of property were sent to the penal colony of Australia...
...However, I made an important omission...
...All have appealed...
...28, 1088) state that the "official membership of the Communist Party is 80,000," a total membership that is less than the increase In the Socialist Party membership...
...This whole policy of fighting for the working class in legislative halls is not a matter of either that or of fighting for the social revolution...
...His fellow-unionists judge the rest of the party by his behavior...
...Submited by Augusta Robinson, Minneapolis...
...Is Socialist Fight for Legislitive Measures Wrong...
...In this hour of Socialism's great trial and opportunity, I bespeak a new loyalty, a new devotion to the Cause...
...They have "accepted" the NRA "in principle," but use every possible opening to evade its effective operation...
...we must take part in their day-to-day struggles through political party, trade union, and unemployed league...
...They have tensed the futility of the old-style capitalism...
...Occasionally one finds a left of the left and a right of the left and even a center of the left...
...Never more serious and this idea spread to a number of countries...
...It has been the capitalism of every crisis...
...One of his fellow editors was given the game sentence, and two other party members were sentenced to a week in jail...
...Breadlines assembled at the base of mighty skyscrapers...
...The Socialist Party vote Increased 18,000 in two years and the Communist decreased 500...
...Thrice in the past, he said, the Saar valley had been cut off from Germany—by Louis XIV, by Napoleon, and by Clemenceau—and now Hitler has repeated the separation...
...No...
...do some serious thinking," said Bill...
...I * .* • Carl Marx Museum in London.—Fifty-seven labor organizations in London have united to establish a library and museum in memory of Karl Marx...
...striking is reform action and the aims of strikers reformism...
...to clean up your disease-breeding sweatahopB and factory hells...
...WISDOM of the POOR FISH "I don't think Socialists live up to what they say...
...This statement is in complete opposition to what the party members have decided over and over again in conventions and referendums...
...Here it the great point of departure for Socialists...
...The results of the NI'.A in industries where trade unionism was alert shows the possibilities of stirring the people to a fighting spirit and to a recognition of the need for organization...
...What booklet do yon want...
...They must be linked together into a permanent functioning machinery of power...
...Of late there have come the medicine men from the liberal wing...
...I've seen jpuys a few months in the movement who claimed to be more revolutionary than revolutionaries who have given ten and twenty years of service and study to the cause...
...The less one knows of philosophy the more bombast we may expect...
...The labor organizations and the party are recorded in favor of old age pensions and unemployment insurance legislation...
...The Russian Bolsheviks prided themselves on their leftism but fought its appearance in the Bolshevik party...
...have perils ahead in this country, possibly struggles that will test us Let us face them with knowledge, not fiction, and with a determination to profit by any mistakes our comrades may have made in other countries in trying circumstances which we have never yet faced...
...It is planned to have here the fullest possible collection, not only of Marx' own writings, but of literature dealing with Marxism, whether favorable or hostile, and also to conduct courses for the study of Marxism...
...Old Confusion Between the Immediate Struggle' And Ultimate Aims Presented by a Critic By James Oneal ANUMBER of comrades have asked us to comment on a statement made by Siegfried Ameringer in the "American Guardian" of November 17...
...Therefore, the sooner the unions are destroyed the better...
...Governor...
...Hitler Objects!—The German Minister to Czechoslovakia has formally protested against the production of a comlo review, entitled "The Ass and His Shadow," which has been packing one of the largest theatres In Prague...
...At the same time our comrades in Wisconsin were, and still are, spreading Socialist ideas "as party labels" among those farmers...
...Only we Socialists can turn their spasmodic rebellions into constructive channels...
...The Democratic Party in the United States today has reached the point where it serves the country in a much similar capacity to the Social Democratic Party in Germany...
...what's it all about, anyway...
...Sure...
...We must address ourselves with renewed vigor and clarity of program to the farming population...
...This has been the capitalism of recent years...
...Well, I don't see the value of using the words 'left' and 'right' if the meaning shifts as you say," said Joe...
...A Socialist in a union who will not act like a Socialist is a positive drag on the party...
...The owners of industry have resorted to the old game of the diplomats...
...By a striking coincidence, the same writer in the same paper exactly one year ago (November 18, 1932) ran another comment on election results...
...Bakunin, the force Anarchist, was left in the First International and Marx was right in relation to him, but Marx was the true revolutionary while Bakunin was reactionary...
...They have shown that the American workers have not by any means been bought off by the few well-distributed crumbs of charity...
...The climax is bo striking that it requires no comment...
...The Bolsheviks are left and then they become right because a group appears claiming...
...A United Front of Left-Right "IT often is," Bill replied, "for each side thinks its label is a virtue and the other label a vice...
...We must meet them in the arena of their own problems...
...It is all meaningless...
...Yon win, Lou...
...In this election the Socialist Party enlarged its majority In the City Council, electing 45 Instead of the 87, as In the previous Council...
...Was he serious...
...A Left of the Left-Left...
...The statement is vague but its implication is obvious...
...Don't accept bombast as evidence of revolutionary views...
...Great Britain.—As a result of the gains made in the recent municipal elections in England, Wales and Scotland, the Labor Party has a majority in 81 city councils, twentyfive in England and Wales and six in Scotland...
...if you keep your eye on labels you'll get dizzy...
...Unemployed members of all the building trades unions have thoroughly repaired and renovated the building...
...The great monster of capitalist industry ia failing...
...It produced or was capable of producing many times over what* the mass of the people needed...
...Whatever the variations in their program for recovery, both Swope and President Roosevelt have admitted that the old-style, planless capitalism must be a thing of the past The trend of capitalism today is in the direction of a monopolized industrial system, more efficiently coordinated and perhaps state-directed...
...The New Deal" has done poorly by them...
...When you form a left it is necessary to form a left of the left...
...Quit your kidding, Bill...
...New Leader Dinner to Be Held Sunday, Jan...
...Which proved the most disastrous to those farmers, the agitation of the Socialist Party label among them or the approval cf the election of the Governor who sent troops against them...
...Municipal reform movements, "new deals," resurrected populism, and other passing fancies short-circuit this unrest and send it up blind alleys...
...In Wisconsin they have shown their eagerness for the Socialist message...
...We must carry the Socialist truths to the people...
...I forgot to mention the relative strength of the Communist Party...
...to wrest our women and children from your measureless greed, and by such conquests as we may maks we will give the working class a sense of their power and class solidarity In preparation for the time when ( regime...
...It is the Socialist task to take the leadership of the rebellious masses of city and farm workers and give them Socialist direction and Socialist organization...
...Does that mean some group between the right and the left ?" "Yes, but these three do not exhaust the classifications...
...We have a nation to win...
...To some early left bombasts Marx replied that they required fifty years of study to fit themselves for a revolutionary movement...
...That seems good advice to me," said Joe...
...This acquires a special significance when one remembers that the Czech Communists numbered 180,000 In 1026 and more than a quarter of a million in 19211 The Communist Pany was then the largest mass party of the Comintern outside the Soviet Union...
...It might have been expected that President Roosevelt would not permit a plan put forward so rawly to bury his own version of "The New Deal...
...To be left implies views more radical than somebody else, and the right is supposed to be conservative in relation to the left...
...They have purchased the house at 37A Clerkenwell Green, which was for many years tho headquarters of the Social Democratic Federation, and here eh old weekly paper Justice was edited...
...but it failed miserably In distributing the necessities of life...
...Let us then go to the workers and rouse them to battle for Socialism, for life, for plenty and for freedom...
...Among the candidates elected to office in November of that year and approved as "progressive gains" were four elected on the tickets of the capitalist parties...
...Here is the leader of the C.P.L.A...
...Left-Right and Wrong Voting •ACCEPT no claims...
...you do not go back of labels to ascertain-what views they conceal," Bill replied...
...i A similar tendency was recorded also in another important balloting, in the city elections of Zurich—seat of the Socialist International...
...to be left...
...DALLAS, Nov...
...It indicts tbe Socialist parties in all nations, for they have all fought for legislative concessions from the capitalist opposition...
...Now that the Drat- flush of enthusiasm over "The New Deal," has begun to fade, the true voice of American capitalism is speaking up again...
...The catastrophe of mass hunger has proven the justice of our charges against capitalism...
...Then we have rights putting on a left mask and lefts that have a right fcoul...
...Tha| the German Socialists have made their mistakes, that Socialists in all countries have made them, even they will not deny, but one Who can suggest a policy that would range us with the legislative policy of the capitalist reaction is not qualified to assist in rectifying any mistakes that have been made...
...Aside from a position that ranges it with the most reactionary sections of the capitalist class, there it the assertion that the Democratic Party" "serves the country in a much similar cupacity to the Social Democratic Party in Germany...
...Ss, that we L*ir, pace of Se .nix our Ltr tonic of imagination and audacity...
...Hard and fast methods and tactics of the last three decades must be tested anew in the light of modern needs and modern methods of organization and propaganda...
...This unconscious phase of syndicalism has appeared over and over again in farming regions in the past fifty years and yet these farmers roll up big majorities for capitalist parties...
...And on the basis of these conceptions we must mobilize them into a political and industrial army of fighters...
...As a rule, bombast conceals poverty of knowledge...
...Taking all these things into account, the labels often prove fraudulent/ There was once a left group in* the Socialist Party that said to hell with labor organisation in industry...
...Comrade Robinson...
...Submitted by Lou Kstowltz, New York City...
...28 The annual dinfer of The New Leader will be held on Sunday, January 28...
...The same course should also be taken regarding any other demands in behalf of the working class...
...t Norway.—How close are the relations between the Norwegian trade unions and the Labor or Socialist Party, which at the general election in October Increased its representation In Parliament from 45 to 69, is shown by the fact that the unions had imposed on their members a special assessment equivalent to a half-day's wage In order to provide a campaign fund for the party...
...Switzerland...
...Then there art- some who have given years of service who represent arrested development...
...Judge Fires is afraid that the Bolshevistic elements would take hold of the convention and produce a Constitution that would "make future generations shudder...
...This enormous following has dwindled in 12 years to 80,000—if not less...
...Well, in general, left and right have reference to the views of persons or organizations or groups," said Bill...
...It appears that In the recent Geneva canton (state) elections, in which the Socialists elected 46 representatives, the Communist candidates received only 221 votes and failed to elect a single representative...
...Then it is possible to find a right of the right and a left of the right and a eenter of the right...
...For example...
...trade unions are reformist...
...I don't know how xo react to the cfaims of right, left and center," said Joe...
...They must be enrolled not for a single campaign, not for a tingle strike...
...Well, the more we go into this»hing the more dizzy I become," said Joe with a gesture of despair...
...Adolf Hitler, It appears, has a notion that the donkey in the play is not treated with the respect due to an animal which, he feels sure, represents himself...
...M have no |Pf them Wtt making BptJear, psfojf clay ¦ Csssen Party in this country, then history will have to be rewritten by our Oklahoma philosopher...
...Thinking they are left they vote right," said Joe...
...We cannot rest our case on our intellectual superiority...
...Gerard Swope trots out his old plan of Business Fascism, lie proposes that the business men of the nation, the manufacturers and the chambers of commerce—the same mercenary iincompetents whose system brought about the industrial breakdown— be entrusted with the job of operating "The New Deal...
...By every human test, capitalism has failed...
...What this r-r-revolutionary act meant could be seen from the fact that the two largest Socialist parties had then on their rolls 108 Deputies *nd more than 800,000 dues-paying members...
...They will fight If there is any one thing that I should like to emphasize for my comrades in the Socialist Party, it is the idea that we must go to the masses...
...In another municipal election—it the city of Basel—the result was also very encouraging for the Socialists—an increase in the number of councilmen from 9 to ll...
...All friendly organizations are ¦rged to avoid making arrangements for affairs that eonllct with this date...
...Make a record of It and be sure to reserve this date for the dinner...
...For a century it held away, bringing mechanical efficiency almost to perfection...
...They have proposed to file the claws of the monster...
...In this great task we are pressed by time...
...And in between these crises, the number of unemployed differed only in degree...
...The Saar Basin.—Max Braun, leader of the Social-Democratic Party in the Saar region and chief editor of the "Freiheit" in Saarbrueck, has been condemned to two weeks' imprisonment for alleged illegal distribution of leaflets attacking German Fascism...
...It is hardly necessary to mention that this was immediately after the Third of Moscow International succeeded in splitting the Csech, German, Poliih, Hungarian and Ruthenian Socialist parties of that country, capturing moat of their members and a great part of their parliamentary representation...
...Where the NRA has meant anything at a]l in gains to the workers, it baa been because of the militant use of labor's own strength...
...CAPITALIST America today ^** presents a challenge which tests the metal of every Socialist We are in that twilight aone between eras...
...But there is no suggestion in the President's plan, and of course none in Swope's, that the basic evil of capitalism, its cornerstone, in fact—the private ownership of industry and its exploitation for private profit—is to be disturbed...
...Here is the test that bars any sentimental attachment whatever for "The New Deal" as a lasting or adequate solution of the evils of capitalism...
...As a practical trade unionist of many years activity, I can see no inconsistency whatever in loyalty to the Socialist Party and the best interests of a trade union...
...For the love of Mike, how are we to keep track of these shades of opinion...
...That statement appeared in bold face type and reads as follows: "The outstanding lesson of the elections is that Socialists are approaching the end of the time during which they may base their campaigns on social reform...
...The only issue involved is whether we pursue one to the neglect of the other...
...For Socialists to fight for measures in behalf of the workers is wrong in Germany and the United States, for that is to "serve the country" in a capacity similar to that of the Democratic Party in this country.But this position not only indicts the German Socialists...
...TheWorkers Abroad An International Review of the Socialist and Labor Movement of the World By Mark Khinoy Communist* in Czechoslovakia.—Last weak, whan speaking of the membership of the Socialist parties of Ciechoilovakia, I mentioned the fact that the Social-Democratic Party earns) to its last Congress with a membership of almost 200.000, of which 40,000 had joined since the previous convention...
...and we start i in organized the race baft some form at It is daajd cannot accept the pedants...
...Here leftism marched side by side with anti-union capitalist sweaters...
...Lenin had to write a booklet on what he called the 'Left Wing Sickness' and this was used in many countries against Bolshevik leftism...
...Fascism in Germany and Italy has shown the folly of ignoring those who associate themselves with the middle class...
...Socialism wsj Vhmmr, weak *t Meantime ¦jslkoS and Eje is on...
...The two struggles go together...
...There are those who sneer at Marxism today and who also think that they ire left...
...If you don't want to get left be right," said Bill...
...who thinks that farmers in Iowa Who mobbed a judge are revolutionary...
...If that poH with the poH _—J THANKS I'M thankfu moon Arc both km That no rui strife* And pull thi If they hmdoubt Some corpd Would legit dovM, And light ti ¦ I'm thanbfm Whose last...
...In my organizing experiences under the conditions of the last few months, I can testify to the willingness and ability of our Socialists to take advantage of the opportunity...
...New York Times...
...Logic of the Socialist Case Against Capitalism Old Style Industrial Order Below to the Past and We Must Go To the Masses Our Message By Leo Krzycki National Chairman of tkt SocuUut Party...
...We must gain their confidence by offering leadership both in the field of program and in the field of service...
...Young Ameringer says that this is "disastrous...
...When we hare stated the unanswerable logic of our case against both the Roosevelt and Swope plans, we have not by any means done our Socialist duty...
...On the same day Braun addressed a great meeting on the consequences of Nazist Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations...
...We must ding fast and without compromise to our Socialism, but we must be ready to grasp every new opportunity to advance the -cause of Socialism...
...These votes show what we can accomplish...
...There will be the nsnal fine list of speakers and the program will be annonnced as soon as completed...
...The New Deal" is essentially an attempt to teach an old dog new tricks...
...thinking they arc left they rote wrong," said Rill •s they parted...
...Old Pals' Corner The Right, Left-Right, Center, Left of the Left-Left and Wrong Voting,Leave Joe aPuzzledMan By Autolycus "^WHAT'S all this about left and right we read so much of in the newspapers...
...asked Joe...
...I have also heard of the center," said Joe...
...Has change man . By making] If he had 4 'Twould M Some man fJ trust* And stop If I end your s reconciled Democratic fc SONG ** sun and thigh ' it hand can Uu sky...
...A proper balance between the Immediate struggle and our final aims is the ideal...
...We should also strike such measures from our platforms...
...asked Joe of Bill, leaving the shop for their rooms...
...the floundering of the liberal apologists have shown the superiority of our program...
...There is a wide field of real unrest in the nation...
...We have no room in the Socialist Party for any who feel their Socialism must be parked outside a farmers' meeting, a trade union or an unemployed league...
...THE BRAY of THE WEEK Too Much Bolshevism Now, So Why Put More In the Constitution...
...For instance, they aren't a bit more sociable than other people...
...Both the trade union campaigns and the political campaigns, where we took ourselves seriously enough to give battle, have shown that the American workers are not a dumbdriven mass...
...So the left fought leftism and defeated it...
...We must say to the middle class: your best interest lies in common action with the workers for the realization of a. Socialist system where economic insecurity will be ended for all time...
...The "Swope Plan" has disappeared from the front pages but we may be assured that it has not been given up...
...IT is almost impossible and yet it isn't necessary," said Bill...
...Last July that Governor in Wisconsin sent the troops against the striking farmers of his state while the Socialists were fighting with these farmers...
...idle clothing, shoe and bread factories mocked the nakedness and hunger of the jobless...
...They have elected to preach to the animal a new code of behavior...
...The Socialist candidates received from 88,000 to 48,000 votes and the Communists got a total of 3,700...
...We have the truth with us...
...when you get that, a left of the left-left is essential to progress...
...By* this policy of a half century the Socialist parties have said to the ruling classes: "You rule the state, but to the extent that we have won political power we will use it to raise our class to higher levels of living, to shorten the hours of labor, to tax your class so that our class may have some income in sickness, accident, unemployment and old age...
...They included a Congressman, a State AttorneyGeneral, a U. S. Senator and a v...
...23.—"There's too much bolshevism in the air right now," is the argument of Judge A. J. Fires of Childress, against a constitutional convention, which is being urged to give Texas a new and modern charter...
...I emphasise this because I know that the lasting Socialist Party must be built on the working class...
Vol. 16 • December 1933 • No. 23
