While America Are Planning
While America Are Planning " , III i, Warren Billings Editor s Corner Keeps Busy Review of and Comment on in Jail Events Here and Abroad, •y Leaa Morrow Uwia Critical and Otherwise •pKlPS...
...thing is to To what I have said recently in analysis oft the American Socialist Quarterly and the lofi T*HE Socialist Party of America on the road to power, on the fall of csfi stands on the threshold of a farmer-labor party question, and on down somn great opportunity...
...The following developof written Sil It was a dismal situation pan ments have recently occurred in ver Shirt propa nlarly considering the shallow, ganda...
...Every pamphlet and book of his organization is a text...
...The notes and comments to the Gotha Programme are of the same type...
...August Bebel died in 1913 before Bolshevism became an issue in the International, but he is dragged into the conflict between Bolshevism and Menshevism...
...Doings things by the tick of the clock does not make an artist Just now in his spare time he is working on some legal phases of his case and while adjusting himself to his present situation is nevertheless Quietly and persistently studying how he may help his friends on the outside to secure his release...
...The first produces sterile dogmatism, and the second pseudo-radicalism...
...saying about Since then their literature, influthem d a m n e<j ence and membership have spread Jews and Comlike a blight in the County and munists hits the City Building...
...This is not only dogmatism of the wor.^t type...
...He may range all the way from the snob in his attitude toward the conservative working class to the person whose head carries a miscellaneous assortment of ideas more or less contradictory...
...The 160 delegates to most effective approach to the the house «the Detroit convention will register problem of making the trade union edited in th« the developments that have taken movement class-conscious...
...Liberation...
...One oflice looked of Liberation On the Thresholi •y Moyaord C. Kraeger of capitalism...
...Leading jewelry stores in Sacramento, San Francisco and Los Angeles have been most kind in sending him all kinds of equipment and watch movements...
...While America Are Planning " , III i, Warren Billings Editor s Corner Keeps Busy Review of and Comment on in Jail Events Here and Abroad, •y Leaa Morrow Uwia Critical and Otherwise •pKlPS to Sacramento always By Junes OIKWI Dogma and Pseudo-Raxficalum OECTIONS of the revolutionary movement can degenerate into empty dogmatism as well as other movemepts, and this is made clear by translatfbnl into English of pamphlets and book* published by the MarxEngelsLenin Institute...
...Six months later they counted a local "This is gooc membership of a thousan ' and a stuff," he informed me large circulation of their official "What they an •publication...
...one is to cease to think by relying on what has been written by those who are dead...
...The The remainder of this space I that it get;* geographic spread of the party into should like to devote to the probother ii rf "1 new areas, the building of new lem of the Socialist press and that Upon it dimorganizations and the increase in of the Congressiona^latform...
...A MERICAN fascism in various guises is spreading with in City and County Go| alarming rapidity and ominousi) is turning toward the seizure of like a depositor] and the Silver Ranger...
...There are two dangers for working class movement...
...to some extent at the University of Utah...
...Through kindnesses of oflTicials, I was permitted to go at once to the warden's office, where Billings was already waiting to receive me...
...He is likely to make up for this lack by using radical phraseology and by insuflTerable posing of revolutionary virtue...
...In order t^keep up with his orders ne is often obliged to work at night...
...Lassalle when alive approved a party administrative course approved by Bolshevism and is condemned...
...With one sweep this disposes of Debs, DeLeon, Haywood and others and the movements with which they were identified...
...And all this is prpHcnteil in the cocksure lingb of Podsnnp, wlio'ip word and ."T- 'n-e are final...
...All through the years he has not allowed his fate to embitter him, and the way he has maintained the integrity of his own soul is the admiration of those with whom he lives from day to day...
...arms...
...it is also pseudo-radicalism...
...He sent out for watch catalogues and made a thorough study of the various movements...
...the Federal Army post at the head...
...Some Ghoetology | N the latter we have a thesis that is Utopian...
...I always come away from the prison marvelling at the way in whichr Warren Billings makes the best of his environment and how by his application and study he has educated himself in various trades, made himself useful in prison, conducted an interesting correspondence with persons all over the United States, carried on chess tournaments and lived a life of service that v,-ou\d be a credit to the best of our citizens...
...A book by V. F. Calverton in this country late in 1932 presented the same view regarding the American movement...
...propaganda disOnly a week ago the writer was penser came in amazed and alarmed over what he with his arm s saw during a visit to the City and ful l of copies County Building...
...opportunity for volunteer work in thizers noiH A national convention is the the field of workers' education in what the p»rt highest authority in the party, the immediate future will be nn> therefore, tw subject to ajreferendum of the limited...
...As he sat telling me of his work, he pulled three watches out of his pockets to illustrate his conversation—one watch was made in Switzerland and was from 76 to 80 years old...
...Only if we are willthat during the next;, two years there can bt ing to depart in certain respects there will be a terrific revival of izntion with from traditional practice can we interest in workers' education, and Without as we shall need scores of Socialists achieve the results which will going to all for that vital irork...
...Particua drawer full larly does this disease aflfect religof copie s of ious people...
...The dogmatist, however, does not have a single text book as the religious cult does...
...This is undoubtedly the a national ^membership...
...Every time I visit him I wonder if I will find any indication of a break in his spirit, but as before he was full of courage and showed no sign of the disheartening and demoralizing effects fo prison life...
...should be «' place in the party since 1932...
...For this he is condemned...
...It is declared that his "centrism showed itself also in his relations with Bolshevism, in his endeavors, along with Kautsky and others, to water down Bolshevism into Menshevism...
...resignation, that he cannot star.: any r-.or...
...At present he has charge of the time-pieces of the prison, winding and keeping all clocks in order, as well as the watches of the guards and their families...
...rapidly closing doors to the spread A Silver Shirt of real democratic enlightenment...
...He is free te go practically all over the grounds and into any of the homes...
...But another note ie still more mystical...
...11 in this community...
...attracted little attention...
...Bolshevism stood for an autocratic leadership of the party by professional revolutionists, while Menshevism relied upon the rank and file...
...The Socialist parties and leaders outside of Russia took no part in this controversy, as they believed it was one that belonged to Russian revolutionaries alone, and yet Bebel is dragged out of his grave as a partisan in the post-war conflict between the two parties...
...There are aljustify the sacrifices of those members ne ready now several full-time open-' comrades who have already given party is doi« ings unfilled for want of adethe best years of their lives to ganda paps' quately trained people, and the thousands the work of the party...
...He is as sterile as the Communist dogmatist...
...One curious aspect of the whole situation is that Billings has been able to accomplish many interesting things in prison and become efficient in many lines because he has not been crowded by the driving greed of commercialism seeking to produce things for profit...
...among members of ing it" the Ameripan Legion...
...cial opened i Two years ago these moveprivate drawei ments were practically unknown of his desk...
...the Chamber of Commerce Building is readheadquarters...
...EveryFort Douglas on the confines of the body in the city...
...This is something more than the valuable criticism of the Gotha program of the German Socialists in 1875 by Marx...
...Podanap, a gesture and a phrase disposed of everything not within the ken of Podsnappery...
...A year ago was full oi the Silver Shirts emerged above copies of Liberation and The the surface, but for some time Silver Ranger...
...Liberalion...
...the other is to discount what the dead have written-by sneering at "orthodoxy" and refusing to do any thinking of our own...
...One note declares that in Germany, during the World War and after, "the social chauvinists and social fascists frequently put forward-^Hd still put forward— the slogan: 'Back to Lassalle!'" We never heard of that slogan, but the author of the notes needed it so he invented it and, there it in...
...Everywhere they being for a long get a fanatic attitude which is time...
...include in my schedule a visit to Warren K, Billings in the Northern California Prison —Represa post office...
...ly Marray E. Ki»9 Silver Sfiirts Have AlreJ Salt Uk« City, UUh...
...An offi one typical Western city...
...The difference of opinion grew out of the special conditions that faced revolutionists under Czarism...
...Like Mr...
...larity of th«< membership will all be manifested membersW^ iir the number of new faces in the The Press convention...
...The count y and strangest of all, among eleofficial head of ments formerly calling themselves this office had "progressive' or radical...
...the police departnail right or ment...
...Marvelout Bebel, to die in 1913 and yet to "water down" something many years after his deatkl Here is ghostology used for purposes of interpretation...
...This may be distressing A group of Socialists can have The only to those who have come to think which tba I the most correct ideas in the world, of the party as a small static orbut unless a functioning organisaN.E.C...
...It's what of economic or political change we been needfrom below...
...can j ganization whose actions can alparty mert tion be built, those ideas amount to ways be predicted accurately, but n6thlng...
...To what I said in the will maketh ripe times, be the instrument for Quarterly about the party and the the accomplishment of the social union movement I shall «4d only But if Itb is necessaryi revolution...
...ting corpse of capitalism these be exclaimed various fascist factions arise, all wit h g u 81 0, actuated by a common carefully handing som e implanted hatred of Jews, Social-of them back to I ists, Communists, radicals, demom y informant, cratic ideals and "subversive" "Bring me some movements, and by a common fear more...
...but if this is true of Lassalle, then he took a position in favor ihf what Bolshevism supported in opposition to Menshevism befort the World Warl So we have this rather interesting situation...
...He declared that "Our so-called proletarian movements prior to the World War were essentially petty bourgeois in psychology and programme...
...Some years ago, having discovered that he could take a watch apart and put it together again and make it run, he was asked by his prison friends to fix their watches...
...We can well afford to Communlcsti it is encouraging if we think of the matters !• leave to the splinter tmrties the party as a vehicle for the abolition notion that the only Important mimeogrsH' •4...
...It also contains a reprint of the correspondence of Marx and Engels with Bebel, Liebknecht and others, and is littered with notes and comments by Lenin and the Institute...
...Bebel, though dead, is charged with post-war Menshevism, although he foii/rf ml know of the differences that developed between the two movements in the mndern period...
...John "'aton, for many years gencrf.l seen ary of the Independent Labor Party, last week quit the I.L.P., r ying, in his let...
...One of them ia the "Critique of the Gotha Programme" by Karl Marx, with an introduction by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute...
...The first type is found in the Communist Party, and the second sometimes in the Socialist Party...
...the "fatuous policy" of the party...
...These * notes and comments follow the theory that all that preceded Bolshevism was an unfortunate mistake...
...The pseudo-radical generally exhibits a state of mind rather than a code of principles...
...He is too lazy to apply himself to an earnest study of Marx and Engels and the writing of others that have expanded and modified the old Marxism...
...If it has the the problem of how to keep the form, so tfcit courage and the vision to grasp party from being responsible for the workiof I the care of bankrupt municipalities the stacks d that opportunity it can yet, after under capitalism, I shall add noth"These wett a generation of struggle in uning here...
...It speaks well for Billings that prisoners in this department of work before he was placed in charge never had enough to do to keep busy half the time...
...The Dead and the Living lUOW, before the World War the main difference be* tween Bolshevism and Menshevism was one of organization, not of principles...
...Men and movements are indicted in accord with this theory...
...The correspondence is enlightening, but the same cannot be said of the notes and comments...
...He hAs several unique ideas in the line of watch and jewelry novelties which he hopes some day to produce...
...Like putrid odo*rs from the rot5'Great ^ope...
...It declares that "Lassalle looked rather to the leaders than the masses of the people...
Vol. 17 • May 1934 • No. 21
