The toiler. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1919-1922, 1921-07-02

there appears an open letter by COM
rade John Mulati. The inspiration for
the letter was furnished by an ar
ticle from the May 2Sth issue of the
"Toiler" and was contributed by Com
rade Jack Frank.
To begin with, the author Of the |
letter diagnoses the case of comrade
Frank as representing symptoms of
"lnfantile disease. This Leninism has
become quite the fashion. 1t is to be
particularly noticed in radical con-
troversies that this hackneyed charge
is only too often made to conceal al
dearth of argument or, worse than
that, multitude of SINS. But most
peculiar Of all, in this instance mat
ters are actually reversed; the ac-
cused is found to be in health, while
the accuser climbs into the wheel
chair.
Comrade Frank is further charged
with spreading "a piece of propaganda
that does only harm to the revolu-
tionary movement in the U. S." We
shall soon see that comrade Mulati
is obliged to make similar charge
against the Third International, for
comrade Franks only crime consists
in reiterating what that body has ac-
cepted.
The case in point is an article that
appeared in "Pravda" some time ago
as an introduction to the appeal of
the Moscow Trade Union Internatio-
nal to the American Workers. The
particular paragraph of contention
reads: MANY are of the opinion that
the |. W. W. are called upon to play
as important role in the economic
revolutionary movement of the work.
ing class as the Bolshevists do on the
political field. -. )" might here point
out that whoever wrote that intro
duction might have avoided tactical
miscalculation had he taken the trou-
bic first to read his subject. However
that may be, the milk is spilled, and
comrade Frank justly takes excep-
ton: "This pretense of having MANY
OF THE OPINION cannot save the
person responsible for this article
I from the blame for all the harm
done through this misconception Of
4 Bolshevist activity and its imaginary
limits and fields Of action" And
again, "The field of Bolshevist activi-
ty is all-embracing, universal" But
in spite of this timely opposition,
comrade Mulati falls into the very err
ror he was warned against.
So, enters Mulati to the defense of
the vanquished, armed with the hypo-
dermic needle of "leftism". He throws
out this gem, "The Communist Party
is not labor union (so?), hence the
c. P. as an organization has no con-
flicting interests with the |. w. W."
And since the A. F. of L. is also a
labor union, this applies equally well
to it. That is the point, as a labor
union merely, the interests of the A.
F. Of L. do not conflict with those of
the c. P; but as a Gompersian bu-
reaucracy, as retainer of narrow
craftism, as a cess pool of bourgeois
ideology; as plain bulwark of capi-
talism, there the analogy ceases. Like
wise with the /, w. w., so long as it
continues its policy of dualism i. @.
declaring for Withdrawals from the
old unions, and persists in nursing
+ from the bottle of European Syndical-
ism, its interests cannot be identical
with those of tie C. P.
Does not comrade Mulati believe
that the work of Communists is uni
versal, all-embracing? In his letter,
the comrade quotes from the Thesis
on "The Role of the Communist Par
ty in the Proletaman Revolution. But
it appears that his reading of the
document was restricted to the part
that he quotes; had he read further
he would have seen: "The fundamen-
tai principle for all organization work
} for the C. P. and individual Commun-
lists must be the creation of Commun-
ist Party nuclei everywhere they find
proletarians and semi-proletarians--
even in small numbers
Comrade Mulati quotes thus from
comrade Frank; Revolutionary his.
tory teaches us beyond all doubt that
wherever revolutionary undertaking
by the working class was in any way
restricted to particular fields of ac-
tion and was not all-embracing II was
bound to be failure and was fail.
ure," Our physicians comment: "This
necessity of workingman trail