The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-10-13
CHICAGO MEMBERSHIP MEETING-
RUTHENBERG'S SPEECH
DISCUSSION Fl
DISCUSSION

approach the masses of the workers.
During this period and as a, result
of coming into the open we absorbed
into our party a number of elements
which had not gone thru the earlier
phase of storm and stress and devel-
opment. Thru this fact has come a
situation in which our party has met
crisis But it is another crisis in
the process of Bolshevization. The
crisis has come, said Comrade Ruth
enberg, on the question Of the road
that our party must follow in order
to become mass Communist Party.
Some comrades bemoan the fact that
we have had to endure this crisis for
the past year and half; but it was
part of the process of Bolsheviza-
ton thru which it was necessary for
the party to go. There is no way thru
which the party can come to correct
4 policies except thru a struggle against
wrong policies. We have now turned
away from the road that leads back
toward sectarianism.
What was the struggle in the party
convention at the end of 1928, asked
Comrade Ruthenberg. We had brot
into the organization of the Workers
Party large elements which had not
gone thru the process of the earlier
steps of Bolshevization. The Finnish
Federation which had not gone thru
this process became the largest por-
ton of the party with 1000 members,
the greater part of whom had no
understanding of Communist princi-
pies and were carrying on their
activities solely as a social organiza-
ton. Great numbers of these COM
rades had absolutely no political con-
ceptions, not even of socialist party,
let alone of a Communist Party We
had brot into the party the Jewish,
German, Scandinavian, Czecho-Sloy-
ak and Finnish declarations from the
socialist party, who had not been thru
the process of the earlier period and
naturally the conception of the role
and duties of Communist Party was
not as clear for them as it was for
those groups in the party which had
gone thru the fire of the previous
years of struggle toward forming a
Bolshevist party. And so we found
that there was a certain crystalIiz-
alton Of these newer elements under
the leadership of the group which
came into power in the party conven-
ton at the end of 1923. 1t is not often
that one can show sufficiently clearly
at the beginning one kind or another
kind OF grouping in a party; but that
this was the situation the develop.
ment of the past year and a half have
shown. aeu
The errors of the party in the year
1924 were not chance errors, but err
rors that sprang out of the nature Of
the elements which formed the basis
Of the majority of the convention Of
1928. If we have a leadership based
upon a right wing, that leadership
will inevitably make concessions to
the group that it represents, and we
will find consolidation between the
rank and file OF that group and that
leadership.
That is what happened in 1924.
Instead of continuing our development
instead of continuing the process of
Bolshevization, we went ON the back
track, we began to deviate in the
direction of sectarianism, to become
once more a propaganda society
rather than Communist Party, to
say nothing Of Bolshevized Commun-
list Party. This was shown in the err
ror on the labor party question, which
was sectarian error; and again on
the question of women's work, and
still again in the rejecting of propos-
ais for the formation of other non
party organizations. We had been de-
veloping a right-wing sectarianism
rather than making the gains that
should have been made toward becom-
ing Bolshevik party.
Other evidences of the trend during
that year, continued Comrade Ruth
enberg, were shown in the issue of
Trotskyism and of Loreism, which
showed that the leadership OF the
party were taking an orientation to.
ward the right wing, toward that
group which he had described as the