The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-11-07
Debs and the Russian Revolution.

luton. as expressed in the year 1919
before he went to prison, was that Of
enthusiastic support. In the last
speech which Debs made before going
to Atlanta prison, which was delivered
in the West Side Turner Hall, Cleve-
land, Ohio. under the auspices OF the
local of the socialist party, which at
that time had already declared itself a
supporter of the left wing movement
which later developed into the Com
munist Party, Debs declared:
"a am a 5oIshevik from the top
Of my head to the sole of my feet"
In his statement after the supreme
court affirmed his conviction for the
Canton speech Debs issued a state
ment in which he said:
1.-THE decision just rendered places
the United States whore old Russia
under the car left off. It is good
for at least a million 5oIsheVist re-
cruts in this country"
Debs was not BoIshevik in under
standing and conscious support of
i R0tSICNl0A RtiASi~ASS Af0e 80 OShf
mHnlst prlnclples-but his reaction to
the Russian revolution was In the
same spirit that he showed In regard
to all the workers struggles, support
of a militant, class struggle against
capitalism.
Debs and the Communists.
Debs was not Communist He re.
manned in the socialist party after the
split of 1919, when those with whom
he had been associated in past strug
giles within the socialist party were
compelled to leave 1t and form the
Communist Party because the socialist
party leadership, in spite of the sup
port of the overwhelming membership
of the party given to the left wing,
betrayed the revolutionary principle
which the Russian revolution showed
must guide the revolutionary labor
movement in its struggle.
The issue on which the left wing
which formed the Communist Party
and Debs parted company was the
question of the dictatorship of the
proletariat.
Debs was in the Atlanta prison at
the time the split took place in the
socialist party. Naturally, he was not
informed as to the phases of the strug-
gle and could not express himself in
relation to the struggle.
In June, 1920, the writer visited
Dehs in the federal prison at Atlanta
to present to him the question of his
future utilization. The point in the
program of the Communist Party
which Debs did not accept was the
declaration that the workers and
farmers government which would be
established as the result of the class
struggle must of necessity be a dicta-
torship of the proletariat.
Debs' conception of the dictatorship
of the prOletariat was that of dicta-
torship exercised by an individual,
such a dictatorship as that exercised
by the first Napoleon or the car OF
Russia during the period of unlimited
duLOGtdCN vi hllC 0NA0ooOAAhA 0ASSNSS~
ship in Italy at the present time.
Debs did not understand the dicta-
torship in the form in which it is sup
ported by the Communists. That is,
the dictatorship of a class against
class. He did not grasp that in the
transition period from capitalism to
Communism it was necessary that the
workers use the governmental power
to suppress the capitalists and the re-
naming vestlges of the capitalist sys-
tenn in the same manner that the CAPT.
talists today use the governmental
power to suppress the struggles of the
workers for a new social order
Why the Communists Honor the Mem
DRY OF Debs.
Altho Debs did not clearly grasp
the principles underlying the class
struggle and their implications, he was
a revolutionary fighter who instinct
lively took his stand on the side of the
worker in every battle. In every great
struggle in American labor history
Debs spoke out his flaming words in
support of the workers. When Meyer,
Haywood and Pettibone were in dan
ger of their lives it was Debs who,
in flaming words. called upon the
workers to rally to their support. In
the struggle at Lawrence, Massachu-
sets; the massacre at Ludlow, Colo
RADIO; the great struggle in the West
Virginia coal fields more than a de-
cade ago, it was Debs who took his
stand always for the workers and
called upon the whole working class
to fight with them. Even after 1913,
when the socialist party held itself
aloof and even denounced the strug-
gle in support Of workers lights, Debs
still maintained the same position and
supported every fight for the workers
or in defense of the victims OF the
class struggle. Thus Debs became a
member of the Labor Defense Council