The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-06-09

the homogeneous family be as an in
strument against the working class in
defense of a capitalist class that has
been overthrow in a mighty revolu-
tionary upheaval?
Furthermore, is the homogeneous
family a detriment to the working
class? And do we want to abolish
it? Only enemies of the revolution
and of the working class charge us
with such aimsl The writer of the
attack against us complains that we
call such as he "triflers, poseurs, de-
cadents, or enemies Of the workers"
Such people are all this and more.
They are perverters Of the theory Of
the revolution, and their doctrines, if
accepted by the working class, would
only lead to the swamps Of anarchism,
where every person would consider his
own self-expression the most inn
portant thing in the world, and his
sex-life just as important as the con-
troll of industry by the working class.
l presume by this time the Modern
Quarterly" readers are damning me
as an incurable prude and monogram
list who could change places "seXually
with our old maid aunt or with the
deacon of the churzh and nobody
would notice the difference"
Let US read one of the "early so
cialist pronouncements on the family
and SEX" written by no less an au-
thority than Frederick Engels. On
page SO of his "Origin of the Fam
lily, Private Property and the State"
he declares:
"Since sex-love is exclusive by its
very nature-although this exclu-
siveness is at present realized for
women alone-marriag founded on
sex-love must be homogeneous.
Remove the economic consid-
erations that now force women to
submit to the customary disloyalty
of men. and you will place women
on an equal footing with men. All
present experiences prove that this
will tend much more strongly to
to make women polyandrous.
However, those peculiarities that
make men truly homogeneous, than
were stamped upon the face Of
monogamy by its rise through
property relations, will. decidedly
vanish, namely the supremacy Of
men and the indissolubility of mar
riage. The supremacy of man is
his economic superiority and will
fall with the abolition of the lat
ter"
1t is very easy for dilletanti and
sex-anarchist vulgarizers of Marxism
to refer glibly to "early socialist pro-
nouncements," but the facts reveal
them to be as ignorant of the facts Of
the history of the revolutionary move
ment as they are of the correct ap-
plication of revolutionary theory.
Perhaps Marx and Engels We're old
fogies! Perhaps Lenin was also a
puritan as he is sneered at by our
critic who from his self-constructed
promontory disdainfully refers to the
Russian complex of Leninism."
WHAT would our critic have the
W proletariat do to enable it to over
come capitalism on the sex field? He
does not openly advocate "free love"
but he chides US for suppressing or
discountenancing such ideas, so the
inevitable conclusion is that he pre-
fers that sort of sex-life.
He thinks the workers suffer from
sex-hunger and that the perverted
popular taste in matters of sex is the
result of repression of natural i'm
pulses" Emphasis is our critic's.)
Not only does the writer who so
bitterly assails us not understand the
theory of the revolution but he knows
nothing of the pastimes of the ma
jority Of the working class or he
would know that it is precisely sexual
excesses and not repression that most
seriously affect the workers. Again
we refer to Frederick Engels for the
! social background of this fact and to
prove that it is nothing new. Says
the brilliant co-worker of Karl Marx
on page 1913 of his Condition of the
Working Class in England in 1S44":
Next to intemperance in the en-
joyment of intoxicating liquor one
of the principal faults of the Eng
lish working men is sexual license.
But this, too, follows with a relent-
less logic, with inevitable necessity
out of the position of class left