The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-09-23

: lledG once HOIe Inc AIRY pOllCy IS-
garding participation in election
campaigns. This necessity springs
from the fact that there is still too
great skepticism and even opposi-
ton on the part of large sections of
our membership to participation in
parliamentary elections. The fact
that our membership is largely
foreign-born in composition is by no
means the complete explanation for
our shortcoming in election work.
Our language comrades in many in
/ stances participate intellectually
in the work, though by no means to
the extent that this work requires.
Skepticism Regarding Election Work.
! Skepticism affects larger circles
than cur foreign-born comrades. This
is due to the fact, on the one hand,
that our Party is weak, and on the
other that the Party has in the course
of the last few years recruited new
membership. 1t is not far-fetched to
say that one-half of our Party mem
bership since 1923 are new members.
New Membership.
These members have come in as
the result of our intensified trade
union work, our work in organizing
the unorganized, etc. They have been
drawn to our movement because of
disgust with the labor bureaucracy
and because they believe that our
Party has real program for rebuild
ing the trade unions and conducting
a militant struggle. Many of these
new members tend to look upon our
Party as an industrial party. The
+ collapse of the Socialist Party has
also tended to discredit parliamentary
work and prejudice these workers
against it. For that reason much of
the education that we have done on
the question of parliamentarism since
1919, and the lessons that our Party
has drawn from it, have not been ac-
| CURED by these new members.
Reinstatement of Policy toward
Parliamentarism.
A reinstatement of the fundamental
policy of the Party towards parlia-
mentarism therefore becomes urgently
necessary if we are to mobilize the
entire Party for more intense work
on the election campaign field Many
members accept our participation in
election campaigns as sort of neces-
sary evil. They are in favor of agita-
ton and education of the workers and
they regard the election campaign as
a means of reaching the masses, but
they do not like the idea of putting
up candidates and a program of Sim
mediate demands" and thus fall into
the error of what Lenin criticized as
"active abstentionism."
What is the Partys attitude toward
Parliamentarism?
Our Party is opposed to parliament
| Congress, Senate, etc. as a means
of Transforming the capitalist system
into Communism. Parliament and
bourgeois democracy, which it repre-
sents, are veil behind which is con-
cealed the bourgeois dictatorship. We
favor the proletarian dictatorship
based upon the system of soviets. We
recognize that the workers will be
compelled to utilize force in order to
overthrow the capitalist state How
ever, our Party as a revolutionary
party, in order to win the masses for
the proletarian dictatorship and for
the establishment of soviets, partici-
pates in all fields of struggle of the
workingclass: in the trade unions, CO.
operatives, and in the election field.
1t recognizes that participation in
election campaigns affords means
of rallying the workers to the ideas
of Communism and that the candi-
dates of the workers can, by utilizing
Congress itself, speak to larger
masses and to the most backward
masses (who believe in Congress) in
order to expose the dictatorship that
rules the country.
Differences with S. p.
1t is true that the Socialist Party
and other parties also engage in these
activities, but we differ from the So
cialist Party and reform parties gen
orally in that our participation in
these fields of activities are directed
toward mobilization of the workers
, ttilO PISPeiI VI bltSln IOI ONCI-
throwing the capitalist state and for
establishing the proletarian dictator
ship. The Socialist Parties and the
reform parties generally work within
the framework OF the capitalist sys-
tenn, accommodating themselves to it
and in the end serve to maintain the
capitalist system. The Socialist Party
wishes to change the capitalist sys-
tenn by peaceful means. They do not.
recognize that the financial oligarchy
which rules America will not give way
to the workingclass without the
severest struggle struggle which
will compel the workingclass to re-
sort to all their strength and to open
combat in order to defeat the i'm
perialists and the counter-revolution
Because of these peaceful reformist
illusions the Socialist Party in the
day to day struggles does not arouse
the workingclass, does not build up
it's morale, does not unite it and does
not prepare it as a real fighting body