The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-10-20


Deos crossed swords with the S. P. leaders
when they advocated the A F. of L. policy
| of excluding immigrants. In letter to
delegate of the 1910 convention, which adopted
a resolution dealing with immigration, he
wrote: 81 have just read the majority report
of the committee on immigration. 1t is utterly
unsocialistic, reactionary and in truth out
rageous, and I hope you will oppose it with
all your power. The idea that certain races
are to be excluded because of tactical expedi-
ency would be entirely consistent in a bour-
geois convention of self-seekers but should
have no place in proletarian gathering under
the auspices of an international movement that
is calling on the oppressed and exploited work.
ers of all the world to unite for their eman-
cipation,"
To Debs such stand favoring the exclusion
of workers from other countries meant forsak-
ing the principle of international solidarity
and he called upon the members "to stand
squarely on revolutionary working class
principles and make our fight openly and
compromisingly against all our enemies, adopt
ing no cowardly tactics and holding out no
false hopes"
At the time of the Left-Wing split from
the S. P, Debs was in prison. Only partial
information could reach him regarding the
political controversy in the party which pre-
ceeded this split. While Debs was bound by
many ties to the socialist party, he did not
fully agree with its leadership. During the
1919 convention the remaining Left-Wing ele-
ments succeeded under pressure of the split
in forcing a resolution which would insure
Debs the nomination for the presidency at
the 1920 convention, where the question of
candidates was to be dealt with The leaders
did not wish to have Debs, who was then in
prison, nominated as candidate. They feared
that the size of the vote might be affected
and did not want to flaunt before the country
a presidential candidate who was in prison.
When he finally nominated in 1920 and
a committee consisting of Steadman, Oneal
and others was sent to visit him in prison to
notify him officially of the nomination. he
surprised the committee with a devastating
criticism of the party.
Regarding the platform adopted at the
vention which nominated him, he said 81
wish I might say that it had my unqualified
approval" modifying it by saying that plat
forms are not so important, as Eve can breathe
the breath of revolution into any platform"
He emphasized, however, that socialist plat
forms are not made to catch votes" and that
"1Ce IN politics not to get Uotes but to de-
UeLop poaUer to endncipate the Dorking class.
Qtalics mine.-A.T) 1t was also significant
that that occasion he expressed regret "that
affiliate with the Third International without
qualifications" Debs, therefore, allied him
self with the third of the delegates of the
1920 convention which favored the acceptance
of the twenty-one points of admission to the
Communist International and was opposed to
Hilquit's fake proposal for utilization with
reservations. To the SIP. leaders who were
present he addressed himself point blank with
the following rebuke: "There is q tendency
II, the party to become party of politicians,
instead of party of the Dorkers." Qtalics
mine.-A.T)
Removed from the outside world by his in
generation, Debs, perhaps, could not see suf-
ficiently that this was no longer tendency,
but fact. The process of degeneration, be-
ginning with the struggle against the left
wing, was fast being completed and Debs, hav-
ing recognized that the S. P. was becoming "a
party of politicians instead of party of work
ers' should have definitely broken with the
politicians and Joined with the revolutionary
workers who left or were leaving the S. P.
in large numbers. Although in prison, Debs
should have put himself at the head of the
militant elements who were deserving the re-
formist party and were being organized under
the leadership of the Communist International,
instead of allowing the opportunities of his
friends to convince him to reserve final judy
ment until he was released. Debs knew enough
about the party to realize that it no longer
was the party he had visioned in 1908: a
"class-conscious, revolutionary, socialist party
which is pledged to abolish the capitalist sys-
tenn, class rule and wage slavery, party
which does not compromise or fuse, but, pre-
serving inviolate the principles which quick
ened it into life and now give it vitality and
force, moves forward with dauntless determin-
alton to the goal of economic freedom"
Debs Fails to Draw Proper Conclusions
Debs made the mistake which many others
have made. At the beginning of the Third In
ternational some revolutionary leaders en-
phasized the principle of unity more than the
unity of principle. "About the time we get in
shape to do something" Debs wrote then, 1--WE
have to split up and waste our energy in fac
tional strife. We preach unity everlastingly,
but we ourselves keep splitting apart"
Debs failed to understand that what was
then taking place was the separation of the
wheat from the chaff the freeing of the rev.
dictionary elements of the party from the very
politicians which he himself in the party
leadership. The fractional strife" which he de-
precated nothing but the hammering out
of clear-cut policy based on revolutionary
Marxism which the party had polluted with all
sorts of reformst nostrums. The class struggle
was carried from the shops right into the
party and the division which followed was
based on class lines. Later history proved that
to the hilt.
Unlike Lenn on an international scale, Karl
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg in Germany,
and Ruthenberg in this country who not only