The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-05-10
=" I h e r O a d :"

"THE ROAD" Red Star Press. New York
1881. S1.5O.
HERE is book, which, despite many painfully
- evident shortcomings, is trai-blazer THE
ROAD traces the course of a young worker
from So-called ordinary" existence to that of
class-conscious worker, member of the social
ist party (pre-war), left wfnger, and, finally,
Communist Party member in the underground
days just after the Palmer raids
The literary critics of the brass check variety
VIII not like this book. To a man they will take
it up gingerly, examine it at arms length. turn
up their noses and shout in chorus: "Propa-
ganda, not art!" And propaganda it is. Not
always subtle propaganda--H subtlety be an ele-
ment to be taken into consideration-but ALWAYS
propaganda for the oppressed masses and against
the oppressor class. But it is propaganda Of
fact documented like few novels have ever been.
1t is, actually, the first of its kind in the Eng
llsh language contemporary proletarian novel
that displays remarkable fidelity for revolu-
tionary, that is to say, scientific, principle
The scene of the book is laid in the average
American industrial town Of Jamesport Eu-
gene Young, the young worker whose life we
follow, comes in contact with local socialist
He borrows many books from him and gets a
class education from them Gle learns" of the
class struggle through books, it must be noted5
He joins the Jamesport local of the socialist
party and at about the same time meets his
love- Vera, through happy-and altogether too
elodramatic-accident. Life really begins for
both of them here with their common work in
the socialist local
Here Marlen introduces to us the pre-war brand
of the official American socialism, that haven
OF opportuniSts, political adventures, middle
class paciffsts, single-taXers and what not He
brings out, particularly the strong middle class
current that flowed through it and the parlia-
mentary illusions that affected some working
class elements in it. There are certain types
that one can recognize today, certain types that
by now have become social phenomena: Peter
son, the social patriot who leaves the Jamesport
local of the socialist party at the entrance of
the United States A!to the war; becomes police
agent and leads mobs against his former COM
rades Then there is Harris, the niddle-class
social-pacifist who states at meeting when the
Jamesport Right and Left finally split:
g.. if can't get socialism by lawful means
by the ballot don't want it at all. I'd rather
see capitalism go on forever"
Among all these Eugene and Vera are flung
They fall victims to the middle-class current
that flowed through the socialist party from its
fountain head the Berger Hillquit- Oneal- Spargo
leadership. On the night of the 1912 elections
they await the returns anxousy and are
bitterly disappointed that socialism is not voted
in The breaking down OF their parliamentary
illusions, the gathering spirit OF International
ism, the slow consolidation of the left wing the
painful cropping towards the Communist Party
all are graphically told. Sornewheres along the
way Ducasse, the old Comm,nsrd, tells the
deathless tale of the Paris Commune. -.
November q. 1871 A lightning lash that tore