The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-10-26
By KARL RADEK

Upton SINCLAIR, who recently
" received the Democratic nomi-
nation for Governor of California,
conducts his campaign under the
modest slogan END Poverty in Cali
fornia." Among large elements OF
the American petty bourgeoisie and
backward workers this campaign is
arousing enormous interest. It is
indeed significant not only OF the
fate of the most popular American
writer, but as a symptom of the
ferment amid the petty-bourgeois
masses Of the United States -
symptom of their utter lack of I'M
derstanding whittier to go.
Upton Sinclair is well known to
Russian workers. Ever since the
appearance Of his first book, The
Jungle, published, believe, in 1906,
Russian workers have followed with
the greatest interest all of Sinclair's
novels and pamphlets. In them they
found a vivid picture of the rule of
monopoly capital in America, a pic
ture Of inhuman exploitation of the
masses Of the people, of corruption
Of public officials, of arbitrary con-
troll Of the moneyed interests, COM
pletely disregarding the laws Of the
Constitution, and of the venality of
the press and the church.
For this reason Sinclair's books
were revolutionary They showed
to the Russian workers, even in the
period of the bourgeois democratic
revolution, the inadequacy of
bourgeois democratic revolution and
the necessity of going further-to
socialist revolution. His novel,
Jimmie Higgins, describing the fate
of an American worker who had
believed in the democratic aims of
the war until he found himself in
the American expeditionary force
at Archangel, when he realized the
true character of the war, was one
of the first books to show the So
Wet proletariat how this army, the
army of working class solidarity,
was being forged.
Singer of the Exploited
Russian workers liked Sinclair
the singer of the exploited and the
exposer of the brutality of the
bourgeoisie. They liked him in
spite of the fact that his novels
possessed no great literary value.
Indeed his characters always
seemed somewhat primitive, over
simplified Nevertheless the Rus
sian workers liked Sinclair, fully
aware though they were of all the
shortcomings in his theology. De-
plotting bourgeois violence in his
books, Sinclair himself, however,
always preached against violence,
trying to persuade the workers that
their emancipation could be
achieved through the instruments
of democracy.
Sinclair had been a Socialist all
his life, and member of the So
cialist Party. Since the war he has
been sympathetic to the Soviet
Union, frequently expressing great
admiration for the achievements of
the Five-Year Plan. In doing so,
however, he never missed an OPP
portunity to emphasize that in
Russia it was perhaps necessary to
abolish bourgeois democracy in Or
der to achieve the requisite condi-
tons for building socialism, but
that in the United States it was
unnecessary.
Joins Democratic Party
So now, Sinclair, the exposer of
both parties of the American bour-
geoisie, is candidate for Governor
under the emblem of the Demo-
cratic Party. A justification of his
detection from the Socialist Party
is contained in his campaign pam
phlet II, Governor of California"
In this pamphlet Sinclair processes
to believe that under the pressure
of mass discomfort the Democratic
Party, originally the party of slave
owners and subsequently one of the
parties of American capitalism,
would become the party which
would free the masses of the people
from poverty and restitution.
Sinclair's action has evoked
strong protests from his former
party comrades. His decision, how
ever, merely expresses the obvious
fact that the Socialist Party, hav-
ing renowned revolution, is sepa-
rated from the bourgeois Demo-
cratic Party by no serious differ
enceS.
Hence if circumstances compel