Opinion ID: 1481640
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Advocacy of Violence and of Insubordination.

Text: Under this point, appellants treat separately the advocacy of violence to overthrow the Government and the advising, etc., insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny or refusal of duty in the armed forces. This is a convenient method of presentation and will be followed in our examination and determination. Advocacy of Violence to Overthrow the Government. We adopt, in part, appellants' definition as to overthrow of the Government, which is that The overthrow or destruction of a state consists essentially in abolishing its forms and institutions  . Whether the remainder of the definitionand substituting other institutions in their placeis valid, we need not inquire since our interest here is only in the overthrow of the existing Government of the United States. That such a drastic, complete change in the present form of Government in the United States was advocated as would inevitably result in abolishing that present form is beyond dispute in this evidence. But the Act is not intended to prevent changes in our Government but to prevent such changes being brought about in a particular mannerby violence. The Constitution expressly recognizes that changes might be desired by the people in the form and substance of the government which it prescribed and it defined a clear, workable, orderly method for making any changes the people might ever deem necessary or desirable. [4] An individual or organization may advocate any changes whatsoever in the present governmentno matter how drastic or how completeso long as the changes are to be brought about in the orderly manner provided. It is only when the change is to be brought about by violence that the Act reaches out its restraining hand. Therefore, the question here is not the fact of change or the character of change advocated by appellants but whether they propose to accomplish those changes by violence. The purposes and methods of appellants centered in their activities in connection with the Socialist Workers Party. Therefore, the purposes and particularly the methods of accomplishment of such purposes are most important. In 1937, various individuals were expelled from the Socialist Party because of their revolutionary left wingbeliefs. These persons held a convention (December 31, 1937 to January 3, 1938) at which the Socialist Workers Party was organized. This convention issued a Declaration of Principles and adopted a Constitution. Thus a party organization was set up and party activities proceeded. The Declaration of Principles is an application of the Marxian theories and doctrines, his whole system of ideas, to the social problem in America (R. 940). To understand whether that document itself advocated the use of force to overthrow the Government in order to accomplish its purposes, it is necessary to outline some of those purposes. The Declaration states that the present social situation in the United States is that of a capitalistic society; that such society is based on private ownership of property; that a small minority owns the vast amount of basic productive property; that this minority exploit the majority; that the State is simply an organization to protect and aid this minority in perpetuating themselves and in their exploitations; that this situation can be corrected only by a social revolution; that such revolution means a political and economic transformation fundamentally affecting the property system and methods of production; that such revolution will necessitate expropriation, without compensation, of the property held by this minority and its operation by the proposed new proletarian government; that it is necessary to take complete political power; that, to accomplish these things, the exploited classes need leadership; and that the Party is formed to supply the leadership. The Declaration sets forth the program of action to effectuate this overthrow of the existing capitalistic society and the Government which supports it. The first step is to build up the strength of the party so that it can have a majority of the exploited classes back of its leadership. The final step is to overthrow the existing Government by force. The statements now to be quoted from the Declaration leave no doubt that the final means are to be force and not orderly change. The belief that in such a country as the United States we live in a free, democratic society in which fundamental economic change can be effected by persuasion, by education, by legal and purely parliamentary methods is an illusion (R. 1182). The fundamental instruments of the workers' struggle for power cannot be the existing institutions of the governmental apparatus, since these represent basically the interests only of the capitalistic minority (R. 1183). Whenever the revolutionists find themselves in a Labor Party, they will stand at each stage for those concrete policies and actions which sum up a progressive and class perspective; for complete breaks with the capitalist parties and no support of candidates on capitalist tickets; for direct mass actions and avoidance of limitation to parliamentary activities; for full internal democracy; for support and defense of concrete working class rights against their invasion from any source, including invasions from candidates of the Labor Party itself; etc. (R. 1199, italics added). While relying primarily on mass actions, propaganda and agitation as the means for furthering its revolutionary aim, the Party will also participate in electoral campaigns, though at all times contending against the fatal illusion that the masses can accomplish their emancipation through the ballot box  (R. 1200, italics added). That the final use of force to overthrow the Government was the method of the Party is further shown by expressions in the official publications of the Party, by its leaders, officers, organizers, speakers, lecturers and writers, and by the privately expressed statements of such. [5] The Party opposed Stalin (R. 932-4, 1196, 1266, 1272), supported Trotsky and adopted and supported the Trotsky program from the beginning of the Party (R. 944-5). After Trotsky arrived in Mexico (January, 1937) various leaders of the Party conferred with him there as to policies and actions. In the Spring of 1938 and thereafter, the matter of the use of Defense Guards was discussed with him (R. 288, 946-7). He either originated or endorsed the idea of such bodies (R. 286-7, 546, 569, 606, 686, 742-3, 949-50). The Guards were to be organizations which Party members would foster within labor unions to use force in protection of the unions. They were to grow into a militia and finally into the Red Army (R. 286-9, 415, 491, 546, 606, 716, 968-9, 1085-6). Such a Defense Guard was organized in the Teamsters' Local No. 544 at Minneapolis in July or August, 1938 (R. 1044) or in the Fall of 1938 (R. 1014, 1102). This record leaves no doubt that force was the ultimate means to be used by the Party in the overthrow of the Government by the proletariat. Also, the record is substantial that a plan of organizing this force through the development of Defense Guards was employed. Insubordination in the Armed Forces. The record here contains substantial evidence of the purpose to create insubordination in the armed forces by propaganda therein. Some of the evidence to this effect is found at the pages of the record following: 265, 277-8, 280, 343, 344, 361, 458, 494, 515, 523, 548, 565, 589, 616, 621, 685, 688, 708, 709, 712-13, 741, 742, 802, 806, 817, 915-22, 974-5, 981-1003, 1063, 1084, 1085-6, 1112, 1126, 1127, 1128.