The Bolshevist Socialists of Russia and the two new parties of Socialists that at Chicago in September, 1919, seceded from the mother party, have all adopted the name, "Communist," which "The Call," New York, July 24, 1919, informs us was used by Marx and Engels, the founders of modern Socialism, adding that though the name is somewhat confusing, inasmuch as the word has another and a distinct meaning in English, still, "wherever it is used it means revolutionary Socialists as distinguished from Social patriots and mere parliamentary Socialists." Is this definition an alibi for Hillquit and Berger?
Many persons have hastily assumed that the main reason why the Left and Right Wings of the Socialists fought each other like cats and dogs was that the Right Wing members of the party are opposed to Bolshevism. This is nonsense. The Socialist papers of the country, Right and Left, with the possible exception of the once powerful "Appeal to Reason," which in recent years has fallen into great discredit among Socialists because it favored our entrance into the World War--have been and still are advocating Bolshevism every day. If anyone has any doubt, let him read any of the rebel sheets.
The Socialist Party of St. Louis, in its appeal for party unity, published in "The Call," July 19, 1919, informs us that the Socialist Party is whole-heartedly with the Russian Bolshevists and their cause: