Thus at the Emergency Convention of August-September, 1919, the Socialist Party of America was tied to the will of the Russian Bolshevists and the German Spartacides, who held the powers of approval and veto in deciding what internationals the members of the Socialist Party of America might associate with! A more anomalous product of the double-faced generalship of Berger and Hillquit it would be hard to imagine.
But this is not all. The Moscow Manifesto of March, 1919, was before the Emergency Convention. This Russian Communistic Manifesto is addressed "To the proletariat of all countries" (see Chapter IV) and reads: "We Communists, representatives of the revolutionary proletariat of the different countries of Europe, America and Asia, assembled in Soviet Moscow." Would the Socialist Party of America accept its inclusion among those in "America" thus designated, or refuse? The committee which considered the matter split, bringing in majority and minority reports. The majority report, favored by Berger, considered the Third International as not yet constituted, thus hanging the Socialist Party of America in the air, without fellowship with Moscow, Berne or any other thing--a trapeze performance truly Bergeresque. The minority report, voted for even by a third of the machine delegates in the Emergency Convention, favored affiliation with the associates of the Moscow Conference as constituting the Third International. It was decided to submit both reports to a referendum vote of the party, which should have been taken in January or February, 1920, if the requirements of the party Constitution were followed.