CHAPTER V

"The capitalist class is now making its last stand in its history. It was intrusted with the government of the world. It is responsible for the prevailing chaos. The events of recent years have conclusively demonstrated that capitalism is bankrupt, and has become a dangerous impediment to progress and human welfare. The working class alone has the power to redeem and to save the world.... "It now becomes more than ever the immediate task of international Socialism to accelerate and organize the inevitable transfer of political and industrial power from the capitalist class to the workers. The workers must recognize the economic structure of human society by eliminating the institution of the private ownership of natural wealth and of the machinery of industry, the essence of the war-breeding system of international commercial rivalry. The workers of the world must recognize the economic structure of human society by making the natural wealth and the machinery of industry the collective property of all.... "The workers of Great Britain, France and Italy, the workers of the newly created nations, and the workers of the countries which remained neutral during the war, are all in a state of unprecedented unrest. In different ways and by different methods, either blindly impelled by the inexorable conditions which confront them, or clearly recognizing their revolutionary aims, they are abandoning their temporising programs of pre-war labor reform. They are determined to control the industries, which means control of the governments. "In the United States capitalism has emerged from the war more reactionary and aggressive, more insolent and oppressive than it has ever been.... "But even in the United States the symptoms of a rebellious spirit in the ranks of the working masses are rapidly multiplying. Widespread and extensive strikes for better labor conditions, the demand of the 2,000,000 railway workers to control their industry, sporadic formation of labor parties, apparently, though not fundamentally, in opposition to the political parties of the possessing class, are promising indications of a definite tendency on the part of American labor to break away from its reactionary and futile leadership and to join in the great emancipating movement of the more advanced revolutionary workers of the world. "Recognizing this crucial situation at home and abroad, the Socialist Party in the United States at its first national convention after the war, squarely takes its position with the uncompromising section of the international Socialist movement. We unreservedly reject the policy of those Socialists who supported their belligerent capitalist governments on the plea of 'national defense,' and who entered into demoralizing compacts for so-called civil peace with the exploiters of labor during the war and continued a political alliance with them after the war. "We, the organized Socialists of America, declare our solidarity with the revolutionary workers of Russia in the support of the government of their Soviets, with the radical Socialists of Germany, Austria and Hungary in their efforts to establish working class rule in their countries, and with those Socialist organizations in England, France, Italy and other countries, who, during the war as after the war, have remained true to the principles of uncompromising international Socialism.... "The great purpose of the Socialist Party is to wrest the industries and the control of the government of the United States from the capitalists and their retainers. It is our purpose to place industry and government in the control of the workers with hand and brain, to be administered for the benefit of the whole community. "To insure the triumph of Socialism in the United States the bulk of the American workers must be strongly organized politically as Socialists, in constant, clear-cut and aggressive opposition to all parties of the possessing class. They must be strongly organized in the economic field on broad industrial lines, as one powerful and harmonious class organization, cooperating with the Socialist Party, and ready in cases of emergency to reinforce the political demands of the working class by industrial action. "To win the American workers from their ineffective and demoralizing leadership, to educate them to an enlightened understanding of their own class interests, and to train and assist them to organize politically and industrially on class lines, in order to effect their emancipation, that is the supreme task confronting the Socialist Party of America. "To this great task, without deviation or compromise, we pledge all our energies and resources. For its accomplishment we call for the support and co-operation of the workers of America and of all other persons desirous of ending the insane rule of capitalism before it has had the opportunity to precipitate humanity into another cataclysm of blood and ruin. "Long live the International Socialist Revolution, the only hope of the suffering world!"