Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 7:35am

Socialism 1912, Socialism 2020

By sheer happenstance, your author came upon the October 1912 volume of The International Socialist Review  [101 pages; “ISR 1912;” “Price 10 cents”]. This edition is freely available today at several web sites, including Marxists.org and International Socialist Review; e.g.:

https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v13n04-oct-1912-ISR-gog-ocr.pdf.

This article is not so much a summary of or a description of the contents of that edition of the ISR as it is an invitation to read it and post observations and comments below.

It is suggested that this 1912 journal be read with these things in mind:  current positions of the Democratic Party, its 2020 platform, the publicly-stated positions of its self-avowed “democrat socialist” members, and the clear echoes of the 1912 agenda in the words of perhaps soon-to-be President Harris and her running mate.

With that intro, what follows are some unrelated thoughts and disjointed impressions of the uncanny similarities between the socialists of over a century ago and those who invoke socialism as a cover to tyrannize us today. The thoughts expressed below are random and meant as a prelude to the insights of readers. 

No “USA, USA, USA” Chants

For the socialist rallies, meetings, convocations, and public appearances described in the ISR, there was no mention of group recitation of the Pledge Of Allegiance, of the singing of The Star Spangled Banner, or of any program-opening prayer to God Our Almighty Father or any other god. There was included [on page 373] after the introductory word, “Comrades” – in the description of one appearance of the socialist presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs – the following:

“The great auditorium rapidly filled up and when that faithful servant of labor was escorted to the platform to strains of the familiar “Marseillaise,“ 700 people arose to greet him.”

In 1912, the “La Marseillaise” was the anthem of the international socialist revolutionary movement. It appears they were unaware of songs like “The Battle Hymn Of the Republic.”

Socialist World – New Order

The Socialist Party in 1912 viewed itself not as an American political party, but as a world party, an international party. Its logo appears several times in the ISR 1912. It includes a depiction of a world map which is not focused on North America and which includes the words, “Workers of the World Unite.”

The primary address for a member of the party is not ‘Citizen,” or “American,” but “Comrade.” There is, e.g.,  Comrade Allen, Palmer,  Mass.; Comrade John Sourr, England;  Comrade Diebold, Illinois; Comrade Butler of Eureka, California; Comrade Reynolds of Kansas; Comrade Brenholtz of Texas;  and Comrade Spillman of Melbourne, Australia.  Debs himself is the “greatly beloved Comrade of old.” (page 351).

These Socialists make it clear that they care about the entire planet, the whole world; and that their goal is power over the entire world via their solving of  major problems (which they have realized exist)  worldwide. There is no hint in these pages that America is a special place, an exceptional nation in any way, or that America is first in anything, except capitalistic evil.

Eugene V. Debs, Socialist Party nominee for President of the Untied States, made this clear in his acceptance speech in 1912 which is reproduced in full in the ISR:

“ . . .the prophetic battle-cry of Karl Marx, the world’s greatest labor leader, the  inspired evangel of working-class emancipation, ‘Workers of all countries, unite!’ . . .And now, behold! The international Socialist movement spreads out over all the nations of the earth.. . Hail to this great party of the toiling millions whose battle-cry is heard around the world . . . Social reorganization is the imperative demand of this world-wide revolutionary movement.” (ISR, page 305).

No God, Deities Zilch, Zero, Nada

But for a lengthy attack on a catholic bishop in Montana (pages 321-326) and his understanding of socialism in contradistinction to catholic teaching, there is almost no mention of God, in any form, in this edition of the ISR, nor is there, in any of the reporting of current events, any reference to God in any way.

The Debs acceptance speech cited above runs to four pages of fine print. It never quotes our unofficial (at the time) national motto, “In God We Trust.   The speech mentions no god, let alone the Judeao-Christian Deity of our Declaration of Independence or the “Lord” referred to at the end of the U.S. Constitution.  His speech does refer to his party as merely a creature resulting from the “process of evolution,” as if this is a good thing.

Socialists Recognize America’s ‘Systemic’ Problem 

Throughout the ISR 1912, the systemic nature of the problem the Socialists have recognized is repeated, as are references to their intelligence, wisdom, and compassion in offering to destroy the evil system on behalf of the workers of the world.

The system that is systemically defective is referred to as: “this monstrous system;” “the prevailing system of capitalism;” “system that is brutalizing the working class;” and “the system by which the capitalists daily rob us.’”

The “system” that must be annihilated is a system in total control of America: “The economic and political control of the Untied States is definitely in the hands of System Number One.” (page 334). In its place, the liberating socialists will put  in total control . . .  wait for it . . .not themselves . . .The Workers!

Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge – Only Temporarily, Worker-Rulers  To Remain As Lowly ‘Rank &  File’

“The Workers,” apparently, will not immediately be in total control of America and of the entire world. The ISR 1912 refers to what must be merely a short interim pre-paradise period in which there will be some leaders and some non-leaders (the “rank and file of the comrades”). The needed response to worker exploitation is stated as: “ . . .  the answer is: Socialist agitation and competent leadership.” There is no recognition of the irony of juxtaposing the goal of a workers’ utopia ruled by “The Workers” and the need for these same worker-rulers to be led.

In 1912 it must have been inconceivable that any worker would ever in the future be a kulak, a peasant, a prisoner, or revel in the luxuries and goodness of a gulag. This would be impossible so long as the leaders of the “National Committee” – as stated in the Editorial for the ISR 1912 – stayed “in close touch with the rank and file.” (page 364).

Revolution

Then, as now, the International Socialist Party had no interest in reforming the systemically-infected system or improving it. The first page of this edition of the ISR refers to its “propaganda” which explains and promotes the “true revolutionary attitude of the working class,” and the “true basis of the revolutionary movement.” It was no accident that the party called itself “international” and not “national.” Its aim was to rid the earth of systemic American evil via its “revolution,” and to replace it with the “Socialist Republic” referred to in a book review (page 392).

Then as now, the primary goal of the International Socialist Party was total power over America and the utter destruction of American societal and political systems. In Debs’s words:

“It is to abolish this monstrous system and the misery and crime which flow from it in a direful and threatening stream that the Socialist party was organized and now makes its appeal to the intelligence and conscience of the people. Social reorganization is the imperative demand of this world-wide revolutionary movement. . . .The Socialist party’s mission is not only to destroy capitalist despotism but to establish industrial and social democracy.” (ISR, page 307).

And in the words of the Party’s 1912 platform:

“Such measures of relief as we may be able to force from capitalism are but a preparation of the workers to seize the whole powers of government, in order that they may thereby lay hold of the whole system of socialized industry and thus come to their rightful inheritance.” (Page 363).

Division – Path & Program To Power

Us – good, we will win.

Them – bad, they will lose.

On page after page, in speeches, editorial comment and articles, the ISR 1912 asserts the Socialist tactic of “divide and take power.” Not only “divide and conquer,” but define a group who can be used as tontos utiles, useful idiots, to gain power and pit these frontline pawns against their supposed “rulers.”

Debs’s speech reverberates throughout with this divide/power tactic, e.g. when he states:

“ The world’s workers have always been and still are the world’s slaves . . .. . .society was divided into two classes – capitalists and workers; exploiters and producers: (page 304) . . .capitalist class rule and working class slavery” (page 306)

American “work slaves” are ruled by a “master class” (ISR 1912, page 325); the work slaves are in a “class war” with their rulers (page 328): and “The chasm between worker and capitalist will not diminish but enlarge.” (Page363). 

How’s That Workin’ Out For Ya ? 

Since 1912, all over the world, the socialists have used the atheistic tactics recounted in the ISR to take power and then rule a country. No other indictment of socialism is needed other than to list, by country, the failed socialist regimes which have accounted for the tortures and deaths of hundreds of millions of  the “work slaves,” the “proletariat,” and the “rank and file.” For example:

Socialist Russia(Bolshevik-Marxism-Leninism) ; Germany (National Socialism-Nazi);, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Communist China (Maoism); East Germany, Cambodia, Albania, Angola, Romania, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Viet Nam.

The Russian Bastille

How ironic it is that this 1912 edition of the International Socialist Review was produced only five years before the 1917 revolution that began the barbaric tyranny of the Russian Socialists. In the ISR 1912, in a section entitled “World’s Revolutions,” there is an advertisement for a book about a Czarist Russian prison, “The Russian Bastile [sic],” By Simon Pollock. The prison was the infamous Schlusselburg Fortress in which political prisoners were  incarcerated, tortured, and executed. In a previous ISR article, Pollock said this:

“Such is the brief story of the Bastille. We have omitted many of its shocking details. They are beyond the imagination of those who have not lived through them. Let us hope that the Russian revolution, unhampered by renewed oppression, will ultimately triumph over Czarism and make the repetition of such a story impossible forever.”  [from the article “The Russian Bastille,: by Simon Pollock, in ISR Volu VII March 1, 1907,https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v07n09-mar-1907-ISR-gog-Harv.pdf].

As it turned out, and as was no surprise to anyone who knew about the true nature of socialism, the Soviet Lubyanka KGB prison, the numerous prisons all over Socialist Russia, and the gulags which were ‘home’ to over 18,000,000 Russians, made the Czar’s “Russian Bastille,” criticized, castigated, and condemned by the Russian socialist revolutionaries  look like a  5-star all-inclusive luxury resort.

Conclusion

Many other things recounted in the ISR of 1912 are strikingly accurate descriptions of the principles, strategies, goals and actions  of today’s American democrat socialists, domestic terrorist groups, and marxist organizations with global networks.

China

In a chilling prophecy about the future of China-and as it actually then ensued after the Communist Chinese Maoist revolution- Dr. Sun Yat Sen said this about the Chinese revolution of the early twentieth century:

“I am frequently asked whether such a revolution will require the use of military force. I answer yes, for England and America; no for China. . . .If at the outset of the career of our Chinese Republic, we do not take thought to defend ourselves against the establishment of capitalism, then in the very near future a new despotism, a hundred times more terrible than that of the Manchu dynasty, awaits us, and rivers of blood will be required for our deliverance.” (page 340).

Babies

In an article entitled “The Truth about the Babies,” the author seems to presage today’s democrat socialists’ efforts to sexualize children at an early age. She says:

“We must give access to the truth that sexual life is pure and beautiful, if not defiled by morbid and vile considerations. In extreme youth it awakens the poetry of life, the worshipping of the ideal ; in riper years it evaluates into the expression of spiritual harmony and happiness. To free ourselves from prejudices we must plunge into the great mystery of nature. (Page 354)

However, one statement of this author is, today, socialist heresy. She refers to the “human being in the uterus,” (page 357).

Cancel the Military

Unbelievably, especially in light of the subsequent history of every socialist tyranny worldwide, in an “International Notes” section, the ISR of 1912 says that socialists oppose national military organizations for national defense:

“The working class does not by any means stand committed to any plan of national defense . . . The working class has reason enough to set itself against any and all military schemes.” (page 366).

This article then proceeds to express the fear that a national military – whose ostensible purpose is to fend off foreign aggression – would be used to quash internal “insurrection.”

Such reasoning is current today in the “defund the police” sham. History reveals the socialists’ hypocrisy. Every tyrannical socialist regime has had the largest military it could muster and, in addition, an army of secret police whose major purpose was/is to to destroy any insurrection.

Finally, due to the fact that this edition of the ISR was published 1912, there should be no confusion of your present author with one “Guy McClung” who wrote the article “The Simplicity of Socialism” (page 331).

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Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2020 5:55pm

What gets you about so many expressed passions (hatreds, really) is how little relevance they have to actual problems or even to discernible phenomena of any description. The other thing which gets you is that putatively educated people are more likely to be off in some weird orbit than is Joe Blow off the sidewalks of Akron. What Kurt Schlicter said – that every tool in the Democrats’ rhetorical kit is a lie – is close to being precisely accurate.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2020 7:50pm

Credentialed, not educated.

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