Page:Raymond Augustine McGowan - Bolshevism in Russia and America (1920).pdf/30

 30 the more revolutionary section of the party were turning away from political reformism and thus were dissatisfied over the official position of the party.

The collapse of International Socialism in 1914 inclined many towards the belief that the Socialist policy of trying to usher in the revolution through political success at a national election was not the best way of going about the matter. The war experience taught others that economic reforms if engineered by the State, would merely strengthen the State, the bureaucracy and capitalism, and bring society no closer to the coöperative commonwealth. Then the Soviet Revolution came, and it clinched that conviction in the minds of many.

During the latter part of 1918 and the first half of 1919, intense propaganda was carried on within the ranks of the Socialist Party to capture it for the Bolshevik tactics. But with the expulsion from the party of the Slavic Federation and the Michigan State Branch in May, 1919, many of the American Bolsheviki decided to form a separate Communist, or Bolshevik, Party. Others of them, still hoping to capture the Socialist Party, waited for the Socialist Emergency Convention to meet in August.

The Socialist Convention opened in Chicago on August 30, 1919. Many of the "Left Wingers" were refused credentials, and they and other Left Wingers," who had retired from the Socialist Convention, met on August 31st and formed a Communist Labor Party. The next day the Slavic Federation and the Michigan State Branch, with a few others, formed their Communist Party.

Attempts at uniting the two Communist parties have met with failure. They have remained separate organizations though they stand for identical doctrines. Both have issued Bolshevik manifestos and programs. Both adhere completely to the Communist International of Moscow.