Page:Raymond Augustine McGowan - Bolshevism in Russia and America (1920).pdf/32

 32 for the overthrow of Capitalist rule and the conquest of political power by the workers. The workers, organized as the ruling class, shall through their government make and enforce the laws; they shall own and control land, factories, mills, mines, transportation systems and financial institutions." It declares its adherence "to the principles laid down by the Third International formed at Moscow." The programme states that the only demand of its platform is "the establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat." "The class struggle is essentially a political struggle, that is, a struggle by the proletariat to conquer the Capitalist state … and to replace it by a governmental structure adapted to the Communist transformation." "The Party shall propagandize industrial unionism and industrial union organization, pointing out their revolutionary nature and possibilities," and "shall make the great industrial battles in its major campaigns to show the value of the strike as a political weapon."

When the Communist Party was formed, its secretary said that it had approximately 58,000 members. The secretary of the Communist Labor Party, however, basing his estimate on the dues stamp sales of the preceding six months, said that the Communist Party was composed of about 25,000 Slavs and 3,000 Americans. When the Slavic Federation was suspended from the Socialist Party, three months before the formation of the Communist Party, it was reported to have had between 25,000 and 30,000 members. Since the Michigan group was very small, perhaps 30,000 or 35,000 is a fair stimate of the number affiliated with the Communist Party last September.