Page:Raymond Augustine McGowan - Bolshevism in Russia and America (1920).pdf/36

 36 cialist society of Russia. The minority report was adopted by the party, but since the affiliation is made with those reservations, the Socialist Party cannot, in justice, be called Communist. It has joined Bolshevik company, but not as a Bolshevik.

If all four organizations—the Socialist Labor Party with its 3,000 members, the I. W. W. with its 70,000, and the two Communist parties with their 50,000 or 60,000 members, are lumped together as Bolshevik in theory and unanimously Bolshevik in membership, then we had 120,000 or 130,000 Bolsheviki in this country last September. But all four were not completely Bolshevik in theory and membership, and so that number should be greatly diminished. How much it should be diminished can hardly be estimated. Since last September the probabilities are that the Comn1unist parties have declined, that the Socialist Labor Party has stood stationary, and that the I. W. W. has retained its somewhat mythical membership. The conclusion is that Bolshevism in this country is of insignificant proportions when one remembers that its grandiose aim is to seize the political power of the United States.

Bolshevism has lately been used very much as an epithet. Organizations and individuals of all varieties of radical and progressive thought and action have at one time or another during the past year found then1selves listed as Bolsheviki.

Even the united labor movement has been accused of Bolshevism. Still when it is recalled that collective bargaining and the strike are not Bolshevik, and that not one of the leaders is a Bolshevik, while only a very few are Socialists, the accusation is seen to be groundless. Others say that many of the rank and file of the labor movement are Bolsheviki, but this is only an assumption.