Page:Raymond Augustine McGowan - Bolshevism in Russia and America (1920).pdf/37

 Rh The Communist parties would like very much, of course, to get control of the rank and file of the A. F. L. and the whole labor movement, but they have been far from successful.

That many of the people of this country are deeply discontented with Capitalism goes without saying. That many more are opposed to certain of the effects of Capitalism is also true. But Bolshevism is not only opposition to Capitalism, nor only opposition to some of the effects of Capitalism. Bolshevism is revolutionary Socialism. The Bolshevik is opposed to the effects of Capitalism and to Capitalism itself. More than that, he is opposed to private ownership in the means of production and distribution, and not merely to the particular type of private ownership called Capitalism. He holds, too, that the means of production and distribution should be owned and controlled by a new kind of industrial State. But above all, for so far a Socialist might go, he declares that the first step towards the new society is necessarily the seizure of political power by the militant section of the propertyless.

It is to be expected that there are many organizations and individuals in the United States who, without being Bolsheviki, hold that changes of various kinds by various methods should be made in Capitalism. The labor movement has many angles; Bolshevism is only one of its angles.

The official political policy of the American Federation of Labor during the coming political campaign is "to reward its friends and punish its enemies" by swinging the labor vote at the polls to one or other of the candidates of the two major parties. Its political policy is the reflection of economic collective bargaining; it is