Page:The Red Dawn (George).pdf/10

8 opportunists favoring reforms beneficial to both the peasantry and City Workers—such as tax reductions, and confiscations of uncultivated land—were called "Minimalists," having stood for a program of "immediately obtainable," minimum demands. The counterpart in the American Socialist Party is that group of agrarian reformers led by A. M. Simons. In fact, in their desire to catch farmer votes, the American Socialist Party avoids the communal land ideas and only hauls out its revolutionary argument to refute an attack upon their theories. They have programs for the individual farm owner and renter—land loans and what not—but nothing, absolutely nothing, for the millions of farm laborers,—the migratory proletariat.

The other wing of the Russian party of S. R.,—the "Maximalists,"—did not favor the wasting of revolutionary energy of the masses on any minimum demands; their argument, "The whole social revolution is the goal, it is attainable, and moreover, fighting for it NOW and all the time, brings more reforms in the wake of the fight to the masses than the compromising "Minimalists" ever can do."

In regard to "terrorism" as a tactic, both factions have been for its use, the Minimalists later, after 1906, modifying their stand in this respect.

In America, because of the individualistic mind of the farmer, who, while mortgaged and robber-ridden by large financial and industrial interests, still foolishly imagines he owns the farm, the Socialist Party contains no counterpart of the Russian Maximalist faction of the S. R.

The Social Democratic Labor Party of Russia, the last in our study, was a so-called "Marxian," both in its theories anland [sic] party tactics, in its program, traditions and membership the party of the Russian industrial proletariat per se. Accordingly, its main