a
Right, and since the European classification would not be fully
reproduced without a Center, they also were bound to locate a
center in the Socialist movement of America.[D] What matters it to
our imaginative Left Wing leaders that the Socialist Party of
America as a whole has stood in the forefront of Socialist
radicalism ever since the outbreak of the war, that many of its
officers and leaders have exposed their lives and liberties to
imminent peril in defense of the principles of international
Socialism, they are Right Wingers and Centrists because the
exigencies of the Left Wing require it. The Left Wing movement is a
sort of burlesque on the Russian revolution. Its leaders do not
want to convert their Comrades in the party. They must capture and
establish a sort of dictatorship of the proletariat(?) within the
party. Hence the creation of their dual organization as a kind of
Soviet, and their refusal to cooperate with the aforesaid stage
Centrists and Right Wingers.

"But the performance is too sad to be amusing. It seems perfectly
clear that, so long as this movement persists in the party, the
latter's activity will be wholly taken up by mutual quarrels and
recriminations. Neither wing will have any time for the propaganda
of Socialism. There is, as far as I can see, but one remedy. It
would be futile to preach reconciliation and union where antagonism
runs so high. Let the Comrades on both sides do the next best
thing. Let them separate, honestly, freely and without rancor. Let
each side organize and work in its own way, and make such
contribution to the Socialist movement in America as it can. Better
a hundred times to have two numerically small Socialist
organizations, each homogeneous and harmonious within itself, than
to have one big party torn by dissensions and squabbles, an
impotent colossus on feet of clay. The time for action is near.
Let us clear the decks."

By the end of May, 1919, the Left Wing fight had become so serious that
the National Executive Committee revoked the charter of the Socialist
Party in Michigan and suspended the Russian, Lithuanian, Ukranian,
Lettish, Polish, South Slavic and Hungarian branches, expelling or
suspending considerably over 25,000 members out of a total dues-paying
membership of about 100,000.

"The Ohio Socia