list," the party organ of Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia
and New Mexico, in its issue of June 4, 1919, comments as follows on the
expulsions:

"Violating every principle of fair play and square dealing and
disregarding every constitutional provision, the National Executive
Committee at its session in Chicago, May 24 to 30, expelled without
a trial the state organization of the Socialist Party of Michigan,
constituting about 6,000 members, suspended the Russian,
Lithuanian, Lettish, Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian and South Slavic
Federations of the party, constituting more than 30,000 members,
and worst of all--and let it be said to their everlasting
shame--are autocratically holding up the national membership
referendum for the election of a new National Executive Committee,
International Delegates, International Secretary, and the holding
of a national convention.

"Never before in the party's history have Socialist Party officials
been so lost to all sense of decency and square dealing. A wilful
group of seven members of the National Executive Committee usurped
power which the constitution does not grant them and which the
Socialist Party membership never intended any servants of the party
to have. This despotic group of seven did not act as the party's
servants, but as dictators and tyrants to defeat the expressed will
of the party membership and to perpetuate itself in office.

"Unbelievable as it may seem, seven officials of the party had the
monumental effrontery to assume the right to expel and suspend
40,000 members. Think of it. That such a dastardly deed should ever
be perpetrated upon the rank and file of our organization is almost
beyond comprehension. And yet it was done--it was done by those
whom you elected to serve you. Instead they are betraying you,
disrupting the organization....

"The intention of these autocrats is plain as daylight. Like a
tidal wave, the demand for a Socialism which stands true to the
working class at all times has swept the party. The thousands of
Comrades who are sincerely working to win the party to a more
revolutionary position are known to the Left Wing. This Left Wing
understands clearly that the Scheidemann brand of Socialism stands
for the betrayal and defeat of the working class and that only the
So