The last issue of ‘Class Struggle’ before the October Revolution dramatically shifted the terrain. Franz Mehring’s ‘Our Old Masters and Their Modern Substitutes’ linked to online text below.

The Class Struggle. Vol. 1 No. 3. September-October, 1917.

Contents: The New Labor Movement of the West by Austin Lewis, Socialist Terms of Peace by L.B. Boudin, The Russian Revolution and Its Problems by Morris Kolchin, Labor and Democracy by Louis C. Fraina, J’accuse! Friedrich Adler’s Address in Court, Recent Development of Capitalism in Japan by S. Katayama, La Vie des Mots by C.D, Our Old Masters and Their Modem Substitutes by Franz Mehring, CURRENT AFFAIRS, The Pope’s Peace Proposal, The People’s Council and the National Alliance, Meyer London, Tom Mooney and Alexander Berkman, A Savior of His Country – Stockholm – Germany Stands Pat, DISCUSSION: Boudin’s Policy in Peace and War by S.J. Rutgers.

The Class Struggle and The Socialist Publication Society produced some of the earliest US versions of the revolutionary texts of First World War and the upheavals that followed. A project of Louis Fraina’s, the Society also published The Class Struggle. The Class Struggle is considered the first pro-Bolshevik journal in the United States and began in the aftermath of Russia’s February Revolution. A bi-monthly published between May 1917 and November 1919 in New York City by the Socialist Publication Society, its original editors were Ludwig Lore, Louis B. Boudin, and Louis C. Fraina. The Class Struggle became the primary English-language paper of the Socialist Party’s left wing and emerging Communist movement. Its last issue was published by the Communist Labor Party of America. ‘In the two years of its existence thus far, this magazine has presented the best interpretations of world events from the pens of American and Foreign Socialists. Among those who have contributed articles to its pages are: Nikolai Lenin, Leon Trotzky, Franz Mehring, Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Lunacharsky, Bukharin, Hoglund, Karl Island, Friedrich Adler, and many others. The pages of this magazine will continue to print only the best and most class-conscious socialist material, and should be read by all who wish to be in contact with the living thought of the most uncompromising section of the Socialist Party.’

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/class-struggle/v1n3sep-oct1917.pdf