Caroline Nelson unloads on the Socialist Party’s ‘sewer socialism’ in Milwaukee, Butte, and Berkeley in an article that gives a sense of the rawness of the Left-Right fight that happened in the Party, under pressure of a radicalizing working class, between 1909 and 1913.

‘Victory! Victory! Whose Victory?’ by Caroline Nelson from Revolt (San Francisco). Vol. 2 No. 10. September 2, 1911.

John Graham Brooks, who has come to the Coast to deliver a course of lectures in the State University on Socialism of the sane and safe kind, delivers the following to the capitalist press:

“The point is that there is scarcely a thing in the government of these Socialists, at Milwaukee or Butte, which is really socialistic. They are not changing the system, but they are giving these cities the best, the cleanest and the most satisfactory business administration in their history.”

Ye Gods! This from a reform capitalist leader, who has devoted his time to study economy, to write and deliver lectures upon it along lines acceptable in our plute universities, always giving warning to the plutes to be a little careful or the Socialists would catch them! Now, Professor Brooks says (and we cannot suspect him of sarcasm!):

“It is a surprise to the men back there that the Socialists, instead of being destructive, are up to date. They have restored the credit of their cities. They are winning the support of citizens in general for a clean, safe, progressive government.”

The credit of a city rests upon the submissiveness of its workers, who will go on toiling with their soul and body mortgaged to a lot of shysters. The moment a city, a country or à State should lose hold of its slaves, that moment investors would take fright, and capitalist credit would be gone.

This restored confidence in the capitalist cities “under Socialism” simply means that we have sold ourselves out by decorating the ruling-class government with our officials. These officials, true to their material interests, make good to the powers that be, in whose interest the laws were made. The “opportunists” stand indicted before the workers. Everywhere the proletarian is sneering at the Socialists, dropping out of our ranks, while the middle class is taking possession of our headquarters and dictating our policies.

Over across the bay the capitalists of the Lincoln-Roosevelt fame have literally captured a Socialist and placed him in the city hall as Mayor. This same Mavor met a capitalist politician, Woodrow Wilson, at the station and proudly informed him that he was elected by twenty per cent Socialists and eighty per cent capitalist votes. It is defeat with a vengeance to the Socialists. Yet we are preparing to accomplish a good deal more on the same lines. Radical speakers are carefully eliminated from the platform. Sky pilots, who want to inject sheep-brain into the workers mind, are advertised as Socialist orators.

Socialism of this popular brand is advertised as safe, sane, reliable and progressive. It is a new type of “dope.” It reminds me of a patent medicine put up in the State of Maine, under the prohibition law, to satisfy a peculiar longing in the human system, which meant, according to the medicine doctor, that a terrible disease was about to take possession of the organism. This medicine became a great favorite, with the outcome that the consumers became blind, because it was rank poison that consisted chiefly of wood alcohol. Yes, and this “patent medicine Socialism” that is so loved and praised by the middle-class capitalists is put up for the very purpose of making us workers blind, economically. How much more do we want of it? I for my part am sick unto death of it! I have a paper which I don’t want stuck under mv nose, but for which I am compelled to pay. This said paper is nothing more nor less than a reformed Lincoln-Roosevelt sheet that parades under the title of “Social Democrat.” This Social-Democrat contains less revolutionary ideas than another paper of the same name which I read twenty years ago in a little hamlet in a monarchical country in Europe.

Oh, yes, we are progressing around a ring, with lawyers and reformed sky pilots as ring masters. They are doing their stunts so well that our masters applaud and dine them and praise them. Hurrah!

Revolt ‘The Voice Of The Militant Worker’ was a short-lived revolutionary weekly newspaper published by Left Wingers in the Socialist Party in 1911 and 1912 and closely associated with Tom Mooney. The legendary activists and political prisoner Thomas J. Mooney had recently left the I.W.W. and settled in the Bay. He would join with the SP Left in the Bay Area, like Austin Lewis, William McDevitt, Nathan Greist, and Cloudseley Johns to produce The Revolt. The paper ran around 1500 copies weekly, but financial problems ended its run after one year. Mooney was also embroiled in constant legal battles for his role in the Pacific Gas and Electric Strike of the time. The paper epitomizes the revolutionary Left of the SP before World War One with its mix of Marxist orthodoxy, industrial unionism, and counter-cultural attitude. To that it adds some of the best writers in the movement; it deserved a much longer run.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/revolt/v2n10-sep-02-1911-Revolt.pdf