Fights between Reds and Yellows (and here some Greens), Lefts and Rights, in the Washington State Socialist Party caused more than one split during the Debs-era in that large and influential state organization. One began in 1912 with the new state-wide ‘precinct captain’ law whereby such people would be elected to serve as a decision making representative, linking a political party’s membership to its leadership, and framed a a ‘democratizing’ measure for the capitalist parties. The Socialist Party rejected this law, saying they were a voluntary dues-paying organization whose members already elected their leadership. The electoralist right seized on the issue to try and win control of the party and were subsequently expelled, or quit, by the Left-Center majority. Bostrom, State Secretary, a then leader of the Left and future Communist, speaks to the fight in broad terms below. Swedish-born Frans Bostrom joined the worker’s movement in his native land before emigrating to Washington State in the early 1900s. There he worked as a book-keeper, proprietor of a radical bookstore and cigar stand, an editor of Socialist newspapers, and a shipyard worker, with his last years in boarding-house poverty. He was elected State Secretary in 1909 and later to the National Committee. Unafraid of political combat and a social rebel, Bostrom intervened in all the Party’s consequential debates, pushing always to the his vision of Revolutionary Socialism. Though later withdrawing from most activity, he remained a rebel, joining the Communist movement as a founder, and supporting it with his meager resources before taking his life at age 62 in 1927.

‘Socialism and Opportunism’ by Frans Bostrom from The Commonwealth. No. 118. April 4, 1913.

A rival party is being organized in this state by certain individuals, who claim that the party is irretrievably lost to the anarchists, direct actionists, free lovers, syndicalists, impossibilists, I.W.W., etc., etc., and that the only salvation lies in beginning from the bottom and build anew.

Having the honor to have been the state secretary from the memorable revolution of 1909, when most of the revolutionary members left the party in disgust because it was supposed to be too yellow, until today when it is accused of being too red, and having had something to do with its change of hue, my opinion may be of some interest to at least the newer members.

What is a revolutionary or red? What is an opportunist or yellow? What is the struggle about and what is to be the outcome?

The opportunist says that he believes in political action and that the revolutionist does not. Political action is NOW defined in article 2, section 6, national constitution, as “participation in elections for public office and practical legislative and administrative work along the lines of the socialist party platform.”

Any member who OPPOSES political action, so defined must be expelled from the party. This then is what the claim of the opportunist amounts to, that the revolutionist is opposed to participation in elections, etc. Does any one believe this to be the case? Does any one believe that the opportunist honestly believes this charge to be true? Rats! But the opportunist believes that all that the party stands for is “participation in elections, etc.,” and no constitution, national or state, gives him any right to be so shallow. The revolutionary program can be found in the state constitution, section 1, and reads thus: “Its purpose is to unite and organize the workers of the state for their self-emancipation from economic slavery by the conquest of the powers of government.” The Tacoma convention of 1910 adopted a new constitution and I took occasion to insert that sentence in order that there should be no misunderstanding of what we worked for. That is all there is to revolutionary socialism, “the political education of the working class.” The revolutionary does not oppose participation in election, but he realizes that he must sow before he can expect to reap, that he must make socialists before he can expect socialist votes. To the red the election is a census taking, a counting of noses, to learn how we have grown. With no intention of shirking the responsibility should he be elected, he does not chase after votes. Realizing the revolutionary immensity of the change we propose, he also realizes the utter futility of attempting to bring about such a change without the majority behind him. This is our goal, the majority. We must educate the majority up to our views. The ripe fruit will fall into the outstretched hand of the revolutionist, no matter how far out of his reach it seems to hang today. The opportunist is in his impatience building step-ladders from which to pick the fruit green. Frankly, the difference between the two is that no one can be a socialist without being revolutionary and that the opportunist is too ignorant to be a socialist. The bulk of the opportunists are new members and are rather green than yellow. Temporary opportunism is only ignorance, a failing that can be eradicated by reading a few good books and by a few months of assiduous attention to party affairs, but chronic opportunism is a disease, from which the victim has never been known to recover. In all my years of experience in the party I have never known one individual so afflicted, who did not ultimately wind up as a political crook. There is not a person, at all prominent in this attempt to destroy our organization, who has not time and again been caught in corrupt practices and who can therefore be said to have any political decency to sustain. Knowing as they do, that their standing in this party is forever ruined, there remains for them no other alternative than to try to create another party, the principles (?) of which will condone and legalize the apostacy for which they stand condemned. The frank declaration that all political parties are the expression of the economic interests of some class and that this party is the expression of the interests of the working class, the principle upon which we have built and which has made us grow at the expense of the other parties, is by this gentry considered the swaddling-cloth which we have outgrown. Their pledge does not contain any reference to the class struggle. “It’s too anarchistic.” “Too plebeian.” “We have no classes, donchernow.” “Elect us to office and we will save you.” “History repeats itself, you know, and history tells us that the workers never were able to do anything unless under the leadership of their betters.”

There is no place for such notions between the socialist party and the bull moose. New socialists should think more than twice before they soil their good names by jobbing this conglomeration of misfits. It is an unfortunate fact that those who have had the advantage of a little more schooling than the average and who therefore naturally consider themselves as “intellectuals” have a hard time to pick up a clear understanding of socialism, being handicapped by conceit and ambition to lead before they have learned how to follow. Being afraid of hard work it is also natural that they should be tainted with office kleptomania, and a desire to “get something right now,” in the shape of a fat salary. It is inevitable that there should be a deadly feud between them and those who stand between them and the offices. The history of this party for the last four years will give the answer to the question: What will be the outcome of the fight? On the 19th of September, 1909, when I became secretary, we had less than 800 members, of which at least one-half were saffron-hued. We recorded 6,326 members per month for 1912 and the Tacoma convention of 1913 went on record 12 to 1 against crooked political tactics. We have cut out a cancer and the operation has weakened us some, but we are yet proportionately the strongest state organization in the party and can add to that the distinction of being the cleanest. Let us stay clean and the growth will take care of itself. Let us henceforth consider it a privilege to work for this cause, which shall not be enjoyed by wardheelers.

FRANS BOSTROM.

The Commonwealth was a Socialist Party-aligned paper based in Everett, Washington that began in February, 1911. First edited by O.L. Anderson, the weekly paper was quickly involved in the state’s very fractious inner Socialist Party life. Editors followed the changing political fortunes with Anna A. Maley directing The Commonwealth from September, 1911 until May, 1912, who also focused the paper nationally. Maley left the paper to run for governor in 1912, the first woman and first Socialist in the state to run for that office, winning a respectable 12% of the vote. Six more editors followed Maley, including Maynard Shipley. The paper’s orientation was left and supported the I.W.W. when many S.P. papers were denouncing them. The Commonwealth struggled, like nearly all left publications in history, with money financially and sold to the Socialist Party of Snohomish County in April, 1914 to be reborn as The Washington Socialist.

PDF of full issue: https://washingtondigitalnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=COMMONW19130404