An editorial from Marcy on capitalist parties attempting to undermines the left with promises of ‘government ownership,’ which Mary says, is most certainly not Socialism.

‘Stealing Planks’ by Mary E. Marcy from International Socialist Review. Vol. 13 No. 5. November, 1912.

LAST week the Bull Moose Druggist said to the Socialist Machinist, “Well, we have taken the ground from right under your feet. Theodore stands for Government Ownership, too, also for the Initiative, Referendum and Recall. You don’t have to vote the Socialist Ticket to get what you want. We’ll give it to you.”

But the machinist WAS a Socialist and he only laughed. That is what every Socialist does when anybody imagines any party is able to steal the planks of a Socialist platform.

The planks the Bull Moose Party have taken are not Socialist planks. They are reform planks that are not a part of Socialism. SOCIALISM is the only real Socialist plank in any party platform.

It is true that sometimes Socialist parties seek a few reforms which they think will benefit the wage workers. They have always advocated free speech, the right of free assemblage and freedom of the press because these measures give to workingmen and women an opportunity to agitate, educate and organize their fellow slaves.

But there are other parties that also stand for these things. We are glad to see them take up these measures. But no party can rob us of the only Socialist plank that must always and everywhere compose our whole program. This is nothing less than Socialism.

Any party that works for the collective ownership of the means of production and distribution by the working class is a Socialist party. No capitalist party could possibly adopt such a program. No reform party has ever even remotely advocated revolution.

Government ownership does not mean Socialism. In the most highly developed countries, from a capitalist point of view, the various governments are ADVOCATING government ownership, because the capitalist class IS the government. Government ownership would merely give this same exploiting class are abstract institution behind which to hide while it continued upon its joyful career of buccaneering.

The Socialist Party is the political organization of the working class, whose aim is the collective ownership of the tools of production by those who work. They intend that the working class shall own collectively the factories, the mines, mills, the farms and the railroads. They intend that the workers shall enjoy the full fruits of their labor without digging up any profit to any boss.

This is our real program. This is our platform, bared of all its trimmings. Neither capitalist nor servant of the capitalist class can steal it, because the capitalist class stands for the PRIVATE ownership or the things by which goods are produced and distributed, and the ownership of OUR JOBS.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v13n05-nov-1912-ISR-gog-ocr.pdf