Right-wing politics

“ Up to the time of the last Convention, our party called itself the party of the social democracy. The party of the working class bore the same name all over the world. But the war has been responsible for an unprecedented schism in the social-democratic parties here. Three main tendencies have come to the fore—the extreme right, the centre, and the extreme left wing. ”

“ But in carrying through such affiliation maneuvers the left wing must be careful to maintain its ideological and organizational control over the striking masses and to prevent a sell-out settlement by the right wing, for which the left wing would be held responsible by the workers. ”

“ In the eyes of anyone who understands the workings of such a mechanism, the attempts to discredit the Opposition by referring to the fact that some Right wing grafter or Left wing stripling of the social democracy quotes approvingly a sentence from our criticism, must appear in a pitiable ideological light. ”

“ Others are less extreme: they may themselves be non-violent and oppose the stirring up of violence by rabble-rousing public speeches and demonstrations. The political objectives of some of these individuals may be limited to the adoption of right-wing policies on such issues as immigration, housing and social policy within the framework of existing democratic structures. ”

“ It is the force of the bureaucratic apparatus, of the new proprietors, of the world bourgeoisie. Consequently it is a colossal force. But precisely because the Right wing reflects the pressure of other classes within the party, it is incapable as yet of presenting its platform openly and mobilizing the public opinion of the party. ”

“ The Government of the right-hand party restrained political life and action within a narrow circle, and rendered them more difficult; the generation which was then beginning to stir in the world, sought, not entirely independent of, but side by side with politics, the employment of its strength and the gratification of its desires: literature, [309] philosophy, history, policy, and criticism assumed a new and powerful flight. ”

“ There is no other group in the unions other than the left wing that has the understanding and initiative to do this basic task. The right wing, which represents the interests of the skilled workers, is opposed to the organizing of the unorganized unskilled masses, and the so-called "progressives," although they do lip service to the necessity of organization, are too spineless and wavering to really do anything about it except under the general leadership and stimulus of the militant left wing. ”

“ That many things must be treated as beyond question was the fruit of his maxims; it is a position which I have never been able to adopt; with me the acid of doubt bit into every axiom. I took pleasure in the society and arguments of the liberal politicians and journalists who began to frequent the court as soon as a rumour of my inclinations spread. I became the centre and object of a contention between the Right and the Left, between Conservative and Liberal forces—or, if I apply to each party the nickname accorded to it by the enemy, between the Reaction and the Revolution. ”

“ This is coming about primarily through the growth of the Extreme Left, and especially of the Socialists. Although the effects are as yet scarcely perceptible, so that the politics of the country exhibit still all of the changeableness, ineffectiveness, and chaos characteristic of the group system, the development of the partiti populari which compose collectively the Extreme Left, i.e., the Republicans, the Radicals, and the Socialists, is an interesting political phenomenon. ”

“ The radical left dreads the threats of the Social Democrats more than the fatuous blunders of the Kaiser. The very logic of events condemns revisionism and dedicates the workingman to majestic isolation. But this isolation engenders a revolutionary spirit. Allied with the liberals the Social Democracy would eschew all action outside the law. ”

“ They despised the politicians of the Right Wing, calling them yellow, reactionary, hypocritical, capitalistic Socialists, and telling them that their place was with the newly formed Labor Party, which had already praised the Socialists and invited them to join its ranks. ”

“ If the “Imperialistic” party is a party which seeks to curtail and restrict{274} the rights of the People, then she goes with the People against all political parties whatsoever. But she takes no side in party politics: she is a stickler for Justice and Right for the great majority. ”

“ Our own history shows how fierce the resistance can be to changes which later generations regard as part of the normal framework of life. And the course of rational social change is even more hazardous for those progressive governments who often face entrenched privilege of the right and subversive conspiracies on the left. ”

“ Ours is a people’s government, a Republican government, in which the majority rule and ought to rule. And he is neither a good Republican nor a true American who refuses to subordinate his own opinions, his own preferences or prejudices, to the decision of the majority. This is the very foundation-stone on which the whole fabric of our government rests. Destroy it, remove it, and lawlessness, anarchy, civil war, are the natural and inevitable consequences. I believe in the right of the people to rule. ”

“ The leaders in control of the executive machinery of the Socialist Party, wishing to retain their lucrative positions, and looking forward to the advantage of political office during the years which might elapse before the time would be ripe for rebellion, were nearly all Right Wingers, and have waged a bitter and unscrupulous fight against the Left Wing organization within the party. ”

“ It is certain, however, that the issue must come back to its permanent form and that the political strife must be waged between the conservative and the radical theories of politics—between those who lay the greater stress on law and those who lay the greater stress on liberty, between those who see political health chiefly in the social principle and those who see it chiefly in the individual, between constitutionalism and democracy. ”

“ I know we are in the habit of hearing about Red Republicans and Socialists as men who are dangerous on account of their opinions, and who have deserved to be banished from France, from Germany, from Italy. I will not now say anything about those opinions, but this I do say, that a country where all opinions and every opinion cannot be held and freely discussed, has a bad system of government and bad institutions. It is not the men nor their opinions that stand condemned, but the government and institutions. ”

“ Is conservatism not exposing for food rotten over-ripe fruit when it hucksters its insistence that government is only an umpire in a fight which is said to be between equals but which is not between equals? Is radicalism not crying out ware that is but half made when it lures us to buy its toy, no government at all, or all by government? Is the doctrine of rights so glib on tongue of conservative and radical not also a half-truth? Every right, be it of property, of labor, or of what else, is pillared upon a duty. ”

“ In fact, no party desires good government. The first object of the reactionary party is to keep down the Republicans; the second, if it be the second, object of each branch of that party, is to keep down the two others. The object of the Republicans is, as they admit, égalité—but as for liberty, or security, or education, or the other ends of government, no one cares for them."'
It was the passion for Equality that made the Second Empire possible. ”

“ If then, with us, you desire to put an end to all the defilements of the past; if you desire that the new social compact, consented to by citizens, equals in rights as in duties, shall assure to each of you peace and liberty, equality and work; if you want to affirm the Social and Democratic Republic, the best means as we see it is either to refuse to vote or else vote against the constitution—and this without excluding the other modes of protestation. ”

“ It has put to contempt and ridicule the fundamental principles of our democracy and is undermining the popular belief in our old ideals of right, justice and liberty, which alone furnish the conservative element indispensable to a democracy working through universal suffrage. It has taught our people that might makes right, and other like lessons, which, unless sternly rebuked, will utterly demoralize public sentiment and transform the political life of our democracy into wild, unscrupulous and, eventually, anarchistic struggles of selfish passions and greedy interests. ”

“ After 1935, that Party advocated a 'Popular Front' of 'all democratic parties against fascism.' Its platform and slogans stressed full employment, racial equality and various other political and economic changes. ”

“ The hour has arrived when thoughtful colored men should cease to put their faith upon broken straws; when they should cease to be the willing tools of a treacherous and corrupt party; when they should cease to support men and measures which do not benefit them or the race; when they should cease to be duped by one faction and shot by the other. The time has fully arrived when they should have their position in parties more fully defined, and when, by the ballot which they hold, they should force more respect for the rights of life and property. ”

“ They are so self-absorbed, so narcissistic, so sickeningly partial that they make for fine amusement in dreary times. There are the coalition papers and the opposition papers, the left wing and the right wing and the centre ones. ”

“ A pastor may be a "Christian Socialist," a professor may nourish his "Socialism of the chair," and a judge or a government engineer may be inclined toward far-reaching social experiment. But with Social Democracy they must have absolutely nothing to do. [15]
The government's attitude is based on the theory that the Social Democrats are enemies of the monarchy, and are designing to overthrow it and declare a republic the moment they get into power. ”

“ You pretend that you are a Republican. You loudly boast of your Democratic principles: why then do you object to the application of your principles in this case. Is the democratic principle good in one case and bad in another? Would it be worse for a black majority to govern a white minority that it now is for the latter to govern the former? ”

“ But the democrat—by reason of his representing the middle class, that is to say, a Transition Class, in which the interests of two other classes are mutually dulled—, imagines himself above all class contrast. The democrats grant that opposed to them stands a privileged class, but they, together with the whole remaining mass of the nation, constitute the "PEOPLE." What they represent is the "people's rights"; their interests are the "people's interests." ”

“ Where is the “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,” now, when you really come to dive below the surface, and see things as they are in America, eh?—
But, bless you, these reformers will not so regard the objects of their veneration. They will only see them in the light in which they choose to see them; and would swear black was white in order to answer their purpose!
Your true radical or republican—the name “liberal” is a misnomer—is, as I have often heard the vicar say, one of the most intolerant, illiberal persons under the sun. ”

“ The Republican party desires liberty, independence, and equal laws for all people; the Presidential party seeks to oppress the negro race, to degrade the white race of the North by depriving every man of his due share in the government of the country, and, finally, to subject all the interests of the Republic to the caprice, policy, and passions of its enemies. ”

“ I am compelled to say in closing that I fear that all the arguments and urgings the Communists and their sympathizers can use in trying to convert Americans to an ideology wholly foreign to our habits and our instincts are far less dangerous to the security of this Nation than laws which embark us upon a policy of repression by the outlawry of minority parties because they advocate radical changes in the structure of Government. ”

“ The Liberalism or the Conservatism that continues to be founded on the accident and the prejudice of birth, that believes in “my party and my father’s party, right or wrong,” is the real cause of the discouraging inertia of public opinion that often allows the self-interested few to practically control elections and governments, that prevents or retards reform and makes of a free democracy a bureaucratic tyranny. ”

“ On the other side, that which is most apt to frighten a governing class or race, a clamour on the part of an unenfranchised people for political rights, is to the democrat precisely the strongest reason that he can have in the absence of direct experience for believing them fit for the exercise of civic responsibility. ”

“ In the Catholic cantons it occupies the field almost alone, and everywhere it is the most compact and zealous of the parties, although even it is not without a certain amount of division of opinion and of policy. The Left, or Radical party, has always represented a combination of widely varied shades of radicalism and democracy. ”

“ Eighteenth century liberalism fought on behalf of right and justice; the pseudo-liberalism of to-day fights on behalf of rights and trading privileges. The liberalism of the past fought on behalf of the cause of humanity; the pseudo-liberalism of to-day endeavours to promote the vested interests of capitalists and financiers."
This liberalism constitutes the reserve force of aristocracy and plutocracy; liberals of this calibre unhesitatingly vote repressive laws against socialist workers. The old watchwords, liberty, equality, and fraternity, are left to the social democracy. ”

“ There are today upwards of sixty million Socialists, loyal, devoted, adherents to this cause, regardless of nationality, race, creed, color or sex. They are all making common cause. They are all spreading the propaganda of the new social order. They are waiting, watching and working through all the weary hours of the day and night. They are still in the minority. ”