erator
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I LET'S NAIL THE LIES OF THE KEPT PRESS
YOU, Mr. Free American, want the news of the world which affects you. .The Kept Press is withholding it, because the Kept Press is controlled by the financial barons. A really Free Press association, with the backing of organized labor, has been started. it will give you the news, and it will tell you the truth about what is going on.
THE FEDERATED PRESS is the name of the new working class press association. It has already begun to function. It is sending out world news to laboring class papers. But it must have money for its initial stages of development,
You, Mr. Free American, must help to make this Free Press association an immense success. Then you will know what is going on, and you will be able to act for your own interests.
The association is strictly a business proposition. it is co-operative and non-profit-making. It was organized for the express purpose of giving working class news to the worker, which is now either entirely suppressed by the Kept Press or minimized. it has as the chairman of its executive board, Robert M. Buck, editor of The New Majority, which is published by the Chicago Federation of Labor and is the official organ of the American Labor party. Other members of this hoard are. E. B. Ault, editor of The Seattle Union Record; W. B. Hilton, editor of Majority, at Wheeling, W. Va.; R. B. Smith, editor of The Butte Daily Bulletin, Butte, Mont.; J. Deutelbaum, editor of The Detroit Labor News, which is the official organ of the Detroit Federation of Labor; Joseph Schlossberg, editor of The Advance, the official organ of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America; Herbert E. Gaston, of the Nonpartisan league papers at Minneapolis, and F. J. Schwanz, editor of The Worker, Fort Wayne, Ind. The executive head of the organization is E. J. Costello, of The Milwaukee Leader, for seven years an editor and staff correspondent of the Associated Press and more recently
news editor of The Chicago Herald. The business manager is Louis P. Lochner, a publicist of note and until recently editor of The International Labor News Service.
THE FEDERATED PRESS executive board has author-lend a bond issue of $100,000 to take care of the initial expenses of its development, and you, Mr. Free American, are urged to buy as many of these bonds as you can. They are ready for delivery in denominations of $25.00 each, redeem-able at the expiration of five years from date of issue, at the rate of interest. of 6 per cent per annum, coupons payable February 1st of each year. Please fill out the application and send direct to the association.
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THE Fh,PT- UATI,',Tt PRESS 3iIll.l.b1'I'TN retie enthnriied at lull meeting of IIle Executive Beard of the A.seoehltirnl held in Chicago. FeBra,t ry 1920. Tt is ulisigned for puhlie speakers, writers, sociologists, universil Me, union l; lior organizations and others who wantthe steriee going to the puhlih'1iHonc in the a~snei.alieiu for I.heir melt iufornurtinn and not fur pllhlieatfon. The Bulletin eontairis ex:wily the same matter -vlrich appears in the is in -a-week mail serl-iru• sheels ccrcpi that they art r<,luhiued under elnte of reIeaee of the filial sheet to publishers. finder the order of the Executive Board the price of The Bulletin is ten dolhlrc per year, payrlhle in advam'+', with the distinct understanding that it is nut to he used for rodlike-dim) purposes.
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The undersigned applies for bonds of !Plug) FEDETT-
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THE SCIENCE OF A NEW LIFEm■r
By JOHN COWAN, M.D.
.l s,icnlific work nn Marriage in ifs moral and physil•al relit-lima. -TOI pages with illustrstiees. Senl. post paid fur $2.
ALSO
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARRIAGE AND GUIDE
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WORKERS' DEFENSE CONFERENCE OF NEW ENGLAND
Over 400 men and women were arrested and taken to Deer Island in the recent raids.
$200,000 in Liberty Bonds has been placed as bail. $200,000 more is needed to bail 110 es many are held for $10,000 and $ 3,000.
Money is needed for defense.
Money is needed to aid the families of those being held. They are making this sacrifice for you. What are you willing to do for them?
-G I V
Make checks payable to The Workers' Defense Confer ence of New England and send to Box 62, Essex St. P. 0., Boston, 10, Mass.
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COL. ROOSEVELT SAID:
"I did a whole lot of reading. I particularly enjoyed half a dozen good detective stories by Arthur B. Reeve-some of them were corkers."
PRESIDENT WILSON'S BLESSED INTERVALS President Wilson is quoted as saying: "There are blessed intervals when I forget, by one means or another, that I am President of the United States. One means by which I for-get is to get a rattling good detective story, get after some imaginary of-fender, and chase him all over."
, ~ioE. Cod uciL
We Must
Fly Tonight
Out of a deep sleep he woke her. She thought she knew him so well. Yet now, at two in the morning, he burst on her with this terror-this mystery-this what?
It's the beginning of one of the best mysteries ever solved by the great detective.
He is the detective genius of our age. He has taken science-science that stands for this age-and allied it to the mystery and romance of detective fiction. Even to the smallest detail, every bit of the plot is worked out scientifically. For nearly ten years America has been watching his Craig Kennedy-marvelling at the strange, new, startling things that detective hero would unfold. Such plots-such suspense -with real, vivid people moving through the maelstrom of life! Frenchmen have mastered the art of terror stories. English writers have thrilled whole nations by their artful heroes. Russian ingenuity has fashioned wild tales of mystery. But all these seem old-fashioned out-of-date-beside the infinite variety, the ,weird excitement, of Arthur B. Reeve's tales.
FREE 10 volumes POE
To those who send the coupon promptly we will give FREE a *el of Edgar Allan Poe's works in 10 volumes.
When the police of New York failed to solve one of the most fearful murder mysteries of the time, Edgar Allan Poe-far off there in Paris -found the solution. This story is in these volumes.
Ho was a detective by instinct-be was a story-teller by divine inspiration. Before or since--no one has ever had his power td make terror-horror. To read breathlessly-to try to guess the ending-to enjoy the perfect, flawless style-to feel the power of the master-that is all you can do in each and all of Poe's nndyiny stories.
Get for yourself a thousand nights of pleasure and forgetfulaessof thrills and excitement-by reading ARTHUR B. REEVE. This is a wonderful combination. Here are two of the greatesi writers of mystery and scientific detective stories. You can get the Reeve in 12 volumes at a remarkably low price and Poe 10 volumes over 200 stories, FREE.
HARPER a BROTHERS
Lib. 4-20
WI Franklin Sq. New York
Send me, all 'charges prepaid.
set of Arthur B. Reeve-in 12 vol
umes. Also send me. absolutely free, the set
of Edgar Allan Poe-in 10 volumes. If the hooka
" are not satisfactory I will
return both sets within 10 days at your expense. Other-wise I will send you $1 with-
in 5 days and $2 a month for 14 months.
gheAme ecan Sherlock 'ARTHUR B
C?1heAmerican Conan Do2yle
Name
Address
Occupation
THE LIBERATOR, a monthly magazine, April, 1920. Twenty-five cents a. copy, $2.50 a year. Vol. 3, No. 4, Serial No. 25. Published by The Liberator Publishing Co., 13S W. 13th St., New York, N. Y. Application pending for entry as second-class matter at the post office at New York. N. Y., slider the Act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1920.
eatespOtIt -tymlft, A' y
THE LIBERATOR
Vol. 3, No. 4 [Serial No. 25] April, 1920
EDITORIALS
BY MAX EASTMAN
THE willingness of Soviet Russia in the moment of victory, to make peace at the cost of extensive con-cessions to the capitalist nations, is of high importance. To communists and capitalists alike it is the crucial fact in the history of these times. The New York World's Russian reporter, while quoting the popular opinion of Trotsky in Moscow and among his troops as "one of the greatest soldiers in the history of man," and acknowledging that he is the leader of "the most formidable army in the world to-day ... the most sensational war machine humanity has ever beheld," states that the one thing this formidable soldier sought to impress upon him, was that Russia would offer economic advantages for the sake of peace, and that "peace would lead to the immediate demobilization of the Red Army."
"It is charged in some quarters," said he to Trotsky, "that Soviet Russia is becoming militaristic, that by force of arms you will seek to impose your revolution throughout the rest of Europe." Trotsky's black eyes blazed.
"Ludicrous lies," he exclaimed. "The Red Army is the most anti-militaristic body existing to-day. Nine-tenths of us, I mean organizers, are workers and peas-ants, pacifists all.
"Immediate demobilization is obligatory with its as soon as hostilities cease. The workers and peasants will insist, once the revolution is no longer in peril, on returning to their factories and farms and making Russia a fit land to live in. Frontier guards will be maintained, of course. The framework of our organization must also be preserved in order that with the experience they have received in the past eighteen months our proletarian fighting men can be remodelled in two or three months if the need arises. There will also be some form of military training for the working class, that it may always be ready to defend itself against the bourgeoisie. It is amusing to think that in capitalistic circles I am looked upon as a militarist. I suppose I am by inclination the least military individual imaginable. Militarism, strik
ing as it does at the very roots of Communism, cannot possibly exist in Soviet Russia, the only truly pacific country in the world."
Tactics
I BELIEVE it is the first time in history that an overwhelmingly victorious army ever actually pleaded for peace. And while this may seem disappointing to some rebels who identify the revolution with a satisfaction of their own fighting impulse, it is a profoundly and dramatically revolutionary act.
If. the concessions that are offered to foreign capital should involve any essential or prolonged renewal of exploitation, if the "insistence" of the Red Army upon going to work, turns out to be, as this reporter elsewhere de-scribes it, a "militarization of labor"-then disillusionment indeed! But the detestation of war, the consecration of life, the renunciation of communism-byconquest, the fundamental reliance upon economic rather than military forces to bring freedom to the rest of the world's working-class, is unswervingly in accord with the true science of revolution.
An intuitive knowledge of this fact is what makes it so hard for the capitalist governments to make peace with Soviet Russia. "When the Bolsheviks say they want peace," said Secretary Lansing, "and give assurances that they wish simply to be Iet alone in order to work out their experiment- in Russia, such offers of compromise are purely tactical." Of course they are purely tactical. And worse than that, they are correctly tactical! The breakdown of capitalism has gone so far in the other countries that it is possible, little as anyone hoped it would be, for Russia to develop a system of socialist economies by herself. And if it is possible, there can be no shadow of doubt that from the stand-point of the world revolution, it is the proper course. Let the military and patriotic-authoritarian regime come to an end in one country; and let that country demonstrate to the masses of the people in all lands that happiness, and freedom, and real civilization, and the "decay of the state," do begin from the overthrow of capitalism ; at the same time let that country occupy, as Russia will, a dominating position in the markets of the
THE LIBERATOR
world. That is the strategy of real revolution, and what we have hoped for continually, as we watched the power of the Red Army grow.
The peace that the Bolsheviki make with the Allies will be tactical ; international communism is still their aim. But the peace that the Allies make with the Bolsheviki will be still more obviously tactical ; their aim is inter-national capitalism. Is there anything unfair about this? Is there anything not understood? Is there any hitch or difficulty in the Allies' deliberations whatever, except what rises from the knowledge in the depth of their own minds that capitalism is inherently doomed?
Lenin
N OTHING is better calculated to strengthen one's faith in the internationalism and revolutionary integrity of the Bolshevik leaders, than to read the "Theses of Lenin" read to the party workers at the time of Brest Litovsk. They are published in the report of our State Department on Bolshevism, and they concern the relations of the Russians as revolutionary socialists to imperial Germany and the imperialist Allies. To me this document is one of the greatest pieces of political reasoning ever put on paper-certainly the most important intellectual event of the war period. And it is as distinguished in the unclouded singleness of its purpose, international social revolution, as in the scope and cogency of its science. To envisage an ideal aim with such in-flexible passion, and yet retain a complete flexibility in adjudging the means of arriving there, is to occupy the heights of human intelligence.
It has been amusing to find this man-advertized to the world so thoroughly as a fanatic, a theoretical zealot, a bigot of the Marxian dogma-by far the most pragmatic in his mental operations of anyone who ever attained distinction in the socialist movement. His mode of thinking, and his very style of writing, in the first English translations that reached us in 1918, re minded me very startlingly cif my teacher in philosophy, John Dewey. It seemed as though the instrumental theory of knowledge was at last actively understood. From what I can learn, Lenin's position in the socialist movement has always been that of a practical thinker, a general in the field, a master of tactics, for whom theoretical knowledge is only an indispensable part of the complete equipment for action. He has been attacked at times by the moderates, and at times by the extremists, in the course of his career. And this, because he has never regarded the emotional concept of "being moderate" or "being extreme" as of any importance whatever. He has known that the important thing is to keep a clear definition of the goal, and then be practically right as to the method of getting there.
The popular opinion that Lenin is dogmatic can be eas-
ily understood, however, if we reflect that he is a technical and expert scientist. If the reader has ever endeavored to converse with a chemist, or a biologist, or a physicist, about some question containing an emotional although amateur interest for him, I am sure he has found himself confronted with just that unyielding insistence upon certain fundamental attitudes or modes of mental procedure which Lenin presents and which seems like dogmatism to the minds of naive literateurs and groping unhappy journalists. It is merely an insistence upon science, and might be just as inflexible in one for whom all scientific principles are working hypotheses, as in one for whom they are a priori intuitions of immutable truth.
The science of democratic progress, in so far as such a science exists, has its foundation and main framework in the principles of Economic Interpretation and the Class' Struggle that were formulated by Karl Marx. Lenin's mind as a leader of democratic progress dwells. within that science. He does not bother with a vast clutter of medileval intellectual rubbish which its builders long ago swept away. And that is why, although so very flexible and realistic in his thinking, he has seemed' dogmatic to a world whose other great political figures are still digging around in the rubbish and trying to palm it off upon the public for truth.
Farmer-Labor
W E print an article this month on Farmers and La-borers and their. getting-together ground. It is not so exciting as an article by the same author on Spartacides and Bolsheviks and the battle-field would be, but it is important.
In his report to the Eighth Congress of the Russian Communist Party in April 1919, Lenin discussed the question of the relation of the proletariat to the middle peasantry. "For Marxists," he said, "this question does not present difficulties from the theoretic point of view. . . . I recall, for example, that in Kautsky's book on the agrarian question, written when Kautsky still correctly presented the teachings of Marx and was recognized as an unquestioned authority in this field-in his hook on the agrarian question he says of the passing from capitalism to socialism : `The task of the socialist party is the neutralization of the peasantry; that is, to handle the situation so that the peasantry remains neutral in the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, that the peasantry does not give, any active assistance to the bourgeoisie against us.' "
Whatever the practical complications may be, this statement of Kautsky, endorsed by Lenin, gives us a theoretical compass with which to orient ourselves to-ward such organizations as the non-Partisan League and other farmers' leagues of a class-conscious kind.
APRIL, 1920
A Iittle while ago the United States Post Office sent .out a questionaire to 200,000 farmers, chosen at random in all parts of the country. The replies were such as to indicate, according to the New. York Times correspondent, "a widespread spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction among the farmers of the country, so threatening as likely to disturb the existing economic structure."
A member of the Senate Committee before whom the report of the Post Office was read remarked that the replies seemed to come "mostly from a bunch of Bolsheviks."
As anybody who is "neutral" in the struggle between the proletariat ,and the bourgeoisie would appear "Bolshevik" to the senatorial eye, we may take this report as indicating a wholesome progress toward the state of affairs demanded by the Marxian theory.
Representative?
IN signing the railroad bill, President Wilson stated that its provision for a Labor Board is "appropriate in the interest of the public which, after all, is principally composed of workers and their families." Every voice in the country representing the workers and their families was opposed to that provision.
If President Wilson were still a professor of political science and we attending a lecture in Nassau
