olutionary period. It forfeited its right to represent the working class. In consequence it was subjected to several great splits and innumerable desperate assaults from without by the left-wing elements. But it has maintained itself with a vigor not even remotely shown by the Socialist Party in this country. The explanation for this was its firm control over the German trade union movement. Having in its hands practically all the executive positions of the unions, it was able to control the masses even under the most trying circumstances. Had the left-wingers been able to break this trade union control, the S. D. P. would have collapsed even as our Socialist Party did. The degree of success of the German Communist Party in its present struggle against the Social Democratic Party is in direct relation to its ability to win the trade unions away from S. D. P. domination.
The Socialist Party in this country collapsed because it was built upon talk, instead of upon the solid foundation of the trade union movement. Because it did not have the labor unions behind it the organization had no real stability. Hence, when it was put to the test, as noted above, in 1912, 1917, and 1919, it went to pieces. Dual unionism kept the Socialist militants out of the organized masses and thus directly prevented the winning of the working class to the beginnings of a revolutionary program. Moreover, it made of the S. P. itself a formless, spineless movement, which was shattered at the first real shock. Dual unionism ruined the Socialist Party.
Further illustrations might be cited almost indefinitely to show the baneful effects of dual unionism upon various working class organizations. By pulling the militants out of the trade unions and wasting their energies on futile utopian separatist organizations, dual unionism has robbed the whole working class of progressive leadership. It has thrown the great labor unions almost entirely into the hands of a corrupt and ignorant bureaucracy, which has choked out their every manifestation of real progress. And in stultifying and ruining the trade unions, dual unionism condemned to sterility every branch of the entire labor movement, industrial, political, and otherwise; for if the workers in general have not been educated to an understanding of capitalism and the class struggle, if they have not developed a revolutionary ideal, if they have not yet organized politically on class lines, if they have not yet produced a powerful co-operative movement—in every instance the cause may be directly
