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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. II No. 50, 19 November 1938, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Following is the text of the statement issued in Flint, Mich., by Genora and Kermit Johnson announcing their adherence to the banner of the Fourth International:
The practical experience we gained in the great auto strike made us left-wingers in the Socialist Party. After seeing the party in the east, with its preponderance of right-wingers, we came back to Michigan to build a real left-wing bloc in the state, with a view to taking over, together with New York left-wingers, the machinery of the Socialist Party. But not being well enough equipped to provide leadership at the time, we felt the only alternative was to support the representative of the left-wing who had .been sent to Michigan.
This leadership, in conjunction with some of the Socialist union leaders in Detroit, began to set policy which we felt many times not to be in keeping with revolutionary socialist principles but rather a policy seemingly formed to promote the careers of some of the Socialist leaders in the labor movement – which can only be termed an opportunistic policy in the language of any revolutionary party.
As a result we felt it our duty to investigate the past and present policy of the Socialist Party. Its numerous shortcomings on the national scene, and its entire lack-of an international program, on any revolutionary basis whatever, led us to ask ourselves the question, “For what reason does the Socialist Party exist?”
As almost any party member knows, the Second International, insofar as its furtherance of the cause of the international working class is concerned, has long since been completely destroyed, and its pretence of promoting the workers’ revolution is as false and degenerate as that of the Stalinist bureaucracy – the voice of the Third International today.
Through our investigation of the facts at hand we saw that the Socialist Party must inevitably move to the right, and not to the left, as we and other left-wing comrades had for some time been hoping and pressing for. Later developments in the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party showed our predictions, based on facts, to be true. The Socialist Party with an ever-wilting membership – its top leadership jittery
at being left with a party name and no membership – is attempting at this time to effect a deal, a reconciliation with the old guard Social Democratic Federation: not on the basis of a left-wing revolutionary program, but on the basis of uniting all socialists in the country.
Hypocritically they add that this will make their fight against capitalism more effective. We know that a party formed on this basis means a party with about twenty different programs, whose effectiveness as a revolutionary organization, if it can be called that, can easily be divided by twice that number.
As a conclusion to our investigations, we find there is still a party in America today, the Socialist Workers Party, based on real revolutionary principles, and which has lately, with other revolutionary movements in the rest of the world, inaugurated the 4th International. Although at present the 4th International probably is not as large and far-reaching as the two old bankrupt Internationals – the 2nd and 3rd – its future possibilities on the basis of the program that it gives to the working class makes its rapidity of growth and its accomplishments unlimited.
For these reasons we are leaving the Socialist Party and joining the Socialist Workers Party to build the vanguard of the coming revolution unhampered by reformist maneuvers, petty intriguers, opportunists and careerists.
This is the job facing any man or woman who sincerely calls himself a real revolutionist; for in the crisis. which must inevitably follow economic conditions under the declining capitalist system, only the genuine vanguard will lead the working class to the victorious consummation of the revolution.
After seven years’ membership in the Socialist Party, striving for the true path to socialism, – an investigation of the facts has shown us that the Socialist Party has not, and can not provide the leadership necessary. And we ask all other members of the Socialist Party to investigate as we have.
Take no one’s word, but find out for yourself; and after this has been done we feel that our decision will be your decision.
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