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MR.
JUSTICE SANFORD delivered the opinion of the Court.
Benjamin Gitlow was indicted in the Supreme Court
of New York, with three others, for the statutory crime of criminal
anarchy. New York Penal Laws, §§ 160, 161. [n1] He was
separately tried, convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment. The judgment
was affirmed by the Appellate Division and by the Court of Appeals. 195
App.Div. 773; 234 N.Y. 132 and 539. The case is here on writ of error to
the Supreme Court, to which the record was remitted. 260 U.S. 703.
The contention here is that the statute, by its
terms and as applied in this case, is repugnant to the due process
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Its material provisions are:
§ 160. Criminal anarchy defined. Criminal
anarchy is the doctrine that organized government should be overthrown
by force or violence, or by assassination of the executive head or of
any of the executive officials of government, or by any unlawful means.
The advocacy of such doctrine either by word of mouth or writing is a
felony.
§ 161. Advocacy of criminal anarchy. Any
person who:
1. By word of mouth or writing advocates, advises
or teaches the duty, necessity or propriety of overthrowing or
overturning organized government by force or violence, or by
assassination of the executive head or of any of the executive officials
of government, or by any unlawful means; or,
2. Prints, publishes, edits, issues or knowingly
circulates, sells, distributes or publicly displays any book, paper,
document, or written or printed matter in any form, containing or
advocating, advising or teaching the doctrine that organized government
should be overthrown by force, violence or any unlawful means
Is guilty of a felony and punishable
by imprisonment or fine, or both.
The indictment was in two counts. The first
charged that the defendant had advocated, advised and taught the duty,
necessity and propriety of overthrowing and overturning organized
government by force, violence and unlawful means, by certain writings
therein set forth entitled "The Left Wing Manifesto"; the
second, that he had printed, published and knowingly circulated and
distributed a certain paper called "The Revolutionary Age,"
containing the writings set forth in the first count advocating,
advising and teaching the doctrine that organized government should be
overthrown by force, violence and unlawful means.
The following facts were established on the trial by undisputed
evidence and admissions: the defendant is a member of the Left Wing
Section of the Socialist Party, a dissenting branch or faction of that
party formed in opposition to its dominant policy of "moderate
Socialism." Membership in both is open to aliens as well as
citizens. The Left Wing Section was organized nationally at a conference
in New York City in June, 1919, attended by ninety delegates from twenty
different States. The conference elected a National Council, of which
the defendant was a member, and left to it the adoption of a "Manifesto."
This was published in The Revolutionary Age, the official organ of the
Left Wing. The defendant was on the board of managers of the paper, and
was its business manager. He arranged for the printing of the paper, and
took to the printer the manuscript of the first issue which contained
the Left Wing Manifesto, and also a Communist Program and a Program of
the Left Wing that had been adopted by the conference. Sixteen thousand
copies were printed, which were delivered at the premises in New York
City used as the office of the Revolutionary Age and the headquarters of
the Left Wing, and occupied by the defendant and other officials. These
copies were paid for by the defendant, as business manager of the paper.
Employees at this office wrapped and mailed out copies of the paper
under the defendant's direction, and copies were sold from this office.
It was admitted that the defendant signed a card subscribing to the
Manifesto and Program of the Left Wing, which all applicants were
required to sign before being admitted to membership; that he went to
different parts of the State to speak to branches of the Socialist Party
about the principles of the Left Wing and advocated their adoption, and
that he was responsible for the Manifesto as it appeared, that "he
knew of the publication, in a general way, and he knew of its
publication afterwards, and is responsible for its circulation."
There was no evidence of any effect resulting
from the publication and circulation of the Manifesto.
No witnesses were offered in behalf of the defendant.
Extracts from the Manifesto are set forth in the
margin. [n2] Coupled with a review of the rise of Socialism, it
condemned the dominant "moderate Socialism" for its
recognition of the necessity of the democratic parliamentary state;
repudiated its policy of introducing Socialism by legislative measures,
and advocated, in plain and unequivocal language, the necessity of
accomplishing the "Communist Revolution" by a militant and "revolutionary
Socialism", based on "the class struggle" and mobilizing
the "power of the proletariat in action," through mass
industrial revolts developing into mass political strikes and "revolutionary
mass action", for the purpose of conquering and destroying the
parliamentary state and establishing in its place, through a "revolutionary
dictatorship of the proletariat", the system of Communist
Socialism. The then recent strikes in Seattle and Winnipeg [n3] were
cited as instances of a development already verging on revolutionary
action and suggestive of proletarian dictatorship, in which the
strike-workers were "trying to usurp the functions of municipal
government", and revolutionary Socialism, it was urged, must use
these mass industrial revolts to broaden the strike, make it general and
militant, and develop it into mass political strikes and revolutionary
mass action for the annihilation of the parliamentary state.
At the outset of the trial, the defendant's
counsel objected to the introduction of any evidence under the
indictment on the grounds that, as a matter of law, the Manifesto "is
not in contravention of the statute," and that "the statute is
in contravention of" the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. This objection was denied. They also moved, at the close of
the evidence, to dismiss the indictment and direct an acquittal "on
the grounds stated in the first objection to evidence", and again
on the grounds that "the indictment does not charge an offense"
and the evidence "does not show an offense." These motions
were also denied.
The court, among other things, charged the jury,
in substance, that they must determine what was the intent, purpose and
fair meaning of the Manifesto; that its words must be taken in their
ordinary meaning, as they would be understood by people whom it might
reach; that a mere statement or analysis of social and economic facts
and historical incidents, in the nature of an essay, accompanied by
prophecy as to the future course of events, but with no teaching, advice
or advocacy of action, would not constitute the advocacy, advice or
teaching of a doctrine for the overthrow of government within the
meaning of the statute; that a mere statement that unlawful acts might
accomplish such a purpose would be insufficient, unless there was a
teaching, advising and advocacy of employing such unlawful acts for the
purpose of overthrowing government, and that, if the jury had a
reasonable doubt that the Manifesto did teach, advocate or advise the
duty, necessity or propriety of using unlawful means for the
overthrowing of organized government, the defendant was entitled to an
acquittal.
The defendant's counsel submitted two requests to
charge which embodied in substance the statement that to constitute
criminal anarchy within the meaning of the statute it was necessary that
the language used or published should advocate, teach or advise the
duty, necessity or propriety of doing "some definite or immediate
act or acts" of force, violence or unlawfulness directed toward the
overthrowing of organized government. These were denied further than had
been charged. Two other requests to charge embodied in substance the
statement that, to constitute guilt, the language used or published must
be "reasonably and ordinarily calculated to incite certain persons"
to acts of force, violence or unlawfulness, with the object of
overthrowing organized government. These were also denied.
The Appellate Division, after setting forth
extracts from the Manifesto and referring to the Left Wing and Communist
Programs published in the same issue of the Revolutionary Age, said:
[n4]
It is perfectly plain that the plan and purpose
advocated . . . contemplate the overthrow and destruction of the
governments of the United States and of all the States, not by the free
action of the majority of the people through the ballot box in electing
representatives to authorize a change of government by amending or
changing the Constitution, but by immediately organizing the industrial
proletariat into militant Socialist unions and at the earliest
opportunity through mass strike and force and violence, if necessary,
compelling the government to cease to function, and then through a
proletarian dictatorship, taking charge of and appropriating all
property and administering it and governing through such dictatorship
until such time as the proletariat is permitted to administer and govern
it. . . . The articles in question are not a discussion of ideas and
theories. They advocate a doctrine deliberately determined upon and
planned for militantly disseminating a propaganda advocating that it is
the duty and necessity of the proletariat engaged in industrial pursuits
to organize to such an extent that, by massed strike, the wheels of
government may ultimately be stopped and the government overthrown. . .
.
The Court of Appeals held that the Manifesto "advocated
the overthrow of this government by violence, or by unlawful means."
[n5] In one of the opinions representing the views of a majority of the
court, [n6] it was said:
It will be seen . . . that this defendant through
the manifesto . . . advocated the destruction of the state and the
establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. . . . To advocate
. . . the commission of this conspiracy or action by mass strike whereby
government is crippled, the administration of justice paralyzed, and the
health, morals and welfare of a community endangered, and this for the
purpose of bringing about a revolution in the state, is to advocate the
overthrow of organized government by unlawful means.
In the other, [n7] it was said:
As we read this manifesto, we feel entirely clear
that the jury were justified in rejecting the view that it was a mere
academic and harmless discussion of the advantages of communism and
advanced socialism
and
in regarding it as a justification and advocacy
of action by one class which would destroy the rights of all other
classes and overthrow the state itself by use of revolutionary mass
strikes. It is true that there is no advocacy in specific terms of the
use of . . . force or violence. There was no need to be. Some things are
so commonly incident to others that they do not need to be mentioned
when the underlying purpose is described.
And both the Appellate Division and the Court of
Appeals held the statute constitutional.
The specification of the errors relied on relates
solely to the specific rulings of the trial court in the matters
hereinbefore set out. [n8] The correctness of the verdict is not
questioned, as the case was submitted to the jury. The sole contention
here is, essentially, that as there was no evidence of any concrete
result flowing from the publication of the Manifesto or of circumstances
showing the likelihood of such result, the statute as construed and
applied by the trial court penalizes the mere utterance, as such, of "doctrine"
having no quality of incitement, without regard either to the
circumstances of its utterance or to the likelihood of unlawful
sequences, and that, as the exercise of the right of free expression
with relation to government is only punishable "in circumstances
involving likelihood of substantive evil," the statute contravenes
the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The argument in
support of this contention rests primarily upon the following
propositions: 1st, that the "liberty" protected by the
Fourteenth Amendment includes the liberty of speech and of the press,
and 2nd, that while liberty of expression "is not absolute,"
it may be restrained "only in circumstances where its exercise
bears a causal relation with some substantive evil, consummated,
attempted or likely," and as the statute "takes no account of
circumstances," it unduly restrains this liberty and is therefore
unconstitutional.
The precise question presented, and the only
question which we can consider under this writ of error, then is whether
the statute, as construed and applied in this case by the state courts,
deprived the defendant of his liberty of expression in violation of the
due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The statute does not penalize the utterance or
publication of abstract "doctrine" or academic discussion
having no quality of incitement to any concrete action. It is not aimed
against mere historical or philosophical essays. It does not restrain
the advocacy of changes in the form of government by constitutional and
lawful means. What it prohibits is language advocating, advising or
teaching the overthrow of organized government by unlawful means. These
words imply urging to action. Advocacy is defined in the Century
Dictionary as: "1. The act of pleading for, supporting, or
recommending; active espousal." It is not the abstract "doctrine"
of overthrowing organized government by unlawful means which is
denounced by the statute, but the advocacy of action for the
accomplishment of that purpose. It was so construed and applied by the
trial judge, who specifically charged the jury that:
A mere grouping of historical events and a
prophetic deduction from them would neither constitute advocacy, advice
or teaching of a doctrine for the overthrow of government by force,
violence or unlawful means. [And] if it were a mere essay on the
subject, as suggested by counsel, based upon deductions from alleged
historical events, with no teaching, advice or advocacy of action, it
would not constitute a violation of the statute. . . .
The Manifesto, plainly, is neither the statement
of abstract doctrine nor, as suggested by counsel, mere prediction that
industrial disturbances and revolutionary mass strikes will result
spontaneously in an inevitable process of evolution in the economic
system. It advocates and urges in fervent language mass action which
shall progressively foment industrial disturbances and, through
political mass strikes and revolutionary mass action, overthrow and
destroy organized parliamentary government. It concludes with a call to
action in these words:
The proletariat revolution and the Communist
reconstruction of society - the struggle for these - is now
indispensable. . . . The Communist International calls the proletariat
of the world to the final struggle!
This is not the expression of philosophical
abstraction, the mere prediction of future events; it is the language of
direct incitement.
The means advocated for bringing about the
destruction of organized parliamentary government, namely, mass
industrial revolts usurping the functions of municipal government,
political mass strikes directed against the parliamentary state, and
revolutionary mass action for its final destruction, necessarily imply
the use of force and violence, and, in their essential nature, are
inherently unlawful in a constitutional government of law and order.
That the jury were warranted in finding that the Manifesto advocated not
merely the abstract doctrine of overthrowing organized government by
force, violence and unlawful means, but action to that end, is clear.
For present purposes, we may and do assume that
freedom of speech and of the press which are protected by the First
Amendment from abridgment by Congress are among the fundamental personal
rights and "liberties" protected by the due process clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States. We do not
regard the incidental statement in Prudential Ins. Co. v. Cheek,
259 U.S. 530, 543, that the Fourteenth Amendment imposes no restrictions
on the States concerning freedom of speech, as determinative of this
question. [n9]
It is a fundamental principle, long established,
that the freedom of speech and of the press which is secured by the
Constitution does not confer an absolute right to speak or publish,
without responsibility, whatever one may choose, or an unrestricted and
unbridled license that gives immunity for every possible use of language
and prevents the punishment of those who abuse this freedom. 2
Story on the Constitution, 5th ed., § 1580, p. 634; Robertson
v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 281; Patterson v. Colorado, 205
U.S. 454, 462; Fox v. Washington, 236 U.S. 273, 276; Schenck
v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 , 52 ; Frohwerk v. United States,
249 U.S. 204, 206; Debs v. United States, 249 U.S. 211, 213;
Schaefer v. United States, 251 U.S. 466, 474; Gilbert v.
Minnesota, 254 U.S. 325, 332; Warren v. United States,
(C.C.A.) 183 Fed. 718, 721. Reasonably limited,
it was said by Story in the passage cited, this freedom is an
inestimable privilege in a free government; without such limitation, it
might become the scourge of the republic.
That a State in the exercise of its police power
may punish those who abuse this freedom by utterances inimical to the
public welfare, tending to corrupt public morals, incite to crime, or
disturb the public peace, is not open to question. Robertson
v. Baldwin, supra, p. 281; Patterson v. Colorado, supra, p.
462; Fox v. Washington, supra, p. 277; Gilbert v. Minnesota,
supra, p. 339; People v. Most, 171 N.Y. 423, 431; State v.
Holm, 139 Minn. 267, 275; State v. Hennessy, 114 Wash. 351,
359; State v. Boyd, 86 N.J.L. 75, 79; State v. McKee, 73
Conn. 18, 27. Thus, it was held by this Court in
the Fox Case that a State may punish publications advocating and
encouraging a breach of its criminal laws; and, in the Gilbert Case,
that a State may punish utterances teaching or advocating that its
citizens should not assist the United States in prosecuting or carrying
on war with its public enemies.
And, for yet more imperative reasons, a State may
punish utterances endangering the foundations of organized government
and threatening its overthrow by unlawful means. These imperil its own
existence as a constitutional State. Freedom of speech and press, said
Story (supra) does not protect disturbances to the public peace or the
attempt to subvert the government. It does not protect publications or
teachings which tend to subvert or imperil the government or to impede
or hinder it in the performance of its governmental duties. State
v. Holm, supra, p. 275. It does not protect
publications prompting the overthrow of government by force; the
punishment of those who publish articles which tend to destroy organized
society being essential to the security of freedom and the stability of
the State. People v. Most, supra, pp. 431, 432.
And a State may penalize utterances which openly
advocate the overthrow of the representative and constitutional form of
government of the United States and the several States, by violence or
other unlawful means. People v. Lloyd, 304 Ill. 23, 34.
See also State v. Tachin, 92 N.J.L. 269, 274, and People v.
Steelik, 187 Cal. 361, 375. In short, this
freedom does not deprive a State of the primary and essential right of
self-preservation, which, so long as human governments endure, they
cannot be denied. Turner v. Williams, 194 U.S. 279, 294.
In Toledo Newspaper Co. v. United States, 247 U.S. 402, 419, it
was said:
The safeguarding and fructification of free and
constitutional institutions is the very basis and mainstay upon which
the freedom of the press rests, and that freedom, therefore, does not
and cannot be held to include the right virtually to destroy such
institutions.
By enacting the present statute, the State has
determined, through its legislative body, that utterances advocating the
overthrow of organized government by force, violence and unlawful means
are so inimical to the general welfare and involve such danger of
substantive evil that they may be penalized in the exercise of its
police power. That determination must be given great weight. Every
presumption is to be indulged in favor of the validity of the statute.
Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623, 661. And the case
is to be considered "in the light of the principle that the State
is primarily the judge of regulations required in the interest of public
safety and welfare;" and that its police
statutes may only be declared unconstitutional
where they are arbitrary or unreasonable attempts to exercise authority
vested in the State in the public interest.
Great Northern Ry. v. Clara City, 246 U.S. 434, 439.
That utterances inciting to the overthrow of
organized government by unlawful means present a sufficient danger of
substantive evil to bring their punishment within the range of
legislative discretion is clear. Such utterances, by their very nature,
involve danger to the public peace and to the security of the State.
They threaten breaches of the peace, and ultimate revolution. And the
immediate danger is none the less real and substantial because the
effect of a given utterance cannot be accurately foreseen. The State
cannot reasonably be required to measure the danger from every such
utterance in the nice balance of a jeweler's scale. A single
revolutionary spark may kindle a fire that, smouldering for a time, may
burst into a sweeping and destructive conflagration. It cannot be said
that the State is acting arbitrarily or unreasonably when, in the
exercise of its judgment as to the measures necessary to protect the
public peace and safety, it seeks to extinguish the spark without
waiting until it has enkindled the flame or blazed into the
conflagration. It cannot reasonably be required to defer the adoption of
measures for its own peace and safety until the revolutionary utterances
lead to actual disturbances of the public peace or imminent and
immediate danger of its own destruction; but it may, in the exercise of
its judgment, suppress the threatened danger in its incipiency.
In People v. Lloyd, supra, p. 35, it was aptly said:
Manifestly, the legislature has authority to
forbid the advocacy of a doctrine designed and intended to overthrow the
government without waiting until there is a present and imminent danger
of the success of the plan advocated. If the State were compelled to
wait until the apprehended danger became certain, then its right to
protect itself would come into being simultaneously with the overthrow
of the government, when there would be neither prosecuting officers nor
courts for the enforcement of the law.
We cannot hold that the present statute is an
arbitrary or unreasonable exercise of the police power of the State
unwarrantably infringing the freedom of speech or press, and we must and
do sustain its constitutionality.
This being so, it may be applied to every
utterance - not too trivial to be beneath the notice of the law - which
is of such a character and used with such intent and purpose as to bring
it within the prohibition of the statute. This principle is
illustrated in Fox v. Washington, supra, p. 277; Abrams v.
United States, 250 U.S. 616 , 624 ; Schaefer v. United States,
supra., pp. 479, 480; Pierce v. United States, 252 U.S. 239,
250, 251; [n10] and Gilbert v. Minnesota, supra, p. 333.
In other words, when the legislative body has
determined generally, in the constitutional exercise of its discretion,
that utterances of a certain kind involve such danger of substantive
evil that they may be punished, the question whether any specific
utterance coming within the prohibited class is likely, in and of
itself, to bring about the substantive evil is not open to
consideration. It is sufficient that the statute itself be
constitutional and that the use of the language comes within its
prohibition.
It is clear that the question in such cases is
entirely different from that involved in those cases where the statute
merely prohibits certain acts involving the danger of substantive evil,
without any reference to language itself, and it is sought to apply its
provisions to language used by the defendant for the purpose of bringing
about the prohibited results. There, if it be contended that the statute
cannot be applied to the language used by the defendant because of its
protection by the freedom of speech or press, it must necessarily be
found, as an original question, without any previous determination by
the legislative body, whether the specific language used involved such
likelihood of bringing about the substantive evil as to deprive it of
the constitutional protection. In such cases, it has been held that the
general provisions of the statute may be constitutionally applied to the
specific utterance of the defendant if its natural tendency and probable
effect was to bring about the substantive evil which the legislative
body might prevent. Schenck v. United States, supra, p.
51 ; Debs v. United States, supra., pp. 215, 216. And the
general statement in the Schenck Case (p. 52 ) that the
question in every case is whether the words are
used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear
and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils
- upon which great reliance is placed in the
defendant's argument - was manifestly intended, as shown by the context,
to apply only in cases of this class, and has no application to those
like the present, where the legislative body itself has previously
determined the danger of substantive evil arising from utterances of a
specified character.
The defendant's brief does not separately discuss
any of the rulings of the trial court. It is only necessary to say that,
applying the general rules already stated, we find that none of them
involved any invasion of the constitutional rights of the defendant. It
was not necessary, within the meaning of.the statute, that the defendant
should have advocated "some definite or immediate act or acts"
of force, violence or unlawfulness. It was sufficient if such acts were
advocated in general terms, and it was not essential that their
immediate execution should have been advocated. Nor was it necessary
that the language should have been "reasonably and ordinarily
calculated to incite certain persons" to acts of force, violence or
unlawfulness. The advocacy need not be addressed to specific persons.
Thus, the publication and circulation of a newspaper article may be an
encouragement or endeavor to persuade to murder, although not addressed
to any person in particular. Queen v. Most, L.R., 7
Q.B.D. 244.
We need not enter upon a consideration of the English common law rule
of seditious libel or the Federal Sedition Act of 1798, to which
reference is made in the defendant's brief. These are so unlike the
present statute that we think the decisions under them cast no helpful
light upon the questions here.
And finding, for the reasons stated, that the
statute is not, in itself, unconstitutional, and that it has not been
applied in the present case in derogation of any constitutional right,
the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
1. Laws of 1909, ch. 88; Consol.Laws, 1909, ch. 40. This statute was
originally enacted in 1902. Laws of 1902, ch. 371.
2. Italics are given as in the original, but the paragraphing is
omitted.
The Left Wing Manifesto
Issued on Authority of the Conference by the
National Council of the Left Wing
The world is in crisis. Capitalism, the prevailing system of society,
is in process of disintegration and collapse. . . . Humanity can be
saved from its last excesses only by the Communist Revolution. There can
now be only the Socialism which is one in temper and purpose with the
proletarian revolutionary struggle. . . . The class struggle is the
heart of Socialism. Without strict conformity to the class struggle, in
its revolutionary implications, Socialism becomes either sheer
Utopianism, or a method of reaction. . . . The dominant Socialism united
with the capitalist governments to prevent a revolution. The Russian
Revolution was the first act of the proletariat against the war and
Imperialism. . . . [The] proletariat, urging on the poorer peasantry,
conquered power. It accomplished a proletarian revolution by means of
the Bolshevik policy of "all power to the Soviets," --
organizing the new transitional state of proletarian dictatorship. . . .
Moderate Socialism affirms that the bourgeois, democratic parliamentary
state is the necessary basis for the introduction of Socialism. . . .
Revolutionary Socialism, on the contrary, insists that the democratic
parliamentary state can never be the basis for the introduction of
Socialism; that it is necessary to destroy the parliamentary state, and
construct a new state of the organized producers, which will deprive the
bourgeoisie of political power, and function as a revolutionary
dictatorship of the proletariat. . . . Revolutionary Socialism alone is
capable of mobilizing the proletariat for Socialism, for the conquest of
the power of the state, by means of revolutionary mass action and
proletarian dictatorship. . . . Imperialism is dominant in the United
States, which is now a world power. . . . The war has aggrandized
American Capitalism, instead of weakening it as in Europe. . . . These
conditions modify our immediate task, but do not alter its general
character; this is not the moment of revolution, but it is the moment of
revolutionary struggle. . . . Strikes are developing which verge on
revolutionary action, and in which the suggestion of proletarian
dictatorship is apparent, the striker-workers trying to usurp functions
of municipal government, as in Seattle and Winnipeg. The mass struggle
of the proletariat is coming into being. . . . These strikes will
constitute the determining feature of proletarian action in the days to
come. Revolutionary Socialism must use these mass industrial revolts to
broaden the strike, to make it general and militant; use the strike for
political objectives, and, finally, develop the mass political strike
against Capitalism and the state. Revolutionary Socialism must base
itself on the mass struggles of the proletariat, engage directly in
these struggles while emphasizing the revolutionary purposes of
Socialism and the proletarian movement. The mass strikes of the American
proletariat provide the material basis out of which to develop the
concepts and action of revolutionary Socialism. . . . Our task . . . is
to articulate and organize the mass of the unorganized industrial
proletariat, which constitutes the basis for a militant Socialism. The
struggle for the revolutionary industrial unionism of the proletariat
becomes an indispensable phase of revolutionary Socialism, on the basis
of which to broaden and deepen the action of the militant proletariat,
developing reserves for the ultimate conquest of power. . . .
Revolutionary Socialism adheres to the class struggle because through
the class struggle alone -- the mass struggle -- can the industrial
proletariat secure immediate concessions and finally conquer power by
organizing the industrial government of the working class. The class
struggle is a political struggle . . . in the sense that its objective
is political -- the overthrow of the political organization upon which
capitalistic exploitation depends, and the introduction of a new social
system. The direct objective is the conquest by the proletariat of the
power of the state. Revolutionary Socialism does not propose to "capture"
the bourgeois parliamentary state, but to conquer and destroy it.
Revolutionary Socialism, accordingly, repudiates the policy of
introducing Socialism by means of legislative measures on the basis of
the bourgeois state. . . . It proposes to conquer by means of political
action . . . in the revolutionary Marxian sense, which does not simply
mean parliamentarism, but the class action of the proletariat in any
form having as its objective the conquest of the power of the state. . .
. Parliamentary action which emphasizes the implacable character of the
class struggle is an indispensable means of agitation. . . . But
parliamentarism cannot conquer the power of the state for the
proletariat. . . . It is accomplished not by the legislative
representatives of the proletariat, but by the mass power of the
proletariat in action. The supreme power of the proletariat inheres in
the political mass strike, in using the industrial mass power of the
proletariat for political objectives. Revolutionary Socialism,
accordingly, recognizes that the supreme form of proletarian political
action is the political mass strike. . . . The power of the proletariat
lies fundamentally in its control of the industrial process. The
mobilization of this control in action against the bourgeois state and
Capitalism means the end of Capitalism, the initial form of the
revolutionary mass action that will conquer the power of the state. . .
. The revolution starts with strikes of protest, developing into mass
political strikes and then into revolutionary mass action for the
conquest of the power of the state. Mass action becomes political in
purpose while extra-parliamentary in form; it is equally a process of
revolution and the revolution itself in operation. The final objective
of mass action is the conquest of the power of the state, the
annihilation of the bourgeois parliamentary state and the introduction
of the transition proletarian state, functioning as a revolutionary
dictatorship of the proletariat. . . . The bourgeois parliamentary state
is the organ of the bourgeoisie for the coercion of the proletariat. The
revolutionary proletariat must, accordingly, destroy this state. . . .
It is therefore necessary that the proletariat organize its own state
for the coercion and suppression of the bourgeoisie. . . . Proletarian
dictatorship is a recognition of the necessity for a revolutionary state
to coerce and suppress the bourgeoisie; it is equally a recognition of
the fact that, in the Communist reconstruction of society, the
proletariat as a class alone counts. . . . The old machinery of the
state cannot be used by the revolutionary proletariat. It must be
destroyed. The proletariat creates a new state, based directly upon the
industrially organized producers, upon the industrial unions or Soviets,
or a combination of both. It is this state alone, functioning as a
dictatorship of the proletariat, that can realize Socialism. . . . While
the dictatorship of the proletariat performs its negative task of
crushing the old order, it performs the positive task of constructing
the new. Together with the government of the proletarian dictatorship,
there is developed a new "government," which is no longer
government in the old sense, since it concerns itself with the
management of production, and not with the government of persons. Out of
workers' control of industry, introduced by the proletarian
dictatorship, there develops the complete structure of Communist
Socialism -- industrial self-government of the communistically organized
producers. When this structure is completed, which implies the complete
expropriation of the bourgeoisie economically and politically, the
dictatorship of the proletariat ends, in its place coming the full and
free social and individual autonomy of the Communist order. . . . It is
not a problem of immediate revolution. It is a problem of the immediate
revolutionary struggle. The revolutionary epoch of the final struggle
against Capitalism may last for years and tens of years; but the
Communist International offers a policy and program immediate and
ultimate in scope, that provides for the immediate class struggle
against Capitalism, in its revolutionary implications, and for the final
act of the conquest of power. The old order is in decay. Civilization is
in collapse. The proletarian revolution and the Communist reconstruction
of society -- the struggle for these -- is now indispensable. This is
the message of the Communist International to the workers of the world.
The Communist International calls the proletariat of the world to the
final struggle!
3. There was testimony at the trial that
there was an extended strike at Winnipeg commencing May 15, 1919,
during which the production and supply of necessities, transportation,
postal and telegraphic communication and fire and sanitary protection
were suspended or seriously curtailed.
4. 195 App.Div. 773, 782, 790.
5. Five judges, constituting the majority of the court, agreed in this
view. 234 N.Y. 132, 138. And the two judges, constituting the minority
-- who dissented solely on a question as to the construction of the
statute which is not here involved -- said in reference to the
Manifesto:
Revolution for the purpose of overthrowing the present form and the
established political system of the United States government by direct
means.rather than by constitutional means is therein clearly advocated
and defended. . . . P. 154.
6. Pages 141, 142.
7. Pages 149, 150.
8. Exceptions to all of these rulings had been duly taken.
9. Compare Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U.S. 454, 462; Twining
v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78 , 108 ; Coppage v. Kansas, 236
U.S. 1, 17; Fox v. Washington, 236 U.S. 273, 276; Schaefer
v. United States, 251 U.S. 466, 474; Gilbert v. Minnesota,
254 U.S. 325, 338; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 , 399 ; 2
Story On the Constitution, 5th Ed., § 1950, p. 698.
10. This reference is to so much of the decision as relates to the
conviction under the third count. In considering the effect of the
decisions under the Espionage Act of 1917 and the amendment of 1918, the
distinction must be kept in mind between indictments under those
provisions which specifically punish certain utterances, and those which
merely punish specified acts in general terms, without specific
reference to the use of language. | |