FAILURE OF THE LEFT
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common interest in Hitler's defeat. Those whom we may call
opportunist socialists perceive correctly that there is a wide com–
mon interest in the defeat of Hitlerism; they overlook systematic–
ally the objective oppositions between those who are for the
moment companions-in-arms.
If
my house is afire the man who holds the mortgage on it
will help me to put it out, if only for reasons of self-interest,
although other considerations are not excluded. But nonetheless
he may try to foreclose on me tomorrow. The infantile leftist is
guilty of the criminal folly of saying: "Let the house burn. Fight
the dirty exploiter!" The opportunist socialist forgets that he
must still reckon with the man who holds the mortgage when the
fire is out. And more immediately, that issues may arise over
whether the furniture, which belongs to the mortgagee, or the
fixed appurtenances, which belong to the mortgagor, are to be
saved.
Granted, then, that the military defeat of Hitlerism is the
first step to any possible socialist reconstruction of the world.
But it is only the first step, and ·a socialist and labor movement
which ideologically disarms itself when it cooperates with its
opponents for a specific task, may find itself terribly disadvantaged
after a purely military victory. What is worse, it may find the
world in such a state that it may become necessary to put down
another Hitler in another twenty years. Not only for its own
interests but for the interest of the entire community, it cannot
lose sight of its programs and the ideals of a democratic socialist
world order.
It would be unfair to say that those socialists who are now
giving uncritical political support to the Roosevelt regime have
abandoned or forgotten their ideals. But it would not be unfair
to say that in their political activity they have abandoned in the
name of "realism" a scientific, critical approach to questions of
politics. There are four conspicuous illustrations of this exem–
plified in different ways and in varying degrees by the constituent
elements of the progressive front.
I.
The first is the failure to recognize the indispensable
character of an
independent
political party to achieve a socialist
program. Without an independent political party-and the Amer–
ican Labor Party is not yet such a party-they cannot even exact