Q: What is meant by the expression “overthrow of the capitalist state”?
A: That means to replace it by a workers’ and farmers’ government; that is what we mean.
Q: What is meant by the expression “destroy the machinery of the capitalist state”?
A: By that we mean that when we set up the workers’ and farmers’ government in this country, the functioning of this government, its tasks, its whole nature, will be so profoundly and radically different from the functions, tasks, and nature of the bourgeois state, that we will have to replace it all along the line. From the very beginning the workers’ state has a different foundation, and it is different in all respects. It has to create an entirely new apparatus, a new state apparatus from top to bottom. That is what we mean.
Q: Do you mean that there will be no Congress or House of Representatives and Senate?
A: It will be a different kind of a Congress. It will be a Congress of representatives of workers and soldiers and farmers, based on their occupational units, rather than the present form based on territorial representation.
Q: And what is the meaning of “soviet”?
A: Soviet is a Russian word which means “council”. It is the Russian equivalent for council in our language. It means a body of representatives of various groups. That is what the term meant in the Russian Revolution. That is, the representatives—they called them deputies—I guess we would call them delegates. The delegates from various shops in a given city come together in a central body. The Russians called it the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.
Q: Now, what is meant by “expropriation”?
A: Expropriation we apply to big industry, which is in the hands of private capitalists, the Sixty Families —take it out of their hands and put it in the hands of the people through their representatives, that’s expropriation.
Q: Is it a question of principle that there should be no compensation for property expropriated from the Sixty Families?
A: No, it is not a question of principle. That question has been debated interminably in the Marxist movement. No place has any authoritative Marxist declared it a question of principle not to compensate. It is a question of possibility, of adequate finances, of an agreement of the private owners to submit, and so forth.
Q: Would the party gladly pay these owners if they could avoid violence?
A: I can only give you my opinion.
Q: What is your opinion?
A: My personal opinion is that if the workers reached the point of the majority, and confronted the capitalist private owners of industry with the fact of their majority and their power, and then we were able to make a deal with the capitalists to compensate them for their holdings, and let them enjoy this for the rest of their lives, I think it would be a cheaper, a cheaper and more satisfactory way of effecting the necessary social transformation than a civil war. I personally would vote for it—if you could get the capitalists to agree on that, which you couldn’t.
Q: What attitude does the party take toward the ballot?
A: Our party runs candidates wherever it is able to get on the ballot. We conduct very energetic campaigns during the elections, and in general, to the best of our ability, and to the limit of our resources, we participate in election campaigns.
Q: What campaigns do you remember the party having participated in in the last few years?
A: Well, I remember the candidacy of Comrade Grace Carlson for the United States Senate last year. I have been a candidate of the party several times for various offices. In Newark, where we have a good organisation, we have had candidates in every election for some time. I cite those three examples. In general, it is the policy of the party to have candidates everywhere possible.
Q: Does the party at times support other candidates?
A: Yes. In cases where we don’t have a candidate, it is our policy, as a rule, to support the candidates of another workers’ party, or of a labor or a farmer-labor party. We support them critically. That is, we do not endorse their program, but we vote for them and solicit votes for them, with the explanation that we don’t agree with their program. We support them as against the candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties.
For example, we have always supported the Farmer-Labor candidates in Minnesota in all cases where we didn’t have a candidate of our own party. We supported the candidates of the American Labor Party in New York in similar circumstances.
Q: What is the purpose of the party in participating in these electoral campaigns?
A: The first purpose, I would say, is to make full use of the democratic possibility afforded to popularise our ideas, to try to get elected wherever possible; and, from a long range view, to test out the uttermost possibility of advancing the socialist cause by democratic means.
Q: What purpose did you and associates of yours have in creating the Socialist Workers Party?
A: The purpose was to organise our forces for the more effective propagation of our ideas, with the ultimate object that I have mentioned before, of building up a party that would be able to lead the working masses of the country to socialism by means of the social revolution.
Q: What is the attitude of the party, and the opinion of the party, with reference to the government, as it exists now, being capitalist?
A: Yes, we consider it a capitalist government. That is stated in our Declaration of Principles; that is, a government which represents the economic interests of the class of capitalists in this country, and not the interests of the workers and the poor farmers; not the interests of all the people, as it pretends, but a class government.
Q: What opinion has the party as to differences within the ruling class from the point of view of more liberal or more reactionary?
A: We don’t picture the capitalist class as one solid, homogeneous unit. There are all kinds of different trends, different interests among them, which reflect themselves in different capitalist parties and different factions in the parties, and very heated struggles. An example is the present struggle between the interventionists and the isolationists.
Q: Does the party take an attitude as to whether or not the Roosevelt administration is more or less liberal than previous administrations?
Mr. Schweinhaut: I object to that as irrelevant.
The Court: Sustained.
Q: Is it possible for a difference of opinion to exist in the party on the question as to whether the transformation will be peaceful or violent?
A: I think it is possible, yes.
Q: So that there is no compulsion on a member to have an opinion as to what the future will have in store for the party or for the workers?
A: No, I don’t think that is compulsory, because that is an opinion about the future that can’t be determined with scientific precision.
Q: What steps, if any, does the party take to secure a correct interpretation of party policy by individual members?
A: Well, we have, in addition to our public lectures, and press, forums, and so forth—we have internal meetings, educational meetings. In the larger cities we usually conduct a school, where we teach the doctrines of the party. Individual comrades, unschooled workers who don’t understand our program, or who misinterpret it—all kinds of provisions are made to try to explain things to them, to convince them of the party’s point of view. That is a frequent occurrence, because, after all, the program of the party is a document that represents pretty nearly one hundred years of socialist thought, and we don’t expect an unschooled worker who joins the party to understand all those doctrines as precisely as the professional party leaders.
Q: What can you tell us about the differences and degree of knowledge of various members of the party?
A: Well, there is a big difference of various members and of various leaders.
Q: Is it always possible to correct every mistake that every member of the party makes?
Mr. Schweinhaut: I object to that.
The Court: It seems to me the answer to that is obvious.
Mr. Schweinhaut: I will stipulate that it isn’t always possible.
Mr. Goldman: That is fine.