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Show I CHANGES OVER NIGHT "If you were to commit the Socialist party in America to the international program laid down b) Lenin you would absolutely kill the party ' This is the answer given by Eugene V. Debs Socialist candidate fat president, from Ins cell in Atlanta penitentiary, in answer to the national campaigi imittec of the Socialist party which asked him to define liis position on the Third or Communist International organ ized by Lenin. Trotzk and company at Moscow. Debs' answer shows a realization that America and Americans can never Ik- won by a program of riolenl revolution which has as its object Ihe insiallal ion o the snviet system ill the United States I 'elis know s that the program of the Moscow International is bicon-latiblc bicon-latiblc with American institutions He knows also, very probably mat it is incompatible with the facts of life. If anything has hern demonstrated b the attempl in Russia it is that fundamental economic1 changes' cannot be wroughl ovet night If Lenin and Trotsskj and ihcir co-workers ot co-conapirn ors according to the viewpoint have demonstrated Anything, it is the utter fallacy of the theory of catastrophic revolution the theory iliai soi iai and economic institutions can be bum according to plan H and some Aladdin-like magic. |