ABSTRACT
On the eve of the long-awaited national conference to unite the Left Wing, the Left Wing was disunited on a crucial issue—whether to form a Communist party immediately or to wait and try to capture the Socialist convention, ten weeks off. In either case, the Left Wing was determined to form a Communist party. Yet few things left a deeper and more lasting mark on the American Communist movement than this seemingly unnecessary split. For this was the precursor and prototype of all the splits and factionalism for years to come. It was the embryonic form of the great schism in the Communist movement. By a strange combination of circumstances, even before any direct influence could be exerted from Russia itself, the "Americans" were pitted against the "Russians"—or, more broadly, the English-speaking elements were pitted against the foreign-language forces led by the Russians.
