Dave King

John Reed: Do you think the American workers are gonna be led by the Russian Federations? Or an insular Italian like Louis Fraina? He has no possibility of leading a revolution in this country.

Louise Bryant: Unlike you?

John Reed: I'm just saying that the revolution in this country is not gonna be led by immigrants.

Louise Bryant: Revolution? In this country? When, Jack?

John Reed: I have to go.

Louise Bryant: You don't have to go. You want to go. You want to go running all over the world ranting and raving and making resolutions and organizing caucuses. What's the difference between the Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party except that you're running one and he's running the other?

John Reed: I've made a commitment.

Louise Bryant: To what? To the fine distinction between which half of the left of the left is recognized by Moscow as the real Communist Party in America? To petty political squabbling between humorless and hack politicians just wasting their time on left-wing dogma? To getting the endorsement of a committee in Russia you call the international for your group of 14 intellectual friends in the basement who are supposed to tell the workers of this country what they want, whether they want it or not? Write, Jack. You're not a politician, you're a writer. And your writing has done more for the revolution than 20 years of this infighting can do, and you know it.