as a whole... In due time, organizations of students, youths, tenants, housewives, and the unemployed formed by the Socialist group entered United Fronts with like organizations under Communist auspices. The fronts became transmission belts for the Communists... Most of the fronts sought to carry out the objectives of Soviet foreign policy, to glorify the Soviet system, and to spread confusion in the ranks of society. We were convinced that by engaging in United Front activities, we, who were opposed to Communist aims, would soon become witting or unwitting parties to the furtherance of those aims and to the destruction of democracy. The National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party also established a department aimed to direct the activities of Socialists in the trade unions, a tactic which smacked of quasi-Communist tactics to the members of the Old Guard faction. "Old Guard" splits The "Old Guard" faction was further provoked by the adoption of a policy document known as the "Declaration of Principles" by the Socialist Party's 1934 national convention, held in Detroit. The 1934 Declaration of Principles was merely the result of a long process, in the view of the Old Guard leadership, its call for the "development of the dictatorship of workers and peasants" particularly galling to the faction's anti-communist sensibilities. In closing the debate on the matter for the Old Guard at the Detroit convention, New York state party chairman Waldman had condemned the Declaration in no uncertain terms, accusing the Declaration of advancing "dangerous, provocative proposals" which advanced an "anarchistic, illegal, Communist doctrine." After the passage of the Declaration of Principles and the closing of the convention, the Old Guard returned home. On behalf of the Socialist Party of New York, chairman Waldman immediately issued a statement disavowing the actions of the Detroit convention: We repudiate the essential features of the Declaration of Principles adopted at the Socialist National Convention insofar as they depart from the traditional socialist position and commit the Socialist Party to the use of violence and extralegal means. As between the program of orderly, peaceable, constructive, and intelligent political action and the insurrectionary, destructive, and violent methods proposed by the left wing, Socialists will have no difficulty in making their choice." The Old Guard opponents of the Detroit decisions formally organized themselves as a faction immediately after the close of the Detroit conclave, establishing the Committee for the Preservation of the Socialist Party.