Everything about the Socialist Party Of America totally explained
The
Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a
socialist political party in the
United States. It was formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old
Social Democratic Party and a wing of the older
Socialist Labor Party. It flourished in numerous ethnic
enclaves from 1904 through 1912, with
Eugene V. Debs as its
presidential candidate. It splintered over
World War I and
Russia's 1917
October Revolution and was a minor political movement after 1920, often nominating
Norman Thomas for president.
History
Early history
From 1901 to the onset of
World War I, the Socialist Party had numerous elected officials. There were two Socialist members of Congress,
Meyer London of
New York City and
Victor Berger of
Milwaukee (a part of the
sewer socialism movement);
over 70 mayors, and many state legislators and city councilors. Its voting strength was greatest among recent Jewish, Finnish and German immigrants, coal miners, and former Populist farmers in the Midwest.
Early political perspectives ranged from radical socialism to social democracy, with New York party leader
Morris Hillquit and Congressman Berger on the more social democratic or right wing of the party and radical socialists and syndicalists, including members of the
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the party's frequent candidate, Eugene V. Debs, on the left wing of the party. As well there were
agrarian utopian-leaning radicals, such as
Julius Wayland of Kansas, who edited the party's leading national newspaper,
Appeal To Reason along with trade unionists; Jewish, Finnish, and German immigrants; and intellectuals such as
Walter Lippmann and the Black activist/intellectual
Hubert Harrison.
The party had a hostile relationship with the
American Federation of Labor (AFL). The AFL leadership was strongly opposed to the SPA, but moderate Socialists like Berger and Hillquit urged cooperation with the AFL in hopes of eventually forming a broader Labor Party. Their leading ally in the AFL was
Max Hayes, president of the
International Typographical Union. These efforts were bitterly spurned, however, by the majority of the Socialist Party, who held to either the
IWW view or the Wayland view.
The party's opposition to
World War I caused a sharp decline in membership. An increase in the membership of its
language federations from areas involved in the
Bolshevik Revolution proved illusory, since these members were soon lost to the
Communist Labor Party.
The party also lost some of its most prominent members, who had been in favor of America's entry into World War I, including
Walter Lippmann,
John Spargo,
George Phelps Stokes, and
William English Walling. They briefly formed an outfit called the
National Party, in an unrealised hope of merging with the remnants of
Theodore Roosevelt's
Progressive Party and the
Prohibition Party.
In June 1918 the Party's best-known leader,
Eugene Victor Debs made an anti-war speech calling for
draft resistance; he was arrested under the
Sedition Act of 1918, convicted and sentenced to serve ten years in prison. He was pardoned by President
Warren G. Harding in 1921.
Expulsion of Bolshevists
In January 1919
Vladimir Lenin invited the
communist wing of the Socialist Party to join in the founding of the Communist Third International, the
Comintern.
The Bolshevists held a conference in June 1919 to plan to regain control of the party by bringing delegations from the sections of the party that had been expelled to demand that they be seated. However, the language federations, eventually joined by
Charles Ruthenberg and
Louis Fraina, broke away from that effort and formed their own party, the
Communist Party of America, at a separate convention in Chicago on
September 2 1919.
Meanwhile plans led by
John Reed and
Benjamin Gitlow to crash the Socialist Party convention went ahead. Tipped off, the incumbents called the police, who obligingly expelled the Bolshevists from the hall. The remaining Bolshevist delegates walked out and, meeting with the expelled delegates, formed the
Communist Labor Party on
September 1,
1919. The Communist Labor Party merged with the Communist Party of America in 1921 to form the predecessor of the
Communist Party USA.
Expulsion of Socialists from the New York Assembly
In 1920, the
New York State Assembly expelled five Socialist members on the grounds that being a member of the Socialist Party constituted as disloyalty. These members included
Louis Waldman, Samuel Orr, Charles Solomon, August Claessens and
Sam Dewitt. This case was brought before the Supreme Court, and the members were permitted back into the Assembly.
Electoral campaigns
From 1904 to 1912, the Socialist Party ran
Eugene Debs for President at each election. The best showing ever for a Socialist ticket was in
1912, when Debs gained 901,551 total votes, or 6% of the popular vote. In 1920 Debs ran again, this time from prison, and received 913,693 votes, 3.4% of the total.
The Socialist Party didn't run a presidential candidate in
1924, but supported Senator
Robert M. La Follette, Sr. and his ad-hoc
Progressive Party. LaFollette's party disbanded after his death in 1925.
In 1928, the Socialist Party returned as an independent electoral entity under the leadership of
Norman Thomas, a Protestant minister in New York City. Thomas repeatedly ran as the party's presidential candidate through 1948.
A turn to the left
The party experienced a major growth spurt during the
Great Depression, primarily among youth. These youth leaders, however, were quickly won over to the proposition of reconciliation and reunification with the Communist Party, in keeping with new
Popular Front policy of the
Comintern. Leaders of the United Front faction included
Reinhold Niebuhr,
Andrew Biemiller,
Daniel Hoan, and
Gus Tyler. Most of these figures went on to become the founders of
Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a key
Cold War liberal organization.
The "militants", as they were called, were triumphant at the Socialist Party's national convention in Detroit in June 1934, which precipitated the exodus of the opposing "old guard"—led by
Louis Waldman and
David Dubinsky—which favored the formation of a national
Farmer-Labor Party that would have been likely led by
Huey Long. After this fell through, in 1936 the old guard leaders formed the
Social Democratic Federation and reluctantly endorsed
Franklin Roosevelt.
By this time, however, the militants as well were on the Roosevelt bandwagon, in keeping with the dictates of the
Popular Front. The party was then buttressed by the mass entry of the American followers of
Leon Trotsky from the
U.S Workers Party in keeping with the so-called
French Turn, by which Trotskyists recruited to their
revolutionary perspectives. The revolutionary perspectives of the Trotskyists caused enough havoc, however, that they were expelled by 1938. The Socialist Party's youth group, the
Young People's Socialist League, left with the Trotskyists.
Waning years
By 1940, only a small committed core remained in the party which opposed
Franklin D. Roosevelt's
New Deal. In 1940 Norman Thomas was the only presidential candidate opposed to a pro-
Soviet foreign policy. This also led Thomas to serve as an active spokesman for the isolationist
America First Committee during 1941.
Thomas led his last presidential campaign in 1948, after which he became a critical supporter of the postwar liberal consensus. The party retained some pockets of local success, in cities such as
Milwaukee,
Bridgeport, Connecticut, and
Reading, Pennsylvania. In New York City, they often ran their own candidates on the
Liberal Party line. In 1956, the party reconciled and reunified with the Social Democratic Federation.
In 1958 the party admitted to its ranks the members of the
Independent Socialist League led by
Max Shachtman. Shachtman's young followers were able to bring new vigor into the party and helped propel it to play an active role in the
civil rights movement as well as the early events of the
New Left. Shachtman, however, successfully blocked merger of the party with the
Jewish Labor Bund on account of that organization's historical
anti-Zionism.
Split
By the late 1960s the most powerful figures in the Socialist Party of America were Max Shachtman and
Michael Harrington, who agreed upon a parallel strategy of maintaining the Socialist Party as an independent
third party that fielded its own candidates, and acting as a pressure group within the
Democratic Party. The party itself had become divided into three caucuses. One was the Debs Caucus led by
David McReynolds, which wanted to pursue the traditional position of the Socialist Party as an independent political party and held the most strongly "leftist" position within the group. Another was the "centrist" Coalition Caucus led by
Michael Harrington, which also had a leftist orientation, but wanted to work within the Democratic Party to pull it to the left. Finally, the "rightist" Unity Caucus led by Max Shachtman were strong supporters of the
Lyndon Johnson/
"Scoop" Jackson wing of the Democratic Party that supported hawkish
anti-Communism abroad and
civil rights and the
Great Society program domestically.
This split was reflected in party members opinions about the
Vietnam War and the
New Left – Shachtman and his followers increasingly supported the war and greatly distrusted the New Left, Harrington was strongly opposed to the war, but was nevertheless suspicious of the New Left, while the Debs Caucus opposed the war and embraced the New Left. Conversely, of all the three groups, the
Shachtmanites maintained the strongest tendency to Marxist orthodoxy (or their version of it) and
democratic centralism, while the other two caucuses were more eclectic in their approach to socialism. This division manifest most strongly during the
1968 Democratic Convention, in which members of the Debs Caucus were among the protesters outside of the convention, while members of the Coalition and Unity Caucuses were among the convention delegates.
Michael Harrington and the Coalition Caucus left the party soon after. They became the
Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (later the
Democratic Socialists of America),
which worked within the Democratic Party but in support of its left wing. They enjoyed some successes in the 1970s, but were marginalized by their dependence on Harrington's personality and later support for
Jesse Jackson.
This left Shachtman and the Unity Caucus in unopposed control of the party (though Shachtman himself died very soon after). In 1973, this group renamed it the
Social Democrats USA. It evolved into more of a think tank than a political organization, with many of its members later holding important governmental offices in both Democratic and Republican administrations.
- 1900 — Eugene V. Debs and Job Harriman (87,945 votes, 0.6%)
- 1904 — Eugene V. Debs and Ben Hanford (402,810 votes, 3.0%)
- 1908 — Eugene V. Debs and Ben Hanford (420,793 votes, 3.8%)
- 1912 — Eugene V. Debs and Emil Seidel (901,551 votes, 6.0%)
- 1916 — Allan L. Benson and George Kirkpatrick (590,524 votes, 3.2%)
- 1920 — Eugene V. Debs and Seymour Stedman (913,693 votes, 3.4%)
- 1928 — Norman Thomas and James H. Maurer (267,478 votes, 0.7%)
- 1932 — Norman Thomas and James H. Maurer (884,885 votes, 2.2%)
- 1936 — Norman Thomas and George A. Nelson (187,910 votes, 0.4%)
- 1940 — Norman Thomas and Maynard C. Krueger (116,599 votes, 0.2%)
- 1944 — Norman Thomas and Darlington Hoopes (79,017 votes, 0.2%)
- 1948 — Norman Thomas and Tucker P. Smith (139,569 votes, 0.3%)
- 1952 — Darlington Hoopes and Samuel H. Friedman (20,065 votes, <0.1%)
- 1956 — Darlington Hoopes and Samuel H. Friedman (2,044 votes, <0.1%)
In
1924 the SP supported the
Progressive Party's presidential ticket of
Robert M. La Follette, Sr. and
Burton K. Wheeler.
Prominent members
» (*) Left with founding of the
Communist Party USA
(†) Went on to join the
Socialist Party USAFurther Information
Get more info on 'Socialist Party Of America'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://socialist_party_of_america.totallyexplained.com">Socialist Party of America Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
