"The Tour of the Red Special," by Charles Lapworth [Dec. 1908] This is a valuable primary source document, a participant's account of the famed Socialist Party Presidential "Red Special" of 1908. This lengthy memoir from the pages of The International Socialist Review is in addition rather fun to read -- its colloquial tone and sometimes snide commentary not entirely dissimilar in form from a punk rock tour diary from a 1990s fanzine. The Red Special, a chartered train which crisscrossed the country in the late summer and early fall of 1908, was met everywhere by large and enthusiastic crowds, many of whom paid admissions to hear silver-tonged Presidential candidate Gene Debs and other Socialist luminaries expound upon the party program. Speeches from the train at depots across the nation were additionally coordinated with successful evening meetings, Lapworth makes clear. The result was an explosion of excitement and energy around the Socialist Party campaign (albeit not reflected in the disappointing 1908 Socialist Presidential vote count). The Red Special's very real media success has been emulated over the years by "whistle stop" tours of the candidates of the two major parties and additionally finds its echo each campaign season as primary candidates charter busses and planes and crisscross the nation attempting to generate media attention with their sundry road extravaganzas.

 

"Hoboed Over 8,000 Miles," by Thomas J. Mooney [May 1910] An article weird and wonderful from the pages of The International Socialist Review. In 1910-11, the P.T. Barnum of American Socialism, Gaylord Wilshire, conducted an 11 month long subscription-selling contest with the lucky winner to receive a trip around the world. The battle of the socialist salesmen shook down to a head to head competition between SP National Organizer George Goebel and an unknown young man from San Francisco named Thomas J. Mooney -- this well prior to the latter's de facto martyrdom as America's most famous class-war prisoner in 1916. Mooney describes his more than six month investment, riding the rails throughout the west from town to town selling newspaper subscriptions, "over the deserts of Utah, California, and Nevada in scorching suns of July and August; through October and November rains in Oregon and Washington; and worst of all the ice and snow and sometimes zero weather of December and January in Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada." He contrasts this life of privation to that of his competitor, Goebel, who traveled the country on the Socialist Party's dime as part of his paid employment, bending the contest rules. As a desperation measure, Mooney wrote this letter to ISR in an effort to garner Wilshire's subscriptions on his behalf. An interesting sidebar to the political biography of Tom Mooney... Includes a photograph of the young Mr. Mooney and a "To Whom It May Concern" testimonial letter written by Gene Debs on his behalf.

 

"Operating a Socialist Sunday School," by Kenneth Thompson [November 1910] Rare participant's account of the structure and operations of a Socialist Sunday School written by a Bay Area Young People's Socialist League activist. The SSS in Oakland was established by the YPSL Study Class in February of 1909, Thompson says, with an elected instructor coordinating the lesson and leading singing in conjunction with a YPSL standing committee of 3, of which Thompson was a part. The SSS elected its own officers and conducted its own formal meetings, a form of practical training "not taught in any other school for children," Thompson indicates. Suggestions about lesson content were made by the children themselves. "The lessons are carefully worked out so that the class struggle is always before the children as the basis of the Socialist philosophy, and without the class struggle we would have no Socialist movement; always careful not to blind their young minds with any false conceptions of 'justice, right,' etc., other than class justice," Thompson states. Picnics were held, group singing and "red flag drill" conducted in association with entertainments of the regular SP, and newspaper advertising sales contests held in conjunction with The Oakland World. "The Socialist work among children is one of the most important branches of the party work, and should be encouraged in all cities and towns where there is a party organization," Thompson states.

 

"Memorial: To the President and Congress of the United States from the NEC of the Socialist Party of America." [circa Feb. 15, 1918] This is a road map to peace in the European war issued by the governing National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party. The statement declared that "we endorse unreservedly the peace program of the Russian Socialist government" based upon 7 specific actions, including (1) evacuation of all territory occupied by hostile forces and its physical restoration from an international fund; (2) the right of all nations and inhabitants of disputed territories to determine their own destinies; (3) the unrestricted freedom of travel and transportation over land and sea; (4) full equality of trade conditions among all nations; (5) universal disarmament; (6) open diplomacy; and (7) an effective international organization to preserve peace, to protect the rights of the weaker peoples (including the natives in the colonies), and to insure the stability of international relations. Recognition of the Bolshevik government in Russia is urged, as is the immediate joining of the peace negotiations between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers -- an action which would "electrify the peoples of the world. It will taken the ground from under the crowned robbers of the Central Powers. It will deprive the autocrats of all arguments now used to deceive their people and maintain themselves in power."

 

"Proclamation to the People of of the United States from the NEC of the Socialist Party of America." [circa Feb. 15, 1918] This message to the American people was issued by the NEC of the Socialist Party (Berger, Hillquit, Maley, Stedman, and Work) at the same time as Memorial to President Wilson and Congress on ending the war. "Within a few short months, the war has threatened civil and political freedom in our country. The radical, labor, and Socialist papers have been despotically crushed by exclusion from the mails or by heavy burdens imposed upon them.... In violation of the Constitution of the United States and regardless of its provisions, free assemblage has been denied, meetings have been dissolved or prohibited, free speech has been suppressed, mob violence and personal assaults have been encouraged, and a vast army of paid secret service agents operating as detectives and spies has been foisted upon us...." While immediate attention is needed to halt these and other losses of liberty, the proclamation declares that two tasks face the working class: the establishment of an "immediate and democratic peace" and the costly process of rebuilding the war-torn areas. Open and public diplomacy and the principle of self-determination of all peoples is called for. "The responsibility for the world catastrophe is collective. The outrages of capitalism are national and international. The offense is that of a worldwide capitalist class. Therefore, the burden of restoration becomes an international obligation," the proclamation declares. The Bolshevik revolution is heralded: "They come with a message of proletarian revolution. We glory in their achievement and inevitable triumph." The proclamation expresses special concern that "our own country, which purports to be fighting for democracy, should itself become democratic. At present, it is one of the least democratic of all countries. It has neither political democracy nor industrial democracy. There is no other nation on earth in which the highest ruler has greater autocratic power than the President of the United States."

 

"Views on the Double Attack on Russia," by Eugene V. Debs [March 16, 1918] Still more evidence of the thorough support for the Bolshevik revolution by American Socialists of all stripes in 1918 and 1919. Apparently written just prior to the Wilson administration's coordinated attempt in March 1918 to decapitate the Socialist Party and silence its most vigorous and vocal political opponents, Debs credits Wilson for attempting to "pave the way to the recognition of the Bolsheviki and back them up in their struggle to crown their revolution with victory." However, the Bolshevik call for a multilateral peace was not heeded by the combatants of the world, but rather, Soviet Russia was attacked simultaneously by the autocratic regimes of Germany in the West and Japan in the East. Debs laments that "It is a thousand pities from my point of view that the allies failed to lend a hand to the Bolsheviki in the hour of their crucial need... Instead of this, however, all the nations of earth, allies as well as the central powers, have sought either openly or covertly to discredit, defeat, and destroy the Bolsheviki and prevent the rise of the Russian people. The reason for this is obvious enough. If the Russian people could at one stroke rid themselves of their landlords, their capitalists, their exploiters, and their profiteers of all description, the people of all the other countries would speedily follow their example." Debs also has choice words for the "Prussianized" majority Socialists of Germany and their complete prostration before the militarist regime of that country.

 

"Indicted, Unashamed and Unafraid," by Eugene V. Debs [March 16, 1918] The March 10, 1918 announcement that federal indictments had been returned against 5 top officials in the Socialist Party of America for purported violation of the so-called "Espionage Act" came as a bolt from the blue, ending what seemed to the Socialists to be a brief moment of social peace. Little more than a month earlier Debs had written that "no more speakers are being arrested and no more indictments are being found" and that the SPA was emerging "crowned with victory" for its principled opposition to the war. Now, however, Debs declared that "the party indicted is brought in a flash completely to its senses." He railed "Free speech, free assemblage, and a free press, three foundation stones of democracy and self-government, are but a mockery under the espionage law administered and construed by the official representatives of the ruling class.... I am surprised only by the blind folly of the ruling masters. Their sublime stupidity has surpassed itself. They have aimed a blow at the Socialist Party that will give the party greater impetus and more vital force than could be imparted to it by a thousand of its most effective agitators." He declared that "If Germer, Berger, Engdahl, Kruse, and Tucker are guilty, so are we all. ...[T]he administration, to be logical and consistent, should indict, prosecute, and imprison not only the spokesmen of the party but its entire membership of more than 100,000 social rebels, who in opposing the damnable profiteering system which has precipitated this bloody deluge upon humanity are alike guilty of sedition and disloyalty in the bleared eyes of the autocratic rulers of this country."

 

"St. Louis and the Left Wing: Statement of Local St. Louis," W.M. Brandt, Secretary. [June 23, 1919] The Left Wing controversy took a rather different form in St. Louis, being fought out at two meetings of the General Committee [City Central Committee] held on June 16 and 23, 1919. This lengthy discussion of the Left Wing controversy was approved by the gathering and sent out to the Socialist press for publication. The statement declares that during the tumultuous years of the war there was not talk of "Left" and "Right" Wings of the Socialist Party -- that the entire organization had acted as one against the European war and for the cause of international Socialism, suffering as one grave persecution and draconian punishment for its principled stand. Only three months after the armistice, in February 1919, did this split develop. "What has the Socialist Party of the United States done to necessitate or justify such deplorable effects? Where and when has the Socialist Party become so hopelessly reactionary or 'right wingish' to necessitate or justify the creation of an underground organization in the party?" Local St. Louis asks. Michigan's actions clearly lay outside of the constitution and rules of the Socialist Party, the statement declared, and the only conscientious way to deal with the allegations against the language federations and the action of the NEC against them would be to let the forthcoming Emergency National Convention of the party, with national representation, sort the matter out. In short: "We cannot see any good reason for the so-called 'Left Wing' movement in our Socialist Party. To charge our national officers with being Scheidemann-Socialists and 'Right Wingers' is ridiculous. The only class that can gain by the Left Wing disturbance is the capitalist class that is organizing a nationwide campaign for the disruption and destruction of the Socialist Party."

 

"'Left Wing' Convention is as Secret as Paris Conference: Next Move of Faction Will be Attempt to Capture Socialist Party's Emergency Convention in August, says James Oneal," by James Oneal [July 15, 1919] The Socialist Party regulars kept a close eye on the development of the Left Wing Section throughout the summer of 1919. This report on the Left Wing National Conference held in New York City from June 21-24, 1919 pays close attention to internal divisions within the "Left Wing" camp. The anglophonic element of the Left wing Section "were up against the same proposition" previously faced by the Socialist Party, in Oneal's view -- an attempt by the foreign language federations to achieve double representation on the governing Left Wing National Council and to thus control the organization. Oneal notes that the Left Wing had altered its program at the gathering, but had no specific details about the changes rendered. As early as this date, six weeks before the Emergency National Convention of the SPA, Oneal offers political analysis that is eerily prescient: "...[U]unless the Socialist Party is willing to submit to the dictatorship of the 'Left Wing,' the latter is prepared to organize its motley elements into another political party. The split, in other words, is here and the 'lefts' have made doubly sure of it. It is just as well that they have, as one year of a Communist Party that talks of the 'conquest of the bourgeois state by the revolutionary mass action of the proletariat' cannot live in this country as a political organization of the working class. It will be driven underground. It cannot remain on the ballot in any state as soon as this program becomes generally known. It must become a secret society." Oneal adds that the heterogeneous Left Wing was held together only by "common hatred of the Socialist Party." As soon as the Emergency Convention was concluded, "they will be thrown upon their own resources and they can be relied upon to tear each other to pieces," Oneal predicted.

 

"'Long Live the Soviet Republic!" An Editorial in The Milwaukee Leader -- July 19, 1919. The Socialist Party daily The Milwaukee Leader and its founder and editor, Victor L. Berger, have been regarded as hailing from the SPA's Right Wing, generally by those who have never seen the paper or read Berger. In reality, Berger and Hillquit composed a SPA Center -- anti-militarist in sentiment, analytically Marxist, internationalist in perspective (the true SPA Right Wing departed en masse in the aftermath of the St. Louis Emergency Convention of 1917). Although not written by Berger, who was in the midst of legal proceedings for purported violation of the so-called Espionage Act, this editorial in Berger's paper emphasizes once again that whatever the ideological and personal differences were between the dissident Left Wing Section and the establishment SPA Center, political perspective on the nature of the Bolshevik Revolution and the role of American Socialists with regard to that revolution was emphatically NOT part of the equation. In 1919, all factions of the Socialist Party of America were in solid support of Lenin and Trotsky and their cause. This editorial accuses President Wilson of practicing "the opposite of what he preaches" by rendering aid to the interventionists in Soviet Russia. "It is because Soviet Russia is a Socialist nation.... Should the Socialist government of Russia be allowed to succeed and become permanent, its good example to the workers of the other countries would be such that these workers would establish Socialism in their countries, too. Therefore, the Soviet government of Russia must be destroyed..."

 

"'Local Cleveland's Referendum," by James Oneal [July 22, 1919] Immediately after the Socialist Party's NEC abrogated the 1919 election, expelled Michigan, and suspended the entire memberships of 7 of the party's language federations, the Left Wing Section sprang into action, with Local Cleveland, Ohio putting forward a party referendum aimed at overturning the NEC's actions within 24 hours. This article by NEC member and arch-anti-Left Winger James Oneal challenges the competence of those supporting such an effort, asking, "have any of these members seen the evidence upon which alone the suspensions were made? Have they seen the mass of evidence regarding election frauds? Not at all. Here are questions that involve the violation of the party constitution and party principles. A general vote of the members cannot decide whether the evidence was sufficient to warrant our actions." Oneal calls for the matter to be decided not via referendum but at the forthcoming Emergency National Convention (a gathering that clearly would be stacked in favor of the party administration, not accidentally). Oneal characterizes the Left Wing Section as a rival political organization, banned by party statute, rather than as an organized faction within the SP. He mockingly refers to the Left Wing Section a "self-constituted 'dictatorship of the proletariat'" and encourages locals to throw their request for seconds to their referendum "into the wastebasket."

 

"Statement of Socialist Party of Philadelphia." [published July 22, 1919] The details of the 1919 factional struggle within the Socialist Party of America are well-known for the party's main cities -- Chicago and New York. Details of the fight are less clear outside of those two main centers. This letter to the Milwaukee Leader details the battle in Philadelphia through the eyes of the faction loyal to the party NEC. The troubles began, it is stated, after the signing of the Armistice [Nov. 11, 1918], at which time " a small element which is un-Socialistic, and which quietly crept into the party, began to assert itself." First the Executive Committee was removed by a "small meeting of the County Committee," and new party members were admitted "wholesale" -- thus bolstering the support of the insurgent Left Wing. This Left Wing drove "faithful" members of the SP from meetings, not fearing to resort to "rowdyism" to disgust and frighten off the "decent people, whose object was to serve Socialism, and who had no time to mix in street gutter politics and squabble." In control of the apparatus, the Left Wing revealed their intent to "sell out the party to a mongrel combination of anti-Socialist and anarchistic ideas and practices such as would put the party out of business." At a special meeting held July 9, 1919, the minority faction loyal to the SP NEC demanded the exclusion of members suspended by the national party from participating in local business. Defeated in a vote, the Right Wing bolted, moving to another hall and declaring themselves to be the official "Local Philadelphia," electing officers and passing resolutions.

 

"Manifesto to Socialist Youth: Adopted by the Reorganizational Conference of the New York Young People's Socialist League, September 5 & 6, 1920." The New York state organization of the Socialist Party's youth section reorganized itself at a conference held in New York city on Sept. 5-6, 1920, which issued this "Manifesto to Socialist Youth." It briefly recounts the history of the YPSL during the 1919-1920 period: "A few of the younger comrades, influenced by the older ones, who were opposed to the Socialist Party, tried to bring the party differences into the YPSL. Instantaneously, the YPSL was turned into a battleground, where the whole "Left Wing" controversy took up the time of the organization. Instead of fighting capitalism, the comrades fought themselves." As a result and "Independent YPSL" was launched, according to this manifesto. This group was "independent in name only," however, it being "a guise under which a group of Communist leaders could put through their aims," according to manifesto. The 1920 conventions of the Socialist Party of America and the Socialist Party of New York called for a YPSL under the direction of the National Executive Committee of the SPA, which this reorganized New York YPSL pledged to be, adding its pledge to work for the Debs-Stedman ticket in the fall Presidential campaign.

 

"The American Labor Alliance: An Editorial," by Otto Branstetter [Aug. 1921] The formation of the American Labor Alliance for Trade Relations with Soviet Russia, an open adjunct of the United Communist Party, was the cause of great mirth for some officials of the beleaguered Socialist Party of America. This editorial in the SP's official organ declared that the formation of the ALA by the Communists constituted "an admission that their theories and their methods were wrong." Citing a number of specific instances, Branstetter chortled that the Left Wing had "arrogantly assumed to themselves all revolutionary wisdom and were the self-appointed and infallible interpreters and executors of Marx and Engels. They assumed to be Neo-Marxists, Neo-Socialists, and Neo-Revolutionists when in reality they were merely Neo-Nuts." "The Communists have utterly failed to make good in America. Their pet theories are all exploded and their plans for the immediate overthrow of the capitalist system through 'revolutionary mass action' have been abandoned," Branstetter declared, adding that the only thing the communists had done effectively was split and weaken the Socialist Party and the radical labor movement in America, generating "fundamentally reactionary" results.

 

"John Reed and the Real Thing," by Michael Gold [Nov. 1927] This article came from the issue of the Communist Party's artistic and literary monthly commemorating t he 10th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution -- a tribute by Mike Gold to his friend Jack Reed. The article is written against the views of Walter Lippmann and other "pale, rootless intellectuals" who smugly claimed that Jack Reed was a romantic, a playboy, and a superficial adventurer. Gold replies "The Revolution is the romance of tens of millions of men and women in the world today. This is something many American intellectuals never understand about Jack Reed. If he had remained romantic about the underworld, or about meaningless adventure-wandering, or about women or poem-making, they would have continued admiring him. But Jack Reed fell in love with the Revolution, and gave it all his generous heart's blood." Gold further sees Reed as pivotal in destroying the historic prejudice against intellectuals held by the American far left, noting that for the IWW "the word 'intellectual' became a synonym for the word 'bastard,' and in the American Communist movement there is some of this feeling." However Reed "identified himself so completely with the working class; he undertook every danger for the revolution; he forgot his Harvard education, his genius, his popularity, his gifted body and mind so completely that no one else remembered them any more," thus proving for all time that the line between intellectuals and workers was not impassable. Gold concludes that the "war to end wars" supported by Lippmann and his associates -- those who denigrate Reed and the Russian Revolution -- was false, a mere "prelude to a more rapacious capitalist imperialism and a greater imperialist war," but that John Reed had given his life for the "real thing."

 

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