undetermined
date
"Socialism and Anarchism:
Antagonistic Opposites."
Text of a pamphlet
published in English in New York by the National Executive Committee
of the Socialistic Labor Party differentiating Marxian Social
Democracy from the Anarchist movement. Anarchism was characterized
as a utopian antipode of Marxism founded upon the notion of extreme
individualism; Social Democracy portrayed as a byproduct of the
scientific study of the evolution of the family into the tribe
into the modern exploitative state. This modern capitalist state
was said to be inevitably proceeding towards its own doom in
the form of ever-worsening financial crises and the growing immiseration
of the dispossessed majority. It was Capitalism and its unregulated
production and inequitable distribution that was anarchic, not
Socialism, this pamphlet charged. While there was little hope
for an entirely peaceful renewal of society under collectivism,
"that war must be forced upon us" and the change might
well be brought about "without very violent and bloody convulsions"
in a democratic society with freedoms of speech, press, assembly,
organization, and uniiversal suffrage assured. "...We shall
be revolutionists only when forced into being such by legislation
and persecution withholding from us the means of a peaceable
propaganda," it was asserted.
"The Socialistic Labor Party
in 1886," by Edward Bibbins Aveling and his wife Eleanor
Marx Aveling.
This snippet was first
published in 1891 as part of a book called The Working-Class
Movement in America, published in London by Sonn Sonnenschein
& Co., a prominent left-wing publisher. Eleanor Aveling was
the daughter of Karl Marx. The speaking tour around America which
she and her husband undertood proved something of a fiasco, but
the pair did nevertheless get a glimps of the state of the American
situation.
MARCH
"Why Workman Are Unemployed?
An Answer to a Burning Question," by Alexander Jonas. [March
1894] Jonas, a co-founder of the New
Yorker Volkszeitung and one of the leading figures in the pre-DeLeon
period of the SLP, here offers his workingman audience the reason
for their misery in the then-current economic crisis -- private
ownership, the parasitic profit system, and systemic underconsumption
that resulted from workers being paid insufficient wages to purchase
all the products which they produced. The political elite of
the country -- lawyers, capitalists, and rich farmers -- had
neither an understanding of the needs of labor nor a willingness
to ameliorate the unemployment crisis through public works. Only
a movement of the workers to unite behind the Socialist Labor
Party could spur this out-of-touch elite into action, Jonas stated,
"for there is no other means whereby emancipation from industrial
slavery can be achieved, but political action."
relating
to 1899 events
"The Disintegration of the
SLP and the Establishment of the Socialist Party of America,"
by Morris Hillquit Section
from Hillquit's History of Socialism in the United States
(1903) in which he relates the story of the 1899 split in
the Socialist Labor Party and the subsequent negotiations of
the SLP's "Rochester faction" (so-called "Kangaroos)
for unity with the Social Democratic Party of America -- two
events in which Hillquit was himself a primary participant. Hillquit
lists two primary factors behind the split of the SLP: the Socialist
Trade and Labor Association, the umbrella association of dual
unions "sprung as a surprise on the convention of 1896,"
which was billed as being a tool for "organization of the
unorganized" but which instead "within a few years
succeeded in placing the party in a position of antagonism to
organized labor, as well as to all socialistic and semi-socialistic
elements outside of the party organization;" secondly, an
intolerant internal party regime in which the "strict disciplinarians"
developed into "intolerant fanatics." " Every
criticism of their policy was resented by them as an act of treachery,
every dissension from their views was decried as an act of heresy,
and the offenders were dealt with unmercifully. Insubordinate
members were expelled by scores, and recalcitrant 'sections'
were suspended with little ceremony," according to Hillquit.
Hillquit also provides the best extant memoir of the negotiations
between the insurgent SLP Right with which he was associated
and the Social Democratic Party -- a process which resulted in
a split of the SDP before eventual reunification at the founding
convention of the Socialist Party of America in 1901.
"Daniel DeLeon and the 1899
Split of the SLP," by Morris Hillquit. This
is a section from Morris Hillquit's 1934 memoir, Loose Leaves
from a Busy Life. Hillquit, a member of the SLP from 1888,
was a leader of the so-called "Kangaroos" associated
with the New Yorker Volkszeitung, a group which broke
with the SLP over the issues of dual unionism and the perception
of a dictatorial internal regime within the SLP. This insurgent
SLP Right fought a pitched battle for the name and property of
the party before losing in court to party regulars loyal to Daniel
DeLeon.
MAY
"The Situation in New York
City." [May 1, 1899]
First statement of the Socialist Labor Party's National Executive
Committee to the membership of the SLP on the factional fight
brewing in New York between party regulars surrounding the English
weekly The People and German weekly Vorwaerts (on
the one hand) and an insurgent SLP Right connected with the New
Yorker Volkszeitung and its publisher, the Socialistic Cooperative
Publishing Association (on the other). This conflict had its
root in the SLP's turn to dual unionism in 1896 -- with related
themes of party discipline and centralized control of the party
press. This fight would rage throughout 1899, ending in a permanent
split of the SLP. (The SLP Right would later become one of the
main components of a faction of the Social Democratic Party in
1900 and subsequently of the new Socialist Party of America in
1901).
"Labor News Company: Growth
of the Party's Literary Agency, and Significance Thereof,"
by Advisory Board, Labor News Co. [May 1, 1899] This review of the growth of the
New York Labor News Co., the division of the Socialist Labor
Party through which it published and sold its literature, provides
an interesting view of the SLP's ideology at its organizational
high water mark in 1899. Cash sales of literature had quadrupled
between 1893 and 1898, statistics here indicate, with sales growth
particularly strong from Aug. 1, 1898, when the Labor News Co.
moved to new facilities. "But alongside of this quantitative
increase there is also a qualitative improvement," the report
indicates, with Blatchford's Merrie England, "with
its invertebrate sentimentalism," dethroned as the SLP sales
leader by DeLeon's What Means this Strike, a pamphlet
with a "central idea of the class struggle" and an
"uncompromising tone." Sales figures are provided for
a number of other titles, including those by Marx, LaFargue,
Lassalle, and Kautsky. States using the most literature from
the NY Labor News Co. were said to be Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
and Connecticut.
"Proceedings of the General
Committee of Section New York of the Socialist Labor Party of
America, May 27, 1899." Rather terse account of the governing body of
the Socialist Labor Party in New York City, which met May 27,
1899 and voted after long and heated debate 47-20 to accept a
report of the NEC of the SLP harshly critical of New Yorker
Volkszeitung Editor-in-Chief Schlueter for failing to lend
sufficient support in the pages of that paper for the Socialist
Trade & Labor Alliance and its strike actions in Allegheny,
PA and New Bedford, MA. Schlueter is also criticized for failing
to condemn the new phenomenon of "Haverhillism" --
the recent victory of the rival Social Democratic Party of America
in Haverhill, MA, including the election of a mayor of that town.
The main content of this document is the full text of the report
of the NEC -- said to have been "suppressed" from the
pages of the Volkszeitung. The perspective of 6 witnesses
is expounded in some detail, including the lead speaker for the
anti-Schlueter forces, Daniel DeLeon. The document hints that
the primary issue for the SLP dissidents was the freedom to distance
themselves from the unpopular "dual union," the ST&LA;
for the SLP Regulars, the main issue being the ability of the
party to control the content of its ostensible German-language
official organ. "The press is the most important agency
of the Party and the party must control its press or the press
will control the Party. An association that has control of the
Party press thereby has control of the Party itself, unless the
association recognizes itself as subject to the control of the
Party," the NEC report to the New York General Committee
states.
"Ruskin Colony's Collapse:
The Rise and Downfall of the Latest Utopian Scheme: Colonists
Appealing for Fifteen Thousand Dollars," by Julian Pierce
[May 28, 1899] Antipathy
between the Socialist Party and the Socialist Labor Party had
deep roots. This is a SLP perspective of the spectacular collapse
of the Ruskin Cooperative Association, the utopian socialist
publishing venture started in rural Tennessee by The Coming
Nation publisher J.A. Wayland. Pierce outlines the development
of the concept of "utopia" in the creative imagination
of Thomas More in the 16th Century and notes that "the colony
scheme, in its various forms, has been the heaven of the utopian."
Pierce accuses Wayland of having acted in bad faith by promising
to turn over his printing plant to the colony but ultimately
only selling it to the group when he himself departed. The colonists
published a series of false financial statements, Pierce indicates,
failing to declare outstanding mortgage debts as liabilities.
A number of colonists -- including editor of The Social Democrat
A.S. Edwards -- are upbraided for hypocrisy by declaring the
colony's finances sound in the pages of The Coming Nation
while simultaneously swearing in court that the project was insolvent.
"The People averred that the colony had not been started
to make any experiments in Socialism, but rather that it had
been started, and was being run, by a lot of clever rascals whose
only object was to prey on the unwary and rope in the credulous,"
Pierce claims. The project was never socialist, he asserts, as
the colonists were forced by outside economic circumstances to
buy cheaply and sell dear like ever other profit-making concern.
"Socialism is broader than a colony. It is broader than
a municipality. It is broader than a state. The nation itself
is the smallest unit for the proper development of the Cooperative
Commonwealth; for the nation is supreme," Pierce declares.
"Correspondence Between the
SLP and SCPA, May 1899."
These three letters
exchanged between ths National Executive Committee of the Socialist
Labor Party and the Board of Directors of the Socialistic Cooperative
Publishing Association detail the issues of press centralization
and party discipline that were part and parcel of the 1899 SLP
split. This exchange outlines the situation from the perspective
of the SCPA, who answers specific complaints of the National
Executive Committee with a historical overview of the relationship
between the Association and its publicatons with the party.
JUNE
"To the Membership of the
SLP from its NEC." [June 6, 1899]. This
is the Natonal Executive Committee's reply to the late May letter
of the Socialistic Cooperative Publishing Association. The NEC
argued that the SCPA was misrepresenting its true relationship
to the party in its assertion of ownership and control over the
content of The People and Vorwaerts. The May 1899
Correspondence between the SLP and the SCPA (document above)
and this reply were sent to the sections and members of the party
as background information along with a call for the membership
to decide the issue with a vote.
"The Party Press," by
A.M. Simons [June 17, 1899] Editor of the Chicago Socialist Labor Party weekly
The Workers' Call Algie Simons announces the controversy
which was sweeping the SLP over control of the party's official
organs, The People and Vorwaerts. The apparent
seizure of control by the Socialist Cooperative Publishing Society
announced in the pages of The People "practically
amounts to defying the party in its control of its most vital
organ -- the party press," Simons states. The NEC had put
forward a referendum on the matter, and all sections of the SLP
were instructed to vote on the matter and pass along the result
of the vote to the National Secretary by Aug. 1, 1899. Simons
comes out strongly against the Insurgent Right, arguing that
"Under these conditions there is but one thing to do. It
is not a question of taxation or of trades unionism, but simply
one of shall the party control its press or shall the national
organs be at the disposal of some irresponsible and perhaps directly
hostile body of persons. If the mailing lists of the party press
are to be used to disseminate the opinions of individuals, then
it is time they were taken from the individuals' control. This
is the point under discussion and all other questions that may
have previously arises are now beside the point."
JULY
"The Party Crisis: Resolution
of Section Chicago Relative to the Present Party Situation --
July 18, 1899." "So
far as the party organization is concerned a state of anarchy
is practically in existence," declared Section Chicago SLP.
Rather than make a choice between the Insurgent Right faction
of the SLP which had seized the two central organs of the party
press or the New York-based NEC headed by Executive Secretary
Henry Kuhn, which fought the takeover tooth and nail, Section
Chicago threw a pipe wrench into the faction fight by refusing
to vote on the resolution of the NEC. Instead, it demanded that
both factions immediately communicate to the membership three
new referenda for membership vote: (1) removing the NEC from
New York City; (2) selecting a new location for the NEC of the
party; and (3) calling an emergency convention of the party,
to be held not later than March 15, 1900. Voting was to be completed
by Sept. 1, 1899, and the result transmitted to both parties
in New York, the SLP Board of Appeals in Cleveland, and to The
Workers' Call for publication. This action of Section Chicago
ultimately did nothing to clarify the waters or to peacefully
resolve the split between the Insurgent Right and the NYC Regular
factions of the SLP.
AUGUST
"Chronological Recapitulation
of the Volkszeitung Conflict." [Aug. 20, 1899] Published in the SLP official
organ, The People, this is a highly tendentious blow-by-blow
account of the battle between the SLP regulars loyal to Daniel
DeLeon (including Henry Kuhn and Lucien Sanial, among others)
and the SLP Right faction around the New Yorker Volkszeitung
and its publisher, the Socialistic Cooperative Publishing Association.
Interesting for its tone and useful for its provision of the
critical dates in the conflict.
undetermined
date
1896 and 1900 Constitutions of
the Socialist Labor Party.
Parallel texts of the 1896 and 1900 national constitutions of
the SLP, illustrating organizational structure before and after
the 1899 split of the SLP Right (the so-called "Kangaroos").
Useful for assessing the legality (or lack thereof) of various
tactics employed by the New York-based "regular" NEC
in the bitter 1899 factional struggle and the structural changes
which it deemed necessary in the aftermath.
JUNE
"Report of the National Executive
Committee to the 10th (Regular) Convention of the SLP,"
by Henry Kuhn. [June 1900] The
full text (37 pages, 292 k.) of the report of SLP National Secretary
Henry Kuhn to the (regular) 10th Convention of the Socialist
Labor Party, held in New York from June 2 to 8, 1900. Kuhn recounts
the 1899 split with the SLP Right in exhaustive detail, including
a state-by-state rundown of the party situation. The definitive
account of the 1899 SLP split from the point of view of the SLP
"regular" faction associated with the New York City
NEC and the English language party organ, The People,
edited by Daniel DeLeon.
undetermined
date
"Territorial Expansion,"
by Lucien Sanial [1901]. Full
text of a pamphlet published in 1901 by the New York Labor News
Co. This is an early Marxist analysis of the phenomenon of imperialism
written by one of the leading figures in the Socialist Labor
Party of America. Sanial states that "the time comes when
the capitalists of such a country as the United States, where
this capitalistic phenomenon of a rapidly growing difference
between Product and Wages is most accentuated, are confronted
on all sides by an accumulation of commodities, which, ever so
small as compared with the stupendous but unused forces of production
at their command, challenges their power of exchange or waste.They
are actually, then, 'smothering in their own grease.'" In
response, Sanial notes, "they must expand abroad or burst."
At first the capitalists seek only commercial expansion, Sanial
states, but at a certain point "other means" are inevitably
devised "to enlarge the foreign outlet" -- territorial
expansion. In the United States, the growth of surplus value
production had grown by an incredible rate through the implementation
of new labor-saving production technology and "American
capitalism has reached that point of 'suffocation by wealth,'"
Sanial states.
SEPTEMBER
"Italian Socialist Convention:
West Hoboken, NJ -- Sept. 6-7, 1903," by Silvio Origo In September of 1903 the Federazione
Socialista Italiana held its first convention in West Hoboken,
NJ -- a conclave attended by 33 delegates from 8 states. The
gathering marked the start of a turn of the Italian-American
radical movement, built around the daily newspaper Il Proletario,
away from the Socialist Labor Party and to the upstart Socialist
Party of America. A resolution indicating that the Italian Federation
was "on general principles with the SLP" but which
made it "optional for comrades in places where there was
no SLP to vote for the uncompromising candidates of the other
Socialist Party" was rejected by the official delegate of
the SLP as an unacceptable half-measure. In response, a new resolution
was put forward, causing the Italian Federation "sever all
connections and alliances with the SLP, and constitute themselves
into an independent organization." This resolution was passed
by a vote of 19 to 15, and disaffiliation was thus accomplished.
The gathering also discussed the federation's position towards
the trade unions and the cooperative movement and took steps
to establish an "Immigration Bureau" designed to keep
the "poor and simple Italian" new arrival to America
from the clutches of "the padrone, the banker, and many
other colonial sharks."
DECEMBER
"Socialist Unity in the United
States," by Charles H. Kerr [Dec. 1907] Eminent Socialist publisher Charles
H. Kerr presents the recent referendum put forward by Local Redlands,
California calling for the amalgamation of the Socialist Party
of America with the Socialist Labor Party on the basis of industrial
unionism and a party-owned press. Kerr -- himself a Marxist and
a partisan of industrial unionism -- argues assertively against
both of these preconditions for merger. With regards to industrial
unionism, Kerr states that while California Socialists may consider
it a facile matter, on the actual battlefront in the industrial
east, things were not so simple. Most Socialists in industrial
Chicago were members of the unions of their craft, affiliated
with the American Federation of Labor, Kerr states. These individuals
"joined these trade unions long ago, and for the very good
and very prosaic reason that they wanted better wages and depended
on the unions to help get them, or perhaps found that they could
not get jobs without carrying union cards. They remain inside
these unions today for the most part because there are no industrial
unions here in the trades in which they work. If they were to
withdraw from the existing unions to join the budding organization
of the Industrial Workers of the World, they would stand a very
good chance of losing their jobs" and additionally be treated
by their shopmates as scabs. It would be best not to mix the
political and industrial questions, Kerr opines, instead putting
forward the industrial union model as the only one suitable for
meeting trustified industry across the bargaining table at anything
approaching unity. With regard to party ownership of the press,
Kerr is more negative still, noting that such a structure was
traditional within the SLP and had led to a practical result
which placed "the editor of The People [Daniel DeLeon],
wielding the power of the National Executive Committee, in full
control of the sources of information of the party membership,
so that he has dominated and still dominates the opinions of
the rank and file... ...I am decidedly opposed to a system placing
such absolute power in the hands of any one man or small group
of men." While unification of the American socialist movement
would be a positive thing, in Kerr's view, the position of Local
Redlands would have it "that the larger party should discard
its successful methods and adopt the disastrous methods of the
smaller party. I am for consolidation, but not on these terms."
JUNE
"The Failure to Attain Socialist
Unity," by Frank Bohn [June 1908] This article by former SLP member and current
IWW activist Frank Bohn states that "unity of the Socialist
movement should undoubtedly have been attained in 1901. Failure
to secure the desired end by all of the then existing factions
was due to a wrong position taken by some comrades, who will
now pretty generally admit their error." Despite its "correct"
tactical position since the convention of 1900, the Socialist
Labor Party had failed to grow organizationally due to the attempt
to separate its veteran revolutionary socialist membership from
the rest of the movement, which was evolving towards its orientation,
as well as an attempt to "draw about itself the veil of
absolute sanctity," Bohn states, adding "The scientific
truths at the bottom of the revolutionary upsweep were made over
into the mumbled litany of a sectarian clique." Bohn states
that in addition, the SLP used "wrong methods" of propaganda
and organization: "Men and women who will develop into revolutionists
worthwhile to the movement are sure to demand respect and decent
treatment from their teachers while they are learning. This consideration
the honest utopians and reformers in the movement (and all of
us were such) have never received from The People, by
which the work of the SLP is ever judged." In a second section
of the article, Bohn relates the parable of the field, in which
a "quack doctor" [DeLeon] and his servants, together
with a number of energetic young men, fence themselves off from
the rest of the community and stunt their own crops in the process
-- the useful members of the community ultimately leaving through
a hole in the fence to join the others while the "quack
doctor" hides himself away in a patch of poison ivy with
his retainers. "In the IWW we who uphold political action
find no difficulty in working with those who do not. On the political
field we industrialists can surely labor with equal success beside
those who do not realize the efficiency and the ultimate revolutionary
purpose of industrial unionism. For these reasons members of
the IWW who favor political action should support the Socialist
Party," Bohn concludes.
Undetermined
Date
The Socialist Movement: Brief
Outline of its Development and Differences in This Country. Text of a 1915 three cent pamphlet published by
the Socialist Labor Party detailing that organization's differences
with the Socialist Party of America. Five specific areas of difference
are identified: Trade Union policy, Party Press Ownership, State
Party Autonomy from the Center, Taxation Policy, and Immigration
Policy. The SLP's vision of "industrial government"
is outlined and contrasted to the program of the SPA, which is
characterized as "anti-Socialist and bourgeois."
May
"Russian-American Feels Hand
of U.S. Tsardom." [re: Boris Reinstein] [May 11, 1917] Brief and unsigned news account
about the repression meted out to Boris Reinstein of the Socialist
Labor Party, in March 1919 a founding delegate of the Communist
International. Reinstein, a naturalized citizen since 1897 and
a resident of Buffalo, NY, had sought to return to Russia for
a visit following its democratic revolution of March 1917. He
had duly applied for a passport. However, when he went to the
post office in New York, under the pretense of getting a letter
for him, Reinstein had been held up long enough for Justice Department
authorities to be contacted. "After a few minutes conversation
in which he was asked for his passport, he was "invited"
across the street to their office, where he was relieved of other
papers and asked many questions. The burdens of all of this cross-examination
was as to whether he intended to do anything to help bring about
a separate peace between Russia and Germany, and as to what his
ideas were as to Root's acting as a member of the commission
going from this country," the report indicates. Reinstein
had been released, but his passport was taken by the authorities.
The targeting of Reinstein so soon after American entry into
the European conflict seems indicative that the Justice Department
had a political intelligence apparatus well in advance of the
declaration of war.
JUNE
"History Repeats Itself,"
by Sam J. French [June 16, 1918] As was the case with the Socialist Party, the
Russian Revolution exerted a strong influence upon the thinking
of a certain section of the membership of the Socialist Labor
Party, which sought to take a more assertive line in advancing
the revolutionary Socialist cause with a view to great gains
in the immediate future -- a rebellion against the perceived
dogmatic conservatism of Secretary Arnold Petersen, Henry Kuhn,
and others on the SLP's National Executive Committee. This article
from the official organ of the SLP by a loyalist to Petersen
and the NEC, casts the new inner-party opposition in the role
of repeaters of the history of the 1898-99 split of the so-called
"Kangaroos" from the SLP over tactical differences.
French, a long-time member of Section Cook County, SLP, cites
the recent battle between (NEC loyalist) Adolph S. Carm and (insurgent)
Caleb Harrison as indicative of the mood. Although Carm won the
balloting for Section Organizer, he was disqualified on a technicality.
In the discussion around this election, Harrison is said to have
sounded off against various members of the SLP's governing NEC,
remarks quoted in detail in this article. French foresees the
development of a situation in the SLP closely paralleled by the
revolt of the so-called "Kangaroos." French says of
the proto-insurgency: "They see the world in the turmoil
of a great crisis; they vaguely realize the possibilities of
the future; their sentimental desire to see the workers develop
into a determining factor in the affairs of the immediate future
prompts them to see people 'coming our way' in every group of
discontented SP-ites, repentant 'wobblies,' or 'progressive radicals,'
thus conjuring to their unstable minds the wonderful things that
could be done if only our policy were less rigid, and we had
more tolerance of variegated opinions. Hence their immature display
of impatience with anything that smacks of the 'orthodoxy' of
deliberate reasoning which calmly looks ahead and figures out
the possible outcome of any particular line of tactics rather
than impatiently rushing into what seems to be good at the moment."
These tactics French likens to "piling sails on an unballasted
ship" -- speedy in fair weather, but destined for disaster
come the first storm.
"Cop Pictures Dodge at End
of Rope, the Victim of Mob: Associate Protests Innocence of WIIU
Leader Who Comes to Trial on Monday on Charge of Evading the
Draft," by Philip S. Kerr [events of June 22-28, 1918]
On June 22, 1918,
a Socialist Labor Party activist mounted a soapbox on the corner
of Mohawk and Main Streets in Buffalo, New York, where he spoke
on behalf of the Workers International Industrial Union. "William
Dodge, the speaker, pointed out that as long as the capitalist
system continued there would be an endless struggle between the
working class and the employing class. He explained the manner
in which the capitalist class came into power and the methods
by which they retained their power. Only by cooperating upon
the political and industrial field could the workers hope to
cope with the ever-growing power of capitalists." Dodge
began to be heckled by a conservative in the crowd, who he parried
with his words. "In a rage the skunk went up the street
and, as was afterwards learned, told a couple of sailor boys
whom he met that a soap-boxer was down the street criticizing
the government. He advised them to beat the speaker up."
This effort at inciting violence failed. Finally, a policeman
showed up and yanked Dodge off the platform with the words, "Come,
get out of here with that pro-German stuff." Dodge and his
comrade Philip Kerr were arrested, and 2 others who protested
the falsity of the arrest were held for 4 hours before being
released. Kerr was ultimately released (an effort to immediately
conscript him failing when he could not pass the army physical
exam), but Dodge was held for purported seditious statements
made to a police spy. "Dodge is entirely innocent of the
charge against him, but there are forces at work that seek to
weed out every active member of the labor movement," Kerr
declares.
AUGUST
"Socialist Party Convention,"
by Emma Denney [events of Aug. 30-Sept. 5, 1919] This is a unique first-hand account
of the pivotal 1919 Emergency National Convention of the Socialist
Party, published in the pages of the official organ of the rival
Socialist Labor Party. This account does not seem to have been
known by Theodore Draper and it advances out understanding of
the most eventful week in the history of American Socialism on
the following matters: (1) Denney seems to indicate that the
Chicago police responded to the scuffle between John Reed and
Julius Gerber and were thereafter spontaneously used for their
own ends by the Party Regular leadership, rather than through
prearrangement. (2) The meeting hall was very large and included,
in addition to the 200 or so delegates and potential delegates,
spectators and press bringing the total to approximately 1,000.
(3) Bits of flavor about the actual proceedings (which were not
saved for posterity by a stenographer), including a heckling
call by the Left Wing delegates for the election of the Chicago
Chief of Police as Chairman of the day. (4) A protracted struggle
on the floor over the presence of the police, in which the SP
Regular leadership, headed by Chairman of the day Seymour Stedman,
defeated all efforts to remove or formally protest the police
presence. (5) The only first-hand account of the work of the
Credentials Committee in its interrogation of challenged Left
Wing delegates, in which Chairman Jacob Panken is said to have
queried about personal information and hypothetical convention
situations, during which some Left Wing challenged delegates
are said to have responded to the committee's politically-driven
obstructionism and badgering in an aggressive manner. (6) Prolonged
discussion over the matter of setting aside the SPA constitution
and electing the new NEC by the convention, despite lack of legal
authority to do so. Denney also visited the conventions of the
Communist Labor Party and the Communist Party of America taking
place at the same time, but does not contribute appreciably to
our understanding of either with her brief account.
NOVEMBER
"Raids and Riot," by
Olive M. Johnson [Nov. 15, 1919] In November 1919, a major offensive was launched
by the Department of Justice and various law enforcement agencies
against the Russian radical movement in America centered in the
Union of Russian Workers, an anarchist organization. This is
a Socialist Labor Party perspective on the wave of persecution,
characterized as a struggle between the "'upper' and 'lower'
strata of anarchy." Editor Johnson notes that "But
the crazed manifestations of anarchy, cries for 'mass action,'
'mass strike,' 'red guard armies,' 'dictatorship of the proletariat,'
and the like in the 'lower' stratum are no more ominous than
the purely anarchic manifestations, the utter disregard for decency,
law, and order from the powers that be in government or industry
and their official, semi-official, or self-appointed henchmen....
Armed with clubs, the police raiders broke into peaceful meetings....
Men and women were clubbed and their shrieks resounded through
the neighborhood. Celebrations, concerts, jollifications, even
a little package party, given to commemorate the 2nd anniversary
of the Russian Revolution, were invaded and broken up. More than
a thousand people in New York City alone were dragged into the
police stations only to find that there were no charges whatsoever
upon which they could be held." Johnson observes that the
intent of the raid did not seem to be to actually apprehend criminal
anarchists but rather to deliberately "provoke anarchy than
to stem the tide." Anticipating the Palmer Raids that were
to take place 6 weeks later, she concludes " what the powers
that rule are after is less to apprehend, punish, or deport a
few really criminal anarchists, than to cause a sensation and
a scare which will prepare 'public opinion' for some greater
move in the future."
"The Labor Party Convention,"
by A.S. Carm [events of Nov. 22-24, 1919] In November of 1919, approximately 1,000 delegates
representing trade unions from around the country gathered in
Chicago to form the Labor Party of the United States. This is
the account of the gathering from the pages of the official organ
of the Socialist Labor Party. Max Hayes, former member of both
the SLP and the Socialist Party, was elected permanent chairman
of the gathering and delivered the keynote address. Carm indicates
that many of the the delegates were members of the AF of L officialdom
or past or present members of the Socialist Party of America.
Outstanding figure in the organization is said to be Chicago
Federation of Labor leader John Fitzpatrick, also a key figure
in the effort to organize American steelworkers into an industrial
union. Carm provides no evidence that anything of import was
accomplished by the gathering, which from his account seems to
have been dedicated largely to speeches from fraternal delegates
and socializing amongst the delegates.
"Whippersnapper or Agent-Provocateur?"
by Arnold Petersen [Dec. 6, 1919] Socialist Labor Party Executive Secretary Arnold
Petersen unleashes a torrent of nasty ad hominem invective against
Louis C. Fraina in reply to a recent article in The Communist
(CPA) which had "the temerity to point the finger of reproof
at the SLP." The 34 year old Petersen shamelessly plays
the age card against the 27 year old "Master Fraina"
calling him a "precocious lad," "little boy wonder
of The Communist," a "flippant whippersnapper,"
"the male edition of Daisy Ashford (the girl wonder who
wrote a book at 9 years of age)," the "boy wonder and
Protean model," and a "silly youngster." Aside
from Petersen's insipid name calling, a case is made against
the Communist ideological concept of "mass action,"
which is characterized as an idea which "can result in nothing
else than anarchy and is indeed the very essence of anarchy."
The mob in the street -- at any moment but the final overthrow
of capitalism -- contains within it not only unthinking workers,
but also a certain percentage of agent-provocateurs, Petersen
argues, the ill-conceived or insidious action of whom would provoke
the crushing of the workers' movement with state violence. "The
Constitution of the United States, defective as it is in other
respects, possesses this redeeming feature, a feature that distinguishes
it from other documents of class society: it provides for its
own amendment even to the point of complete rejection,"
Petersen states. Noting that only the SLP "represents true
revolutionary Socialism in America," Petersen cautions rank
and file Communists: "Beware of the fellow who talks or
suggests by innuendo force and violence. He is either an ignorant
dangerous fool, or he is a scheming, and still more dangerous,
agent of capitalism.... Repent in time. Repudiate your "mass
action" and veiled advocacy of violence, cast out the ignorant
whippersnapper and the agent-provocateur, and join the only organization
that holds high the beacon light, and whose sturdy hammering
of the capitalist armor has never for an instant ceased."
"Letter to Boris Reinstein
in Moscow from Henry Kuhn in New York, Dec. 9, 1919." In this letter Henry Kuhn of the
National Executive Committee of the Socialist Labor Party attempts
for a second time to make contact with Buffalo druggist Boris
Reinstein, the SLP's representative to Europe who was a founding
delegate of the Communist International in March 1919 despite
his lack of a party mandate for any such purpose. Kuhn informs
Reinstein about the strikes of coal miners, steel workers, and
longshoremen in the United States as well as the split of the
Socialist Party into three organizations -- "the old SP,
a Communist Labor Party, and a Communist Party minus any qualifying
adjective." Kuhn indicates that "the two latter formations
came about largely because of rival leadership; there is little
else to divide them. Their present attitude is one of leaning
Bummery-ward -- a more or less open advocacy of physical force."
This advocacy of force had given the state a pretext to exert
force of its own, Kuhn believes, writing that "we are passing
since the war (and during the war) through a period of reaction
such as never experienced. The scarcely-veiled physical force
attitude of the SP offshoots was water on the mill of the reactionists
and relentless persecution resulted." This reaction had
impacted the SLP, whose paper had lost its second class mailing
privilege, many of whose members faced deportation, and whose
St. Louis headquarters had been subject of a police raid. Nevertheless,
the SLP was growing, particularly among its language federations,
Kuhn indicates.
JANUARY
Letter from Arnold Petersen to
N. Lenin, January 15, 1921. Text of a massive (26 page) letter from the National
Secretary of the Socialist Labor Party to V.I. Ul'ianov (N. Lenin)
in Russia from a copy in the Comintern archive. As might be expected,
Petersen is harshly critical of all other groups in the American
left -- the Socialist Party of America (reformist practitioners
of a "species of fraud"), the Communist Parties ("Burlesque
Bolsheviki" with a "predilection for repeating meaningless
and undefined phrases because of their 'revolutionary' sound"),
the IWW ("infested with police spies" and "in
a state of decay"), and the AF of L ("officered by
agents of the bourgeoisie"). Petersen defiantly defends
the SLP's dual unionism and militant hostility against the AF
of L ("there is not the slightest reason to believe that
any outside influence, however powerful, is going to make the
SLP throw away the fruits of its toil of a quarter of a century")
as well as the use of the ballot as the main mechanism for revolutionary
change ("not everything that has arisen during capitalism
is a sham and a delusion"). Regardless of these differences,
Petersen calls the existence of the Soviet Republic an "inspiration"
and pledges that the SLP will do its utmost to bring about a
revolutionary industrial republic in the United States.
undetermined
date
The Party's Work, by Verne L. Reynolds. Text of a pamphlet written by the Socialist Labor
Party's 1924 Vice Presidential candidate, published and distributed
for free to the entire party membership in 1925 as a pocket guidebook
to organization. Extensive discussion of how to promote speakers,
to generate publication subscriptions and new party members,
to delegate work within party sections, and to develop the speaking
abilities of party members. Particular attention is paid to the
handling of new party members -- building party discipline and
keeping expectations for organizational growth reasonable without
dampening the enthusiasm of the new convert.
AUGUST
The Workers Party vs. The Socialist
Labor Party, by
Joseph Brandon.
Article from the
Aug. 1, 1925, Weekly People that was reproduced as a five
cent pamphlet. In this work Brandon contrasts the "ridiculous"
principles and tactics of the Workers Party of America with the
"100 percent perfect, all down the line" position of
the SLP. Divergences noted by Brandon include the blind advocacy
of the WPA to a Soviet-style "transition program" to
socialism via the "dictatorship of the proletariat"
(regarded as ahistorical and unnecessary in developed capitalist
society); a refusal of the WPA to endorse new revolutionary industrial
unions in favor of exclusive use of the tactic of "boring
from within" existing unions (regarded as an impossible
tactic that in practice meant little more than kowtowing to established
labor leaders); and the WPA's celebration of general labor political
success abroad from its partners in the "united front"
(gains characterized as reformist and anti-revolutionary by Brandon).
Finally, the Workers Party's advocacy of violence is depicted
as playing right into the hands of the capitalist class, a policy
advocated only by one who is "either a lunatic or a police
spy."
OCTOBER
"Beginnings of Revolutionary
Political Action in the USA," by Vern Smith [Oct. 1933]
A pamphlet-length
historical survey of the development of the American radical
movement from 19th Century utopianism to the formation of the
Socialist Party of America, as published in the pages of the
theoretical journal of the CPUSA. While tendentious treatments
of controversial topics do creep into the work, as might be expected,
the article remains useful as a brief summary of the main course
of left wing political development throughout the last part of
the 19th Century and first part of the 20th. Smith emphasizes
the continuity between the American sections of the First International
and the formation of the Socialist Labor Party, from which sprang
the Socialist Party of America; from which in turn sprang the
American Communist movement. Of particular interest is the rather
heroic portrayal of the Chicago Anarchist movement of the 1880s
-- depicted as fundamentally sound revolutionists who were pushed
into the position of becoming "more and more extreme in
the course of their reaction against the sickening legalism of
the SLP." Also interesting is the accusation that the Socialist
Labor Party took a position of national chauvinism during the
Spanish-American War of 1898, ignoring the transparently obvious
imperialist basis of the conflict and explicitly regurgitating
the official slogan that this was a war to "Free the oppressed
Cubans!"
