Socialism in the United States during the 1920's

[Snowball]

I have to do a project in school dealing with 1920's US history. Were there any prominent socialists or communists in the United States during that time? I know I can do something with Eugene V. Debs, as he ran in the 1920's presidential election when he was in jail, but is there enough in 1920's US history to base my project around socialism, or should I rethink my topic?

[zimmerwald1915]

http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/cpa/cpaofficials.html
http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/cpa/cpa-statesecs1911.html
http://www.marxists.org/archive/corey/index.htm
http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/1921/10/1000-bedacht-lettertocec.pdf

[RED DAVE]

Buy a used copy of this. It has more material than you'll ever be able to use.

Encyclopedia of the American Left (http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-American-Left-Mari-Buhle/dp/0252062507)

RED DAVE

[Leo]

Well, the book you should look into really is Theodore Draper's Roots of American Communism. It is a biased book, but regardless a good source of information. The two communist parties had taken the majority of the Socialist Party, one of the notable leading figures being John Reed himself.

The workers' struggles of the period also were pretty significant. You can read about the Seattle General Strike and the Winnipeg General Strike, both of 1919, from our website:

http://en.internationalism.org/inter/150/seattle-general-strike-1919
http://en.internationalism.org/inter/151/winnipeg-general-strike

There was of course The Battle of the Blair Mountain in 1921, "the largest organized armed uprising in United States labor history", and the second largest rising against the US government after the American Civil War. Wikipedia has an artice:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

Aside from these struggles, there were actual workers councils in Butte, Montana and Portland Oregon according to Draper in 1919, both coming into being with strikes that took place.

[Snowball]

Thanks for the information! This will defiantly help me out.

[A.R.Amistad]

Check out James P. Cannon's work on the subject

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/earlyyears/earlytoc.htm

[The Vegan Marxist]

I'd also recommend a book called "Hammer & Hoe", which tells a great story about the Communists during the Great Depression.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Eugene Debs and Upton Sinclair would be the most well-known socialists of that time. The IWW was very active, and of course there were red scares and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.

The 1920s are a strange time for US radicalism because it was in between two different upsurges in struggle. It was the end of the Debs/IWW era and the beginning stages of the organized communist parties. Labor organization and membership went down in their period and there was a lot of repression and fear-mongering about "crazy bomb-throwing" anarchists and Bolsheviks.

[soyonstout]

Check out James P. Cannon's work on the subject

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/earlyyears/earlytoc.htm

This is actually not the best of his work on the subject. It's just a bunch of speeches and letters. The First Ten Years of American Communism is much more detailed, but is not available online and perhaps never will be. You'd have to buy that one. -soyons tout

[black magick hustla]

Don;t forget the Mexican Liberal Party. A "chicano" anarchist-communist group that staged insurrections in Mexico with the aid of militants from the IWW and the Socialist Party of America:

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/ws98/ws53_magon.html

[mikelepore]

The Early American Marxism Repository of Source Materials

http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/index.html

[graymouser]

I'd also recommend a book called "Hammer & Hoe", which tells a great story about the Communists during the Great Depression.
"Hammer & Hoe" (Robin D.G. Kelley) is a great book but focuses largely on Alabama and on the 1930s - not exactly chronologically in the time frame. The same is true of Mark Naison's excellent "Communists in Harlem During the Depression," which was the pioneering work in studies of Depression-era CPUSA and its relationship to the Black community. Mark Solomon's overview "The Cry Was Unity" (inspired by both Naison and Kelley) is much broader in scope and gives much more detail about how the CPUSA was trying to relate to the Black struggle in the 1920s.

Brian Palmer wrote a biography of Cannon which tries to look at the social roots of this period, it's called "James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left." Probably a good place to look if you're digging in the CP-history angle of things. There are a few CP memoirs that might fit the period (William Z. Foster's "From Bryan to Stalin," William L. Patterson's "The Man Who Cried Genocide") but while interesting they probably should not be taken at face value. And a couple of volumes from Philip S. Foner's 10-volume "History of the Labor Movement in the United States" (specifically volumes 9 and 10) focus on the '20s and the Trade Union Education League.

A lot depends on where you focus - I could see a really good paper coming out of the CP and black history, or the International Labor Defense (Cannon and Patterson were involved with this, the most famous case involved was Sacco & Vanzetti) or the Trade Union Education League.

[RED DAVE]

Lots of good stuff here:

http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/socialistparty.html

RED DAVE

[x359594]

Also of interest are the relevant chapters of Marxism in the United States by Paul Buhle.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I read a Paul Buhle book once, and it was awful (Taking Care of Business).

I'm a little bit hesitant to get another one, but maybe I'll check these out.