Socialist Party of America

[The Idler]

I thought I would post to share this review of the book published last year of the Socialist Party of America by Jack Ross
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2016/no-1343-july-2016/spa-dashed-rocks-compromise

[SonofRage]

Good review. That book is on my to read list.

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[Hermes]

I've been reading a lot about the SPA this summer, but hadn't noticed that this book has come out. I'll have to look further into it.

This seems like a somewhat... trite... ending, though, doesn't it:



Two excerpts from our history demonstrate the foresight of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and our American companion party and provide a rather more fitting conclusion:


‘If the Socialist Party of America had preached Socialism and got votes for Socialism, neither Republican nor Democrat could have enticed their votes away’ (‘Lessons from the American Elections’, Socialist Standard, January 1929).


‘Labor Parties are the same everywhere. They are all parties of reform. Names mean nothing. The Social Democratic Party of Germany, The British Labor Party and the Socialist Party of America—where the P. P. came from in 1919—are Labor Parties, whose purpose is to reform the capitalist system. They gather into their ranks all kinds of cranks and misleaders voicing hazy notions of a land of promise somewhere in the future. Their history shows that their leaders were ever willing to betray the workers. During the war all the Labor Parties supported their respective governments. Even now in Britain where the Labor Government rules, nothing has or will be done to endanger the steady flow of profits into the coffers of the capitalists’ (The Socialist, March 1930).


It doesn't really reflect on the American experience, or on what the British experience might have in common with the American one. It really just sounds like a resounding "We were right, we are right, and we will always be - right."

[The Idler]

Well it might have been strange to omit these quotes made from some forty years before the SPA's demise. An unsatisfactory conclusion would have been to only say 'if the SPA had preached socialism and got votes for socialism, they would have won', or just 'labor parties are the same everywhere.' The demise of the SPA begs the question why it failed, and the book is a great attempt to answer it, it would be strange not to address this in the review. I agree it wouldn't have been good to conclude 'we are right and we will always be right' but simply saying 'we were right' is appropriate here.

[Hermes]

Well it might have been strange to omit these quotes made from some forty years before the SPA's demise. An unsatisfactory conclusion would have been to only say 'if the SPA had preached socialism and got votes for socialism, they would have won', or just 'labor parties are the same everywhere.' The demise of the SPA begs the question why it failed, and the book is a great attempt to answer it, it would be strange not to address this in the review. I agree it wouldn't have been good to conclude 'we are right and we will always be right' but simply saying 'we were right' is appropriate here.

...is it, though? I know very little about the SPGB, but unless what I do know is false, it seems to me that they're in much the same straits, and still facing the same issues, that the SPA faced during its history. Namely, does using the ballot for revolutionary purposes 'work,' how do you gauge success (what are your goals, how do you accomplish them, how do you track where you're at, etc), how does a political party without working-class support gain that support without compromising their ideals, and so on.

Long before the SPA's final demise, they were an irrelevant political sect, not much use to anyone, least of all themselves.

[The Idler]

Yes I still think it is appropriate to say we were right.

The SPA went from hundreds of newspapers, hundreds of elected officials, double the peak membership of the CPUSA thirty years earlier, and over twenty times the CPUSA peak vote share - again thirty years earlier (and only eleven years from the SPA formation) to defunct in sixty years. To state the obvious, none of these are issues facing the SPGB. You would have to admit the SPA enjoyed a sort of success unparalleled in America by any other group calling themselves socialist or communist. I would recommend the book, as long as it is, as Jack Ross calls the SPA the most significant third party ever and exceptional in history. There is a excellent map of the extent of the SPA influence here you will doubtless find interesting.

http://depts.washington.edu/moves/SP_intro.shtml

A commitment to using the ballot box was the common feature of its period of growth. At what point did they become irrelevant? When Debs and others were locked up for their opposition to World War I? When President Roosevelt received Presidential Candidate Norman Thomas and founder Morris Hillquit at the White House? What was their attitude to the ballot at that point? Or when Roosevelt co-opted their policies into the New Deal? Or when their members started endorsing other parties?

[Hermes]

There is a excellent map of the extent of the SPA influence here you will doubtless find interesting.

http://depts.washington.edu/moves/SP_intro.shtml (http://depts.washington.edu/moves/SP_intro.shtml)

Thanks! Yeah, that website actually has some really great maps, I used them when I was doing some research into the IWW last year.


The SPA went from hundreds of newspapers, hundreds of elected officials, double the peak membership of the CPUSA thirty years earlier, and over twenty times the CPUSA peak vote share - again thirty years earlier (and only eleven years from the SPA formation) to defunct in sixty years. To state the obvious, none of these are issues facing the SPGB. You would have to admit the SPA enjoyed a sort of success unparalleled in America by any other group calling themselves socialist or communist.

No, I hope I'm not being misunderstood, I definitely agree that the SPA enjoyed more electoral success than any other socialist or communist group in American history. I think it's more important, though, to look at what they managed to achieve in that time, and wonder whether or not their electoral success meant anything in the long term. When you have Socialist officials who were elected to office openly stating that the best they could hope for was the continued running of capitalism - as well as any limited reform that could be pushed through - I think there's an issue, there. As well, how do we measure the success of the SPA today? Is it in the amount of class consciousness they were able to generate, and how do we quantify that?

Even during their heyday, they still weren't able to turn the tide of consciousness in the US, as shown through the Red Scare during/after World War 1, as well as after World War 2. Later in their history, when they enjoyed moderate electoral success, especially under Norman Thomas, they did so specifically because he downplayed the 'socialism' aspect of the SPA, focusing much more on their reform aspects.



A commitment to using the ballot box was the common feature of its period of growth.

Yes, as was their increasing and continued focus on sacrificing certain political ideals in order to attempt to make their party more palatable, something which this review of Ross' book capitalizes on quite frequently.

I guess what I'm trying to say, and failing to, is that I think a lot can be learned from the SPA, especially for parties that rely primarily or exclusively on the ballot (this is what I mean when I say that the SPGB has similar issues, not issues of bloat/reformism/etc), and a simple reduction of the argument down to 'the SPA failed because it was reformist' gives no opportunity to actually analyze the movement.

[SonofRage]

The United States of today is very different than the US of the SPA's heyday and even more different than the UK when it comes to electoral politics among other things. The World Socialist Party US is tiny even compared to other socialist groups and we're not very active. I don't think we know something the SPA didn't.

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[CaptainCool309]

Thank you for sharing this review! I was very interested in learning more about this book when I first found out about it on CSPAN's Book TV series a while back ago.

My high school library had a section that didn't have any of the lights turned on. It was dark, eerie, and no one ventured to go back there. Not even the Librarian! However, one day I mustered up the courage to approach this region of doom and gloom to satisfy my quest for knowledge and whaddya know, there was a cool little political section back there. And that's where I found a dusty gem titled: The Socialist Party of America: a history by David A Shannon. This book was made in 1955 and basically outlined the SPA's history up to 1955, which was fairly interesting to be honest because the author was telling the story in the manner of a tragedy. He gets nostalgic about the golden age the party had in early 1910's, and then the jump the shark moment hits with World War 1, and everything goes downhill from there. He blames the newly formed CPA at the time as one of the main reasons the SPA and Socialist movement in America would decline into its forlorn state, with all the sectarian bickering that would occur over the next two decades (even though this wasn't the first split of the party, the Anarchists and Social Democrats factions had a heated tussle about a decade earlier) and when he touches on the Norman Thomas era the main feeling you get is that this party is nothing more than a shell of its former self, and that takes us to 1955. The end of Norman Thomas Era, and the peak of the second Red Scare, and a very grim future for the SPA that lies ahead.

The book is definitely dated but it was still an engaging read because it's how I learned about the basics of SPA history. I learned a lot about Norman Thomas through this book, but as for Eugene Debs info, Democracy's Prisoner by Ernest Freeburg still tops my list and John Nichols's: The S Word: A Short History of an American Tradition...Socialism is also a cool book for lots of interesting details about the impact socialism has had on America from Thomas Paine to A. Philip Randolph. I intend on reading Jack Ross's book at some point and from what I see it's not going to focus on more of the tragedy angle that Shannon's 1955 book did, but will shift to more of the achievements the party and movement actually achieved during its run as one of the best 3rd parties this country had in the 20th century.

[The Idler]

By the sounds of it, you will like Ross' book and I would recommend it. If I recall correctly, Ross criticises Shannon for following Kipnis' CP interpretation of the SPA e.g. left, right and centre labels for tendencies within the SP.

[Hermes]

Weinstein, in The Decline on Socialism in America, also, if I remember correctly, criticizes Kipnis' identification of a left, right, and centre within the SPA, but to be honest I found Kipnis' interpretation fairly convincing, especially as re: the animosity felt between those who tended to agree with the views of Debs and other SPA members, mostly in the East, and those of Berger and other 'evolutionary socialists' centered in Wisconsin.