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Labour and the Left in America a Review Essay Bruno Ramirez Document généré le 2 oct. 2021 20:10 Labour/Le Travailleur Labour and the Left in America A Review Essay Bruno Ramirez Volume 7, 1981 URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/llt7re03 Aller au sommaire du numéro Éditeur(s) Canadian Committee on Labour History ISSN 0700-3862 (imprimé) 1911-4842 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer ce compte rendu Ramirez, B. (1981). Compte rendu de [Labour and the Left in America: A Review Essay]. Labour/Le Travailleur, 7, 165–173. All rights reserved © Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1981 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/ Labour and the Left in America: A Review Essay Bruno Ramirez Milton Cantor, The Divided Left: American Radicalism, 1900-1975 (New York: Hill and Wang 1978). Glen Sere tan, Daniel De Leon: The Odyssey of an American Marxist (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1979). Bernard J. Brommel, Eugene V. Debs, Spokesman for Labor and Socialism (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr 1978). Norma Fain Pratt, Morris Hillquit: A Political History of an American Jewish Socialist (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press 1979). Carl and Ann Barton Reeve, James Connolly and the United States (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press 1978). Paul Avrich, An American Anarchist. The Life ofVoltairine de Cleyre (Prince­ ton: Princeton University Press 1978). STUDIES ON THE HISTORY of the American left rarely escape the question of why socialism failed to become a permanent alternative for a radical transfor­ mation of American society. Although many attempts have been made to provide a conclusive answer, that question is by no means settled and, if properly approached, it is likely to remain on the agenda for quite some time. Similarly, the period during which American socialism experienced its greatest success will probably continue to be a centre of focus for students concerned with that important question. From the latter part of the nineteenth century to the 1920s, in fact, a whole generation of American socialists lived and fought with the belief that a radical social transformation was as much on the agenda in the U.S. as it was in any of the industrialized countries of Europe. Socialist presence was felt at all levels of society: the labour move­ ment was experiencing a rapid growth and consolidation and the intensity of industrial strife made American workers one of the most militant working classes. Yet that generation of socialists, with its strengths and its weaknesses, with its hopes and its illusions, is only part of the picture. Equally if not more important is the American working class itself — that historical actor which more than any other would have insured the success of a socialist alternative. Failure to give it the historical central ity it deserves has often meant that the question "why socialism failed" connotes a negative judgment on the Ameri­ can working class for not having embraced the socialist message. Few historians of American socialism have resisted the temptation of Bruno Ramirez, "Labour and the Left in America: A Review Essay," LabourIU Travailleur, 7 (Spring 1981), 165-173. 166 LABOUR/LE TRAVAILLEUR resorting to that classical theoretical con­ historical quality of being hegemonic and struct which divides the working class into of being imposed on the working class two groups: those who possessed class through an unprecedented apparatus of consciousness and those — the great psychological and ideological manipula­ majority of American workers — who did tion. The workers' internalization of those not develop it. values insured widespread allegiance to Thus, the charge against the Com­ the system, thus rendering class domina­ mons' School for having concerned itself tion less risky and more efficient. primarily with skilled trade unionists and One might agree that the notion of neglected the great mass of American hegemony can be more fruitfully applied to workers, often may also be applied to the American scene than the worn-out many leftist historians for their tendency to Leninist notion of stages of working-class belittle the study of workers who allowed consciousness. One should not forget, themselves to be "integrated" into the sys­ however, that in Gramsci's use this notion tem. The result has been that in answering was predicated on a careful assessment of the question of the socialist failure in the class relations existing in a society at a America, the emphasis has been put either given stage of capitalist development. on the socialist movement itself (its lead­ While capitalist hegemony is always ers, its organizations, its theoretical tools), directed against the working class, its or else on "the system" that managed to mode of deployment may vary depending remain impervious to the socialist chal­ (among other things) on the degree of lenge. power the working class has and, conse­ Cantor's book provides a recent exam­ quently, on the concrete threat it poses to ple of this ambivalent way of approaching capitalist domination. Cantor concedes the question. As a synthesis of the best that these complex historical questions known literature on American radicalism, cannot be properly dealt with without a his book is very useful. He discusses the thorough study of the working class itself; major organizations of the left in the twen­ and in fact it is from such an avenue of tieth century — from the Socialist Labor research that progress will be made (and Party to the New Left of the 1960s and indeed is being made) towards a new early 1970s — and provides competent understanding of capitalist hegemonic rule evaluations of each of those organizations' and of the socialist experience. distinct contribution to the success or fail­ ure of the movement. However, Cantor's But to argue for a more thorough application to the American scene of the knowledge of the American working class classical working-class consciousness in all its expressions and specificity does construct does not lead us any further in not mean that already we know all there is our understanding of the left's failure in to know about the socialist movement. As the U.S. In his answer to that question one a movement acting to transform American finds very little that helps us understand society, it had a historical subjectivity why the American working class remained made of theoretical elaborations, organiza­ cold to or outrightly rejected the socialist tional strategies, and — last but not least vision — except to learn that American — personalities. This is what makes bio­ workers developed a false consciousness graphies of socialist militants an important that made them complacent to what genre of historical literature. They may capitalism offered. Cantor's interpretative exert a corrective influence against the ten­ approach is somewhat enriched by his dency of mystifying the movement, as they utilization of the Gramscian notion of allow us to penetrate deeper into the realm hegemony. The cultural and social values of daily existence where socialist militants produced by American capitalism had the like anyone else had to contend with all REVIEW ESSAYS 167 those elements of which ordinary human builder of a proletarian community," and a life is made. leader in the latter's march toward libera­ Of course, biography is no less subject tion. As to Marxism, Seretan maintains to interpretative problems or methodologi­ that it provided De Leon with the ideologi­ cal choices. Witness, for instance, the cal frame within which he could more growing popularity of psychohistory clearly work out his identity transforma­ which no doubt represents the latest meth­ tion, while permitting him to translate his odological innovation in the study of bio­ sense of mission into a scientific program­ graphies. One historian of American matic line. Seretan is very skillful in show­ socialism who has made ample use of the ing how De Leon read into Marxism many psychohistory approach is Glen Seretan. of the fundamental life questions which His book on Daniel De Leon is replete with had tormented him in his search for a new terms such as "self-definition," "uncon­ identity. The class struggle thesis is a good scious," "cathartic experience," "sublimi­ example. De Leon found it especially nal," and so on — terms which are part of appealing, because, in Seretan's words, an interpretative framework Seretan has constructed to make sense out of De ... its cataclysmic depiction of social change Leon's contradictory experience as a major satisfied a deeply felt need for a dramatic and shaper of American socialism. That De thoroughgoing resolution of his vexing problem Leon was one of the most complex person­ of personal alienation. It promised Ècathartic ages of that generation of radicals is some­ experience, a society-wide purgation of the con­ thing readily acknowledged by most stu­ ditions that isolated men from one another. It dents of socialism; it is also reflected in the acted, therefore, to salve his impatience for relief, an impatience that had earlier contributed difficulty one has to reconcile his bril­ to his disillusionment with the temporizing liance as a Marxist theorist with his dog­ attitudes and inconclusive results of reform matism as the absolute master of the movements. (67) Socialist Labor Party from 1890 until his death in 1914. However, historians who If this analysis of De Leon's motivations have limited their analysis of De Leon to for embracing Marxism and devoting his his theoretical contributions and to his con­ life to the socialist movement is correct, it troversial political practice have come up would explain the extent to which his polit­ with a very distorted picture.
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