Early American Marxism (14-08)

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H-Labor Early American Marxism (14-08)

Discussion published by Tim Davenport on Sunday, February 23, 2014

Early American Marxism website • www.marxisthistory.org/

Weekly Update no. 14-08 • February 23, 2014.

A bountiful bouquet of 21 new files, the big majority dealing with various aspects of the understudied 1934-38 party crisis of the Socialist Party of America.

Synopsis: The radical Declaration of Principles adopted by the 1934 National Convention marked a shift in power from the "Old Guard" faction that had ruled the SPA throughout the 1920s to a new more radical younger generation. In December 1935 the factional growling between the Old Guard and the Militant/Thomasite alliance through their rival newspapers, the New York Leader and the Socialist Call, erupted into a formal split of the New York organization. This battle was ultimately decided by the National Executive Committee of the SPA in favor of the insurgent alliance against the Old Guard. Excluded from the SPA, the Old Guard of New York briefly called themselves the "People's Party" before moving to formal membership and active participation in the American Labor Party. During the first half of 1937 the Old Guard also joined forces with the state Socialist Parties of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, the Jewish Socialist Verband, and other disgruntedled elements around the country in forming a rival national organization to the SPA called the Social Democratic Federation. Meanwhile within the SPA the departure of the Old Guard did not end the faction fight but rather started another round of political warfare. The New York Militants, led by Jack Altman and Max Delson, and the bloc of university- and pacifism-oriented individuals around Norman Thomas and Harry Laidler moved to oust the organized Trotskyist faction of Jim Cannon and Max Shachtman, who had entered earlier as part of the SPA's move towards an "all-inclusive party." This communist faction was ultimately expelled over the objections of the left social democratic "Clarity" faction of Herbert Zam and Gus Tyler in Aug. 1937. The now-more-conservative SPA then attempted to themselves follow the rival SDF into the New York ALP in 1938, a plan actually supported by the SDF but opposed by the CPUSA, who successfully thwarted this effort. Despite a basic commonality of ideological perspectives between the Old Guard SDF and the Thomasite SPA, reunification efforts failed until 1957, when the remaining remnants of the two organizations finally again joined forces.

All of these files are available for free download and non-commercial reproduction at the following URL: http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/14-08.html

Thanks for your interest,

Tim Davenport [email protected] Corvallis, OR

======NEW FILES ON EAM ======

(1) "Which Party for the American Worker? Letter to a Worker-Correspondent," by A.J. Muste [April 1935] Published appeal of pacifist and labor leader A.J. Muste for American workers to join the new Workers Party of

Citation: Tim Davenport. Early American Marxism (14-08). H-Labor. 02-25-2014. https://networks.h-net.org/node/7753/discussions/11715/early-american-marxism-14-08 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Labor the United States, formed through a merger of Muste's American Workers Party and the Trotskyist Communist League of America headed by James P. Cannon and Max Shachtman. Muste outlines the history of the WPUS, launched on Dec. 1, 1934, noting that the CLA was comprised of "revolutionists who were expelled from the Communist Party and the Communist International" who had "differed with the line taken by the CP and CI in certain matters of principle and tactics." His own American Workers Party had had roots in the Conference for Progressive Labor Action (CPLA), which had likewise emerged in 1928-29, Muste notes. * * *

(2) "Facts About New York and About the Nation," by David P. Berenberg [June 22, 1935] David Berenberg, publisher of the anti-Left Wing weekly New York Socialist during the party controversy of 1919, found himself on the other side of the factional barricades during the battle between the Militant and Old Guard factions for control of the Socialist Party during the middle 1930s. This article from the weekly newspaper of the allied Militants and Norman Thomas loyalists details the disruptive behavior of the Old Guard-dominated New York organization during the year after the 1934 convention. The March 1935 session of the governing National Executive Committee of the SPA had presented the Old Guard New York organization with 9 demands, Berenberg notes, aimed at ending the Old Guard's factional antics and adverting a split. The Old Guard organization had refused to comply, sending an inadequate answer in May. * * *

(3) "The Thomas-Browder Debate," by Haim Kantorovitch [event of Nov. 27. 1935] Marxist theoretician and American Socialist Quarterly co-editor Haim Kantorovitch -- best conceptualized as "the Morris Hillquit of the Militant faction" -- offers his appraisal on the united front, the main issue of the widely publicized and controversial public debate between CPUSA General Secretary Earl Browder and three time SPA Presidential nominee Norman Thomas. * * *

(4) "Socialists Reject NY Old Guard; Map Party Drive." (Socialist Call) [events of Dec. 4-8, 1935] On the evening of Dec. 4. 1935 the long-threatened split of the Socialist Party in New York state finally occurred when the City Central Committee by a 48-44 vote passed a resolution prohibiting party members from associating with the Socialist Call (a paper established as an alternative to the Old Guard-dominated New York Leader) or its affiliated institutions. The move was seen as a clear effort to provoke a split as it would have lead either the the closure of the Call or the expulsion of factional leaders Jack Altman and Norman Thomas, and when the decision was not reconsidered the minority walked out and reconvened at the Call's offices where they reconstituted themselves a new City Central Committee and called a reorganizational convention for Dec. 28-29, 1935 in Utica. Rival mass meetings of the parallel organizations were held the night of Sunday, Dec. 8, with the Militant-Thomasite insurgents drawing 1500 and the Old Guard, 650, according to this Call report.

(5) "The Old Guard: An Analysis of Its History and of Its Principles," by Haim Kantorovitch [Dec. 14, 1935] With a split of the Socialist Party an accomplished fact, leading theoretician of the Militant faction Haim Kantorovitch attempts an analysis of the composition and ideas of the rival Old Guard faction. Kantorovitch notes that an attempt to examine the dispute on the basis of the Old Guard's program would be fruitless, since "it has none. While the Old Guard constantly ridicules and misquotes the program of the Left Wing, it has never attempted to formulate a program of its own." Kantorovitch instead tries to understand the faction from their composition, which he characterizes as "old and tired in body and mind," filled with a "kind of paternalistic cynicism" about the "folly of their youth" when revolutionary ardor burned bright. The battle with the left wing fought by some of the Old Guard leaders for nearly 20 years had been a fight for control of our institutions rather than a committed struggle for hegemony of principles, Kantorovitch indicates. * * *

(6) "A Letter to the Membership," by Charles Garfinkel and Jack Altman [Dec. 14, 1935] Threatened for two years, a split of the Socialist Party of New York was now a reality, writes Charles Garfinkel and Jack Altman, temporary executives of a new parallel City Committee established in opposition to that of the Old Guard faction. The previous "gerrymandered" City Central Committee by a vote of 48 to 44 had decided to

Citation: Tim Davenport. Early American Marxism (14-08). H-Labor. 02-25-2014. https://networks.h-net.org/node/7753/discussions/11715/early-american-marxism-14-08 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 2 H-Labor reorganize the party, expelling all who participated or worked in connection with The Socialist Call, rival paper of the dissidents of the Militant faction and their close allies surrounding party leader Norman Thomas. Old Guard leaders Louis Waldman, Julius Gerber, James Oneal, and Algernon Lee are called "party wreckers" and "breeders of disunity" and likened to Daniel DeLeon by the two alternative leaders. * * *

(7) "New York Locals Vote 29-15 for Party Loyalty." (Socialist Call) [Dec. 28, 1935] Although the constitutional mechanism is unclear, it seems that in the aftermath of the Dec. 4 split of the New York City Central Committee into dual Old Guard and Militant-Thomasite bodies, a referendum vote of the branches of Local New York took place to resolve the dispute. According to this report from the organ of the insurgents, by a vote of 29 to 15 these branches decided in favor of the Militant faction's new rival body. A branch-by-branch listing of allegiances is included in the report. Various factional shenanigans of the opposition are specified, including the Old Guard's expulsion of 9 branches, its refusal to allow qualified Young People's Socialist League members from gaining their party cards, as had been called for in a July agreement, the allowance of the voted of members of a rival Old Guard "Young Socialist Alliance," and the stacking of membership roles by strategic transfer of Old Guard memberships from one branch to another.

(8) "Socialist NEC Lifts Charter in New York State." (Socialist Call) [Events of Jan. 4-5, 1936] In January 1936 the governing National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, controlled by an alliance of party radicals and Norman Thomas loyalists, decided the matter of competing Socialist Party administrations in New York in the favor of the insurgents by voting to suspend the charter and reorganize the Socialist Party of New York. Called before the NEC to resolve the dispute, Old Guard leader Louis Waldman was dismissive, merely sending a letter of refusal. The investigation proceeded nonetheless, with David Berenberg -- an individual closely associated with the Rand School in the past -- charging that "The Old Guard in New York has precipitated an emergency in which only the vigorous action of New York comrades has saved the party from being shattered into fragments. As a result of a threatened purge under the guise of reorganization, which would have left the party stripped of all its vital elements, a revolt of the party membership has resulted in the establishment of a new party apparatus." * * *

(9) "The Party Controversy," by Norman Thomas [Jan. 11, 1936] Two-time Socialist Party Presidential candidate and factional leader Norman Thomas offers his take on the factional war which had shattered the New York party. Thomas upbraids Louis Waldman and Jim Oneal as "Old Guard extremists," crippled by a "communist phobia." He defends the Dec. 28-29, 1935 New York party conference at Utica as an act to "save the party" by removing "a State Committee which crowned a long list of sins of omission and commission against the Party by the wholly illegal attempt to expel from the Party everyone in any way connected with The Socialist Call." Thomas acknowledges that the extraordinary activity against the State Executive Committee in New York had "greatly weakened the Party" by giving "left-handed encouragement to secession in Indiana, to a Hearst-like denunciation of Russia, to a dozen other things wholly opposed to true Socialism." Nevertheless, he offers Waldman, Oneal & Co. an olive branch: "The cure for this is not expulsion. For individuals in the Old Guard I have a genuine affection. A good Socialist Party must be inclusive. It needs the right wing."

(10) "To All Enrolled Socialist Voters: A Statement on the Primaries," by Jack Altman, et al. [Election of April 2, 1936] In an echo of previous factional wars, the 1936 New York state Socialist Party primary election saw the nomination of rival slates of candidates. This is an election message and "signature ad" targeted to primary voters by the Militant-Thomasite alliance. * * * The list of 45 signatories which follows includes a few of the usual suspects and many lesser known trade union officials along with such "big names" as Anita and S. John Block, long of the New York Call, black leaders Frank Crosswaith and A. Philip Randolph, Jessie Wallace Hughan of the War Resisters' League, former Rand School activist David Berenberg, and Louis Waldman's fellow 1920 New York Assembly associate Sam DeWitt.

(11) "Socialist Party is Split in New York Expulsions: 'LaGuardia Socialists' Oust Left Wingers at Rump Meeting of Central Committee." (Socialist Appeal) [event of Aug. 9, 1937] On August 9, 1937 another split of the Socialist Party of New York was formalized when an alliance of factions constructed around the personalities of Jack Altman and Norman Thomas, making use of the full repertoire of machine-political tricks, expelled 52 top leaders of the Trotskyist "Appeal" faction from the party. This report in the debut issue of the Trotskyists' New York organ, The Socialist Appeal, details the process from the point of view of the expelled factional group.***

(12) "Duty of Social Democrats in the SDF and ALP: Resolution Passed at the New York City Convention, Jan. 29, 1938." Historically, the Socialist Party of America cast itself as the "political wing" of the labor movement, leaving wage negotiations to its "economic wing," the trade union movement. By the middle 1920s the political success of the British Labour Party and failure of the SPA to achieve a foothold outside of a very few urban centers had forced a fundamental reevaluation of this notion -- a reevaluation particularly embraced by the party's Old Guard faction. The de facto role of the "political wing" was now seen as that of a pressure group allied with and influencing a union-dominated mass Labor Party. The Social Democratic Federation in New York, state affiliate of the national SDF, attempted to walk a fine line of maintaining an effective and useful existence as a socialist propaganda organization without alienating the labor union-directed American Labor Party to which it had pledged allegiance. * * *

(13) "SDF Warns ALP of Dangerous Groups: Resolution Passed at the New York City Convention, Jan. 29, 1938." So-called "Section 2" of the resolution of the 1938 New York City Convention of the Social Democratic Federation on the American Labor Party consisted of this warning to the ALP leadership against "Communist infiltration" of the group. "The aim of the Communists has been and is to undermine democracy, to breed dissension in the labor movement, and to destroy every organization that strives for the betterment of the condition of the workers through democratic and peaceful means," the declaration warns. Urging that the Communists' whole record rather than their present people's front phrases should be used to assess the Communists, the Social Democrats warn that "In all countries they have tried to destroy the labor unions and labor parties that they could not control." Their presence inside the ALP would lead to discredit in the eyes of the people and organized labor alike, the resolution cautions.

(14) "An Invitation to Sincere Socialists: Resolution Adopted by the New York City SDF Convention, Jan. 29, 1938." In the wake of a drive within the Socialist Party of America to expel the organized Trotskyist faction from the organization, the rival Social Democratic Federation of New York City issued the following resolution declaring its ideas victorious and urging "the many sincere and disillusioned members of the Socialist Party" to join SDF ranks to help build the American Labor Party. "A division among Socialists, always a tragedy, may be necessary when a deep cleavage exists in principles or policies. When, however, many members of the Socialist Party have come to accept our viewpoint, and only the existence of two organizations separates those who share our ideas from us, perpetuation of a division between democratic Socialists would become an unforgivable blunder." The appeal seems to have been more for propaganda effect as an attempt to scoop up loose members rather than refection of a serious effort to mend ideological and policy fences with a view to establishing organic unity.

(15) "Thomasite Group Denied Affiliation with Labor Party: ALP State Executive Committee Votes 10 to 7 Against Accepting Offer of Socialist Party." (New Leader) [events of March 7-10, 1938] In March 1938 politically astute New Yorkers were treated to the spectacle of the state Socialist Party attempting to follow the Social Democratic Federation which had split from it (because it saw the Socialists as Communist-dominated) into the American Labor Party -- which actually was dominated by Communists through

(16) "Social Democratic Federation Rejects SP May Day Bid." (New Leader) [April 16, 1938] With war in Europe in the air and united action of "democratic nations" urged by them to stem the tide of fascism; with unity of the divided American labor movement in the face of renewed anti-union activity by employers groups demanded by them, this resolution of the New York affiliate of the Social Democratic Federation richly illustrates the way it approached calls for unity in its own house. Approached by the now Trotskyist-free Socialist Party of New York with an appeal for a joint organizational celebration of May Day, the SDF answers in the negative... * * *

(17) "SP Reports Show Sharp Decline in Party Membership." (New Leader) [events of April 21-23, 1938] Unsigned news account from the pages of the rival New Leader purporting to reveal details of a secret (executive session) report of Socialist Party National Secretary Roy Burt to the delegates of the 1938 party convention. According to this article, Burt revealed that membership of the SPA had plummeted to a mere 3,000 for the first quarter of 1938 and that finances were in a critical state. Factional activity conducted by the now- expelled Trotskyist wing had force the revocation of party charters for the state parties of Oklahoma, California, Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio, according to this account, with the additional loss of Arkansas, Arizona, Montana, Washington, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming due to insufficient membership. A new declaration of principles dealing with war and fascism had been adopted by the convention, with the two phrases most objectionable to the Old Guard/SDF dissidents from the 1934 declaration eliminated, it is said.

(18) "Communist Rah-Rah Convention Hoaxes Country on 'Principles,'"by James Oneal [events of May 27-31, 1938] New Leader editor and Social Democratic Federation factional warrior James Oneal takes aim at the Communist Party and its new "People's Front" line espoused by party General Secretary Earl Browder at its recently completed 10th National Convention in New York. Oneal calls Browder's claim of nearly doubling party membership to 75,000 members since 1936 to be "so much hooey" and part of the CPUSA's "biggest bluff since its members hurled leaflets from buildings in the larger cities, beginning in 1919, calling for 'armed insurrection to overthrow the bourgeois state.'" * * *

(19) "Missing a Year! Where Is Julia Poyntz?" by Herbert Solow [July 2, 1938] Delving into the "clouded background of intrigue," Herbert Solow outlines the mysterious case of Julia Stuart Poyntz, Nebraska-born radical educator turned Communist and recruiter of undercover operatives for Soviet intelligence. Disappeared from her room at the American Women’s Association Clubhouse, at 353 West 57th St., New York City without a trace in June 1937, friends such as Italian-American anarchist Carlo Tresca were increasingly concerned that she had been kidnapped and returned to the Soviet Union for execution. The most damning circumstantial evidence, Solow intimates, is the lack of the Communist Party to show concern about the whereabouts of its former leading member... * * *

(20) "CP Turns Stool Pigeon to Get Zack: Tries to Force Deportation of Former High Communist Official Who Split with Them: GPU Holds Wife and Child as Hostage in Russia," by Joseph Zack [Aug. 20, 1938] Communist Party founding member Joseph Zack Kornfeder relates his personal saga trying to gain the release of his wife and American-born son from Soviet exile or imprisonment. After going to the State Department for help, Zack found himself embroiled in an immigration dispute in which the claims of his own American birth were pointedly challenged by Labor Department officials. Zack charges that members of the Communist Party were

(21) "Negro Author Sees Disaster if CP Gains Control of Colored Workers," by Claude McKay [Sept. 10, 1938] Letter to the editor of The New Leader by Afro-Caribbean-American poet and writer Claude McKay responding to an imprecise summary of his beliefs made the previous July. After first giving credit to the Communists for having "more than any other group" engaged in "the effective organizing of the unemployed and relief workers" and acknowledging that the Communists will inevitably maintain a degree of influence in the trade union movement as did the Socialists before them, McKay states his own terms of opposition to the Communist movement. "I reject absolutely the idea of government by dictatorship, which is the pillar of political Communism," declares McKay. He also states his opposition to the "Jesuitical tactics of the Communists," including their "obviously fake" conversion to democracy while at the same time loudly lauding the "bloodiest acts" of the Soviet regime, their "skunking behind the smokescreen of People’s Front and Collective Security" while at the same time defending European imperialism, and their "criminal slandering and persecution of their opponents, who have remained faithful to the true traditions of radicalism and liberalism." McKay expresses fear of bloc support of the Communist Party by black Americans, observing that in such a case "in the eventuality of a crisis developing between the United States and Soviet Russia, the colored minority might find itself in a very vulnerable and unenviable position."

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