When the Socialist Party Was a Factor in US Politics: Lessons in Party Building [1]¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter argues that the Socialist Party of America (SP of A) offers crucial lessons for building a Marxist leadership in the United States today. It opens by restating Lenin’s framework for successful socialist revolution: three objective factors—a split in the ruling class, vacillation of the middle layers, and a working class willing to fight to the end—must be combined with a fourth, subjective factor: a disciplined Marxist leadership. Without this, even when the objective conditions are present, defeat follows. The author insists that studying past movements is not an exercise in hagiography but a serious effort to learn from errors, since only those who do nothing make no mistakes.
The SP of A was founded in opposition to the sectarian rigidity of Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor Party, which treated the working class in a scholastic, formalistic manner. The SP grew rapidly: from 4,500 members in 1900 to 80,000 by 1917, with socialist newspapers like Appeal to Reason reaching circulations over 500,000. Eugene V. Debs, its central figure, came to socialism through practical struggle, first as a craft unionist, then as a builder of the American Rail Union. The party elected officials at state and city levels, and Debs won 6% of the national vote in 1912 and nearly a million votes from prison in 1920.
Yet the SP suffered from fatal weaknesses. Its leadership lacked a firm grounding in Marxist theory, which led to a series of political and organisational errors. The party was a loose federation of Marxists, reformists, labour militants, and clergy, without democratic centralism. Middle-class elements—small businesspeople, preachers, professors—dominated leadership bodies because they had the time and money, while workers were excluded. Party newspapers were privately owned and reflected individual editors’ views, not the organisation’s democratically decided positions. Debs, unlike Lenin, avoided internal political battles, thereby strengthening the reformist right wing and leaving the rank and file confused rather than educated.
On the question of racism, the SP made a serious theoretical error. Debs opposed racial discrimination but treated it as a secondary issue, insisting the party had “nothing special to offer the Negro.” The party failed to recognise the special oppression of Black Americans and did not incorporate the fight against Jim Crow, segregation, and lynching into its programme. As a result, it won little support among Black workers, even as they migrated to Northern cities and became a key part of the industrial proletariat. The chapter argues that the party should have explained to white workers that fighting discrimination was in their own interest, since bosses used Black workers as strikebreakers.
On trade union strategy, the SP was divided. Some members worked inside the American Federation of Labor, where socialists initially had significant influence; others, including Debs, founded the Industrial Workers of the World. Neither wing used Marxist theory to sustain a long-term perspective. The left wing reacted pragmatically, and the IWW failed to build lasting industrial unions, which were later organised by the CIO in the 1930s. The Russian Revolution split the party: the right wing opposed it, most of the left formed the Communist Party, and Debs, though a supporter, remained in the SP until his death in 1926. The SP never recovered its former influence.