Candidate, eugene debs. This is a class at columbia university, of course i called the american radical tradition, and we started with the American Revolution and have been going through the Abolitionist Movement, early feminism, the civil war reconstruction, labor conflict and the gilded age, the populist movement, and now we are sort of entering into the 20th century and in the next couple of weeks, we will look at the progressive era, a period of, a lot of labor unrest, Industrial Workers of the world, the Womens Suffrage Movement coming to the four. Municipal reform, many other things, but today our subject is, the socialist party, the rise of socialism as a key element of american radicalism in new early 20th century. On our reading list, the chapter by michael kaizen gives a good quick summary on the various kinds of socialism at the time. From 1860 onward, there had been some kind of socialist presence in the United States, but largely confined to immigrants from europe, particularly germans, english. The emergence of a mass socialist movement with a real base in the american political system followed the final, you might say, flowering of the 19th century radical tradition in the 18 eighties and nineties and the defeat of the populist party in the 18 nineties. The inheritors of the 19th century radicalism were forced to kind of think about new ways of confronting the problems and the inequities of the rapidly changing Industrial Society of that time. Now, it is often said by people who write about the history of socialism, that american socialism was particularly and theoretical, unlike the european or other kinds of socialism, very, very few americans produced theoretical works about this. Many more socialist here were influenced by their experience in populism or the bell of me movement, remember or just the experience of the Labor Movement and by reading karl marx is kepi tall or other words like that. Nonetheless, by the turn of the century, also sheilaism and there were many varieties as you will see, in some way or another derived from the thinking and writings of karl marx. Although interpreted and very different ways. One could give a whole course and karl marx, which im not going to do, but what people learned from marx was first of all, the history is the history of class. Between the struggle between the classes at the driving force of history, he claimed, that under capitalism of the society is being divided inexorably into two classes, the working class or proposal territory or the bourgeoisie or their own production is inevitably being concentrated in fewer fewer hands. Giant corporations and the gap between what i guess today they call the 1 and the 99 . The gap between the rich and everyone else. It would inevitably get wider and wider. Some of this resonates, of course, to the present day. 30 years of the administrations of Ronald Reagan and bush and clinton and bush and obama have done more to confirm marxs prediction of the rich getting richer and everyone else falling behind then any years of the soviet union perhaps. What was appealing to marx was that at the time, remember of this dominant free contract ideology, which the Supreme Court and others were implementing social darwinism, the idea that the marketplace is just a site where equal participants compete, and the result is best for all. Marx kind of pierces through to the underpinning of the labor market and labor relations. It shows that it is based on any quality, exploitation, and you know, wage earners not getting what they deserve. Its something that has of course been an idea flowing around american radicalism for a long time. But what he was different what was different about him is he insisted that capitalism was inevitably creating the instrument of its own destruction, that is what he called it. Proletariat workers, whos coming self awareness would lead them to seize power and sort of change the whole system. Not because they were any better than anyone else, but because the very nature of their social existence sort of made them inexorably pushed towards changing the whole system. They cannot abolish, this is marks. Your own conditions of life without abolishing on the inhuman conditions of present a society. Now oddly, in the year 2000 and soon after that, there was a kind of a flurry of rediscovery of coral marx, in fact a new yorker in the time of the millennium of 2000, published an article saying man of the 21st century, hallmarks. Why . Because marx, among other things it is the profit of globalized capitalism. The man who saw through, he saw capitalism must expand to make itself a global system. Unlike the previous, most previous american radicals analyze as capitalism as a system. Not as bad individuals. Not as trusts, corrupting the political system. Not and on producers, kind of conspiring. The system itself has a logic, which has to be understood. In a way you could put marx in the same category as lets say darwin. Darwin tried to understand the underlying principles of the natural world. Or freud a little later, trying to understand the underlying principles of the internal human mind. Marx its trying to understand the underlying principles of the economic world. The first principle is, as he says, i will read you a couple of sentences. Of the communist manifesto of 1948 where he lays out where many many more socialists where the communist manifesto where it was a political polemic highly oversimplified, then waded through the three ultimate dense volumes of davos capital. What did they find when they turned to this manifesto . First they found that the revolutionary element in the world is capitalism. Capitalism, the bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production and with them, the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old moments of production and unaltered forms was the first condition of existence for earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing and production of uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, is what characterizes the present world, he says. All frozen relations are swept away. All new formed ones become antiquated before they can falsify. Of course this is a reported sentence. All that is solid melts into air. That is our condition right now. All that is solid melts into air. That is the essence of the system. The constant revolutionizing of everything. There is no nostalgia here. Marx its not trying to go back to a previous golden age. There is no previous golden age. The nature of life now is just this constant change of everything. Then, as i say, its not a national system. The need for a constantly expanding market chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere. Establish connections everywhere. The bourgeoisie exploitation of its world, market, even the cosmopolitan character. The production in every country. National industry is destroy it he says. This is 1848. National industry destroyed . Hes just getting going. Today that is what is happening, of course. National industry is destroyed by the forces of globalization. This is more than 150 years later. All established National Industries have been destroyed or are being destroyed. Moreover, in the place of old wants, satisfied by we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climbs. National one sided becomes more and more impossible. In other words, this is a global system, a global world, a global interchange, and that is good. This is not a critique. That is good. That is part of the progress of history. Because capitalism is creating the conditions in which a humane life is possible. It is overcoming the barriers of nature and population to massive production them, the possibility for an equal or Fair Distribution of wealth around the world is for the first time created by advanced capitalism, he said. Many people who read the communist manifesto are very surprised that most of it is based on praising capitalism for sweeping away all these old systems that are an obstacle to progress. Many of the people who followed marx thought of him as scientific. Later on its called scientific socialism, because he is trying to understand the system. But marx there are very few predictions in marx. Much of his writing is analytical, not predictive. His predictions changed over time. Even though there was a history is moving in a certain direction. It is not inevitable by any means, although later, readers with seat as a kind of an unanswerable process to a predetermined end. In the 18 eighties, the american journalists, labor journalists john went to england and interviewed marks, and he asked marks what do you see what do you see for the future . For the future . Marks answered, thought from minute and answered in one word, struggle. The future will see struggle. He didnt say that end of that struggle is inevitable. He did not say what the struggle will lead to. That is what he saw. But as we will see in a minute, many people saw and marxism a kind of way of predicting the future, which i think is not really the essence of what hes talking about. But the point is the whole analysis suggested that once you marry the productive capacity, the radical productive capacity of socialism, to a more equitable distribution and a more democratic control of the economy, its a utopian world. Its like bala me in a way, his utopian world. A world of plenty. A world of equality. Socialism appealed to people on an ethical level as much as on a kind of analytical level. It wasnt unbound a dream. Some promised people would be ten feet tall under socialism. Italian socialist said all children would grow up to be galileos under socialism. And marks had shown, according to people who followed him, that it was inevitable in a way. Not exactly inevitable, but it was the process of history working in that direction. But ultimately, especially the united, the ultimate appeal of socialism is ethical. Moral as well as much as analytical and economic. Socialism said, capitalism, said dads, is simply wrong. The vast inequality and equality is vastly wrong. There is a christian underlying notion of morality beneath the sort of scientific analysis. Anyway. In the 1890s, we mentioned this last time the main expression of socialism in the u. S. Was the tiny socialist labour party headed by daniel leon when mentioned last time. The lyon, a very strange and difficult guy, was one of the first to actually think in the United States of some of the modern problems of radicalism. The rise of mass culture. What does that mean for alternative . Already, youre getting mask newspapers and mraz magazines and things like that. What should radicals to a society where, you know, a certain dominant culture, this goes back to goodwin, you know permeating the society. Well, he concluded that the way to do that is to form a uncompromisingly radical party of workers. A Political Party which would work with radical unions to mobilize workers and get them to think in a radical way. Not a new idea, but he also concluded that the entire Labor Movement was basically an obstacle to this. Particularly the American Federation of labour, which he said was not bad by what he called labour fakers. That the immediate role of socialists, said de leon, was to destroy the existing Labor Movement and create new radical unions. You can imagine the existing unions were not too happy with the notion that the role of socialism was to first destroy their unions. Some of them had joined the socialist labour party in the 18 nineties in the 1890s and said wait a minute. Why is socialism trying to destroy the Political Party the union im working with . But the leon but de leon, his views would influence the Industrial Workers of the world, which attempted to mobilize or organize those mass production workers which the American Federation of labour had left out. But when the socialist party of america is founded in 1901, de leon and his little group is the one group of socialists who remain outside. Who are not really part of this group. So who does come together in 1901 to form this Umbrella Group called the socialist party of america . Well, a conglomeration of people. After the defeat of brian in 1896, some melanieites, followers of eugene debs and others had formed a group called the brotherhood of the cooperative commonwealth. They had a plan to move en masse to some Western State with limited population and basically take over the state by people moving in. They thought maybe theyd plant colonies in the state of washington or something. It did not really get anywhere but that is sort of the old come unitary and ethos. But this group, the brotherhood of the cooperatives commonwealth, is part of the socialist party. Many people who were this affected by the failure of populism come in. Quite a few labor unions, the American Railroad union of debs and others come in. In 1901, as i say, under this umbrella they form the socialist party of america. A very small group. But within a decade or so, that is by 1912 or up to world war i, this is really the point here. Between 1901 and world war one, which breaks out in 1914, but the u. S. Doesnt enter it until 1917, socialism grows to become a significant part of the political discourse in the United States. A factor in american life. Not a majority by any means of course, but not a fringe sectarian group as it would later become. And the first thing we have to do to think about this is to remember my admonition, which i mentioned before, to read history forward and not backward. You cannot understand the socialist party of the preet world war i period without, in a sense, forgetting about world war one, the Russian Revolution, the cold war and many many other things that will happen in the history of socialism and then communism which will split socialism into sectarian groups. That will discredited in many ways in the eyes of people, but nobody knows that is coming in the period from 1901 to 1914 or 1917. Today, socialism, to the extent that it exists at all in our political discourse, is just an allpurpose term of abuse. Right . Few here on tv, obama is a socialist right . What are the people who say that mean . They dont actually understand either obama or socialism. Its just a way of saying i dont like obama. I dont like this thing that hes done, this thing that hes done, fair enough, but to call him a socialist is absurd. But nonetheless, that is with the term so what we have to go back before all these events of the 20th century. To understand it in its own context, socialism of the early 20th century. Its difficult to do because the historical literature doesnt help us all that much. Liberal historians, which is probably the majority, think socialism is really kind of irrelevant because the real story is the rise of 20th century liberalism from Woodrow Wilson through the new deal of franklin d. Roosevelt and then on to the great society, etc. That is the trajectory and socialism is just irrelevant in next to that. On the other hand, communist historians who wrote in the 19 thirties, forties, fifties, saw the socialist party as lacking in revolutionary fervor. It seemed kind of moderate and mild compared to the radicalism of communists later on. So they did not think much of it either. The fact is, as i say, that a broadly based socialist movement did exist in america in the two decades coming up to world war ii one. At the height of their influence, the socialist party had 150,000 do paying members. Today, to be a member of a Political Party you just register in the primary. But these were people who pay dues to the socialist party. There were hundreds of socialist newspapers scattered around the country. Debs in 1912 pulled nearly 1 million votes running for president in the fourway president ial election of 1912. More than 1000 public local Public Officials were elected by the socialist party. From places like ridge port connecticut to milwaukee, congressman from new york. Mostly industrial areas, but also in the west, local socialist legislators, etc, mayors, etc. When the American Federation of labour had their annual conventions, at least one third of the unions were headed by people who call themselves socialists of one kind of another for another. The socialist party was not a narrow fringe. It was a kind of umbrella in which many people passed or took part who were connected to other major movements of the time. Womens suffrage, for example. They connected to the socialist party in some ways. Municipal reform, labor legislation of this era, demands for Public Ownership of utilities like streetcar lines and gas works and things like that. In other words, it was a broad amorphous, in many ways, all encompassing party. Many leading figures of the time were either in it or connected to it or sort of sympathetic in some way or another. The idea of socialism was a rather vague idea for many people, but it was part of the political discourse. As i say, the socialist party had many diverse elements and was there was often tension between them. But before looking at that and often its described as left versus right. Radical versus reformer or whatever you want to call, it within the socialist party. But what held the party together, you know, what do they hold in common . One central threat which does take us back into the radical tradition of the 19th century was a faith in education as the way to build a mass socialist movement. Marx wrote of socialism in the communist manifesto as a revolutionary doctrine. A drop turn of revolution. But the american socialists were not basically revolutionaries, although a few used revolutionary rhetoric. Most of them thought, just like the abolitionists and others, that the way social change would come was by education. Was by convincing people. Was that you convince people to be socialist by talking to them, by giving them things to read, etc. As long as you did it in the language of american society, not in this european jargon, as many socialists said. A leading socialist writer at the time says, too long our socialist wr