Epilogue

 

I suppose I could have gotten this info in some other way, but being lazy I asked the AI about it. I blogged about the SLP many times, so I suppose this is the epilogue...

Does the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) still exist? (That is, Daniel DeLeon´s organization in the United States)

Yes — the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) founded by Daniel De Leon in the 19th century still exists today, albeit as a very small and mostly inactive organization.

🏛️ Continuity and Current Status

• The SLP is the oldest socialist party in the U.S., established in 1876 (originally as the Workingmen’s Party) and renamed in 1877 en.wikipedia.org+12thirdpartyusa.org+12qa.edu.vn+12.

• It was strongly associated with Daniel De Leon from around 1890 until his death in 1914, shaping its early DeLeonist Marxist ideology qa.edu.vn+1en.wikipedia.org+1.

📰 Publications & Organizational Changes

• The party published The People, run by De Leon and later editors, continuously from 1891 until 2008 (print) and until 2011 online academickids.com+3en.wikipedia.org+3ballot-access.org+3.

• Due to financial strain, they ceased publication in 2008, closed their national office in September 2008, and have not regularly fielded electoral candidates since 1981 thirdpartyusa.org+12ballot-access.org+12marxists.org+12.

🌐 Presence Today

• The SLP appears to exist currently as a paper organization, maintaining its website (slp.org) but with minimal activity or public presence, mostly among a small group of dedicated members reddit.com+15ballot-access.org+15marxists.org+15.

• Archival materials were transferred to institutions like Duke University and the Wisconsin Historical Society when the office closed ballot-access.org.

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✅ Summary

Aspect	Status Today
Name	Socialist Labor Party (SLP)
Founded	1876 (as Workingmen’s Party)
Affiliation	DeLeonist Marxism
Publications	The People ceased 2011
Organizational presence	Website remains; few—if any—active locals
Electoral activity	None since 1981

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💡 So:

• Yes, the SLP still legally exists and upholds its DeLeonist program.

• But it's now mostly a historical remnant, with almost no electoral presence or organized activity beyond a small online presence.

Would you like information on its historical impact, or how it compares to other socialist parties today?

Strange socialists I have known

“Recent Changes in the Socialist Labor Party of America” is an internal document published by the Socialist Labor Party of Canada (now defunct). The document is probably unavailable at the present time, unless you happen to be on a very friendly basis with some elderly ex-member of the SLP. I recently found it in my private stash in perfect Xeroxed condition. It comes with a warning label not to spread it outside the ranks of the SLP, well, clearly somebody broke that promise. (I´m not sure if I got the copy from the De Leonist Society of Canada or the Discussion Bulletin.)

The SLP is a small left-wing group in the United States, and used to have an even smaller subsidiary in Canada. From 1914 to 1969, a man named Arnold Petersen was the SLP´s National Secretary. Indeed, he dominated the party until his death in 1976. During Petersen´s almost impossibly long tenure as party leader (yes, you read that right – 1914 to 1969), the SLP was a strongly sectarian organization the sole activity of which was abstract propaganda for socialism. Even this wasn´t carried out in a very flexible or clever way – quite the contrary. SLP members weren´t allowed to join unions, except when their jobs depended on it, and they were prohibited from holding even lowly union positions. Unions were “capitalist” in Petersen´s estimation. All minimum reform demands were rejected, “socialism” being the only demand of the SLP. The party also stayed away from “free universities” and similar New Left forums where they could have easily spread their propaganda. Nor did they participate in protest marches, except to leaflet them with SLP propaganda, and even this was often made impossible by the inflexible party rules – the party members were to avoid the staging areas, making it difficult to see how they could possibly have leafleted the march participants? Often, they simply stayed away completely. In effect, the Petersenite SLP boycotted most of the important venues for left-wing politics during the 1960´s: the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the New Left, and so on. SLP´s newspaper, the Weekly People, was filled with long excerpts from Daniel De Leon´s articles on various subjects (De Leon, who died in 1914, had been the party´s foremost theoretician) and ditto from Petersen´s own pamphlets. Not to be too polite, the SLP was a kind of “Jehovah´s Witnesses of the left”, but apparently without the promotional acumen of the Watchtower Society…

After Petersen´s death, his erstwhile protégé Nathan Karp tried to change the policy of the party, making it more similar to a normal left-wing group. This was opposed by the Petersenite old guard, which apparently controlled the small SLP franchise in Canada. “Recent Changes in the Socialist Labor Party” documents Karp´s changes and argues against them in favor of the super-sectarian verities of yesteryear. The material is extremely tedious and only of interest to SLP-watchers (I was one back in the 1990´s). It was interesting to read Petersen´s internal letters to various party dissidents – they are just as dogmatic, unyielding and frankly insulting as the man´s public pronouncements. It´s also intriguing that the far-reaching changes in SLP´s tactics, and in some cases actual political positions, happened so fast after the old man´s death – it´s almost as if the other party leaders had waited for Petersen to die, then launched their coup immediately after the funeral! I also wonder what kind of people the super-orthodox super-socialist SLP really attracted. Thus, Petersen´s National Office had to issue instructions that, of course, no SLP member can be a volunteer soldier in the US military, or serve as a police officer at an industrial plant! Apparently, some SLP members had applied for such positions?! It´s almost as if SLP´s strong sectarianism made them attractive only to confused people with a very low level of political consciousness… People with solid leftist sympathies went to the regular leftists.

 As far as I understand, Karp expelled the old guard when they refused to bow to the new order. Ironically, however, he then began to backslide and once again turned the SLP into a small and sectarian group at the outskirts of the left. I´m not sure why – maybe he feared that there wasn´t much political space for a “soft” version of the SLP on the American left, that space already being filled by the DSA, the libertarian socialists or even the “softer” Trotskyists. The only way to keep the little apparat going was to retreat once more into sectarian isolation. The Petersenites regrouped in two “De Leonist Societies”, one in Canada and the other one (I think) in New York City. They only published Xeroxed bulletins, but where kind enough to copy some Petersen pamphlets for me when politely asked. After a quixotic split (I think the American society had revised De Leon´s program on a single point – whether or not the future socialist society should have industrial constituencies only, or also territorial constituencies), it seems both societies disappeared around 2000. I think their members were by then over 90 years old!

With this, I close my little review of this very, very obscure publication.

An anarchist in Finland

”Stalinist International Anarchism” is a short pamphlet published in 1940 by the Socialist Labor Party, a small left-wing group in the United States. It´s relatively uninteresting by itself, containing a sharp denunciation of the Soviet attack on Finland, and goes wildly off tangent when it accuses Stalin of being an “Anarchist”.

What makes the pamphlet somewhat interesting is the context: the SLP had previously supported the domestic policies of the Soviet Union, including Stalin´s great purges, while being critical of Soviet foreign policy in general and the Communist International in particular. This absurdly contradictory position apparently became untenable in 1939-40, when Stalin and Hitler entered a de facto alliance, of which the attack on Finland was part. This is interesting, since it shows that even the strongly sectarian and isolated SLP wasn´t *completely* immune to stirrings in the real world. Note also that the change came in 1939-40, when Stalin´s treachery and cynicism became Über-obvious for everyone except the most dyed-in-the-wool fellow travelers, rather than during the People´s Front period, when his popularity among the Western “liberals” may have been at its height…and this from a party that supposedly opposed the Popular Front. It´s almost as if the SLP tried to cash in on the popularity of the Soviet Union until the last possible moment!

It´s also interesting to note that SLP´s change of line didn´t lead to any splits in their organization, suggesting that its perennial National Secretary Arnold Petersen had succeeded in turning it into a monolithic sect or cult, to be commanded at will by the great leader. A bit like, ahem, the Stalinist movement….

SLP versus the burlesque Bolsheviks

The full title of this publication is “The Socialist Labor Party and the Third International: Socio-Political Science vs. Revolutionary Romanticism”. Published in 1926, the pamphlet is anonymous. The SLP is (yes, the group still exists) one of the more peculiar leftist groups, being essentially a propaganda society for the homegrown political philosophy of American Marxist Daniel De Leon (who died in 1914). De Leon's ideas, often referred to as Socialist Industrial Unionism, sound like a curious hybrid of Social Democracy and revolutionary syndicalism. Under the leadership of De Leon's successor Arnold Petersen, the SLP evolved into a bizarre sect or cult. This is not yet fully discernible in this pamphlet, which sounds rather moderate and serious. Later, SLP became notorious for the ill-tempered and invective-ridden articles of said Petersen, not to mention his periodic purges of the rapidly dwindling and ageing party faithful.

The Russian Bolsheviks attempted to recruit the SLP to their Third or Communist International, but the pamphlet says almost nothing about these efforts. Instead, it contains a short criticism of the U.S. Communists (which the SLP believes are heavily infiltrated by government agents) and a call to disband the Comintern. The SLP evidently supported the New Economic Policy (NEP), and therefore believed that the Soviet Union should concentrate to establishing meaningful trade relations with the capitalist world, rather than foment “world revolution” through the Third International. The pamphlet attacks Russian Bolshevik leader Zinoviev, who was also chair of the Comintern, and express strong support for his removal from power. The SLP's criticism of the American Communists is a strange mix of criticism “from the left” (the Communists are really “reformists”, they support Senator La Follette, etc) and criticism “from the right” (a violent revolution isn't on the agenda, underground revolutionary work is absurd, etc). Lenin was rumored to have been interested in De Leon's thought, and the few quotations that suggest this are quote-mined by the anonymous authors, thereby lending the SLP some kind of imprimatur. One of the few invectives in this pamphlet is “burlesque Bolsheviki”, a reference to the American Communists.

In the end, absolutely nothing came out of any of this, since the SLP was too sectarian to actually *do* something. During the 1930's, Petersen became an ardent admirer of Stalin (while still condemning the Comintern!), but he swiftly changed tack during the Hitler-Stalin pact and Winter War, charging that Stalin had turned into an “international anarchist” and established a despotic regime in Russia. Wow, who knew? Today, SLP has changed its analysis once again, now instead expressing support for Alexandra Kollontai's 1921 Workers' Opposition, a position more in keeping with De Leon's “syndicalist” angle.

With that, I end my review.

A Marxist apocryphon

"Peaceful Revolution vs. Violence" is a curious pamphlet published by the Socialist Labor Party, a left-wing organization in the United States. The pamphlet reprints a classical text by Friedrich Engels, known as "Introduction to Marx's `Class Struggles in France'".

Engels' original article was published in 1895, and stirred up controversy for decades afterwards. On the face of it, it seemed as if Engels had abandoned the idea of a violent revolution in favour of peaceful parliamentarianism and universal suffrage. The article *does* contain formulations that can be interpreted in such a manner, but the original text also contained veiled threats that a revolution might be necessary anyway (presumably Engels' real position). Due to the threat of new anti-socialist laws in Germany, the Social Democratic Party asked Engels to remove the most problematic passages, and apparently revised the article even more before publishing it in the Party newspaper. (At the time, the Social Democrats still considered themselves Marxists, which explains their close contacts with Engels.) Engels was furious and lodged several complaints with the Party leadership, but since he died shortly afterwards, nothing much came out of it. The sanitized version (or versions?) became "canonical", confusing revolutionary Marxists for about two decades. Still today, some people believe that Engels turned coat virtually on his death bed (I used to believe it myself).

Just two examples of revisions made before the text was published. A long section of the "Introduction" is a criticism of old methods of revolutionary struggle, including the building of barricades. However, Engels also talks about "possible future street fighting". This was omitted before the article went to print. The "Introduction" also contains the following ominous warning: "If, therefore, you break the constitution of the Reich, Social-Democracy is free, and can do as it pleases with regard to you. But it will hardly blurt out to you today what it is going to do then." This too was omitted, as was a reference to Bismarck declaring war on Austria after a supposed treaty violation, presumably a coded reference to Social Democracy being free to overthrow the German government, if it violates the constitution...

In the United States, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) used the polished version of Engels' text as a polemical weapon against the Communists, "proving" that one of the great founders of Marxism was really an advocate of peaceful social change. But how did the SLP react when the truth of the matter was revealed? The first full English translation of Engels' *real* article was apparently published in New York in 1922. It seems the SLP did...exactly nothing. In a bizarre fit of dogmatism, they continued to reprint the polished version of Engels' text! The pamphlet "Peaceful Revolution vs. Violence" was first published in 1923, and went through at least six printings. My copy is from 1970. It contains a preface by SLP leader Arnold Petersen, originally written in 1933 but revised in 1964. Petersen still fulminates against the "falsifications of the anarcho-Communists", as if absolutely nothing have happened...

I suppose "Introduction to Karl Marx's `The Class Struggles in France 1848-50'" is something as strange as a Marxist apocryphon...

Naturally, a SLP publication must also contain an article by Daniel De Leon, SLP's chief theoretician. (The party actually calls itself Marxist-DeLeonist!) The words of wisdom are titled "Militarism or Industrial Unionism" and exposit on De Leon's weird, quasi-syndicalist blueprint for revolution through a Socialist Industrial Union, etc.

Is this worth $ 13? Yeah, maybe.

Iolo Morganwg versus Citizen Robespierre

This pamphlet, published by the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), contains two short texts by Georgi Plekhanov, the so-called father of Russian Marxism. "How the bourgeoisie remembers its own revolution" is an analysis of the French revolution, first published in two instalments in 1890-91. The second text is titled "The Bourgeoisie, Anarchism and Socialism" and is excerpted from a more voluminous work, "Anarchism and Socialism". There is no particular connection between the two articles.

To be honest, the pamphlet is rather obscure and I review it mostly because I happen to have it in my somewhat eclectic private collection! That being said, Plekhanov's article on the French revolution (which defends the Jacobins against the criticism of one Paul Janet) is a relatively good introduction to the Marxist view of this particular event.

The piece on anarchism is of considerable less interest, although I noticed the following attack on some of my pet interests: "Alas, gentlemen, there is no ideal for walking corpses such as you! You will try everything. You will become Buddhists, Druids, Sârs, Chaldeans, Occultists, Magi, Theosophist, or Anarchists, whichever you prefer - and yet you will remain what you are now - beings without faith or principle, bags, emptied by history. The ideal of the bourgeoisie has lived".

Ouch, that hurt, Citoyen Plekhanov!

Both texts are also available free on the web.

Another Petersen extravaganza

"W. Z. Foster: Renegade or Spy?" is an Arnold Petersen special, a veritable guilty pleasure for sect-watchers like myself. Petersen, who was national secretary of the U.S. Socialist Labor Party from 1914 to 1969 (!!), has written a number of pretty curious pamphlets, dutifully devoured and reviewed by yours truly.

This one is no exception.

The super-sectarian SLP frowned at the Communist Party USA, or the "Anarcho-Communists" in Petersen speak (he also loved to call them "burlesque Bolsheviki"). William Z. Foster was the leader of the Communist Party when this brochure was first printed in good ol' Third Period 1932. Naturally, Petersen's quasi-aristocratic contempt is therefore directed at poor Foster, a "deadly microbe assailing the revolutionary organism", an agent provocateur and spy (Petersen never says on whose behalf), and - the worst thing of all - an "Anarchist" with a capital A. By "Anarchist" the cultured Danish-American Petersen, who often quotes Goethe and Shakespeare in his pamphlets, meant something like lumpen barbarian enemy of civilization as we know it, and then some. But perhaps there *are* worse things than being top dog Anarchist, since Petersen also believes that Foster is a potential Napoleon III, Mussolini or Hitler, due to his support for veterans' pensions!

Petersen's people's exhibit A against the microbe (Foster, remember?) is that William Zebulon wasn't a pure-bred socialist during World War I, instead collaborating with "Sammy" Gompers of the AFL, even to the point of buying war bonds. In Red Scare 1919, both Gompers and Foster were summoned before a congressional committee, before which Foster repudiated a revolutionary work ("Syndicalism") he had written years earlier, while "Sammy" told the congressmen that Foster had became a respectable trades unionist. Thus, most of "W Z Foster: Renegade or Spy?" deals with Foster's testimony in Washington, an event which transpired *before* he even became a Communist.

Naturally, Petersen expresses surprise that the great Stalin have made this "adventurer" his sole official representative in the United States. While rejecting the burlesque Bolshevik microbes on his home turf, Petersen still admired both Lenin and Stalin, which may or may not tell us something about his unrealistic worldview and personal psychology. This Petersen pamphlet therefore ends with the usual "proofs" that Lenin admired Daniel De Leon, the chief theoretician of the Socialist Labor Party and Petersen's foremost cultic hero.

But hell, I'm starting to sound like A.P. myself, so I think I have to stop here. Once again, thanx for da entertainment.

A commemorative address

"Daniel De Leon: Internationalist" is a short pamphlet published by the U.S. Socialist Labor Party. Originally published in 1944, it contains a speech by SLP national secretary Arnold Petersen delivered at the party's De Leon Commemoration in New York City on December 12, 1943. De Leon (who was born in December 1852) was the chief leader and ideologue of the SLP from about 1890 until his death in 1914, when Petersen took over the leadership. During his half-century long (!) tenure as party secretary, Petersen created a kind of personality cult around De Leon.

Still, I must say that "Daniel De Leon: Internationalist" is pretty low key for Petersen. Being a commemorative address, it also lacks the distinctive Petersenite invectives against political opponents. The pamphlet is a pretty straightforward presentation of De Leon's broadly Marxist view of nations and internationalism, his attacks on the anti-immigration policy of Socialist Party leader Morris Hillquit, his criticism of Zionism, calls for international working-class solidarity against wars, etc. Petersen concludes with a lengthy denunciation of German Social Democracy for having betrayed the revolution and thereby brought about Nazism. SLP's super-sectarian stance on World War II (no support for either side) is also plainly visible, as is Petersen's turn against Stalin's Soviet Union, which he had previously supported.

Probably not very interesting to the general reader. One of the few interesting SLP pamphlets is "The SLP and the USSR", reviewed by me elsewhere.

Daniel De Leon is immortal, and then some

"Daniel De Leon: Emancipator" is a pamphlet about American Marxist Daniel De Leon (1852-1914), written by Arnold Petersen. The author was the successor of De Leon as effective leader of the Socialist Labor Party. The SLP was at one point a relatively important Marxist organization, but became increasingly more sectarian and dogmatic under De Leon's and (especially) Petersen's leadership. For this reason, the SLP were eclipsed by the IWW, the Socialist Party and later the CPUSA. Reading "Emancipator", I can understand why. Most of Petersen's text is Marxism 101, but at times De Leon's sectarianism rears its head. De Leon opposed the demand for a minimum wage with the argument that capitalism will automatically undermine it, thus making the demand meaningless. (SLP's critics have often pointed to this and similar statements as proof that De Leon believed in the "iron law of wages", a non-Marxist concept associated with Marx' opponent Lasalle.) However, De Leon *admits* that the minimum wage could be made to work if the state exercises tighter control over the economy! Yet, he opposes it anyway, presumably because the state of Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressives was still "bourgeois". While De Leon (illogically) still supported union struggles for higher wages, Petersen dispensed even with that, calling on SLP members to leave the unions and not support union strikes, essentially turning the group into a "socialist" version of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

After the death of De Leon, Petersen created a kind of personality cult around the deceased leader. This explains the inclusion in this pamphlet of the text "Lenin and De Leon", in which the SLP claims that the Russian revolutionary leader was familiar with and perhaps inspired by De Leon's work. "Emancipator" also includes a poem honouring De Leon, written by Petersen himself (who was also fond of quoting Goethe or Shakespeare). "Emancipator" also contains an attack on Friedrich Hayek, described as "one of the latest of these stupid or inept defenders [of capitalism]...an Austrian hack...who already seems to have been forgotten". In all fairness to AP, it's possible that Hayek's fame didn't come until somewhat later - Petersen's brochure was originally published in 1946.

The text ends with the litany: "The passing of the SLP? The SLP is immortal. Daniel De Leon dead? Daniel De Leon is immortal".

Although "Emancipator" is free from the bizarre invectives typical of this particular author, I admit that I wasn't particularly moved by it and its message. Probably not for the general reader.

A curious discipline

"Daniel De Leon: Disciplinarian" is another SLP pamphlet extolling the virtues of American Marxist theoretician Daniel De Leon (who died in 1914), written by Arnold Petersen. The author was the National Secretary of the SLP (Socialist Labor Party) from 1914 to 1969. The text was originally an address held in December 1942 to commemorate De Leon's birthday. The pamphlet emphasizes the need for self-discipline of each party member, and the need for general discipline within the party itself. Sounds innocuous until you realize that Petersen was a crazy dictator, who expelled members, party branches and even an entire state organization for "disloyalty" on a regular basis. He even compared his actions to those of Stalin in the Soviet Union! At least until Joe decided to attack Finland and hence became an "international Anarchist" in Petersen speak. But that's for another time. De Leon may or may not have been a "disciplinarian", but I think he deserved a better successor than A.P. the Ersatz Stalinist...

Petersen back in force

"De Leon: The Uncompromising" is a pamphlet authored by Arnold Petersen, the near-perennial National Secretary of the U.S. Socialist Labor Party, not to be confused with the more well-known Socialist Workers' Party. The pamphlet was published in 1939, and contains three addresses by Petersen, "De Leon: The Uncompromising", "Daniel De Leon: Educator" and "Daniel De Leon: Character Builder". Daniel De Leon was the effective leader of the SLP from 1890 until his death in 1914. His curious interpretation of Marxism turned the party into a political sect. Petersen continued the sectarian course, even creating a kind of personality cult around the deceased De Leon, dubbing his theories "Marxism-De Leonism" (sic).

The addresses are vintage Petersen, both the venomous invectives and the quotes from famous poets. The political opponents of De Leon, and by implication Petersen himself, are denounced as "vulgar", "money-grabbing", "tail-wagging poodles" or "freaks, frauds and common swindlers". One of them has a "slum-proletarian character", while another is a "crafty Jesuit". Herbert Hoover is said to be an "economic Neanderthal"! The martyred leader of the Easter Rising, James Connolly, who at one point was an SLP member, is simply a "Jesuit". His role as fighter for Irish independence isn't even acknowledged. Petersen even sounds sexist, attacking female opponents with epithets such as "gossipy female" or "gabby female" (the latter was directed at Emma Goldman).

It's almost comic to see that this vituperative speaker - he could actually sound much worse! - liberally sprinkled his speeches with quotes and references to Shakespeare, Emerson, Whitman and Ibsen. He even quotes Caesar in Latin, admittedly in a section criticizing "classical" education. At another point, Petersen boasts about knowing the difference between Ultramontanism and Montanism - it seems one of De Leon's detractors had written that "Ultra Montanism" is a 2th century Christian sect!

Well, it's good to know that the Secretary is back in force!

Give the magpie some vegetables, please

Arnold Petersen was the National Secretary of the super-sectarian and zany Socialist Labor Party from 1914 to 1969, an absurdly long period. He is also the author of virtually all SLP pamphlets from the period in question. "Karl Marx and Marxian Science. A Universal Genius: His Discoveries, His Traducers" is another Arnold Petersen extravaganza, of little interest except for the vituperative writer himself. Indeed, Petersen seems to enjoy verbal jousting to such a degree, that he even writes, apropos Marx' detractors: "Having gulped down our `Corey' soup, we will serve up Max Eastman as the entrée, Mr. Wilson as the fish, with perhaps a bit of Hook at vegetable, and possibly a tiny morsel of Laski dessert! Let us be seated at the festive boards!" Well, at least it's good to know that Citizen Petersen had a nourishing dinner.

The rest of the book is devoted to the promised verbal attacks on various opponents of Marx and Marxism, politically worthless but verbose, and filled with countless invectives. Petersen (who died in 1976) would have loved the World Wide Web! Another curious trait of the National Secretary's writings is his habit of quoting poetry, usually Goethe and Shakespeare. This time, Chaucer is dragged into the fray, as well. The poor anti-Marxists Mr Laski and "Corey" (Petersen's quotation marks) are disposed of with the words: "He was al coltish, ful of ragerye / And ful of jargon as a flekked pye". Since SLP's members apparently weren't into Middle English, the editor helpfully informs us that "ragerye" means "excited", while a "flekked pye" is a spotted magpie.

Thank you.

One hundred miles from home

A review of "DeLeonist Milestones" by Arnold Petersen.

A relatively uninteresting Zusammenfassung of Daniel De Leon's purported contributions to Marxism, by the great Danish-American sage Arnold Petersen, Nat Sec of the S.L.P. Could be safely ignored by the general reader.

Why Arnold Petersen isn't a Marxist

"Daniel De Leon: Social Architect" is a pamphlet originally published in 1941 by the Socialist Labor Party (SLP). It contains three articles written by Arnold Petersen, the then-National Secretary of the SLP. De Leon was the leader of the SLP from about 1890 until his death in 1914. At one point, the SLP was a relatively important socialist organization in the United States, but they were eventually eclipsed by the Socialist Party, the IWW and (later) the Communists. The reasons are not hard to find: rejection of most reform proposals as hidden measures of "reaction", inefficient dual unionism, sectarianism, etc. During Petersen's weirdly long tenure as party secretary (1914-69), the SLP was definitely transformed into a bizarre cultic group, a kind of Jehovah's Witnesses of the left, preaching their exotic interpretation of Marxism to largely empty pews. I'm not a Marxist, but I think Marxists, including Marx himself, could (quite seriously!) accuse Petersen of having an un-Marxist, utopian and idealist view of world history. Especially after reading "Daniel De Leon: Social Architect".

Petersen created a kind of personality cult around the deceased SLP leader, which is highly suspicious in itself, since classical Marxism eschews a "great man" view of history. (Uncle Joe, Chairman Mao and Kim Il Sung were therefore decidedly un-Marxist on this point, and arguably on many others, too!) In "Social Architect", Petersen portrays De Leon as a lonely genius, towering high over a world who simply couldn't understand him. Worse, De Leon was betrayed by the very men who pretended to pay him obeisance at his funeral. Thus, he was rejected even by his own (except Petersen, who inserts himself in the story here). This, however, is *not* a Marxist view at all. To Marx, his own philosophy was (at least indirectly) a product of the movement of history itself, more specifically the movement of the working class. Marx would have been deeply worried if his ideas hadn't caught on anywhere! A lone genius centuries before his time simply cannot exist in the materialist schema of history envisaged by Marx. That would be idealism, even fideism. Where did the lone genius get his ideas from, if not a product of the historical movement itself? Revelation? And why was he betrayed by *everyone* á la Caesar, including his closest aides? That can only mean that the "genius" is a historical miscarriage, either too early for his time (like a Spartacus or a Robespierre), or a hopeless utopian who isn't even interesting. Petersen clearly has a problem here - while Marx of course believed in the possibility of setbacks for the labour movement, the complete failure of the SLP simply cannot be squared with Marx' ultimately Hegelian view of historical development, where success really is the measure of "truth".

Another problem: Petersen calls De Leon "social architect" since he discovered the form of a future socialist society, the Industrial Union Government. This was De Leon's greatest discovery, and one of his original contributions to Marxism. Marx and Engels had left the question unanswered, even being locked in a contradiction. How can a political state administer a society in transition to socialism, if the goal is to abolish the state? De Leon's idea that the administration of society should be in the hands of "socialist industrial unions" supposedly solves the problem. However, this was *not* how Marx and Engels solved the problems of the future. In a very real sense, they didn't bother "solving" them at all, leaving them for the historical process itself to solve. This explains why Marx and Engels changed their revolutionary program under the influence of the Paris Commune. It was the Commune which made Marx and Engels realize (or "realize") that the working class can't take over the existing state apparatus, but has to smash it and replace it with a very different state power. De Leon, by contrast, simply sucked out an abstract ideal from his thumb. Are there any examples of "socialist industrial unions" taking over production, dispensing with the political state and establishing Industrial Union Government? Of course not. Marx and Engels would have regarded the idea as a specimen of utopian socialism, especially if coupled with Petersen's cult of the lone genius betrayed by his Brutuses mentioned above. Finally, Marx would have regarded the "contradiction" seen by Petersen between abolishing the state and creating a new state as entirely abstract and undialectical.

OK, but enough of this "devil's advocate" stuff for this week.

Coleman on De Leon

Stephen Coleman is a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB). In this book he attempts an objective look at the SPGB's distant ideological cousin, Daniel De Leon of the U.S. Socialist Labor Party (SLP). In my opinion, Coleman is too positive to De Leon. For instance, De Leon in my opinion *did* believe in a version of the “iron law of wages”. It's also curious that Coleman downplays De Leon's differences with James Connolly, which were considerable. (The future leader of the Easter Rising was a member of the SLP during his stay in the United States.) While De Leon was contradictory (and more flexible than his successor as SLP leader, the inimitable Arnold Petersen), the man was at bottom a hopeless and muddled sectarian. Since Coleman's own party are just as hopeless, it's no big surprise that he doesn't get it.

Coleman does make two interesting observations, however. First, that De Leon's vision of a future society might have been inspired by Bellamy's utopian novel “Looking Backward”. Before becoming a Marxist, De Leon had been a “Nationalist”, i.e. a supporter of Bellamy. Second, Coleman (somewhat reluctantly) points out that De Leon's view of party organization had strong similarities with Lenin's “democratic centralism”, yet the two men apparently never met or exchanged ideas.

Otherwise, I found “Daniel De Leon” to be quite bland and too apologetic. Also, it's not really a biography, but rather an extended essay on De Leon's politics. And no, it's not about Alzheimer's disease, so Amazon's subtitle is probably a mistake! The correct name of the series is "Lives on the Left".

King Arnold stood by the lofty mast

"Crises in European History" is a short book by Danish Marxist Gustav Bang. It was translated to English by Danish-American Marxist Arnold Petersen, and serialized in the Daily People in 1909-10. The Daily People was the organ of the Socialist Labor Party (SLP). In 1916, the SLP published Bang's text in a book-length version. I have SLP's 1974 edition of "Crises", but it seems to exist in an almost bewildering array of independent reprints. This is one of them.

Bang's book is intended as a popularized outline of the materialist theory of history. It discusses the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Roman Empire, the Protestant Reformation, and the French Revolution. The material is relatively uninteresting. We heard it all before. However, Bang's analysis of the French Revolution does have one curious trait. It completely omits the Jacobins and the Terror! Bang goes straight from the Girondists to Thermidor. It's not clear why. Bang was a member of the Danish Social Democratic Party, and perhaps less revolutionary in his Marxism than Petersen wants us to believe. Another possibility is fear of censorship. I'm not familiar with the political situation in tiny little Denmark circa 1910.

"Crises in European History" also contain two comments by the translator that made me laugh out load. Yeah, Arnold Petersen was Danish, alright! In one footnote, he refers to the 14th century Swedish king Magnus Eriksson (who fought several wars against Denmark) as "Magnus Smek", literally Magnus Caress. This happens to be an insult against the king, made by his adversaries who claimed that he was a homosexual. The early 16th century Danish king Christian (who waged a war against Sweden) is referred to as Christian II. Of course, Swedes call him Christian the Tyrant...

It sure is funny that a die hard Marxist like Petersen lets us in on his ethnic prerogatives. Or as the Danes would say: "De er deilig" (It is lovely).

A wounded ego indeed

"Disruption and disrupters" is a real classic. Written by Arnold Petersen in 1935, it explains why every dissident member of the Socialist Labor Party must be purged from the ranks of the party faithful. Petersen must have been peculiarly apt at smoking out critics, since his tenure as National Secretary lasted from 1914 to 1969, arguably a world record of some sort. But then, the SLP was not an ordinary party, but (depending on who you believe) the only beacon of light in a mad world or...a bizarre political sect, a kind of fossil preserved from the political Precambrian. Indeed, the SLP might have been the original "Jehovah's Witnesses of the left".

Just as there is no legitimate reason to disagree with Jehovah, there is apparently no legitimate reason to disagree with the SLP and its National Secretary, either. All critics are "liars", "villains", "trouble-makers", "garbage", "out-and-out traitors" who simply have "a wounded ego" (ah, have we heard that one before!). Apart from the SLP, no true De Leonist organization can exist. The rest are "disruptive groups" and "scavenging outfits" who grow only as the dunghill grows. Apparently, they are also anarchists suffering from megalomania. Und so weiter, as Goethe would no doubt put it.

And no, I'm not particularly upset about any of it. I mean, A.P. is great fun! At one point, Petersen claims that everyone who criticizes the National Secretary (i.e. him) has an overdeveloped ego and underdeveloped mentality. Aye, every critic of Petersen is an anarchist in whom mental growth has been stunted and thus has the mentality of the savage or child.

Oh my. Megalomania or wounded ego, anyone?

Remember, this was written by the man who actually *liked* Joseph Stalin, and compared Stalin's Moscow show trials to his own fights against...disruption and disrupters! Until Stalin attacked Poland and Finland, that is, at which point the National Secretary disavowed him as an "international anarchist". I wonder if anyone in the CPUSA sent Old Joey a note about it? Probably not. I suppose Stalin didn't have a sense of humour.

Still, "Disruption and disrupters" do have a certain intrinsic interest, as an example of typical cultish mentality. I have already mentioned the charge, typical of gurus, that all critics simply have "a wounded ego". The pamphlet further states that one should never doubt the Party and its officers, that one should not respond to accusations except by calling the accuser a liar, that all expelled members should be shunned, and that all material from critics sent to the party should be sent back unopened. It's a well known fact that cultic groups consider groups with a similar program to their own to be their worst enemies. The pamphlet states this principle openly. All breakaway groups with a program similar to that of the SLP "should be treated as worse enemies than those who are in open opposition to the Party".

Stalin or Guru Abu Babu couldn't have said it better.

Marxism among the middle class reformers

“The Origins of American Marxism” is a book published in 1969 by Monad Press, a subdivision of Pathfinder Press, the publishing arm of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party. The author, David Herreshoff, worked with the SWP in the anti-Vietnam War movement. However, since his book doesn't contain any SWP-ish rhetoric, I assume it isn't an official party statement. The book is more bland than I expected, although it does mention some pretty colorful characters. I admit that I bought it mostly because of the subtitle, “From the Transcendentalists to De Leon”. A Marxist trying to claim Ralph Waldo Emerson?

Actually, Herreshoff doesn't attempt to claim the sage of Concorde. According to the author, Emerson did say things that sounded radical, and his sympathies were with the laborers rather than the employers. However, he lacked faith in the ultimate revolutionary capacity of the working class, and didn't believe utopian socialist communes were an alternative either. This led Emerson to emphasize individual self-improvement as a necessary prelude to collective action at some more distant point in the future. Another difference between Emerson and Marx was that the latter regarded the city as more advanced than the countryside, while Emerson thought the opposite (think Thoreau and Muir). Herreshoff then discusses Orestes Brownson, another Transcendentalist with sympathies for the nascent labor movement. Brownson joined the Workingmen's Party of New York in 1828, one of the first labor parties in the world. However, his labor radicalism soon run into trouble as he proposed to support the Democrats (including the slave power in the South) against the Whigs, which he identified with capitalist interests. To hold the labor-agrarian-planter alliance together, Brownson opposed abolitionism. Later, he abandoned labor radicalism (and Emerson's Transcendentalism) altogether, converting to the Roman Catholic Church. Brownson did support the Union and abolition during the Civil War, even going so far as to back the more radical Frémont against Lincoln, but Herreshoff believes that this was a kind of provocation. Brownson wanted to keep the South in the Union to make the United States more conservative, and he really wanted to control the Blacks once the war was over – presumably, he therefore had the same positions as Andrew Johnson! During the war itself, however, the best way to defeat the Confederacy was through a tactical alliance with the most radical abolitionists…

Herreshoff devotes an entire section of his book to German émigrés in the United States, since it was these who brought Marxism with them to the new world. Many also fought in the Union Army. Joseph Weydemeyer may have been the first (and only?) U.S. colonel freely disseminating “The Communist Manifesto” while still in uniform! Friedrich Sorge eventually became the foremost spokesman of Marxism in the United States, after first going through a “bourgeois radical” phase as a militant enlightenment atheist. Herreshoff also mentions Herman Kriege, “the world's first former Marxist”, who broke with Marx already before the publication of the Communist Manifesto.

The main problem for Marxism in the new world was the weakness of the labor movement, reflecting the weakness of the working class itself in a still predominantly agrarian nation. Since any labor party risked being assimilated by one of the two major parties, or swamped by agrarian populists or “middle class reformers”, Sorge concentrated on Marxist propaganda and journalism, coupled with a kind of pure-and-simple unionism which emphasized the economic demands of the workers rather than more general politics. Once the frontier was closed and industrial development was in full swing, the objective factors would change and finally favor socialism, or so Sorge reasoned. Of course, this didn't stop him (nor Marx) from fiercely supporting the Union during the Civil War.

The most peculiar characters mentioned in the book are Stephen Pearl Andrews and Victoria Woodhull, two Spiritualists (sic) who joined the First International's American section. The First International (then known as the International Workingmen's Association) was indeed an international organization which encompassed most socialist currents (and a few non-socialist ones), and within which the Marxists had a strong influence. Andrews and Woodhull led what was essentially a kind of religious sect, with Andrews claiming to be the Grand Master of all Freemasons in the world and a self-proclaimed candidate for the papacy in Rome! Some of their proclamations are unintentionally comic, such as this one: “The Universal Formula of Universological Science – UNISM, DUISM and TRUISM”. They also proposed the creation of an international language, Alwatol. However, these crackpots had a political side which was potentially dangerous for Sorge and the Marxists. Andrews and Woodhull represented the dreaded agrarianism and “middle class reformism”, in the form of action-oriented feminism, demands for greenbacks, and support for President Grant's plan to annex Santo Domingo as a prelude to spread “universal” civilization to the backward nations. The Spiritualists and their Anti-Pope were eventually pushed out of the International by Marx, but by then, the organization had already become moribund.

About half of “The Origins of American Marxism” deal with Daniel De Leon, the central leader and theoretician of the Socialist Labor Party from circa 1890 to his death in 1914. The author is surprisingly charitable to De Leon, who is usually condemned or at least sharply criticized by most currents on the left. While the first Marxists on U.S. soil had to come to terms with non-labor radicalism (or worse), De Leon's main problem was “conservatism” in a rapidly expanding labor movement. De Leon eventually lost that fight, with the SLP becoming a group with little influence, overtaken by the IWW and the Socialist Party of Eugene V Debs.

Overall, I get the impression from the book that U.S. Marxism during the 19th century was a long list of false starts, with the Marxists often retreating into sectarian self-isolation, rather than uniting with the populists, reformers and moderate socialists – the only way to get real influence. This is curious given the fact that Marxists had no trouble supporting the “bourgeois” Union against the feudal Confederacy, even to the point of calling for unity around Lincoln rather than backing Frémont.

The author concludes with a rather bland and noncommittal chapter, in which he bemoans the failure of Marxism to really accommodate itself to American soil, using the Communist Party as a contemporary negative example. While the author says relatively little about the “Negro” question in this book, he does seem to regard it as central, since he here and there criticizes various Marxist (or “Marxist”) figures for not taking it seriously enough. The book ends with the hope that the industrial working class will still prove itself to be a dynamic revolutionary class.

With this, I have to leave you for today.

A decadent Jeffersonian on the socialist gridiron?!

Believe it or not, this pamphlet was once titled “A Decadent Jeffersonian on the Socialist Gridiron”. Before that, it was simply called “Watson on the Gridiron”. In 1961, it got its present title, which is canonical: “Evolution of a Liberal: From Reform to Reaction”. This title is easily the worst, not really capturing the contents of Daniel De Leon's articles against ex-Populist Thomas E Watson.

Watson was a former leader of the Populists in Georgia. The Populists were a farmer-dominated radical movement, and originally regrouped both White and Black farmers in the South in a rare display of inter-racial unity. Watson had at one point called on his supporters to physically stop a racist lynch mob. After the failure of Populism and the introduction of Jim Crow, Watson betrayed his anti-racist ideals, moved to the right and began a sustained campaign of attacks on Blacks, Jews and Catholics. The Populist Party in Georgia was reduced to a White supremacist rump and eventually dissolved, but Watson himself still had a certain degree of influence on public opinion through his very own newspaper, called “Watson's Jeffersonian Magazine”. He achieved Herostratic fame in 1915 when his newspaper incited the lynching of convicted Jewish killer Leo Frank.

This was still in the future when “The Jeffersonian” (as Watson's paper was called for short) launched a series of attacks on socialism in 1909. Daniel De Leon, the leader of the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) in New York City and editor of the party's newspaper “Daily People”, decided to respond. It's not entirely clear why, but De Leon had never been a friend of Populism, not even in its early and more radical incarnation. He saw it as a “reform” movement, doomed to failure and eventual re-absorption into “capitalist” politics. Watson was therefore a tempting target, being a former radical reformer turned racist and reactionary. Besides, the Southern newspaperman had mentioned Daniel De Leon in his anti-socialist diatribes, since De Leon had translated August Bebel's monumental “Woman and Socialism”, a work often regarded as lecherous at the time.

De Leon's articles, which contain the bulk of this pamphlet, are relatively uninteresting. They are eloquently written (De Leon was a former law school professor!), sarcastic and (perhaps) witty, but they contain virtually no analysis of Watson's politics or political evolution. Essentially, De Leon pokes fun at the Southern “Jeffersonian”, portraying him as a political and literary ignoramus, a feudal Junker and plantation-owner, a misogynist, and (surprise) a racist who is nevertheless dependent on the labor of the Blacks he so despises. In other words, a typical “Saxon-Southron”. De Leon also explains the ABCs of Marxism, since Watson had mostly misunderstood Marxist terms such as “surplus value”, “socially necessary labor time”, “capital”, etc. He didn't know much about anthropology, either.

Watson (in typical Southern fashion?) challenged De Leon to a literary duel, offering him ten pages in “The Jeffersonian” to defend socialism. De Leon took the offer, sending Watson the articles he had just published in “Daily People”. In the end, Watson sent back De Leon's envelope unopened, whereupon the socialist leader declared victory. Watson had been informed by somebody that the SLP was a relatively small organization and hence not representative of “true Socialism”. The Georgia Junker had hoped to provoke Eugene Debs or Charles Russell of the much larger Socialist Party to respond, which none of them seems to have done! De Leon and the SLP were indeed very sectarian, and became even more so after De Leon's death. The small socialist group was still declaring victory over Tom Watson circa 1990, when I got hold of this pamphlet…

I'm not entirely sure who might be interested in “Evolution of a Liberal”, but it could perhaps be a fun addition to your private stash of Americana. With some reservations, I give it three stars. I mean, if forced to choose between a sectarian socialist and a Southern racist, I take the socialist anytime!

Unconditional surrender

“Two Pages From Roman History” was originally published in 1903. The author, Daniel De Leon, was the chief ideologue of a U.S. Marxist organization, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP). De Leon and the SLP were quite well known in their day, but soon eclipsed by the Socialist Party of America and the IWW.

“Two Pages From Roman History” is sometimes viewed as some kind of De Leon classic. The work consists of two parts, titled “Plebs Leaders and Labor Leaders” and “The Warning of the Gracchi”. I admit that I'm not particularly impressed by it. Its parallels between the ancient Roman Republic and modern United States feel forced in the extreme, and SLP's sectarianism is fully visible. This is especially true of the second part, where De Leon rejects all reform proposals and compromises, instead demanding “the unconditional surrender of capitalism”. Political alliances with groups outside the working class (what later generations would call Popular Fronts) are also verboten, and there is a moralistic streak in De Leon's criticism of the labor leaders (or was it the Gracchi).

It was precisely this sectarianism, sterile propagandism and holier-than-thou attitude which sidelined the SLP, making the party more or less irrelevant even on the far left after De Leon's death in 1914. Finally, I don't understand why the author choose the Roman angle in the first place. Why not simply discuss the American situation as it was? Was De Leon a Roman history buff, or did he try to cater to a real interest for matters Roman among his intended audience?

Still, I'm going to be charitable and give “Two Pages From Roman History” three stars, since it's difficult to fault De Leon for merely being himself…