The American Socialist Movement 1897-1912 by Ira Kipnis

Author:Ira Kipnis [Kipnis, Ira]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Papamoa Press
Published: 2018-09-03T07:00:00+00:00

XVI — The Peak of Socialist Power

THE SOCIALIST PARTY reached the zenith of its power, prestige, and influence between 1910 and 1912. In dues-paying membership, in national and local union influence, in votes polled, and in members elected and appointed to political office the party attained new and sudden stature, stature which was lost almost as quickly as it was achieved.

The causes for this rapid growth after a period of comparative stagnation were probably fourfold. First was the tremendous upsurge of the progressive movement, which culminated nationally in the split of the Republican Party and the election of Woodrow Wilson. Yet previous experience of the Socialist Party indicates that the competition of reform candidates, as in the local and Congressional elections of 1906 and the Presidential election of 1908, reduced rather than increased its vote. That this decline did not continue between 1910 and 1912 despite the growing number of reform candidates was probably the peculiar product of two congruous developments united with a contradictory one. On the one hand the Socialist Party took on new drive and militancy under the spurs of Left-wing criticism and activity. On the other, Right-wing Socialist devotion to a theory of gradual but uninterrupted social change made reform the official basis of party campaigns and propaganda.

At the same time, ordinary reform organizations repeatedly had failed to satisfy the desire for greater economic and social opportunity and honest government which formed the basis of the progressive movement. Consequently, many union members, professionals, and small businessmen decided to give the revitalized Socialist Party a chance to prove its case.{1668} It is ironic that the renewed vigor which won Socialist votes from a million voters, many of whom were interested in comparatively mild reform, was in large part the product of the militancy of the revolutionary Socialists, who viewed craft unionism, trust regulation and nationalization, and “good government” as devices for the preservation of a hated economic system.

The greatly increased strength of Socialists in the American Federation of Labor, however, can be attributed at best only indirectly to the work of the Left wing. Many Left-wing Socialists, of course, continued to work within the A.F. of L. Despite their allegiance to revolutionary unionism, they remained members of the unions which had organized their skills and industries. Moreover, Left-wing criticism of the constructive Socialists’ indifference to union work probably spurred Right wingers to greater activity. Outweighing these considerations, however, was the open hostility displayed by the great majority of the Left toward all participation in the affairs of the “reactionary” American Federation of Labor. Since it was the revolutionary Socialists who insisted on the importance of economic organization of the working class, and the constructive Socialists who viewed the unions largely as recruiting grounds for Socialist votes, the concentration of the revolutionists on building the hopelessly small and sectarian I.W.W. left the American Federation of Labor with a generally non-militant Socialist core.

Although the constructive Socialists considered the A.F. of L. leadership as “too conservative,” at no time did they advance “fundamental criticisms against” that union.

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