I apologize for posting this polemic on another organization's internal list serve. I simply could not figure out how else to answer the all the questions being raised This is a post I rather hurriedly wrote for The SDUSA-SPA blog New America several months ago.
I was one of handful of people who was part of all three groups that emerged from the 1972 split in the ordinal Socialist Party, USA. Our committee is small, less than a score of active folks. For obvious reasons, I personally desire fraternal relations with DSA. Our members come from the original SP, USA, DSA, the old SD,USA and new SP of the USA and several who have never joined a socialist group before. At first we used the working title Social Democratic Party of America. We later adopted the current SD,USA-SPA name. Our Florida affiliate continues to maintain the Social Democratic Party website. Our national organization has switched to the socialdemocratsusa.org site.
I post this to answer questions and not recruit. I will answer any reasonable queries, but I wouldn't debate organizational strategy differences. Hopefully this answers everyone's questions and will begin a dialogue not a flame war.
Peace,
Gabe
Who Are The Committee to Revive The SDUSA and SPA..
What follows borrows from many sources, but the conclusions and
suggestions are my own. No one should infer an organizational
imprimatur.
Who Are Those Guys?
The Committee to Revive the Social Democrats ,U.S.A-Socialist Party of America, has the 110 year legacy. That heritage was born as the directly political out growth of the communalist Social Democracy of America. The organization was known as the Social
Democratic Party of America from 1898-1901, the Socialist Party of America from
1901-1956, Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation from 1956-1964,
Socialist Party, U.S.A. from 1964-1972 and Socialist Party,
U.S.A.-Democratic Socialist Federation of the U.S.A from April until December 1972,
Social Democrats, U.S.A-Socialist Party of America is the only direct successor of the Socialist Party, of Eugene V. Debs, Mary Harris“Mother” Jones, Helen
Keller, Morris Hillquit, Victor Berger, Meyer London, Norman Thomas,
Max Shachtman, Darlington Hoopes, Asa Phillip Randolph, Michael
Harrington,Tom Kahn, David McReyonlds, Bayard Rustin and Frank Zeidler.
( Hoopla ends here)
The Socialist Party, U.S.A-DemocraticSocialist Federation, at
its national convention on December 30, 1972,
by a majority vote of the delegates, changed the name of the
organization to the Social Democrats, U.S.A. The Debs Caucus felt that
the move away from a political party betrayed the heritage of Debs and
Thomas. The state Socialist parties Illinois, Pennsylvania, California,
Washington, and Wisconsin, along with many locals in other states
disaffiliated from the Social Democrats, USA. On May, 26, 1973 the Debs
Caucus, the above named state Socialist parties, and the Union for Democratic
Socialism "reconstituted" the Socialist Party, USA. The "reconstituted
SP" elected Frank Zeidler, former Mayor of Milwaukee and the last
person to be elected as major of a major city by the Socialist
Party as its chairperson. The Party opened an office in Milwaukee where
there was a tradition that dated back to 1898. In 1974, this group
amended its constitution to rename the Party the Socialist Party of
the United States of America. I will hereafter refer to this group as
the SP of the USA for clarity
The Social Democrats, USA threatened legal action in 1973. They had
retained in their constitution a clause stating that "The Socialist Party, by that name
shall continue in association with the Social Democrats, USA". The
SDUSA could have at anytime revived the Socialist Party, USA but chose
not to do so. Instead the group concentrated on anti-Communism and its
alliance with the leadership of the AFL-CIO. The SD did a major service
to working people within the Soviet empire by being the only national
organization to raise money for Solidarity, the Polish free trade
union. Less celebrated, but no less important was the SD's support of
the Nicaragua's democratic resistance to the Sandinistas. During their
first try at government the Sandinistas smashed all trade unions that
were not part of their labor front, oppressed the Jewish, Roman
Catholic, Moravian Christian, and Native American populations of
Nicaragua. While the general left celebrated the Sandinistas the SD
brought representatives of the democratic resistance, religious,
political, Indigenous peoples, and labor leaders to speak in the U S.
Now of course, the Sandinistas govern by democratic election and are a
member party of the Socialist International.
There was a third group that grew out of the split in in the Socialist Party USA. It was
called the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. After a merger
with the New American Movement a group that came from the New Left,
this organization became the Democratic Socialists of America. Michael
Harrington formerly the chair of the original Socialist Party, USA was this
organization's charismatic leader. Founded in October 1973 by 200
stalwarts the group grew to have 12,000 members. In 1989. The
Democratic Agenda, a front group for DSOC, openly and effectively
challenged the policies of a President Jimmy Carter at the mid-term
Democratic Convention in 1978. Harrington gathered a galaxy of star Leftists
like feminist, Gloria Steinem and Machinist union president, William
Winpisinger to be recruiting icons, Unfortunately, because everything
that DSA did focused on national policy, when Harrington died the group
drifted until it now has less members than DSOC did in 1982.
DSA raised money two years ago for the Senatorial campaign of Rep, Bernie
Sanders( I VT) This was probably DSA's best showing in a decade. The leadership of
DSA failed to learn the obvious lesson. Sanders had built a political
vehicle by running for mayor of Burlington, then Congress, then
Governor before being elected to the Senate. No effort was put toward
supporting the"next Sanders". The SP of the USA actually ran a
candidate against Sanders, despite the fact that Sanders had been the
key note speaker at the Party's 1983 convention.
So Why Revive The SDUSA and Socialist Party of America ?
The first reason is because it is doable. The old leadership has skipped
town. Some of us, who remained members for years, decided we wanted our
organization back. We do not want to be neoconservatives, nor Labor or
State Department puppets. We like the old SD's stance on
totalitarian ideologies. The Soviet Union is gone. However, it was
replaced by a non-ideological state capitalism in Russia. In China and
Cuba the economy is being liberalized but the government is as
repressive as ever to political, social, or religious dissent. Violence
in the name of Islam threatens the peace of the entire world. It would
require more space than this essay allows to examine the political,
economic, and social nature of radical Islam, but as the former mayor
of London, Ken Livingstone pointed out attacks on transportation
systems are pointedly anti-worker. Who uses mass transit? Not the
social elites.
So what is to done? Or, perhaps importantly what can be done? We have the
capacity to run candidates in municipal elections. We already have a mayoral and school board candidate running in PA. It is time to discard the old arguments about
the Democratic Party. We know it will never be a social democratic
party and we know that many Americans still see it as their Party. To
them it is the Party of the New Deal and Civil Rights. We need not lose
the "down home" Democrats or become DP apparatchiks. We can run fusion
campaigns or third party campaigns, or openly Socialist campaigns in
the Democratic Party as the local situation dictates.
I hold a minor public office which I won running as a Socialist and now hold as a Social Democrat, that does not stop me from being actively involved in local liberal Democratic politics. The states like New York have laws that make this kind of inside and outside the
Democratic Party politics easier, but it is possible anywhere. It simply
requires commitment. This is a commitment that neither DSA nor the SP
of the USA has shown, nor given their structures, are they likely to show such a
commitment in the future.
What About A Statement of Principles?
Those of us who are members of the SP of the USA are well aware how a
statement of principles can be used as a weapon. The Fist and Rose
Tendency arose out of a ham handed attempt to enforce the statement of
Principals by the SP of the USA's National Committee. I took a crack at
writing a " Principled Statement " a few months ago and I invite your
comment. http://americansocialdemocrats.blogspot.com/. We don't need a
statement that details all of our goals, gripes and strategy, We need a
commitment to doing the Jimmy Higgins work. Nobody joins a statement of
principles; they join organizations that are doing something. Given our
size we cannot change the world in the near future. We have already
launched two national campaigns. The first is to ask Americans to
boycott the corporate sponsors of this year's Olympic Games. We do this
in solidarity with the citizens of China, Tibet, Zimbabwe, Burma,.and
Sudan bring oppressed for their religion, their political ideology, or
their ethnicity. There probably is not a better teachable moment to
show the connections between multinational corporations and
totalitarian regimes than these " Genocide Olympics". Our second
campaign dovetails on the first We will point out the that supporting
peace, disarmament, and an end to U.S. involvement in Iraq does not
equate to hatred of America and support for every dictator and
terrorist who hates the U.S.
Being the only anti-totalitarian and anti-capitalist Left organization with
a real inside outside strategy to the Democratic Party could make us a very
lonely group. That is accept for the fact that we are in the same place as most
Americans. We can put forward a democratic socialist/ social democratic analysis in the
places where it counts, i.e. our houses of worship, our unions and our
communities. We can build a Social Democratic movement from the bottom
up if we have the will.
My thanks to my friends and comrades,Rob Tucker and David Hacker, from whom I borrowed extensively. You should however direct any wrath at me, because as I stated in the
beginning the conclusions are solely my own. For more information I
invite you to go to our website http://www.socialdemocratsusa.org/ and the New America
Blog http://americansocialdemocrats.blogspot.com/. Or you can call our
office. Yes, we actually have and office with to meagerly paid staff people. Call -814 410 2542
In Solidarity,
Gabriel McCloskey-Ross. assessor Richland, PA; acting executive director, Social Democrats, USA/ Socialist Party of America;
chairman Socialist Party of PA, founding member of DSA,
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