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The use of the words "left" or "leftist" and "right" or "rightist" in this article is confusing. For example, if by "left" you intend to mean Trotskyist, which appears to be the case in at least a few instances, you should go ahead and use "Trotskyist" instead of "left". Spleeman 10:06, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Is it fair to say (as we do, after a recent edit), "... right- Shachtmanites and their allies... renamed it the Social Democrats USA... in pursuit of their strategy of realignment in American politics which sought to realign the Democratic Party on a pro- labor and pro- civil rights basis"? Seems to me that by this time the Shachtmanites were barely pro-labor or pro-civil rights, and barely even Democrats rather than Republicans. If anything, they were more centrist that George McGovern, who the Democrats had just run for president. I'm not expert on this particular period in the party's, or Shachtman's, career, but this rings wrong to me. -- Jmabel 22:31, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)
Like lots of other articles on the left, this has a Fourth International bias: we have one paragraph on the first 18 years of the SP, when it was close to being a mass party, followed by several paragraphs on the split that gave rise to the CPUSA, which say more about the CP than the SP, and then more on the entry of the Trotskyists, the departure of the SWP, the incursions of the Shachtmanites, etc., etc. I appreciate the joy of sects just as much as the next person, but this article does not do justice to the subject. Somebody–not me–ought to rewrite it.
We should also be on the alert for words such as "hysterically," particularly when used in the construction "less hysterically." It's bad enough to use an overwrought, non-analytic word such as that (see Orwell's famous essay on this sort of left cliches) to condemn the followers of Max Shachtman, but to use it in a way that damns the Harrington crowd almost as an afterthought seems especially gratuitous.
I'm equally ignorant about the ins and outs of Shachtman's career, but I think Jmabel is probably right. But I think we have bigger fish to fry when rewriting this piece: "sewer socialism," nativism, the party's relations to the AFL and the IWW, etc. -- Italo Svevo aka 24.126.41.116 03:47, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to be hitting this page pretty hard here, there is a great deal more that needs to be added to tell the story properly. The early stuff isn't as sexy as some of the 1920s-30s stuff; nor is it as hotly disputed and invigorating as the later stuff -- but it does really need to be done.
—T Carrite ( talk) 08:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
"That most of these figures went on to become the founders of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a key Cold War liberal organization, is seen by some historians as a barometer of the true nature of American liberalism and to have precipitated the rise of neoconservatism."
If there is something citable from some actual historian who makes this argument, I guess something like this could be returned to the article with citation. Until that time, I am changing this to just "Most of these figures went on to become the founders of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a key Cold War liberal organization." - Jmabel | Talk 07:29, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I have now twice reverted an uncommented change by User:Jacrosse, which more or less reversed the meaning of a sentence. Jacrosse, what is the basis for your edit? Are you saying this is inaccurate, or what? If you just want to reword, the new wording should preserve the meaning, not reverse it. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:38, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Jacrosse, would you please discuss this rather than just edit-warring. Your edit summary this time at least gives a rationale: "No one joined the party because of the Russian Revolution, and most of the language federations left with the CP, in fact I believe the Workmen's Circle (Jewish) was the only one which didn't." I believe you have your chronology wrong. Please read the section Socialist Party of America#Expulsion of supporters of Bolshevism. The language federations grew during the period of the Revolution; they might have been on the verge of taking over the party; instead, they split to form the Communist Party of America. This is told in more detail at Communist Party USA#Formation and early history (1919-1921). -- Jmabel | Talk 00:42, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Can someone else please come into this, since Jacrosse is continuing to revert me, arguing through edit summaries, but not joining discussion here on the talk page? He has produced no facts, and is inserting a version that is almost certainly factually wrong in that it asserts that "The party's opposition to World War I caused a decline … especially among its language federations. This is the opposite of the truth. Opposition to the war caused a loss of votes in its traditional, more Americanized base. The Russian Revolution brought new recruits to the language federations, although those were soon lost to the nascent Communist Party of America, as explained in the next section. Perhaps the old wording could be improved, but Jacrosse's new wording is simply false. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
This seems to be partly a copyediting problem, needs to be tied in with section below, also some actual data would help. Fred Bauder 20:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I reject the idea of calling the Bolshevists leftists in the context of "they expelled the leftists", it implies that the SPA was not leftist, and it definitely was very leftist. -- Revolución hablar ver 23:25, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I see that the site rooted at http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/index.html and the one rooted at http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/index.html are extremely parallel (though not quite identical) in content. I notice that all of our external links now go to the latter. Does anyone know what is going on here, and how these sites relate to one another? - Jmabel | Talk 16:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
The sites are not in competition, but suffer from clunky web design. The Early American Marxism history project originally appeared on the Marxists Internet Archive at http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/index.html. After a year or so (and about a year ago) the EAM migrated to its own site at http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/index.html. The Marxist Internet Archive continues to mirror the newly posted EAM material. However, some of the older material seems to have been removed from MIA with the migration and there are some gaps in the mirroring of the new material. This complicates our ability to link to these archives. I try to correct bad links to http://www.marxists.org with a google search of http://www.marxisthistory.org when I come across them. Its worth doing because the material is otherwise unavailable outside a research library microfilm archive. DJ Silverfish 17:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Speaking from the other side, EAM is basically my reading notes in extremely long form for book research, put up publicly in case they're of use to others. I'm always adding to this stuff and the changes don't migrate to MIA rapidly or at all. So while the latter may be prettier than the former (due to the crap WYSIWYG web software I use), the former is certainly more comprehensive than the latter.
Tim Davenport/EAM Carrite ( talk) 08:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I removed some unsourced and therefore unverifiable claims of a revival that were inserted first into the introduction, and then in a lengthy section called "Awakening". No source is offered for the claims, which seems like it would have resulted in a press release by somebody, or a mention on the Leftist Trainspotters site. Anyway, it would be incorrect to integrate the revival of the name by a handful of activists into the main article, even if they were largely members of successor organizations. Any new organization would be completely different than the historic party and would have to be handled as such. DJ Silverfish 14:07, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
In keeping with the logic from DJ Silverfish, I have removed external links to the new Socialist Party of America, including links to allegedly affiliated locals. I am unaware of the situation in Pennsylvania, but the Socialist Party of Florida has not affiliated with the new SPA. Chegitz guevara 16:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
To someone familiar with the history: this should list which two parties within that sentence; or at the least, within that paragraph. thanks, Richard Myers 04:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Really should each have a citation. In any case, I've cut the recently added claim that Leon Trotsky was a member, although it's imaginable that he was briefly so. I'd like to see a citation (and an indication of what years he was a member) before adding that. - Jmabel | Talk 01:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Current phrasing is "This article is about the political organization (sometimes called the Socialist Party, USA) which existed from 1901 to 1973. For a successor party started in 1972, see Socialist Party, USA. For other socialist parties, see Socialist Party (disambiguation)."
This is very, very confusing wording. I have pamphlets calling the SPA "Socialist Party of the United States" (1920s, although it was used as early as the 1910s in party publications) and "Socialist Party, USA" (1935!) — but does the fact that multiple names were used need to appear in THE VERY FIRST LINE that a visitor will see? I think not. Similarly, while it is true that a user COULD find links to successor organizations in the Box on the right, many do not look at these cumbersome boxes at all — I know that I don't. Why not put the links in plain English in the first line? Let's clean up the multiple names for the party with a nice, early footnote!
Similarly, is it really necessary to indicate that SPUSA "started in 1972"? Is it not sufficient to say:
"This article is about the political organization which existed from 1901 to 1973. For successor parties, see Social Democrats, USA and Socialist Party, USA." ???
Tim Davenport --- Corvallis, OR --- Carrite ( talk) 20:05, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
It's getting pretty damned long, and Debsian electoral politics are barely touched at this point... Should there be subarticles for each of the periods? Should the bibliography be linked off on a separate page? -- Carrite ( talk) 00:07, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
The List of Newspapers & Magazines includes a Jump to "New Times" which brings up an entry discussing a Rock album and not a publication unless this iscorrectedit should be deleted LAWinans ( talk) 22:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Likewise, jump to "Truth" supposedly a Duluth-based publication brings up a general discussion of the concept of "Truth" LAWinans ( talk) 22:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
On the article for the Socialist Party USA, it says that the Socialist Party of America changed its name in the 1960s to "Socialist Party USA." But when the party drafted a new constitution in 1973, Wikipedia consideres the party to have stopped existing and considers the Socialist Party USA to have been created. Most experts on socialism and the media consider the party that exists now to be the same party that existed before 1973. Wouldn't be simpler to say that the Socialist Party of America and the Socialist Party USA is the same party and merge the two articles? It seems to me that they are the same party; they just changed their name in 1962, and adopted a new party constitution in 1973. I propose that we merge the two articles and call the new article "Socialist Party (United States)". Sbrianhicks ( talk) 18 December 2009
¶ It's nowhere near that simple. (There may be something in the relevant articles that needs rewriting in order to make this inherently-confusing situation clearer.)
My thought was that since the SDUSA and the DSA completely changed their name and gave up on electoral politics, they could not be considered a continuation of the SPA. The Socialist Party USA keeps the same name ("Socialist Party"), runs candidates for office, and keeps many of the original ideas of the SPA. ( talk) 19 December 2009 —Preceding undated comment added 15:21, 19 December 2009 (UTC).
Well my thinking is this: The Socialist Party is the only one of the three split off groups to keep the name "Socialist Party", it has kept The Socialist as its publication, it has kept YPSL, and so on. It really does seem to me that it is the same party. ( talk) 20 December 2009 —Preceding undated comment added 00:57, 21 December 2009 (UTC).
Could someone please check the list of prominent members. I noticed that Joshua Muravchik and Erich Fromm were delegates to the 1966 convention, but do not know if they were members. The Four Deuces ( talk) 14:27, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Somebody was asking me about Socialists elected mayor, damned if I can remember who. I'll start a little list here as I come across them that can be used by whomever for whatever. Carrite ( talk) 03:33, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
There needs to be a list of state and local elected socialists, not just the mayors. Dogru144 ( talk) 16:39, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Does anybody have any evidence at all that these three were duespayers in SPA? Trotsky would be the most likely of the three, Kollontai was just here briefly as a speaker... The extant Novyi Mir film doesn't pick up till 1917, so that's no help... I propose that we delete those 3 from the list — or at least Bukharin and Kollontai — unless some evidence appears that they were SPA duespayers. Carrite ( talk) 02:00, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't disagree with the idea that the list of prominent members of the SPA needs to be split off to its own page. See: List of prominent members of the Socialist Party of America.
I do think that the current "half length, quadruple detail" version is distinctly less readable and less usable than an alphabetized set of hot links.
I also have misgivings about the double listing on the List of prominent members of the Socialist Party of America page...
I'd suggest that the ENTIRE prominent members section be ported over to the new List of prominent members of the Socialist Party of America page or else the old laundry list be restored.
It is important to have SOME sort of list, however, since all the biographies need a certain number of WP "in-links" to avoid being tagged as orphans. Carrite ( talk) 13:35, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Dear editors,
I have rewritten the history so that it avoids close paraphrasing of paragraphs from the "history" published by the Socialist Party USA.
Here are the parallel passages that I eliminated:
*SPUSA: The ISL was a Trotskyist splinter group founded and led by Max Shachtman ....
In 1958 the ISL dissolved, and its members joined the SP-SDF. ... the concept of “Realignment.” Shachtman and his lieutenant, Michael Harrington, argued that what America needed wasn’t a third party, but a meaningful second party.
The Realignment supporters said that in sixty years the Socialist Party had failed to bring labor into the Party, and in fact kept losing their labor sympathizers (such as the Reuther brothers) because they saw they could do more within the Democratic Party.
- WP: In 1958 the party admitted to its ranks the members of the recently-dissolved Independent Socialist League led by Max Shachtman, a ... Trotskyist .... Shachtman and his lieutenant Michael_Harrington advocated a political strategy called "realignment," arguing that rather than pursuit of ineffectual independent politics, the American socialist movement should instead seek to move the Democratic Party to the social democratic left by direct participation within the organization. [1]
- SPUSA: At the ... Democratic National Convention ... in 1968, Realignment Socialists were present as delegates.... At the same time, many Debs Caucus members were in the streets with the demonstrators.
- WP: This division was manifest most strongly during the 1968 Democratic Convention, in which members of the Debs Caucus were among the protesters outside of the convention, while members of the Coalition and Unity Caucuses were among the convention delegates. [2] [3]
- SPUSA ... Max Shachtman’s leadership, ... showing a growing tendency toward a Stalinist “democratic centralism” in practice.
- WP: the Shachtmanites maintained the strongest tendency to ... democratic centralism
- SPUSA In the 1972 Presidential election the Shachtmanites supported Henry Jackson .... During the campaign itself, they took a neutral position between McGovern and Nixon, following the lead of the AFL-CIO. Harrington and his Coalition Caucus supported McGovern throughout. Most of the Debs Caucus members supported Benjamin Spock, candidate of the People’s Party....
- WP: During the 1972 presidential election, ... the Debs Caucus supported the independent candidacy of Benjamin Spock, many of the Coalition Caucus supported ... George McGovern ..., and those in the Unity Caucus tended to support Hubert Humphrey and Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson. ... The party, following the lead of ... the ... AFL-CIO ... declared its neutrality between McGovern and incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon .... [2] [3]
- SPUSA At the end of 1972, ... many of the states and locals within the Debs Caucus, .... Early in 1973, the Socialist Party of Wisconsin, with the support of the California and Illinois Parties, ... voted to reconstitute the Socialist Party USA.
- WP: Socialist Party USA (not Socialist Party of America): Numerous local and state branches of the old Socialist Party, including the Party's Wisconsin, California, Illinois, ... organizations, participated in the reconstitution of the Socialist Party USA. [4]
*SPUSADue to America’s restrictive and often undemocratic ballot access laws (which have made it almost impossible to break the two-party monopoly on national politics),
- WP the financial dominance of the two major parties, as well as the limitations of the United States' legislatively [5] [6] and judicially [7] entrenched two-party system.
- SPUSA: the party views the races primarily as opportunities for educating ...
- WP: The Socialist Party USA ... runs candidates for public office, though these campaigns are often considered educational in intent .... [8]
Some of these parallelisms are trifling. However, some seem more substantial, and the series of them seemed to call for more extensive rewriting, so that we are sure of being in compliance with WP policy.
I want to draw your attention to a more serious issue—that I believe that many of the assertions were in error, and understandably given that they seemed to originate in the SPUSA history, may have resulted in NPOV/RS issues. I have tried to be fair in rewriting some of the history, and have asked for reviews from a number of other editors, but I would appreciate your help in helping the article reach NPOV.
I believe that some of the editors here have declared that they have been associated with SPUSA, in compliance with WP:COI policy and in good faith. One of our editors has declared being a member of SPUSA, SDUSA, and DSA! I should do no less and declare that I have strong admiration for and indeed warm feelings for Michael Harrington, and that such affections may influence my editing.
I thank all of our editors for their contributions to this article. Sincerely, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 14:46, 6 July 2011 (UTC) (ce 01:58, 12 July 2011 (UTC))
At risk of discord, I would like to point out some changes I made that seem to me important, and which may well irritate our editors with the strongest SPUSA ties, regretfully.
This was the old article's statement:
- WP: The Debs Caucus finally broke with the party in 1972 to form the Union for Democratic Socialism. [2] ,,, The UDS became the Socialist Party USA in 1973 ...
Michael Harrington and the Coalition Caucus left the party soon after, establishing themselves with headquarters in New York City as the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC). Harrington and his supporters, ... believed that the third party road to democratic socialism had been a failure, and instead sought to work within the Democratic Party as an organized socialist caucus to bring about that party's "realignment" to the left. [2]
This left Shachtman and the Unity Caucus in unopposed control of the Socialist Party (though Shachtman himself died very soon after). In 1972, this group renamed itself the Social Democrats USA (SDUSA). [9]
I would rather let my revisions, which have received helpful editing by a number of other talented editors, speak for themselves rather than lay out a long critique. Of course, I would welcome any comments or criticisms of the edits, and hope that you all would not be shy with correcting me.
In solidarity, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 14:03, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
References
SPRI
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Drucker
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).As noted previously, DraperPeter Drucker's biography of Shachtman is an excellent resource. Here are 3 facts from Drucker:
IMHO, the first (1) fits better in articles on Shachtman or on Harrington. This article is about the SPA, not about two "theorists".
The second (2) could be added. DraperDrucker states that McReynolds was the leader of the left-wing, but he doesn't state how large it was (e.g. 1966-1971) or call it the "Debs caucus". The third (3) is not enlightening. It would be better to expand on the substance of the debates rather than stating that there were disagreements.
In short, noting that McReynolds quit in 1970 is fine. However, most of the sources ignore the Debs caucus, so it's hard to explain any/the significance of McReynolds, without doing OR. The Debs caucus stuck around through 1972, at least. (It would be of interest to find out estimates of overlap between the 3 organizations.) Kiefer. Wolfowitz 12:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
I can't really follow the food fight. In my opinion there are now too many pictures for the amount of text in the late period and that either Zimmerman or Rustin should go. An expansion of discussion of the 1950s and inclusion of a Shachtman photo of that era to fill in with the text might be appropriate.
It would be nice if similar energy was placed in expanding the 1900-1917 story that has been concentrated on the 1970s story. The former is about 10 times more important than the latter, from a historical perspective... Let's keep the 1970s food fight to the introductions of the various successor groups if we could — K. Wolf has done a very nice job of explaining the mentalité of the SDUSA on that greatly expanded page. The DSOC and SPUSA perspectives have their own places. The war is over, let's keep it civil and everything in its place. Carrite ( talk) 19:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Can anyone provide a link to Harrington's December 1973 Vietnam resolution? The article currently states "Harrington's proposal for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces was defeated", which is sourced to a contemporaneous brief NYT article. The NYT actually says he "introduced a resolution that would have called for United States acceptance of the October cease-fire agreement on Vietnam and for immediate withdrawal of American forces." [1] TFD ( talk) 05:01, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
- "Harrington made his major imprint on the national psyche at 35 in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy discovered, through Dwight Macdonald's 50-page New Yorker essay-review of Harrington's book The Other America, that there were 40 to 60 million people living in poverty in what many had been calling our affluent society.
- Until then, according to Isserman, thinking about the poor within the Kennedy administration had been piecemeal. Harrington's book supplied the organizing concept, the target, the word, and thus was the idea for the War on Poverty born. It can indeed be argued that what Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique did for feminism, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring for the environment and Ralph Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed for the public interest movement, The Other America did for the poor.
There were some problems with the earlier version, which cited Drucker without page references, for claims that appear to originate in an SPUSA history:
These page references may be useful to TfD's questions. Kiefer. Wolfowitz 23:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I updated the infobox, which previously listed 3 successors: First SPUSA, then DSOC, finally SDUSA. I wrote "majority" SDUSA, then "minorities" DSOC and SPUSA. This may not make everybody happy, but it was the best I could think of. Legally, only SDUSA was the successor. Spiritually, all three have strong ties, which I tried to respect.
Finally, I noted that "dissolution" involved a "name change" to SDUSA. It would be better to change the the infobox, and choose a neutral term rather than "dissolution". (We seem to have successfully removed "dissolution" from many of the articles, particularly the many state SPUSA articles, with good will, although the details vary.)
Sincerely, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 06:07, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Somebody vandalized that section by replacing the actual candidate's names on the 30 September 2014 edit to the page. I'd correct it, but this is my first time behind the scenes at wiki, and I don't want to mess anything up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.91.176.244 ( talk) 09:25, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
Both the Wikipedia page and the Talk page seem preoccupied with political maneuvers. Should there not be a section explaining what the party has historically stood for? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:94F:8C60:3509:8D74:89F1:46F ( talk) 15:35, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
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A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Public Ownership Party (United States). The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 July 6#Public Ownership Party (United States) until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Lennart97 ( talk) 11:51, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
I think that Communist Party USA should be listed in the Infobox's "Succeeded By" section because CPUSA's page's first paragraph states that it split from the Socialist Party. GamerKlim9716 ( talk) 09:10, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
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The use of the words "left" or "leftist" and "right" or "rightist" in this article is confusing. For example, if by "left" you intend to mean Trotskyist, which appears to be the case in at least a few instances, you should go ahead and use "Trotskyist" instead of "left". Spleeman 10:06, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Is it fair to say (as we do, after a recent edit), "... right- Shachtmanites and their allies... renamed it the Social Democrats USA... in pursuit of their strategy of realignment in American politics which sought to realign the Democratic Party on a pro- labor and pro- civil rights basis"? Seems to me that by this time the Shachtmanites were barely pro-labor or pro-civil rights, and barely even Democrats rather than Republicans. If anything, they were more centrist that George McGovern, who the Democrats had just run for president. I'm not expert on this particular period in the party's, or Shachtman's, career, but this rings wrong to me. -- Jmabel 22:31, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)
Like lots of other articles on the left, this has a Fourth International bias: we have one paragraph on the first 18 years of the SP, when it was close to being a mass party, followed by several paragraphs on the split that gave rise to the CPUSA, which say more about the CP than the SP, and then more on the entry of the Trotskyists, the departure of the SWP, the incursions of the Shachtmanites, etc., etc. I appreciate the joy of sects just as much as the next person, but this article does not do justice to the subject. Somebody–not me–ought to rewrite it.
We should also be on the alert for words such as "hysterically," particularly when used in the construction "less hysterically." It's bad enough to use an overwrought, non-analytic word such as that (see Orwell's famous essay on this sort of left cliches) to condemn the followers of Max Shachtman, but to use it in a way that damns the Harrington crowd almost as an afterthought seems especially gratuitous.
I'm equally ignorant about the ins and outs of Shachtman's career, but I think Jmabel is probably right. But I think we have bigger fish to fry when rewriting this piece: "sewer socialism," nativism, the party's relations to the AFL and the IWW, etc. -- Italo Svevo aka 24.126.41.116 03:47, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to be hitting this page pretty hard here, there is a great deal more that needs to be added to tell the story properly. The early stuff isn't as sexy as some of the 1920s-30s stuff; nor is it as hotly disputed and invigorating as the later stuff -- but it does really need to be done.
—T Carrite ( talk) 08:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
"That most of these figures went on to become the founders of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a key Cold War liberal organization, is seen by some historians as a barometer of the true nature of American liberalism and to have precipitated the rise of neoconservatism."
If there is something citable from some actual historian who makes this argument, I guess something like this could be returned to the article with citation. Until that time, I am changing this to just "Most of these figures went on to become the founders of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a key Cold War liberal organization." - Jmabel | Talk 07:29, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I have now twice reverted an uncommented change by User:Jacrosse, which more or less reversed the meaning of a sentence. Jacrosse, what is the basis for your edit? Are you saying this is inaccurate, or what? If you just want to reword, the new wording should preserve the meaning, not reverse it. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:38, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Jacrosse, would you please discuss this rather than just edit-warring. Your edit summary this time at least gives a rationale: "No one joined the party because of the Russian Revolution, and most of the language federations left with the CP, in fact I believe the Workmen's Circle (Jewish) was the only one which didn't." I believe you have your chronology wrong. Please read the section Socialist Party of America#Expulsion of supporters of Bolshevism. The language federations grew during the period of the Revolution; they might have been on the verge of taking over the party; instead, they split to form the Communist Party of America. This is told in more detail at Communist Party USA#Formation and early history (1919-1921). -- Jmabel | Talk 00:42, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Can someone else please come into this, since Jacrosse is continuing to revert me, arguing through edit summaries, but not joining discussion here on the talk page? He has produced no facts, and is inserting a version that is almost certainly factually wrong in that it asserts that "The party's opposition to World War I caused a decline … especially among its language federations. This is the opposite of the truth. Opposition to the war caused a loss of votes in its traditional, more Americanized base. The Russian Revolution brought new recruits to the language federations, although those were soon lost to the nascent Communist Party of America, as explained in the next section. Perhaps the old wording could be improved, but Jacrosse's new wording is simply false. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
This seems to be partly a copyediting problem, needs to be tied in with section below, also some actual data would help. Fred Bauder 20:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I reject the idea of calling the Bolshevists leftists in the context of "they expelled the leftists", it implies that the SPA was not leftist, and it definitely was very leftist. -- Revolución hablar ver 23:25, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I see that the site rooted at http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/index.html and the one rooted at http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/index.html are extremely parallel (though not quite identical) in content. I notice that all of our external links now go to the latter. Does anyone know what is going on here, and how these sites relate to one another? - Jmabel | Talk 16:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
The sites are not in competition, but suffer from clunky web design. The Early American Marxism history project originally appeared on the Marxists Internet Archive at http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/index.html. After a year or so (and about a year ago) the EAM migrated to its own site at http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/index.html. The Marxist Internet Archive continues to mirror the newly posted EAM material. However, some of the older material seems to have been removed from MIA with the migration and there are some gaps in the mirroring of the new material. This complicates our ability to link to these archives. I try to correct bad links to http://www.marxists.org with a google search of http://www.marxisthistory.org when I come across them. Its worth doing because the material is otherwise unavailable outside a research library microfilm archive. DJ Silverfish 17:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Speaking from the other side, EAM is basically my reading notes in extremely long form for book research, put up publicly in case they're of use to others. I'm always adding to this stuff and the changes don't migrate to MIA rapidly or at all. So while the latter may be prettier than the former (due to the crap WYSIWYG web software I use), the former is certainly more comprehensive than the latter.
Tim Davenport/EAM Carrite ( talk) 08:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I removed some unsourced and therefore unverifiable claims of a revival that were inserted first into the introduction, and then in a lengthy section called "Awakening". No source is offered for the claims, which seems like it would have resulted in a press release by somebody, or a mention on the Leftist Trainspotters site. Anyway, it would be incorrect to integrate the revival of the name by a handful of activists into the main article, even if they were largely members of successor organizations. Any new organization would be completely different than the historic party and would have to be handled as such. DJ Silverfish 14:07, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
In keeping with the logic from DJ Silverfish, I have removed external links to the new Socialist Party of America, including links to allegedly affiliated locals. I am unaware of the situation in Pennsylvania, but the Socialist Party of Florida has not affiliated with the new SPA. Chegitz guevara 16:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
To someone familiar with the history: this should list which two parties within that sentence; or at the least, within that paragraph. thanks, Richard Myers 04:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Really should each have a citation. In any case, I've cut the recently added claim that Leon Trotsky was a member, although it's imaginable that he was briefly so. I'd like to see a citation (and an indication of what years he was a member) before adding that. - Jmabel | Talk 01:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Current phrasing is "This article is about the political organization (sometimes called the Socialist Party, USA) which existed from 1901 to 1973. For a successor party started in 1972, see Socialist Party, USA. For other socialist parties, see Socialist Party (disambiguation)."
This is very, very confusing wording. I have pamphlets calling the SPA "Socialist Party of the United States" (1920s, although it was used as early as the 1910s in party publications) and "Socialist Party, USA" (1935!) — but does the fact that multiple names were used need to appear in THE VERY FIRST LINE that a visitor will see? I think not. Similarly, while it is true that a user COULD find links to successor organizations in the Box on the right, many do not look at these cumbersome boxes at all — I know that I don't. Why not put the links in plain English in the first line? Let's clean up the multiple names for the party with a nice, early footnote!
Similarly, is it really necessary to indicate that SPUSA "started in 1972"? Is it not sufficient to say:
"This article is about the political organization which existed from 1901 to 1973. For successor parties, see Social Democrats, USA and Socialist Party, USA." ???
Tim Davenport --- Corvallis, OR --- Carrite ( talk) 20:05, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
It's getting pretty damned long, and Debsian electoral politics are barely touched at this point... Should there be subarticles for each of the periods? Should the bibliography be linked off on a separate page? -- Carrite ( talk) 00:07, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
The List of Newspapers & Magazines includes a Jump to "New Times" which brings up an entry discussing a Rock album and not a publication unless this iscorrectedit should be deleted LAWinans ( talk) 22:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Likewise, jump to "Truth" supposedly a Duluth-based publication brings up a general discussion of the concept of "Truth" LAWinans ( talk) 22:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
On the article for the Socialist Party USA, it says that the Socialist Party of America changed its name in the 1960s to "Socialist Party USA." But when the party drafted a new constitution in 1973, Wikipedia consideres the party to have stopped existing and considers the Socialist Party USA to have been created. Most experts on socialism and the media consider the party that exists now to be the same party that existed before 1973. Wouldn't be simpler to say that the Socialist Party of America and the Socialist Party USA is the same party and merge the two articles? It seems to me that they are the same party; they just changed their name in 1962, and adopted a new party constitution in 1973. I propose that we merge the two articles and call the new article "Socialist Party (United States)". Sbrianhicks ( talk) 18 December 2009
¶ It's nowhere near that simple. (There may be something in the relevant articles that needs rewriting in order to make this inherently-confusing situation clearer.)
My thought was that since the SDUSA and the DSA completely changed their name and gave up on electoral politics, they could not be considered a continuation of the SPA. The Socialist Party USA keeps the same name ("Socialist Party"), runs candidates for office, and keeps many of the original ideas of the SPA. ( talk) 19 December 2009 —Preceding undated comment added 15:21, 19 December 2009 (UTC).
Well my thinking is this: The Socialist Party is the only one of the three split off groups to keep the name "Socialist Party", it has kept The Socialist as its publication, it has kept YPSL, and so on. It really does seem to me that it is the same party. ( talk) 20 December 2009 —Preceding undated comment added 00:57, 21 December 2009 (UTC).
Could someone please check the list of prominent members. I noticed that Joshua Muravchik and Erich Fromm were delegates to the 1966 convention, but do not know if they were members. The Four Deuces ( talk) 14:27, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Somebody was asking me about Socialists elected mayor, damned if I can remember who. I'll start a little list here as I come across them that can be used by whomever for whatever. Carrite ( talk) 03:33, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
There needs to be a list of state and local elected socialists, not just the mayors. Dogru144 ( talk) 16:39, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Does anybody have any evidence at all that these three were duespayers in SPA? Trotsky would be the most likely of the three, Kollontai was just here briefly as a speaker... The extant Novyi Mir film doesn't pick up till 1917, so that's no help... I propose that we delete those 3 from the list — or at least Bukharin and Kollontai — unless some evidence appears that they were SPA duespayers. Carrite ( talk) 02:00, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't disagree with the idea that the list of prominent members of the SPA needs to be split off to its own page. See: List of prominent members of the Socialist Party of America.
I do think that the current "half length, quadruple detail" version is distinctly less readable and less usable than an alphabetized set of hot links.
I also have misgivings about the double listing on the List of prominent members of the Socialist Party of America page...
I'd suggest that the ENTIRE prominent members section be ported over to the new List of prominent members of the Socialist Party of America page or else the old laundry list be restored.
It is important to have SOME sort of list, however, since all the biographies need a certain number of WP "in-links" to avoid being tagged as orphans. Carrite ( talk) 13:35, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Dear editors,
I have rewritten the history so that it avoids close paraphrasing of paragraphs from the "history" published by the Socialist Party USA.
Here are the parallel passages that I eliminated:
*SPUSA: The ISL was a Trotskyist splinter group founded and led by Max Shachtman ....
In 1958 the ISL dissolved, and its members joined the SP-SDF. ... the concept of “Realignment.” Shachtman and his lieutenant, Michael Harrington, argued that what America needed wasn’t a third party, but a meaningful second party.
The Realignment supporters said that in sixty years the Socialist Party had failed to bring labor into the Party, and in fact kept losing their labor sympathizers (such as the Reuther brothers) because they saw they could do more within the Democratic Party.
- WP: In 1958 the party admitted to its ranks the members of the recently-dissolved Independent Socialist League led by Max Shachtman, a ... Trotskyist .... Shachtman and his lieutenant Michael_Harrington advocated a political strategy called "realignment," arguing that rather than pursuit of ineffectual independent politics, the American socialist movement should instead seek to move the Democratic Party to the social democratic left by direct participation within the organization. [1]
- SPUSA: At the ... Democratic National Convention ... in 1968, Realignment Socialists were present as delegates.... At the same time, many Debs Caucus members were in the streets with the demonstrators.
- WP: This division was manifest most strongly during the 1968 Democratic Convention, in which members of the Debs Caucus were among the protesters outside of the convention, while members of the Coalition and Unity Caucuses were among the convention delegates. [2] [3]
- SPUSA ... Max Shachtman’s leadership, ... showing a growing tendency toward a Stalinist “democratic centralism” in practice.
- WP: the Shachtmanites maintained the strongest tendency to ... democratic centralism
- SPUSA In the 1972 Presidential election the Shachtmanites supported Henry Jackson .... During the campaign itself, they took a neutral position between McGovern and Nixon, following the lead of the AFL-CIO. Harrington and his Coalition Caucus supported McGovern throughout. Most of the Debs Caucus members supported Benjamin Spock, candidate of the People’s Party....
- WP: During the 1972 presidential election, ... the Debs Caucus supported the independent candidacy of Benjamin Spock, many of the Coalition Caucus supported ... George McGovern ..., and those in the Unity Caucus tended to support Hubert Humphrey and Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson. ... The party, following the lead of ... the ... AFL-CIO ... declared its neutrality between McGovern and incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon .... [2] [3]
- SPUSA At the end of 1972, ... many of the states and locals within the Debs Caucus, .... Early in 1973, the Socialist Party of Wisconsin, with the support of the California and Illinois Parties, ... voted to reconstitute the Socialist Party USA.
- WP: Socialist Party USA (not Socialist Party of America): Numerous local and state branches of the old Socialist Party, including the Party's Wisconsin, California, Illinois, ... organizations, participated in the reconstitution of the Socialist Party USA. [4]
*SPUSADue to America’s restrictive and often undemocratic ballot access laws (which have made it almost impossible to break the two-party monopoly on national politics),
- WP the financial dominance of the two major parties, as well as the limitations of the United States' legislatively [5] [6] and judicially [7] entrenched two-party system.
- SPUSA: the party views the races primarily as opportunities for educating ...
- WP: The Socialist Party USA ... runs candidates for public office, though these campaigns are often considered educational in intent .... [8]
Some of these parallelisms are trifling. However, some seem more substantial, and the series of them seemed to call for more extensive rewriting, so that we are sure of being in compliance with WP policy.
I want to draw your attention to a more serious issue—that I believe that many of the assertions were in error, and understandably given that they seemed to originate in the SPUSA history, may have resulted in NPOV/RS issues. I have tried to be fair in rewriting some of the history, and have asked for reviews from a number of other editors, but I would appreciate your help in helping the article reach NPOV.
I believe that some of the editors here have declared that they have been associated with SPUSA, in compliance with WP:COI policy and in good faith. One of our editors has declared being a member of SPUSA, SDUSA, and DSA! I should do no less and declare that I have strong admiration for and indeed warm feelings for Michael Harrington, and that such affections may influence my editing.
I thank all of our editors for their contributions to this article. Sincerely, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 14:46, 6 July 2011 (UTC) (ce 01:58, 12 July 2011 (UTC))
At risk of discord, I would like to point out some changes I made that seem to me important, and which may well irritate our editors with the strongest SPUSA ties, regretfully.
This was the old article's statement:
- WP: The Debs Caucus finally broke with the party in 1972 to form the Union for Democratic Socialism. [2] ,,, The UDS became the Socialist Party USA in 1973 ...
Michael Harrington and the Coalition Caucus left the party soon after, establishing themselves with headquarters in New York City as the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC). Harrington and his supporters, ... believed that the third party road to democratic socialism had been a failure, and instead sought to work within the Democratic Party as an organized socialist caucus to bring about that party's "realignment" to the left. [2]
This left Shachtman and the Unity Caucus in unopposed control of the Socialist Party (though Shachtman himself died very soon after). In 1972, this group renamed itself the Social Democrats USA (SDUSA). [9]
I would rather let my revisions, which have received helpful editing by a number of other talented editors, speak for themselves rather than lay out a long critique. Of course, I would welcome any comments or criticisms of the edits, and hope that you all would not be shy with correcting me.
In solidarity, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 14:03, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
References
SPRI
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Drucker
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).As noted previously, DraperPeter Drucker's biography of Shachtman is an excellent resource. Here are 3 facts from Drucker:
IMHO, the first (1) fits better in articles on Shachtman or on Harrington. This article is about the SPA, not about two "theorists".
The second (2) could be added. DraperDrucker states that McReynolds was the leader of the left-wing, but he doesn't state how large it was (e.g. 1966-1971) or call it the "Debs caucus". The third (3) is not enlightening. It would be better to expand on the substance of the debates rather than stating that there were disagreements.
In short, noting that McReynolds quit in 1970 is fine. However, most of the sources ignore the Debs caucus, so it's hard to explain any/the significance of McReynolds, without doing OR. The Debs caucus stuck around through 1972, at least. (It would be of interest to find out estimates of overlap between the 3 organizations.) Kiefer. Wolfowitz 12:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
I can't really follow the food fight. In my opinion there are now too many pictures for the amount of text in the late period and that either Zimmerman or Rustin should go. An expansion of discussion of the 1950s and inclusion of a Shachtman photo of that era to fill in with the text might be appropriate.
It would be nice if similar energy was placed in expanding the 1900-1917 story that has been concentrated on the 1970s story. The former is about 10 times more important than the latter, from a historical perspective... Let's keep the 1970s food fight to the introductions of the various successor groups if we could — K. Wolf has done a very nice job of explaining the mentalité of the SDUSA on that greatly expanded page. The DSOC and SPUSA perspectives have their own places. The war is over, let's keep it civil and everything in its place. Carrite ( talk) 19:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Can anyone provide a link to Harrington's December 1973 Vietnam resolution? The article currently states "Harrington's proposal for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces was defeated", which is sourced to a contemporaneous brief NYT article. The NYT actually says he "introduced a resolution that would have called for United States acceptance of the October cease-fire agreement on Vietnam and for immediate withdrawal of American forces." [1] TFD ( talk) 05:01, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
- "Harrington made his major imprint on the national psyche at 35 in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy discovered, through Dwight Macdonald's 50-page New Yorker essay-review of Harrington's book The Other America, that there were 40 to 60 million people living in poverty in what many had been calling our affluent society.
- Until then, according to Isserman, thinking about the poor within the Kennedy administration had been piecemeal. Harrington's book supplied the organizing concept, the target, the word, and thus was the idea for the War on Poverty born. It can indeed be argued that what Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique did for feminism, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring for the environment and Ralph Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed for the public interest movement, The Other America did for the poor.
There were some problems with the earlier version, which cited Drucker without page references, for claims that appear to originate in an SPUSA history:
These page references may be useful to TfD's questions. Kiefer. Wolfowitz 23:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I updated the infobox, which previously listed 3 successors: First SPUSA, then DSOC, finally SDUSA. I wrote "majority" SDUSA, then "minorities" DSOC and SPUSA. This may not make everybody happy, but it was the best I could think of. Legally, only SDUSA was the successor. Spiritually, all three have strong ties, which I tried to respect.
Finally, I noted that "dissolution" involved a "name change" to SDUSA. It would be better to change the the infobox, and choose a neutral term rather than "dissolution". (We seem to have successfully removed "dissolution" from many of the articles, particularly the many state SPUSA articles, with good will, although the details vary.)
Sincerely, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 06:07, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Somebody vandalized that section by replacing the actual candidate's names on the 30 September 2014 edit to the page. I'd correct it, but this is my first time behind the scenes at wiki, and I don't want to mess anything up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.91.176.244 ( talk) 09:25, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
Both the Wikipedia page and the Talk page seem preoccupied with political maneuvers. Should there not be a section explaining what the party has historically stood for? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:94F:8C60:3509:8D74:89F1:46F ( talk) 15:35, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
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A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Public Ownership Party (United States). The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 July 6#Public Ownership Party (United States) until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Lennart97 ( talk) 11:51, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
I think that Communist Party USA should be listed in the Infobox's "Succeeded By" section because CPUSA's page's first paragraph states that it split from the Socialist Party. GamerKlim9716 ( talk) 09:10, 2 February 2024 (UTC)