New Perspectives on Socialism I:
The Socialist Party Revisited

Richard Schneirov
Indiana State University

The essays contained in this and the October 2003 special issues of the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era were originally delivered at a conference sponsored by Indiana State University, the repository of the Debs papers and site of his house, now a national landmark. Intended to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of Debs' first run for the presidency, the conference themes of socialism and dissent attracted a diverse group of scholars, intellectuals, and activists. Their contributions help us gauge the state of the field. They also suggest new departures in the study of socialism.	1
Socialism Ð in popular definition the political movement to replace private ownership of productive property and the profit motive with democratic and collective control of the modern economy Ð dated in the United States to the early nineteenth century. Prior to the Civil War, most socialists, inspired by such thinkers as Robert Owen and Charles Fourier, sought to withdraw from the existing market society and establish alternative communities. "Scientific" or working class-based socialism came to America with German-speaking immigrants. Initially divided between followers of Ferdinand Lassalle and Karl Marx, these socialists believed that the evolution of capitalist society itself created the basis for socialism by replacing household-based production with social production and by creating a large wage-labor class with no interest in the preservation of private property. In the Marxist version, which by the late 1880s had attained ascendancy, trade unions acted as the incubators of class-consciousness, which would unite the working-class in a struggle to overthrow the class rule of the capitalists. Before 1900, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) served as the base for the trade union and political activities of these largely immigrant Socialists.1	2
The decade of the 1890s was the critical turning point in the growth and development of the socialist movement in America. Responding to economic crisis, turbulent and violent strikes, agrarian unrest, the formation of the Populist Party, and the corporatization of business and industry, significant numbers of middle class reformers rejected the still-powerful politics of anti-monopolism and began a hesitant but eventually decisive acceptance of the changes brought by industrialization, nationalized market relations, and the rise of the corporation. Among the array of new political possibilities, many began a serious consideration of socialism. But rather than the Marxian socialism of the SLP, they turned to non-revolutionary, ethical forms of socialism, evident in the enormous popularity of Edward Bellamy's utopian socialist novel, Looking Backward. Meanwhile, the sectarian SLP leadership of Daniel DeLeon estranged many of the party's labor union members. In 1901 these dissidents, reinforced by middle class reform elements and ex-Populists, gathered in Indianapolis to create the Socialist Party of America (SPA).ÊÊÊ	3
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