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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 25, 19 June 1950, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
DETROIT, June 10 – The national convention of the Socialist Party, held here on June 3–4, furnished convincing evidence – if any were needed at this late stage – for the viewpoint that there is no room on the American political scene for any significant reformist movement apart from that of the trade-union movement. Its place has been usurped, and understandably so, by a variation of the classic social-democracy which may be described most accurately as “Reutherism.”
What many of the 100 delegates at the SP convention were resisting, impotently and futilely, was this American phenomenon which had its origins in the Socialist Party and which is largely determining its course.
This was not understood at the SP convention, except by a handful of leaders who did not discuss the subject on the floor. This point was symbolized by the very fact that the convention was held in Detroit, where the only successful “socialists” live as powerful influences in the labor movement. We refer, of course, to the Reuther brothers.
Another point of departure for understanding the SP convention is to know that it was not supposed to take place in the manner, time and place that it did. It was held mainly because the great decision of the SP during the past year was not carried out – through no fault of the SP.
By now the SP was supposed to have found its place snugly in the arms of the old-line Social-Democrats (SDF). Even the name of the Socialist Call had been changed to The Call as a preparation for the event. But the SP was left waiting at the altar after the intervention of David Dubinsky, ILGWU president, who opposed the merger on the grounds that the SP members might not be ready, willing and happy to go along with the idea of supporting the Democratic Party candidates backed by labor.
Any socialist gathering which asks for serious and thoughtful consideration would begin with a realistic appraisal of the main decisions it made in its immediate past period. Nothing as embarrassing as that was done at this SP convention. Only by indirection, on the debate on political action, was this subject touched.
A second major basis for reappraisal would be a study of the organizational defects and losses and the political significance of the results of this study. This was another painful subject which was discussed only indirectly. The low SP vote in the presidential campaign of 1948 was used as material for pointing out that the old methods were not enough. (Norman Thomas received 139,521 votes in 1948 in contract to 884,781 in 1932, when there were almost 10 million fewer voters.)
Having lost itself for years in the theory that electoral campaigns were the most decisive events in the life of a political organization, the SP delegates naturally limited their discussions around that threadworn axis. And these discussions were based on the gross and mistaken assumption that the SP was a party and could discuss this subject as a party, whereas the very size of the convention would speak against any such mistaken belief.
Now actually the decision to merge with the Social-Democrats themselves was a recognition of the fact that the SP today is no longer what it once claimed to be, a radical party of the American masses.
Norman Thomas. Maynard Kreuger and Tucker P. Smith recognize this new status of the SP by their insistence that the SP be mainly an educational force in the labor movement, working within the framework of labor politics and giving up the idea of national presidential campaigns.
The position which these three leaders of the. SP presented, which was rejected by a vote of 70 to 37, also contained an analysis of the Democratic Party as the lesser of two evils, which could only signify the readiness of these leaders to go along with present official CIO policy, as carried out by the Reuther leadership of the UAW-CIO. The need for organizational loyalty to liberal and labor organizations as autlined in the Thomas resolution was advance notice to the Reuthers and the Dubinskys that the SP would be good boys.
The key paragraph of the Thomas-Kreuger-Smith resolution sounds exactly like one of Walter Reuther’s speeches:
“It is no longer true that in America as a whole the differences between the rival parties and their candidates is always and everywhere merely the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. In part that is because in varying degrees, state and local parties and candidates had adopted and pushed forward many of our own socialist demands. In the achievement of a great many things for which socialists have worked, such as public housing, full employment and greater social security, the difference between. better and worse is of enormous importance. In foreign policy it may mean the difference between inviting and averting a third world war.”
With that point of view, is it not understandable that the Reutherites in the labor movement exert such powerful pressure on SP ranks, including Norman Thomas? From that viewpoint, is not Reuther the only really successful and important “Socialist”?
And since that viewpoint did not carry a majority at the SP convention, is not the disappointment of the ex-Socialists in the Reuther camp very plain to grasp? And why the Thomas-Kreuger-Smith forces assure the ex-Socialists in the CIO bureaucracy that they’ll do better the next time?
No, this is not a figment of our imagination. We know that the ADA, the Jewish Labor Committee and the pro-Reuther forces pressed strongly for the victory of Norman Thomas, whose policies paved the way for all-out support for Reuther’s political program, which includes in the next period trying to capture the Democratic Party wherever possible.
The revolt against this policy, which was indicated in the 70-37 votes against the Thomas resolution, after a vigorous but fruitless debate, was not, however, a rebellion of rank-and-file members determined to put the SP on a revolutionary course. Its main leaders came from the Jasper McLevy “Socialists” of Connecticut, the Reading (Pa.) Socialists, and five delegates whose views are a hangover of the old center caucus of the SP.
These delegates wanted the SP to continue in business as usual. Unless the SP had national campaigns it was doomed. That is all that kept it together, these delegates argued, and with some point. But the decisive point – why should it be kept together? – was not discussed.
On the Marshall Plan, world disarmament and a dozen other political questions there were no important differences of opinion in substantial numbers. In all these matters the SP sounds not one bit different from Walter Reuther making one of his militant speeches.
But above all, the character of this opposition – and of the convention as a whole – was demonstrated by the debate, largely unreported in the press, of the question: Should the SP delete all reference to the class struggle from its membership applications?! By overwhelming majority this was done. (Which means that Reuther might sound radical to some of these delegates.)
Although this convention rejected Thomas’ proposals, which would signify a rapidly increasing disintegration of the SP, it nevertheless passed a special resolution praising him as the main spokesman for socialism in America for the party. It elected a new national leadership in which the Thomas forces are a minority.
There was no significant talk of split after the crucial vote on political action, but it is a fact that Thomas forces are determined to change the course of action adopted by the convention.
Furthermore, there exists so much confusion in the SP ranks on the nature of the dispute, its basic meaning and its portent of the future, that it is safe to say that the dispute will get sharper, and lines become more crossed up on a national scale. The sum total result can only be political impotence, in our opinion.
In short, here was a political tendency with a basic program not one whit different than the new American labor aristocracy. It is being torn apart by the conflicting pressures of its past, its traditions and the influence of the labor movement. It lacks a fundamental reason for independent existence because it lacks an independent class program. The process of SPers becoming ex-socialists and labor officeholders will continue apace, and its political history is already in the past.
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