AHC: Make Debs' Socialists Roughly Equivalent to UK Labour

Debs' Socialists? Hoo boy.

The Gold Democrats remain in control of the Democratic Party (stopping Bryan in 1896 isn't enough) and populism remains a third-party phenomenon to the point that the Populists ally with industrial socialists, and a Populist-Socialist fusion party which regularly sweeps the west becomes a legitimate contender for the presidency.
 
Well, this may not be exactly what you want, but as I posted some time ago:

"If the Democrats had nominated a more conservative candidate than Bryan in 1896, it is very likely that the Populists would have nominated Eugene Debs for President. Even in OTL there was considerable pro-Debs sentiment among the Populists. The so-called middle-of-the-road faction of the Populists (those opposed to fusion with the Democrats) consisted largely of future Socialist Party leaders like Victor Berger (who had formerly been part of Daniel De Leon's Socialist Labor Party). Jack Ross writes in his recent *The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History* that 'At least one newspaper account of internal populist politics declared that 'most of the middle-of-the-roaders of the Populist Party are socialists.' It would not, therefore be an exaggeration to say that the nucleus of the future Socialist Party existed in the Populist Party as early as 1895.' https://books.google.com/books?id=fud1BwAAQBAJ&pg=PP64 But Debs took his name out of contention for the Populist nomination, and supported Bryan.

"The Populist Party was not a socialist party, but it is conceivable that if nominated Debs could have led it in a socialist direction. IMO there was a definite socialist potential in the party." I then cited a letter of Colorado's Populist Governor Davis H. Waite to the American Federation of Labor national convention in Denver in 1894, where he quoted Karl Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue... https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/ahc-socialist-america-by-1900.389566/#post-12463178
 
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The future of a socialist party in the USA is going to hinge on the US reaction to the Russian Revolution. The Palmer raids and red scares finished off the socialist party - and the destruction of the party began with the antiwar stance of the party just before and after the US entrance in to WWI. A large part of the de-legitimization of the party was the fact that a large base of the party was German-Americans, and the party was seen as being pro-German and against the USA when the country was at war. Another base of the party was Jews from Eastern Europe. To be viable the party needed to make inroads with "Americans" who were not "hyphenated". Had the socialists done what the European socialist parties did and gotten behind the war effort once war was declared, rather than continuing with the official line that it was a "capitalist" war that workers had no stake in they might have survived the war and the immediate aftermath.

The getting behind the war effort would certainly be a break with Marxist theory, but doing so is what enabled European socialist/labor parties to survive. It may have been principled to continue this, however it handed the US political system a massive weapon to use against the socialists. Eugene Debs, for all his good qualities, became a bit of a joke in the sense that he was the perpetual presidential candidate of the socialists. A new face was needed, at least as a presidential candidate.
 
In 1902, in the wake of the Anthracite coal strike, the American Federation of Labor had a proposal that would see the AFL Platform officially endorse socialism. IIRC it was only defeated by a margin of a few hundred votes. That, I think, is at least a start towards getting an American Labor Party by having the Trade Unions actually pushing for broader political goals than bread and butter day to day issues. Now I'm not exactly sure where to go from that, perhaps Max S. Hayes (leader of the Socialist contingent in the AFL for quite a while) being elected President of the AFL as opposed to Gompers. Hayes being the leader of a socialist AFL and being a member of the Socialist Party would probably open a path for greater alignment between the two factions.

Problem is I'm not sure that support of the AFL would ultimately translate into electoral success. But a capture of organized labor would be an opening at least.
 
In my mind the success of an American Socialist Party rests on three things.

Firstly, gaining the support of the unions, and the union movement as a whole becoming more radical and partisan. An interesting starting point might be to get Max Hayes to succeed in his challenge to Gompers for control of the AFL (easier said than done). This is important for a number of reasons; it gives the Socialist Party a greater degree of financial support, it gives them greater legitimacy in the eyes of industrial workers and strengthens their claim to being the party that represents the working class, and it also makes it harder for the progressive wings of the major parties to court unions making it harder for them to monopolise the progressive political ground against newcomers. Another area to look into is getting industrial unionism to become decisively dominant in the union movement, instead of the OTL balancing act between industrial and craft unions. I believe this is important for two reasons; firstly, I think that as a mode of organisation industrial unionism is more effective and would lead to a stronger union movement that would be more antagonistic to the establishment, and secondly I believe that it lends itself more easily to the class-based politics of the Socialist Party.

Secondly, the Socialist Party being able to successfully place itself at the centre of a broad coalition of progressive political forces. The big missed opportunity here, in my opinion, is the Conference for Progressive Political Action, who in 1922 voted 64 to 52 against establishing an independent political party for agricultural and industrial workers. If they had voted in favour and gone ahead with it, not only would this have allowed the disparate left-wing parties (except possibly the Communists) to unite under one banner and present themselves as the official party of progressive politics, but it would also set them up for the 1924 Presidential Election, where both major parties nominated conservative candidates and OTL LaFollete was able to win a whole state running as an independent. Whilst it's unlikely that they would win this election, they would possibly be able to make a break into national politics by winning a few electoral college votes and some representatives.

Thirdly, weakening the traditional parties to open up space for a third party to grow. A good example of this might be Emperor Julian's timeline Ruins of an American Party System, which has the Democratic Party steadily collapse during the 20s due to a number of factors (starting with Woodrow Wilson getting nominated for a third term and everything going downhill from there), which leaves the Republicans holding the ball when everything that possibly can go wrong does go wrong.

Other things to look into include preventing, or at least significantly weakening the First Red Scare, and looking for political battles where the Socialists and their fellow travellers came close to winning and tipping the balance in their favour.
 
Actually changing their name to 'Labor' might help considerably as well,UK Labour considered inserting 'socialist' into their title in some way but decided against it because they believed that sections of the population were not yet willing to support a party that openly advertised itself a socialist. That would probably be even more true in the case of the USA.
 
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No progressive movement and AFL endorses socialism in some way, Gompers is replaced by Max Hayes. That or industrial unionism totally displaced craft unionism.

Without progressive reformers socialists get more legitimacy and could even force the dems and the republicans to work with them or co opt their ideas for legitimacy. In this scenario maybe have the socialists lead a fight for electoral reform that succeeds. Maybe some of the more left leaning progressives otl join the socialist movement and we get maybe LaFolette Sr. be one their leaders.

Also US dosent get into world war I so no playing on anti German sentiments, instead maybe it takes more extensive intervention in Mexico and a more larger scale banana wars to the point where we get a bigger antiwar movement that the socialists become part of.
 
The future of a socialist party in the USA is going to hinge on the US reaction to the Russian Revolution.
I think socialists in the United States have to easily and comfortably come down on the side of religious liberty. In fact, ahead of the curve, be in favor of unpopular minorities such as Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses having the same rights as everyone else. This will establish your street cred as it were.

And then do the mainstream stuff. Be in favor of the rights of Catholics in parts of the country where they're minority, and the rights of Protestants where they're a minority.
 
I think socialists in the United States have to easily and comfortably come down on the side of religious liberty. In fact, ahead of the curve, be in favor of unpopular minorities such as Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses having the same rights as everyone else. This will establish your street cred as it were.

And then do the mainstream stuff. Be in favor of the rights of Catholics in parts of the country where they're minority, and the rights of Protestants where they're a minority.
Can you point out any examples of them typically doing the opposite? It has always been my impression that Leftists aren't afraid of particular sects. One of FDRs liberal reformers of the Federal Reserve system was from Utah. Jehovah's Witnesses of course hold it is unGodly to participate in secular government at all.

As a general rule the American Left has in fact been widely tolerant of religious background.

Perhaps you mean they should silence atheists and Darwinists and so forth among themselves so as not to step on sensitive doctrinal toes. The flip side of liberal tolerance is, indifference to such doctrines and leaving the religious to sort out how they handle the modern world for themselves--as far as religion goes. Religion is their problem. But as far as being a citizen who aspires to rights and dignity and power, the American Left has a long tradition of being a tent anyone can join.

Are American leftists more anti-Semitic than other Americans? Funny how many Jews one meets in those circles--it is in fact a tenent of the Right that leftists are suspicious characters for having Jews among them. Catholics? Loads of liberal and progressive Catholics--if the Church tries to turn that around by its anti-feminist policies, well, that's a major reason so many of us raised in that tradition have dropped out of it. But lots of pretty progressive people keep going to Mass and having their children baptized anyway.

Senator Harry Reid alas is no socialist, I'm afraid. But his biography claims strong working class ties, and guess what religion he is. In Nevada, Church of Latter-Day Saints is always a good guess. Again the LDC church hierarchy like the Roman Catholic is actively against the Left, yet a fair number of its faithful wind up progressive anyway. And back in the day, in the 1840s, I don't think it was leftist progressive Americans who persecuted them in Illinois. And if it was, the Mormons made their peace by the Depression as I've said.

Actually quite a few steps in American progress were made with the help of religious groups who were on the outs at the time--Baptists, Methodists, etc. I don't think the American Left, not as I've found it, is generally bigoted against unusual religions--that is and always has been a preferred stance of the Right, that "some people" are just beyond the pale and should be hounded out, or anyway subordinated.

So whence comes this implication that American Leftists have in fact led in bigotry?

It seems very alternate reality to me!

It seems to me that American leftists have always been appropriately tolerant. Any program on their part to be more on their side would be to go beyond the terms you suggest they fall short of. In fact the American leftist tradition always did and does champion the rights of odd minorities to have the same rights as other people more than the right ever has. This is not to say that they haven't fallen short--one way to tell a socialist from a communist in the 1920s and 30s was that the latter talked about equal rights for African-Americans while most people choosing the label socialist kept quiet about it. But socialists were not more racist than conservatives in those days, some quietly or loudly out of step demonstrated being less so.

Show me a socialist campaigning on keeping out the Mormons, or the Baptists, or the Jews, or the Catholics. I'd be surprised if you can and still more astonished if the conservatives of that time and place were more welcoming of them. For a socialist not to be for equal rights for all is to betray his own program and professed beliefs.

Now if by "having the same rights as everyone else" you really mean something else, like "the pronouncements of their religious leaders should be enacted in civil law because to do less is to disrespect them," then clearly we've crossed a line beyond tolerance, acceptance and even welcoming, all of which I expect of anyone calling themselves a socialist in any meaningful sense, into submission to doctrinaire religious leaders who may not even be representative of the actual practices and beliefs of their own professed followers, let alone the community at large. If this be disrespect, I can only apologize for hurt feelings, but if the community as a whole does not judge that this or that doctrine should be law, it is up to the believers to practice it out of duty and faith and let the heathen go to hell in their own way, if that is where they are headed. They may persuade, they cannot dictate--because one church's doctrine is another's sacrilege.

In this context, and this one only, the one where some faith group claims to have the sole truth and that all others must bow before it because God wills it, this is where socialists and other leftists do defy churches--be they little minorities or be they the dominant faith of a region or country. And only by accepting the narrative of the American Right nowadays, that people who defy conservative pastors are sinners and thus unworthy of citizenship and should give way to theocrats, can I place your implication of socialists who don't care about the rights of religious minorities in any context at all. But even then it is senseless--it is religious majorities, or those who claim that mantle anyway, that leftists defy. When some group is in a minority and far from demanding its doctrines become law, their friends are the leftists, not the conservatives.

We haven't had very many generations where an organized party that calls itself socialist has had any serious footprint in American politics anyway, so I have to wonder where you might dredge up an example of one of these anti-Mormon or anti-Catholic or Jehovah's Witness-bashing American socialists from anyway. Did Eugene Debs ever do that? Norman Thomas, the minister? Bernie Sanders? Who the heck on the Left are you saying has actually done this, and honestly can you not yourself think of more examples of those who have done exactly as you recommend?

It evidently did not propel them to power. I would never say though they should have done otherwise as a road to power, any more than the fact that I breathe oxygen and yet am in a rather sad place in the world suggests to me that I should cease breathing oxygen and go start breathing chlorine instead. For a rightist, tolerance and respect for diversity, especially anyone who is in a weak position in society and needs a friend, might be optional I guess, but one cannot be any kind of progressive and not understand this is essential, necessary if perhaps not sufficient.

Either explain what you mean that I misunderstood, or else look elsewhere.
 

Bulldoggus

Banned
Thirdly, weakening the traditional parties to open up space for a third party to grow. A good example of this might be Emperor Julian's timeline Ruins of an American Party System, which has the Democratic Party steadily collapse during the 20s due to a number of factors (starting with Woodrow Wilson getting nominated for a third term and everything going downhill from there), which leaves the Republicans holding the ball when everything that possibly can go wrong does go wrong.
Great TL, that. I'm an avid follower of it.

Actually changing their name to 'Labor' might help considerably as well,UK Labour considered inserting 'socialist' into their title in some way but decided against it because they believed that sections of the population were not yet willing to support a party that openly advertised itself a socialist. That would probably be even more true in the case of the USA.
Very True. Maybe they adopt the "Farmer-Labor" moniker.

I think socialists in the United States have to easily and comfortably come down on the side of religious liberty. In fact, ahead of the curve, be in favor of unpopular minorities such as Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses having the same rights as everyone else. This will establish your street cred as it were.

And then do the mainstream stuff. Be in favor of the rights of Catholics in parts of the country where they're minority, and the rights of Protestants where they're a minority.
Yup. It would help if they were full throated that they AREN'T a bunch of godless atheists and that even if they are they'll tolerate all faiths.
 
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