Crowds Gather in the Chicago Coliseum for the Socialist Convention, May 8th, 1920 - Source: Chicago Tribune
Approaching the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Socialist Party of America, the National Executive Committee made the appropriate preparations for a momentous celebration to coincide with their upcoming national convention. Two long decades had come and gone since the Indianapolis Unity Conference, when disparate socialist factions joined together and formed an independent political party. Unbeknownst to the founders, the SP would prove itself, in no short order, an integral part of the American Labor movement and a salient vehicle for working-class representation in government. Its unbreakable ties with the IWW solidified the party's relationship with the grassroots and served to propel membership throughout every state and local branch to levels higher than any on record. The presence of Socialist congressmen, mayors, and supervisors demonstrated the synchronicity of the SP with the voting population of the United States, and auspicious gubernatorial polling exhibited an ever-widening scope on that front. It all seemed a far cry from day one.
Electoral wins over the past decade allowed for a leftward tilt in the zeitgeist as alternative perspectives upended legislative debate and shone a light on corruptive practices. Socialist representatives, for example, were among the fiercest in the uncompleted fight for a women's suffrage amendment. Their role in the war for gender equality, especially as Progressives retreated on that issue, did not go unnoticed. Feminism had become an essential part of the Socialist program, with voting rights now merely the tip of the iceberg. Additionally, the short-lived congressional sparring over U.S. involvement in the Great War, characterized by the filibusters of Senators Ashley Miller and Robert La Follette, helped to formulate the upswing in antiwar activism over the following years. Knowing the significance of the anniversary and recognizing the party's most recent political triumph, Secretary Wagenknecht authorized the NEC's unanimous decision to allow Chicago to host their nominating event.
Mayor Fitzpatrick prudently lifted all remaining pandemic restrictions upon his inauguration, quickly setting a precedent for reversing the unpopular policies set into place by Carter Harrison. On the eve of the convention, the new mayor also signed off on the repeal of an anti-demonstration law, increased the base wages of municipal workers, and requested Chief of Police Chief John Garrity keep his officers strictly within the confines of the law. Chicago under Fizpatrick thus far was not much different from his predecessors despite fearmongering by Governor Lowden and fellow anti-socialists. Beyond his plans to implement municipal ownership of public transit and fund a public housing district, life went on as usual. Nevertheless, a consortium of Society for Americanism rally goers and devotees of William H. Thompson organized a rather intimidating protest just outside of the Coliseum's perimeters. Some shouted down identifiable officeholders as they arrived, blasting them with disrespectful ridicule and distasteful, sometimes racist or sexist, slurs. NEC members paid the protests no mind, and simply recommended delegates ignore the rabble and that all doors be closed while the processions were underway.
On May 8th, the Socialist Convention officially began. By far the most hyped of any such nominating event in the party's history, it was estimated that delegates, card-carrying members, and journalists arrived from all 48-states to engage in the sprawling affair. "The momentum was breathtaking," wrote Benjamin McIntyre. "It mustn't be understated, the energy and the flair, as the Socialists sang 'The Internationale'. The enormous tragedy of the war, and the realization of the working class that it was all for naught, fed into mass revolution overseas. First Russia, then France, then Poland, Romania. Revolts threatened to break apart the Austro-Hungarian dichotomy. Turmoil engulfed the heart of Zollverein: the German Empire. It was only natural that the revolutionary spirit would breach the American fortress sooner or later. The 1918 strike wave was merely a rehearsal." Indeed, new bastions of socialist agitation were cropping up across the world. The troublesome part was choosing which branch to identify with. One of the most contentious matters of debate at the convention was deciding whether to align the party along the terms of the Third International (otherwise known as the Communist International/Comintern) or the reconditioned Second International.
The Russian Bolsheviks as led by Vladimir Lenin established the Comintern in March of 1919 as a mechanism to further their goal of arousing global revolution. Communist and far-left labor parties from dozens of nations opted to respond in the affirmative to Petrograd Soviet Chairman Grigory Zinoviev's plea, jointly convening the Founding Congress of the Comintern in Moscow. Though the Industrial Workers did elect to participate in the conference, no formal U.S. political party attended apart from a smattering of SP-adjacent activists and authors. The SFIO, the governing party of the Fourth French Republic, was split on the Comintern. Prime Minister Jean Longuet and a majority of the SFIO had unquenchable reservations over the unilateral governing tactics of the Bolshevik Party. Longuet, who held the true reins of power in France under their new constitution, recognized the elephant in the room and openly cited his opposition with a Moscow-based International. A neutral organization must be formed, he explained, to uphold the "international ideal" and usher in an age of socialist democracy. Therefore, Longuet, in tandem with socialist parties of Western Europe and South America, worked to resurrect core elements of the Second International to form a Socialist International. This new Paris-based World Congress was structured into an inclusive federation of autonomous political parties headed by a participant-elected Executive Committee. It explicitly forbade any one country from controlling its sections unilaterally, a clear jab at the Soviets. The leftmost sect of the SFIO soon splintered in a fit of outrage, founded the French Communist Party, and joined the Comintern - though in doing so sacrificed their negotiating abilities as the FCP struggled electorally.
In their observance of the SFIO's clobbering of the far-left Communists and center-left Parti Radical in their recent legislative elections, the American Socialists were, if pressured to choose, more receptive to the French vision of legalist, democratic socialism over that of Soviet Communism. Not all agreed, however. The 1919 NEC conference did not set parameters for affiliation in either International. The adopted compromise resolution only declared flat solidarity with the struggling workers of Europe. Therefore, argumentative debate lasted days.
These nations have openly or tacitly recognized that socialism alone has the moral and intellectual resources to rebuild and revivify the shattered world, and in this, as in all other vital currents of modern life, the United States cannot effectively or permanently seclude itself from the rest of the world. Nor do we, American socialists, depend for our hope of success solely upon the precedent and example of Europe. The conditions in our own country and the record of our own party as the gauge of our ultimate victory here. I am a determined and enthusiastic supporter of the Soviet Government of Russia, but it is crucial a distinction be made from the government and the International. We cannot abdicate our own judgement and follow every dictum that comes from Moscow.
Morris Hillquit, Socialist Convention Speech, May 9th, 1920
The Socialist Party must support the Third International, not so much because it supports the Moscow program and methods, but because Moscow is doing something which is really challenging world imperialism. Moscow is threatened by the combined capitalist forces of the world simply because it is proletarian. Under these circumstances, whatever we may have to say to Moscow afterwards, it is the duty of socialists to stand by it now because its fall will mean the fall of socialist republics in Europe, and also the disappearance of socialist hopes for many years to come. We ought to support Moscow, and Paris as well. One cannot survive without the other, and our only hope for an international workers' republic rests with affiliation in the International which supports the dictatorship of the proletariat.
J. Louis Engdahl, Socialist Convention Speech, May 9th, 1920
On May 11th, the delegates of the SNC finally agreed, by a majority vote, to align with the Socialist International. Curiously, it simultaneously rejected the inclusion of Hillquit's demand to condemn "Lenin's Communist society," which he cited as a, "miscarriage." In order to find a mediated solution, the SP voted for a middle-ground which did not bar itself or its members from coordination with the Comintern (A crucial point, as their partners in the IWW would be expelled). The truth of the matter was any flagrant alliance with the hardline Soviet Comintern meant assured defeat in November should Johnson or the Democrats capitalize on red-baiting or nativist xenophobia. Even if they personally disapproved, a bulk of the delegates understood this as well. Inversely, the old Second International was a multinational group traditionally associated with the Socialist Party, and entry in a revived iteration would hardly raise eyebrows. Debs and Haywood ensured that the decision would not explode any unearthed tension by the left-wing, lest they be ousted or bolt like the ill-fated FCP. Members in stark opposition to the majority vote, namely a supremely frustrated John Reed, were persuaded to stay and continue the fight for a more radical program, somewhat satisfied in the defeat of Hillquit's motion and the SP's reaffirmed stance on internationalism. "Insofar as we stand with the IWW and the pursuit of One Big Union, Reed later wrote, "we stand with the workers. America is stirring, awakening to new ideas, revolting against its leaders - becoming revolutionary! [...] the Socialists, the International, and Organized Labor are intertwined."
The remainder of the afternoon and evening was filled with procedural delegate speeches and confirmation votes on the final party platform. Well-known Socialist officeholders from across the country presented arguments both for and against specific planks and proposals. This included New York Assemblymen Louis Waldman and Algernon Lee, State Chairman Emil Seidel, National Civil Liberties Bureau co-founder Norman Thomas, National Brotherhood of Workers of America President A. Philip Randolph, and Sons of Vulcan organizer James Maurer. A written statement from House Minority Leader Meyer London was also read aloud as the congressman was in Washington. Yet perhaps the most thrilling speech of the day was delivered by war veteran Jack Parkman in support of a plank expelling elected Socialists who voted for military appropriations. "The upper class, the men living on high in their golden castles, sent us to the trenches, but they dared not send their own sons. One dead worker is replaceable to the capitalist. They see us as fodder, both in war and in the factory." Parkman closed his address to a standing ovation.
On the comparatively serene morning of May 12th, as a light drizzle fell outside and delegates settled in to coronate their presumptive nominee, a ghastly shadow cast itself over the Coliseum. The SNC was interrupted by a sharp crack which broke through a sea of mild-mannered conversation. As if pounding back to earth an inflated sense of elation gained from the day before, that sound pierced the air twice more. Then, realization struck. An unidentified intruder had fired three shots from a revolver. Two men had fallen to the ground, their shirts now stained with blood. One was a state delegate from the Kentucky Socialist Party, Josephus Daly. The other: Eugene Debs. Daly stayed conscious, Debs did not. Medical attendants navigated through the panicked crowd and expeditiously transported them to a nearest hospital for diagnosis and possible treatment - while a man named Thomas Lufkin was arrested near the convention entrance with a firearm in his trousers. Surgical staff confirmed that the bullet had pierced a major artery, and any amount of treatment would be futile. Eugene Debs was dead. Murdered.
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