The
Socialist Party of America (
SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States. It was formed in 1901 by a merger of the Social Democratic Party of America and a faction of the Socialist Labor Party of America. In the first decades of the 20th century, the SPA drew significant support from many different groups, including trade unionists, progressive social reformers, and Western populists. The party would face a decline in support in the 1920s owing to its opposition to American war with the Confederacy but would see much of their support return following their major role in the American resistance movement during the Confederate occupation. They would be a major party under the Fourth Party System.
The SPA became the second largest political party in the United States after the Third American Civil War, attracting the support of between a quarter and a third of the vote in federal and presidential elections from the 1940s to the 1970s. Its support peaked at 34.4% of the vote (35.7 million votes) in the 1976 presidential election. Members of the SPA were invited into the government in exile led by Earl Warren but were not made part of the restored federal government after the defeat of the Confederacy, allegedly under pressure from the United States’ British allies. The SPA had an alliance with the Socialist Labor Party of America from 1944-1956, and the two parties continued to cooperate until the 1990s. During the years of National Union dominance of federal politics, the SPA under the leadership of Michael Harrington was the largest non-governing party in Congress and held a range of state and local level political offices. During the period of the Historic Compromise (1976-1980), SPA politicians were given the chairmanship of certain House and Senate Committees, after agreement with the National Union.
After Harold Stassen announced his intention not to seek the presidency at the 1992 presidential election, hopes were high that the SPA could make a major breakthrough. However, the party finished a disappointing third behind Edward Kennedy’s Pact for Renewal, and Rudolph Giuliani’s Forward Party. Despite this disappointment, the party remained a force in state and federal elections until its dissolution in 1997, not without controversy and much debate among its supporters.
Intellectually, the SPA was a home to a wide range of both orthodox and revisionist Marxists, and anarcho-syndicalists, with a social democratic faction being in the majority. Under the leadership of Michael Harrington, syndicalism, in particular De Leonism, was removed from the party’s governing statues and influential representatives of that tendency were removed from positions of influence. The SPA advocated drawing the masses to socialism by demonstrating the superiority of socialist reform programmes, an approach that was labelled “Sewer Socialism” because its advocates often boasted of the excellent state of the sewers under their control.
Following disappointing results in the 1996 elections, the SPA wound itself up at a special congress in February the following year. The majority of the party’s leadership participated in the formation of the Progressive Union to contest the 1998 Mid-terms. The Progressive Union would later merge with several other parties to form New Democracy in 2009. The more radical members of the organisation established the Socialist Refoundation Party, which continues to this day albeit with far less electoral success than the SPA had enjoyed at its peak.
