WI: No Socialist Party split in 1919.

The Socialist Party of America suffered a split in 1919 as a result of several factors. First and foremost was the sitting National Executive Committee declaring the election results for the next NEC null, as it would've handed control of the party to the Left Wing. Additionally the NEC also overturned a vote by the party membership on the Third International, wherein the rank and file voted for affiliating with the International while the NEC wanted to remain unaffiliated. This culminated in the NEC expelling several language federations and the entirety of several state parties from the Socialist Party. From 1919 to 1920 the Socialist Party's membership dropped from nearly 105,000 to 27,000.

What if the NEC had instead abided by the votes? Now the Socialist Party, though damaged by the Wilson terrors, had recovered from the first split in 1912 where the membership dropped from an all-time high of 118,000 to 96,000. However by 1919 the Party seemed to have recovered in membership once again rising above 100,000 members for the first time since 1912. Had the party not lost a large amount of the rank and file to the Workers and Communist Labor Parties it would be in a much stronger position heading into the 1920s, not collapsing into a few urban strongholds. What would the effects of a stronger Socialist Party in the 1920s and 1930s be?
 
A party split was inevitable--if the left wing had gained control of the party, the right wing would have split it. It is true that even many Socialists who were not of the Left were at first open to joining the Third International. But the "21 Conditions" would make that impossible: "The Communist International cannot tolerate a situation where notorious opportunists, as represented by Turati, Modigliani, Kautsky, Hilferding, *Hillquit* [emphasis added--DT], Longuet, MacDonald, etc., have the right to pass as members of the Communist International. This could only lead to the Communist International becoming something very similar to the wreck of the Second International." Moreover, a Socialist Party that adhered to the Third International could not retain the title Socialist Party anyway: "...all those parties that wish to belong to the Communist International must change their names. Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International must bear the name Communist Party of this or that country (Section of the Communist International). The question of the name is not formal, but a highly political question of great importance. The Communist International has declared war on the whole bourgeois world and on all yellow social-democratic parties. The difference between the communist parties and the old official 'social-democratic' or 'socialist' parties that have betrayed the banner of the working class must be clear to every simple toiler." So the right-wingers would get to reclaim the title Socialist Party.

In short, I don't really think much would change. One should note that in countries where the party leadership at first opted for the Comintern, there was a split anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(Norway) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Party_of_Romania
 
For an interesting appraisal of the true significance of the 1919 split, see Jack Ross, *The Socialist party of America: A Complete History* (an admittedly biased and in some ways eccentric work but still the only comprehensive history of the SP):

"If anything approaches a consensus view of what caused the decline and collapse of the Socialist Party of America, it is to identify it in th split that caused the Communist Party in 1919. It is certainly true that, as James Weinstein declares in the final sentence of his brilliant study, 'The legacy of 1919 was the alienation of American Socialism.' But because it ultimately proved to be the *legacy* of 1919 does not mean that the Communist split is what made the decline and collpase of the Socialist Party a *fait accompli.* Indeed, Weinstein illustrates this more clearly than anyone, giving the attention of the Labor Party movement as the Socialist Party unfolded and illustratring the causal relationship between these events.

"An empirical measurement that may foster confusion between the ultimate legacy and immediate consequences of the 1919 split is the rise and fall of dues-paying membership. As early as 1913, nearly 30 percent of the total SP membership was affiliated through the foreign language federations. By 1917, when the average membership was 80,379, the number of language federation members had only modestly increased by about 5,000, but now constituted over 44 percent of the total membership. At the most inflated post-1912 peak of membership-—104,822 in the first quarter of 1919-—the language federations constituted 54 percent of the membership at 56,740. Excluding the language federation numbers, which rapidly evaporated after the founding of the rival Communist parties, the SP membership average of 34,926 in the fourth quarter of 1919 represents a serious, but, in proper perspective, relaticely modest loss of 13,156, or 27 percent, from the beginning of 1919, when there was only a slight increase in non-federation membership of roughly 3,000 from 1917.

"Tellingly, even among new left historians the one-dimensional attribution of the Socialist Party's decline has distracted from asessing the real impact of government repression during the war, which James Weinstein is second to none in forthrightly describing as 'a reign of terror far worse than any conducted in Europe, either among the Allied Powers or within the German Empire.' The impact of the war, the Communist split, and decisions made in the months after the split must all be given their due in diagnosing the collapse of the Socialist Party. But one unmistakable fact balances the scales to decisively assign blame to wartime repression: the two places where a formidable party organization survived through the 1920s, New York and Milwaukee, were the two large cities where banning from the mails was not a death sentence for a viable party press.

"It also bears emphasis that the departure of the future Communist Party did not notably rupture either the historic base or leadership of American Socailism--potential candidates for leadership such as Charles Ruthenberg and Alfred Wagenknecht were the exception and not the rule. Indeed, the Socialist Party lost a far larger and longer established portion of its talent to the pro-war defection. Finally, although there was certainly some basic continuity from the historic left wing, particularly International Socialist Review, to American Communism, the program of the Third International nevertheless represented a fundamental break with the historic left wing. In the words of James Weinstein,

'Most of the Americans who joined the left wing had no concept of what later came to be called the Leninist party. Quite the contrary, they had traditionally opposed Hillquit and Berger as bureaucrats, and had advocated greater decentralization and autonomy. . . . The native left-wingers who went Communist did so out of romantic identification with the Russian Revolution, and ecause of the panicked, bureaucratic action of the Old Guard in expelling the foreign language federations in the spring of 1919. But few of them could remain for long in a party that boasted, as Alexander Bittelman did in 1924, of its ability to change its line in 24 hours at the behest of the International...'"

https://books.google.com/books?id=fud1BwAAQBAJ&pg=PR135
https://books.google.com/books?id=fud1BwAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PR1
 
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The fact that the Right wing would then break away from the party is something that I had considered as well. Especially considering the later formation of the Social Democratic League during the 1930s when the Militants alongside Norman Thomas finally managed to seize control of the party apparatus. I have been reading "The Socialist party of America: A Complete History," the language federations was the key issue that I overlooked. I suspected that stopping the division with a POD at it's occurrence would be rather hard, as there was a long build up of tension between the Left and Right wings of the party.

I do think that the Socialist Party being held together in some fashion into the 1920s and 1930s would substantially help them. Both the Socialist and the Workers Parties seemed interested in pursuing a Farmer-Labor Party during the 1920s. Perhaps if they had a united front during this period a successful National Farmer-Labor Party could've been founded.

Of course the question then becomes did the terror inflicted by Wilson irreplaceably damage the Socialist infrastructure in many states. In Oklahoma for example the Socialist vote fell from around 16% in 1916 to 5% in 1920 despite the National Vote Percentage being slightly higher in 1920. It's probable that the party was doomed to a decline in the 1920s, due to the Wilson terror gutting the party outside of a few Eastern and Midwestern cities. In that case it would be a prerequisite to prevent the damage Wilson did to the party.
 
Following World War I, and the hatred which was whipped up and the war hysteria and not just by Wilson by any means,

if some experienced activists among the socialists had taken the approach I've seen most effectively taken of late by Bernie Sanders. Hey, we can be forthrightly against a war, we can still do right by soldiers and veterans.

This is the tact to take. It sounds like a lot of the leadership were scared to death of being more radical, being perceived as more radical, etc.
 
And groups tend to split, and I don't just mean political groups, I mean groups like Greyhound Rescue and boardgaming groups, into

the purists on one hand, and the practical people on the other.

And even the way I phrase it, you can probably guess I tend to include myself with the more practical approach. The challenge might be, describe both sides like they're good guys! :p
 
Following World War I, and the hatred which was whipped up and the war hysteria and not just by Wilson by any means,

if some experienced activists among the socialists had taken the approach I've seen most effectively taken of late by Bernie Sanders. Hey, we can be forthrightly against a war, we can still do right by soldiers and veterans.

This is the tact to take. It sounds like a lot of the leadership were scared to death of being more radical, being perceived as more radical, etc.

Of course it wasn't just Wilson alone as there were several lynchings of IWW members during WWI as well as other murders. However the Espionage Act allowed the Postmaster General to ban publications from the mail that were perceived as a threat to the war effort. During this time Socialist publications were banned from the mail which effectively damaged the party beyond repair outside of urban centers like Milwaukee and New York City where mail wasn't as important to maintaining a proper party. Take for example a comparison between the vote for the Socialist Party in the 1918 Special Senatorial Election in Wisconsin, which occurred in April, and that of the 1918 Gubernatorial Election in Wisconsin. The Socialist share of the vote fell from 26% to 17% and the actual vote fell from about 110,000 votes to 57,500 votes. Now looking at Milwaukee County there was a general decline in the Socialist vote there from about 42% to 36%, which could be attributed to a general collapse in Anti-War fervor, however in rural NW Wisconsin the Socialist vote fell from a vote of around 15% to only 5%, showing a clear collapse in the Socialist vote in rural areas where mail was important to party functions. It was not an issue of name recognition between candidates either as both Victor Berger and Emil Seidel were highly visible Wisconsin Socialists.

Had there been no push for an Espionage Act due to Wilson not being in office I think you could see the Socialist Party exit WWI with a much stronger position with it's rural western structure intact.

The point about groups tending to split is a good point. I guess the point is to minimize splitting and prevent it from becoming deathly, (as the 1930s split would be for the Socialist Party) so that the party can survive at least with the strength it once held.

Edit: Adding these maps for comparison of county by county votes for the Socialists in the 1918 Wisconsin elections.

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?fips=55&year=1918&f=0&off=3&elect=7

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?fips=55&year=1918&f=0&off=5&elect=0
 
the denial of the mails was a big blow, no question about it,

The SP could try and play the martyr card, but I think they'd rather just have the mails back. Could even try to build a network of in-person delivery somewhat similar to Amway,

Problem is, I think people were demoralized after the war in a hundred and one different ways.
 
Now there might be one way for the Socialist Party to begin to make inroads into the West again after WWI and that's political union with the Farmer-Labor Party. During the 1920 Farmer-Labor National Convention following the success of the Radical platform over the 'La Follette' platform, the three primary candidates were Parley Christensen, Dudley Malone, and Eugene Debs. However Debs name was withdrawn from balloting at the behest of the Socialist Party. Now even after he had official been removed Debs continued to poll 68 votes of 385. It's not inconceivable that had Debs name not been withdrawn that he could've triumphed over Christensen and Malone.

Now just looking at the Farmer-Labor totals it is clear that in the many northern and western states the union of the two tickets under Debs would've been beneficial to the Socialist Party. While it likely wouldn't provide any great increase in support for the Presidential ticket could the union of the Socialist and Farmer-Labor parties have helped bolster decaying infrastructure in some states?
 
I wonder if it is possible for the Socialist party to become the Farmer-Labour party early? According to wikipedia Farmer-Labour emerged when the Labour party (founded in 1918) changed its name and widened its focus.

Certainly it seems to me that in the US, any democratic socialist party needs to win rural votes. Would a strong rural base have helped the party survive and recover from the war time persecution and the split though?

fasquardon
 
The Socialist Party did have a strong rural vote in the west (though in some states the vote was dominated by miners), especially in a few states like Oklahoma where in both 1912 and 1916 the party got about 16% of the vote. Black and White tenant farmers had been the base there. Certainly the Farmer-Labor party had absorbed a degree of the Socialist base out west as well as expanding to new people. So a merger might be able to reinvigorate the party in the west and other rural areas.

The merger would also win at least 1 more seat in the House of Representatives. In one of New York's districts the Socialist candidate polled the margin of victory between the Farmer-Labor and Republican candidates.
 
Maybe if the SP had taken the approach of a series of medium steps

And if they take the approach of medium step, feedback, medium step, feedback, that gives them a fulcrum to move the world! At least it does to my way of thinking. But I seem to have a hard time selling this. o_O
 
Really I think the most important thing is that the party somehow survive intact (i.e. not being ravaged by state repression or internal splits) to the Great Depression (assuming there is a Depression of course). Now of course there would be the anti-incumbent sweep. If you had the Socialist party pass one of the two parties in support before this time period then it is very easy to conceive them winning the Presidency and Congress. Now I'm not convinced the POD I brought up with here (really a rather spur of the moment POD and not very strong) could do this even if the party managed to avoid splintering, which would be very difficult when considering the 21 conditions.
 
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