Talk:Socialist Party of America

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of WikiProject Political parties, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of political parties-related topics. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to "featured" and "good article" standards, or visit the WikiProject page for more details. [View this template]
Portal
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as mid-importance on the importance scale.

Contents

[edit] Election box metadata

This article contains some sub-pages that hold metadata about this subject. This metadata is used by the Election box templates to display the color of the party and its name in Election candidate and results tables.

These links provide easy access to this meta data:


[edit] Use of "left"

The use of the words "left" or "leftist" and "right" or "rightist" in this article is confusing. For example, if by "left" you intend to mean Trotskyist, which appears to be the case in at least a few instances, you should go ahead and use "Trotskyist" instead of "left". Spleeman 10:06, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)


Can you fix it, Spleeman? It sounds like you have the proper knowledge! - DavidWBrooks 13:40, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps I shall when I find the time. :) Spleeman
Yes, I agree..."During the 1930's the party experienced growth particularly among youth and turned leftwards politically." - I think most people would make the assumption that the SP was ALWAYS "leftward", at least somewhere on the left end of the spectrum. --Tothebarricades.tk 04:53, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Shachtman

Is it fair to say (as we do, after a recent edit), "... right-Shachtmanites and their allies... renamed it the Social Democrats USA... in pursuit of their strategy of realignment in American politics which sought to realign the Democratic Party on a pro-labor and pro-civil rights basis"? Seems to me that by this time the Shachtmanites were barely pro-labor or pro-civil rights, and barely even Democrats rather than Republicans. If anything, they were more centrist that George McGovern, who the Democrats had just run for president. I'm not expert on this particular period in the party's, or Shachtman's, career, but this rings wrong to me. -- Jmabel 22:31, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Too little early history

Like lots of other articles on the left, this has a Fourth International bias: we have one paragraph on the first 18 years of the SP, when it was close to being a mass party, followed by several paragraphs on the split that gave rise to the CPUSA, which say more about the CP than the SP, and then more on the entry of the Trotskyists, the departure of the SWP, the incursions of the Shachtmanites, etc., etc. I appreciate the joy of sects just as much as the next person, but this article does not do justice to the subject. Somebody–not me–ought to rewrite it.

We should also be on the alert for words such as "hysterically," particularly when used in the construction "less hysterically." It's bad enough to use an overwrought, non-analytic word such as that (see Orwell's famous essay on this sort of left cliches) to condemn the followers of Max Shachtman, but to use it in a way that damns the Harrington crowd almost as an afterthought seems especially gratuitous.

I'm equally ignorant about the ins and outs of Shachtman's career, but I think Jmabel is probably right. But I think we have bigger fish to fry when rewriting this piece: "sewer socialism," nativism, the party's relations to the AFL and the IWW, etc. -- Italo Svevo aka 24.126.41.116 03:47, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Insinuation

"That most of these figures went on to become the founders of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a key Cold War liberal organization, is seen by some historians as a barometer of the true nature of American liberalism and to have precipitated the rise of neoconservatism."

  • "some historians" (uncited) ==> weasel words
  • "the true nature of American liberalism" ==> in this context reads like redbaiting
  • "to have precipitated the rise of neoconservatism" ==> <sarcasm>Why, because the Shachtmanites were left out of the ADA?</sarcasm>

If there is something citable from some actual historian who makes this argument, I guess something like this could be returned to the article with citation. Until that time, I am changing this to just "Most of these figures went on to become the founders of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a key Cold War liberal organization." - Jmabel | Talk 07:29, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm letting your edit stand, but what I meant there was, yes, if you like, "redbaiting", and it anticipated neoconservatism because it first articulated the "vital center" ideology of which the neocons eventually emerged as the most militant defenders.
Jacrosse 17:52, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reversal of meaning

I have now twice reverted an uncommented change by User:Jacrosse, which more or less reversed the meaning of a sentence. Jacrosse, what is the basis for your edit? Are you saying this is inaccurate, or what? If you just want to reword, the new wording should preserve the meaning, not reverse it. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:38, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Jacrosse, would you please discuss this rather than just edit-warring. Your edit summary this time at least gives a rationale: "No one joined the party because of the Russian Revolution, and most of the language federations left with the CP, in fact I believe the Workmen's Circle (Jewish) was the only one which didn't." I believe you have your chronology wrong. Please read the section Socialist Party of America#Expulsion of supporters of Bolshevism. The language federations grew during the period of the Revolution; they might have been on the verge of taking over the party; instead, they split to form the Communist Party of America. This is told in more detail at Communist Party USA#Formation and early history (1919-1921). -- Jmabel | Talk 00:42, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Can someone else please come into this, since Jacrosse is continuing to revert me, arguing through edit summaries, but not joining discussion here on the talk page? He has produced no facts, and is inserting a version that is almost certainly factually wrong in that it asserts that "The party's opposition to World War I caused a decline … especially among its language federations. This is the opposite of the truth. Opposition to the war caused a loss of votes in its traditional, more Americanized base. The Russian Revolution brought new recruits to the language federations, although those were soon lost to the nascent Communist Party of America, as explained in the next section. Perhaps the old wording could be improved, but Jacrosse's new wording is simply false. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why its so terrible that I feel it sufficient to respond in the edit summary and not here. But I'll simply repeat what I said before - it is seriously misleading to say that the party had a spike in membership from those groups because they were joining not the SP but the nascent CP.
Jacrosse 22:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
They were joining the SP, with the intention of taking it over. Then they had a change of plans. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

This seems to be partly a copyediting problem, needs to be tied in with section below, also some actual data would help. Fred Bauder 20:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I reject the idea of calling the Bolshevists leftists in the context of "they expelled the leftists", it implies that the SPA was not leftist, and it definitely was very leftist. --Revolución hablar ver 23:25, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dueling websites?

I see that the site rooted at http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/index.html and the one rooted at http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/index.html are extremely parallel (though not quite identical) in content. I notice that all of our external links now go to the latter. Does anyone know what is going on here, and how these sites relate to one another? - Jmabel | Talk 16:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

The sites are not in competition, but suffer from clunky web design. The Early American Marxism history project originally appeared on the Marxists Internet Archive at http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/index.html. After a year or so (and about a year ago) the EAM migrated to its own site at http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/index.html. The Marxist Internet Archive continues to mirror the newly posted EAM material. However, some of the older material seems to have been removed from MIA with the migration and there are some gaps in the mirroring of the new material. This complicates our ability to link to these archives. I try to correct bad links to http://www.marxists.org with a google search of http://www.marxisthistory.org when I come across them. Its worth doing because the material is otherwise unavailable outside a research library microfilm archive. DJ Silverfish 17:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. - Jmabel | Talk 04:53, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Apparent Vanity Posting

I removed some unsourced and therefore unverifiable claims of a revival that were inserted first into the introduction, and then in a lengthy section called "Awakening". No source is offered for the claims, which seems like it would have resulted in a press release by somebody, or a mention on the Leftist Trainspotters site. Anyway, it would be incorrect to integrate the revival of the name by a handful of activists into the main article, even if they were largely members of successor organizations. Any new organization would be completely different than the historic party and would have to be handled as such. DJ Silverfish 14:07, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed External Links

In keeping with the logic from DJ Silverfish, I have removed external links to the new Socialist Party of America, including links to allegedly affiliated locals. I am unaware of the situation in Pennsylvania, but the Socialist Party of Florida has not affiliated with the new SPA. Chegitz guevara 16:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unclear statement

The two parties eventually merged in 1921 to form the predecessor of the Communist Party USA.

To someone familiar with the history: this should list which two parties within that sentence; or at the least, within that paragraph. thanks, Richard Myers 04:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of members

Really should each have a citation. In any case, I've cut the recently added claim that Leon Trotsky was a member, although it's imaginable that he was briefly so. I'd like to see a citation (and an indication of what years he was a member) before adding that. - Jmabel | Talk 01:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

My Life isn't clear -- in it Trotsky attacks the SP during his time in New York as a bunch of Babbitts, but then talks about "the connections and influence of the Socialist party as a whole, and of our revolutionary wing in particular". Either way, he probably wasn't a significant figure in the SP, since he was only ever in the US for a few months. I guess he should stay off the list.
As for the others, most of them have articles that discuss their involvement with the SP. Should prioritize citations for those that don't. -David Schaich Talk/Cont 04:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)