A pair of leftist historians has undertaken compiling a six-volume collection of Eugene Debs’s writings and speeches. We spoke with one who detailed Debs’s journey from moderate young trade union leader to courageous socialist militant.
From Debs to Sanders to Ocasio-Cortez, an ideal persists. If Sanders actually makes it to the White House, then he’ll be able to continue this work from the summit of American politics. If he doesn’t, then unlike Debs, he’ll have a natural successor.
A graphic biography about Eugene V. Debs, folk hero and presidential candidate, reminds us of a time when support for socialism was strong in places like Kansas, Oklahoma, and Ohio.
Review of a bravura feature length documentary on the life and struggles of militant union leader, socialist orator, five-time presidential candidate against the two-party duopoly and class war prisoner for opposing America’s imperialist entry into World War 1.
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Debs came to the conclusion that no strike or labor movement could ultimately be successful as long as the government was controlled by the capitalist class. Any advances made by an organized working class would be reversed once the capitalists regained absolute power, often by temporarily mollifying workers with a few reforms. Working men and women had to achieve political power, or they would forever be at the mercy of the bosses.
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The upsurge in interest in the ideas of Socialism also means a reassessment of its traditions. Jack Ross offers a new, ambitious attempt to come to terms with the history of the Socialist Party in the United States, an organization, and movement, whose story is one of this country's modern legends. In this review, Harold Meyerson, who, as he points out, was a part of this history, takes a look.
In response to the Congressional declaration of war in April 1917, delegates at a Socialist party convention declared their “unalterable opposition” to it. The federal government began prosecuting Socialist Party leaders. Socialist Congressman Victor Berger, convicted under the Espionage Act, was expelled from the House of Representatives, re-elected by the voters, and then expelled again. Debs responded with a blistering speech at a party rally in Canton, Ohio.
Unlike many in his party, Eugene V. Debs believed the struggle for black equality was critical to realizing the promise of socialism.
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