David McReynolds
2009 July 19
It is hard to keep a record straight when so much time has passed, but as someone who was in the Socialist Party from 1951 on, and who (sadly) played a key role in bringing the ISL in, I'm in a much better position than Peter, whom I don't think was in the SP at the time, to state that Peter's "middle group" was both #1 and #2. Peter's 1 & 2 were not separated until very late (1972). Harrington was a member of the ISL and a loyal Shachtman follower though also an intellectual force in his own right. It is to Harrington's credit that he broke with Shachtman and support of the Vietnam War in 1972 - late, but better late than never.
In 1965 the Socialist Party was not supporting the Vietnam War, but neither was it playing a key role in opposing it. Norman Thomas, who might be called a social democrat, accepted my invitation to speak at one of the first public rallies in opposition to the war, a rally I chaired and which also saw A.J. Muste and A. Philip Randolph as the other two speakers. I think that was either in 1964 or 1965.
When Peter is talking about the "leftovers" this is not so easy. By no means were they are all "revolutionary socialists". They included Frank Zeidler and Darlington Hoopes Jr. and a number of the old regulars in the SP who resigned in a wave across the country. Some, such as Bill and Mae Briggs and Charles Curtiss, were certainly among the SP's traditional left wingers.
Those names won't be familiar to most of you, most of those who fought the good fight then are long since gone. But the "leftovers" were simply not a group of "revolutionary socialists", but rather a group of people who believed in independent electoral action and rejected both the Harrington and the Shachtman approach of working entirely inside the Democratic Party.
It is always an interesting question as to who is a Trotskyist and I hope to do a short piece on that at some point - it is an odd range from the neo-conservatives to the ultra-revolutionists such as Workers World, and publications as diverse as Dissent, New Politics, and Against the Current.
What they have in common is their origin within the Trotskyist movement.
Fraternally,
From Peter D.
A bit of a misleading oversimplification by Steve.
When the party split in '72, there were 3 groups, not two.
1.- Shactman's social democrats became Social Democrats-USA (SD-USA)
2.- Harrington's social democrats became what is now known as Democratic Socialists of America(DSA)
3.- The leftovers, revolutionary democratic socialists, became SP-USA
It was the middle group that led the support for the Viet Nam War, in I believe, 1965.
The party resolution for the War was referred to as "The Harrington Resolution," not the "Shactman Resolution." Michael Harrington is probably the best known social democrat in our party's modern history.
Of course Shactman's social democrats supported Harrington's social democrats since both groups were social democrats, as you can tell from the name Shactman's followers chose after the split.
So one can blame the trots if one wants.
But it was social democrats who backed The Harrington Resolution in support of the Viet Nam War
Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Rossignol" <stever@moment.net>
To: sp-members@lists.riseup.net, "darius engel" <dariusengel@hotmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2009 11:25:13 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [SPAM] Re: [sp-members] Correcting the record / Re: Socialist Strategy in
Comrade Engel--
To help you answer this question, look back at the history of the Socialist Party when the Trotskyists with Max Shactman entered the Party as the International Socialist League. These Shactmanites pursued a right wing course in the SP which culminated a decade later with the endorsement of the Vietnam War and the eventual split of the SP.
Steve Rossignol