On the history of the original Debs Caucus

I was in the Debs Caucus but am not sure who founded it. Possibly Steve Rossingol, our archivist will know, or Michael Marino. The one person who could really tell us is gone - Ann Rosenhaft of blessed memory. I'm not sure of the date of the founding of the Caucus but it was prior to the three way split of 1972. And it was not actually a "revolutionary" caucus. It was meant to hold together in some way, loosely, those such as myself who had resigned from the SP in 1971 over the Vietnam War issue, and those, including Ann, who remained in it.

The actual "re-founding" of the SP in 1973 involved Brahm Bassford, in Chicago, Frank Zeidler, and others - certainly folks involved in the Debs Caucus were part of this process but Brahm certainly did not think of himself as a revolutionary socialist, nor did Frank Zeidler.

So what did occur was that a number of folks, some, like Maggie Phair, who has never characterized herself in one way or another, and has said she joined the Socialist Party "to fight capitalism, not other socialists", and others, such as myself, who still consider myself part of the SP's left wing, joined to re-form the Socialist Party. It is my memory that the late Darlington Hoopes was part of that process - and he was a Quaker, not a revolutionary socialist. (He had also at one time been elected to the Pennsylvania State Legislature from Reading, as a Socialist).

I had my own doubts about starting the SP "over again" and wrote an article for H&T titled "The Party's Over", stressing that history had its limits. But I did then and still do favor an organization committed to democracy and socialism (really they are the same thing).

This note is not written in disagreement with your goal of getting other socialists to join with us (or us with them!), though I don't see much hope in that. It is simply to state the history of the matter. The Socialist Party, re-organized in 1973, had in the ranks of those who organized it - Frank Zeidler being quite central - men and women who did not think of themselves as "revolutionary", who perhaps were closer to Norman Thomas' view of the world.

1973 is a very long time ago now - most of those who were in any way involved with the "refounding" of the Socialist Party did not think of themselves as revolutionists, but simply as American socialists. And most of them are now dead. Historians should hurry if they want to survey "living survivors" of that time.

Some would be considered quite conservative - Frank Zeidler, who was an active member of the Lutheran Chuch, had serious questions about abortion and about homosexuality. Whatever it was that we put together in 1973 it was very deeply "multi-tendency" and emphatically (for better or worse) involved people who were Christian socialists, or who thought of themselves simply as socialists. I don't know that Frank Zeidler, for example, thought of himself as a social democrat or a revolutionist.

I offer these points not in arguement but simply to help set the historic record straight. And with best personal wishes.

Fraternally,
David McReynolds