Socialist Party Quotes
Zenzinov was often a critic of the Bolsheviks.
In 1924 Berger was the only Socialist Party congressman, but New York's Fiorello La Guardia, who had been denied the Republican renomination, won reelection as an Independent. The House clerk incorrectly listed La Guardia as a Socialist, and Berger jokingly referred to him as:
This to some is a surprising statement for a Marxist, but Marxists have a wide range of political opinions just like Republicans, Christians, and Factor Owners do.
Browder and the Communist Party were bothered that the Socialist Party had allowed a sect of American Trotskyites join their ranks.
The socialists were then the opposition party, and the conservative government was going to give tax rebates which would go mostly to the rich.
Comintern was upset by the American Socialist Party because the party had rejected the 21 Conditions for Affiliation and withdrew their intent to join the Third International. To Comintern, the Socialist Party was a party of “bourgeois socialism.”
What America just could not believe that American Negroes were not satisfied with their second class status. So any organized Negro unrest must be caused by un-American and foreign influences or those of radicals like Socialists. The Socialists were among the first organized political groups to condemn the racism and discrimination of the day. Later, even at the crux of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, most Southerners maintained that all the dissatisfaction and unrest of Negroes was the result of “agitators,” “foreigners,” “socialists,” and “communists.”
In the 1924 election the New York Republican Congressman had difficulty supporting the extremely conservative Republican party platform and its candidate, Calvin Coolidge. The party leaders insisted on his party loyalty if he was to be renominated:. La Guardia ran as an independent with support from the American Labor and Socialist parties and won reelection by his largest majority.
This is a very important historical, political quotation. The conservatives have since the Russian Revolution conflated socialism and communism. However, here in 1932 the leader of the American Socialist Party had already described the Communist Revolution in Russia as a failure of founding an acceptable modern state. Nonetheless, even into the 21st century many conservatives describe Thomas as a Communist. See {626692} for his distinction between Communism and Socialism. The difficulty of modern nation building was explained by Thomas and others but was really not accepted until the many attempts of the early 21st century, some supported by America like Iraq and Afghanistan and the Balkans and others like the “Arab Spring.” Then his early wisdom on this point became more appreciated.
Debs said he would seize them. The two views represent the classic left wing debate over whether nationalized property should just be seized or should far compensation be given. In countries like Cuba of the 1970s, factor owners who stayed and ran their factories under national control received compensation after time but those who left never did which is a type of middle ground.
The party was officially still in existence but it was becoming more irrelevant each year.
This was a great victory for the Victor Berger wing of the party. They purged the violence advocates and communists from the party. Despite this, a few right wingers call any socialist a communist and a revolutionary.
