by Owen Schacht
There was a time wherein the word socialism, its variety of meanings and interpretations, was accepted and understood in the American political sphere as it was globally. It was the notion that communities, rather than private individuals, ought to own the means of production, distribution, and exchange; while varying in ideas of how to achieve that end, this was the consensus among most socialists and non-socialists. Yet, in the wake of the Trump presidency, there has been a vitriolic campaign of distortion, which revives earlier traditions of demonization in American political history. One commentator has written, “after the American socialist movement crumbled in the 1920s, the right compacted the word into a single term of abuse. It became ‘The S-Word.’”
Socialism became a threat, a menace, an assault, a con, a swindle, an undermining, the “the road to serfdom,” and it represented the destruction of American values: God, country, the work ethic, Christianity, and primary care. Since that time, the degree to which socialist ideology, theory and practice, has been misconstrued, demonized, and stripped of its earlier meanings and associations is innumerable. To de-historicize the word, the word had to become a shibboleth.
Writer Geoff Nunberg disagrees with the anti-socialism campaign. “But the S-word isn’t quite as spine-chilling now, particularly to millennials. They have no memory of the Cold War. They can’t tell you what the second S in USSR was for (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). And the fall of the Berlin Wall is just one of a mash of ’80s film clips, along with the Exxon Valdez, Pac-Man, and Boy George.”
It is important to note that one cannot and ought not to claim a voice for “the socialist position,” as socialism describes a wide variety of ideologies and beliefs that have manifested throughout history and geography; there is no “socialist position” per se. Socialism generally serves as the umbrella term to encompass those who disagree with the laissez-faire capitalism economic system. Socialism can refer to a variety of economic and political ideologies centered around the idea that the community as a whole should own the means of production.
Socialist beliefs are the products of capitalism’s atrocities; socialism is capitalism’s shadow.
Professor Richard Wolff, an economist known for his Marxism and critical class analysis (a professor to be quoted routinely in this text and who I also had the privilege of speaking to about this topic), states on the first page of his book, Understanding Socialism, that many socialists would argue that “socialism is a kind of yearning for a better life than what capitalism permits for most people.”
Wolff writes: “By ‘doing better,’ socialists mean many things. One is having work that is more socially meaningful, less physically and environmentally destructive, and more secure in delivering an adequate income for yourself and your family than what is generally available in capitalist societies. Another is having the lifelong education, leisure, and civil freedoms to pursue real participation in politics, intimate and friendship relationships, and cultural activities of your choice. Socialists want to be able to explore and develop their full potential as individuals and members of society while contributing to its welfare and growth.”
Professor Wolff informed me that to discuss and address socialism, one must first acknowledge its rich diversity, whatever aspect is to be analyzed is located within the complexity of socialism and is presented as one’s own interpretation rather than representative of the entirety of socialist thought.
Socialism will not be the end-all be-all; it will not solve every problem that the world has and certainly new problems will arise. In the short history that this ideology has existed, some have acted atrociously and done so in the name of socialism.
According to Wolff, “In the name of socialism, individuals, groups, movements, parties, and governments have sometimes acted in ways that other socialists and non-socialists have found unjustified or even horrific.” This “indictment of socialism” certainly applies to concepts such as Christianity, or democracy, and freedom as well, but it is no excuse for the crimes that have been “taken in the name of socialism.”
There have been historical moments when socialists became intolerant and persecuted others. Some nations, controlled by communist parties, with the goal of later achieving a communist society, have been murderous of political opposition, like the Bolsheviks in Russia during the Red Terror in 1918. A continuation of this atrocious response to political opposition occured in Mao’s China and Pol Pot’s Cambodia as well.
Criticism is a valuable and necessary tool for societies to learn and improve in the future. Wolff articulates that the transition to socialism is necessary for the progress of the human race. In Understanding Socialism, Wolff says, “Stalin and Pol Pot are stains on the history of socialism that it must account for and reject. The Spanish Inquisition, missionaries’ misdeeds, holy wars against infidels, and countless wars among different interpretations are parallel stains on Christianity. Centuries of colonialism, the slave trade, world war, and mass poverty in the midst of great wealth stain capitalism.” In Wolff’s reading of history, dirty business is always dirty. That shouldn’t excuse socialism.
Socialist yearnings and advocacy for transition from capitalism to socialism does not guarantee absolute prosperity nor does it guarantee all socialist goals to be achieved and none abused. However, as Wolff outlines, “The abolition of slavery did not mean freedom was achieved and never subsequently abused. Likewise, the end of serfdom by a revolutionary transition to capitalism did not guarantee liberty, equality, and fraternity for all. Nonetheless, the passing of slavery and of feudalism were important, necessary, positive steps for humanity. Socialists argue the same for the transition from capitalism to socialism. Indeed, socialists today, across nearly all their different streams and interpretations, recognize that the tradition benefits as much from acknowledging abusive usages of socialism (not to be repeated) as from celebrating and building successful usages.”
The pathway to a prosperous future for all people rests upon the education of the masses. It is my goal to dispel some of the misinterpretations and fallacies that have arisen in the last century.
Socialism as an ideology is continually reborn as the problems of capitalism, notably its inequality and cyclical instability, remain issues unsolved. In the words of professor Wolff, “A particular burden for today’s new generation of socialists arises from the last half century’s taboo on socialism, especially in the United States. That taboo left a legacy of ignorance about socialism in general and about its many profound changes over the last 50 years.”
So what is socialism?
Before discussing the breadth of socialism, one must first address the notion of an economy. Any economy is composed of the set of ways and means to produce, distribute, and consume goods as well as services that people in a community need or want. The food we eat, clothing we wear, shelter we live in, amusements, transportation, and many more things comprise the needs and desires of the community. Labor combined with the tools, equipment, and workplaces as the input to produce goods and services as the output. Prior to production, resources (land, water, space) must be distributed to workplaces to be made available to laborers as production inputs. Following production, the outputs (goods and services) must be distributed to those individuals who consume the products. Wolff said that, “an economy comprises the production and distribution of productive resources and production’s outputs.”
This is where capitalism and socialism diverge. Under the ideology of socialism, the whole community of people served by, and living with, or in, an economy participate democratically in producing and distributing goods and services. In some ways, Wolff repeats the case made by Marx and Engels in The Communist Manifesto.
Marx and Engels gave us some of the classic notions we hold today. A democratic organization of the workplace was not possible under feudalism or under various slave systems. A slave economic system was divided into masters and slaves. The masters being the people who control and literally own the productive inputs, the laborers being one of those inputs. Under feudalism, the economy was divided into lords and serfs. Serfs were not property as people were in slavery, yet their social positions were determined based on the fuedal positions of their family. This entails that children of serfs were usually serfs and the same applies to lords and their children. Similar to masters, lords maintained extreme social dominance and power that was derived from their position in relation to production and distribution. The masters and lords are the few while the slaves and serfs remain the many.
Nor was it possible under capitalism.
Capitalism as an economic system differs from slavery, fuedalism, and certainly socialsm. Under capitalism, the economy and its participants are divided into employers and employees. Employers are the few; employees are the many. The employers both direct and control the employees’ work in regard to the production and distribution of goods and services. The employee is not any person’s property, nor are they bound to the land/employer of their parents. The freedom of the “proletariat,” the workers, is illusory. These individuals are “free” insofar as they can voluntarily enter into a contract to work for any employer they choose, who is hiring employees. Hiring can be referred to as the purchase of an employee’s “labor power” – a person’s ability to work over a specific period of time. Labor power is purchased with money called a “wage.” Wages did not exist in slavery or feudalism, as work did not require a labor contract.
In Das Kapital, Volume 1, Marx outlined a fundamental injustice – exploitation – located in capitalism’s core employer/employee relationship. Wolff says that “exploitation, in Marx’s terms, describes the situation in which employees produce more value for employers than the value of wages paid to them. … Yearning for a better society, socialists increasingly included demands for the end of exploitation, replacing the employer/employee relationship with an alternative production organization in which employees functioned democratically as their own employer.”
The development of capitalism provoked a perspective which named itself socialism. In this view, capitalism had not broken free from slavery, fuedalism, and monarchy nearly as much as its advocates champion or imagined. Wolff articulates that “slavery had masters/slaves, feudalism had lords/serfs, and monarchy had kings/subjects as key sources of their inequalities, lack of freedom, oppression, and conflicts. The employer/employee relation of production in capitalism generated parallel problems.” What Wolff argues, as a continuation of Marx, is that “Capitalism installed monarchies inside individual workplaces, even as monarchies outside workplaces were rejected. Kings mostly disappeared, but inside each workplace the owners or their designated boards of directors assumed king-like powers. Capitalism proclaimed democracy outside workplaces, where people resided, but banned it from inside its workplaces.”
Some writers believe that socialism protests against all of the dichotomies: slave/master, serf/lord, subject/king, and employee/employer. The ideology seeks the abolition of such dichotomies in favor of democratically self-governing communities of equals. Socialists insist that democracy ought to apply to the economy as well as to politics. They see an impossibility of having politics be genuinely democratic if it rests on a non-democratic economic basis. The corruption common to all political systems resting on capitalist economies – endlessly experienced, regularly exposed, and constantly reproduced – is their proof. The inequalities inherent to all capitalist economies are protected, and thus reproduced because even a formally democratic politics disproportionately empowers capitalism’s employer class.
The rapid spread of socialism across the world throughout the last two centuries brought the ideology to societies with vastly different histories, economic development, cultures, and so forth, thus many different interpretations of socialism have emerged. In each country on the planet where capitalism ruled supreme, there were those individuals who were being exploited and forced to deal with the consequences of capitalism. In each country where capitalism existed there was a portion of the population who were discontent with the power dichotomy and sought a change for the better. Each place was different, thus the forms of exploitation were different and to varying extents, the human relationships and people involved were different, the cultures and socially constructed ideals were different, and because of that, socialism manifested itself in various ways. How, specifically, to organize socialism and achieve the transition from capitalism to socialism have always been key issues of disagreement and discourse among socialists. Not every socialist will agree with the definitions, goals, and policies provided by other self-proclaimed socialists, and the same is true for communists alike.
The socialists of 19th century Europe tended to embrace, at least initially, the same key slogans of the French and American revolutions like liberty, equality, fraternity, and democracy. What caused distress for these socialists and pushed them to advocate for economic democracy was that they felt existing capitalism had failed to achieve the ideals championed by the revolutionaries. Here’s why, argues Bob Montera, a high school history teacher: “capitalism was seen as a triumph of liberal values and liberal meant champions of economic and political choices rooted in individualism; but individualism bred abusive power and greed and that worked against community. The ‘communists’ or ‘socialists’ were anti-capitalist in that capitalism ‘destroyed community’ and communism would be ‘communal’ and restore human relationships.”
Socialism was demanding people to go further, to be more “progressive,” but most importantly to realize liberty, equality, fraternity, and democracy. If capitalism failed to move forward in that direction, then it was necessary for it to be pushed aside for a superior economic system. This led to an ongoing family of terms of which all are recognized as “socialist.” One faction took it upon themselves and concerned themselves with developing a view of socialism around certain images, sketches, or even functioning models of a desired post-capitalist society. This entailed cooperative workplaces, collectivist communities, anti-individualist kinship groups, and more which all comprised a social model which inspired the “utopian” socialists.
Some examples of utopian socialists include Robert Owen and his New Lanark community, Charles Fourier and his Phalanstery, as well as Etienne Cabet and his worker cooperatives. These and the like utopians of the 19th century felt that the most effective manner to achieve this progress beyond the capitalism of that time was to have people living in those systems see and experience anticipations of future socialism. The construction and promotion of these anticipations became a significant strategy to win supporters for a transition from capitalism to socialism. Montera suggests, “One can get a sublime taste of their thinking in Robert Heilbroner’s classic work The Worldly Philosophers.”
Other socialists globally had shifted their lens and maintained emphasis elsewhere. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engeles offered “scientific” socialism as a critique of both capitalism and utopian socialism. These scientifics made the argument that an idealistic utopia would not be conducive to revolutions against capitalism nor the transition from it to socialism. Instead, Marx and Engeles stated that such transformation would only emerge once “the tensions, conflicts, and crises resulting from capitalism’s internal contradictions produced the desire and capacity for social change among a part of the population that could achieve that change.”
This part of the population, for Marx and Engeles, represented the industrial proletariat – the working class – who were allied with intellectuals who understood the future dangers that were and are inherent to capitalism’s internal contradictions.
During the end of the 19th century in Europe, a new discussion arose among socialists over reform versus revolution. This question was a matter of whether transition would occur and be furthered best by accumulated reforms of capitalism, or rather would a sharp, clean break by means of revolution be required? This is now considered the debate between “evolutionary” and “revolutionary” socialism. Evolutionary reform from capitalism was advocated for by people such as the German socialist Eduard Bernstein, who emphasized a “parliamentary” socialism in which he advocated for socialists to contest in elections and engage electoral coalitions around reforms of capitalism, while simultaneously arguing and pushing always for further social transformation to a new, better society. This method suggests the acquisition of state power through the apparatus that is the political party and to use that to transition from capitalism to socialism in a manner that could not be obstructed by capitalists and its champions.
Contrary to the “evolutionary” socialists, there were the “revolutionaries” such as Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg. Wolff argues that they “countered that capitalists would never relinquish their wealth and power without resorting to extreme measures, including mass violence. In the revolutionaries’ view, it was naïve and foolish not to anticipate and prepare for those reactions to socialist advances.”
Such socialists would argue that it is always appropriate and necessary to analyze the internal contradictions and tensions within capitalism to identify moments when revolutionary ruptures were possible. Similarly to how the English, American, and French Revolutions were key events in the European transition beyond feudalism to capitalism, such socialists anticipated parallel revolutions for the transition from capitalism to socialism. There has been much debate discussing the most effective path to reach socialism and there is sometimes a proclaimed “middle ground.” A middle ground which may suggest commitments to reforms but always with an explicit caveat that reforms would never be secure until a basic change to socialism had been accomplished, which required a revolutionary break.
During the 19th century there were attempts at revolution and socialist parties which began to proliferate prior to the Russians in the early 20th century. The Paris Commune of 1871 showed, though for a brief 6 weeks before French military forces violently ended it, that a community could work together to establish a democratic government with progressive policies, separation of Church and state, and labor rights for workers. The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) began in 1863 and immediately pushed for welfare programs and the better treatment of workers. They had 90 daily newspapers and in addition to advocating for Germany’s workers they aided women’s and youth organizations. Henry Mayers Hyndman established Britain’s first organized socialist political party in 1881: The Social Democratic Federation. This party diverged into The Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904. Currently, the most prominent political party on the left in Great Britain is the Labour Party. Places where socialist and left-leaning political parties did not see parliamentary appearances, or in places that lacked sufficient democratic means, still maintained organizers and advocates for “something better.” Wherever industry took advantage of the labor of its workers, where conditions were dangerous and wages were nearer to slavery than survival wages, socialism (even if it did not take the name) reprersented those seeking better than capitalism.
The birth of the 20th century came with it, the Russian revolution of 1917, which became the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, led by worker’s “soviets” loyal to Lenin, which created the basis for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which spawned the world’s first government committed to socialism. From its onset, the USSR was highly provocative and caused much debate among socialists.
The disputes tended to focus on whether the Soviet leaders’ decisions were properly applying pre-1917 socialist ideas and principles. The question arose, did the Soviets under Lenin steal the revolution from Marx or from proper socialism?
Socialism now existed in two distinct, yet connected, contexts and provided two “social projects.” There were socialists living and working inside still-capitalist countries, who continued to focus on the mobilization of workers for transformation to socialism. The other cohort was socialists living and working in the USSR who focused on constructing, protecting, and strengthening a socialist economy, society, and government. Many of these socialists living in the second cohort appealed to their comrades in capitalist countries to prioritize the defense and support of socialism’s “first country,” the USSR. This caused a split in socialists globally.
The socialists who chose to support the Soviet interpretation tended to change their title to “communists” and subsequently broke away to form communist political parties. The socialists who were skeptical or critical of Soviet actions and speech maintained the title of “socialist.” Both terms, socialist and communist, have come to mean many things; many communists claim that their actions are in the pursuit of a communist society, one that is stateless, classless, and moneyless while others believe that places like the USSR have achieved communism and embody its ideals despite it: A) being a state, B) having a class system, and C) having money. Wolff says that “debates swirled openly among multiple socialist and communist parties, and also (usually less openly) within them, over whether and how the USSR embodied, distorted, or betrayed socialism. Those debates continued even after the USSR imploded in 1989.”
Vladimir Lenin was at the helm of the USSR at its outbreak and he took the position that the accomplishment of the 1917 revolution was called “state capitalism.” This entailed that socialists had achieved and sustained state power and used it to displace private capitalists from their enterprise positions. The USSR had nationalized industry and had state functionaries in the place formerly occupied by private capitalist boards of directors.
Professor Wolff argues that “the employer/employee structure of capitalism had been retained, but who the employers were had been changed.” This new form of economy, state capitalism, now had to be considered alongside private capitalism and socialism amidst debate.
However, following Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924, there emerged a split in the Soviet leadership between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin, and the emergence of Stalin as a dominant leader forever changed socialist debates. One of, if not the most, consequential early decisions Stalin made was to declare that the USSR had achieved socialism. What had been referred to as ‘state capitalism’ under Lenin thus became “socialism.” Stalin proclaimed the USSR as the successfully achieved transition from capitalism to socialism, “the model for those seeking socialism everywhere.” While remaining a nation whose workplaces retained the dichotomy inherent to capitalism and lacking any sense of democracy in the workplace.
In the words of Professor Wolff, “whatever Stalin’s intent – perhaps to give the long-suffering Soviet people a sense that all their sacrifices had achieved their goal – his declaration had deeply problematic effects.
It identified socialism – for the world – with a social system at once poor, wracked with internal conflicts, and tightly controlled by a harsh political dictatorship. Socialism’s enemies have used this identification ever since to equate political dictatorship with socialism. Of course, this required obscuring or denying that (1) dictatorships have often existed in capitalist societies and (2) socialism has often existed without dictatorships. That obscuring and denying continues to this day.”
During the second half of the 20th century, up until 1989, socialism around the world had exhibited and experienced both its greatest successes and worst setbacks. In the ‘70s, the USSR had recovered from World War II to become the world’s second superpower, its citizens did not all live a lavish, luxurious life but nearly each person had a roof above their head, food to eat, and education to be had. The Russian Revolution transformed a Czarist autocracy with an illiterate countryside peasantry, into a nearly completely literate, industrial society that made some of the world’s foremost scientific advancements and industrial achievements in the world and in record time. Communist parties held significant power in Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, Vietnam, and beyond. Many anti-colonial movements were often injected with socialist ideas and led by socialists. The Cold War era of 1945 until 1991 was infused with many anti-colonial and anti-imperialist activists who were increasingly critical of systems such as racism and segregation which was endemic in the United States. These citizens who advocated support for civil rights movements during this era developed empathetic tendencies which caused them to not only rally behind the exploited black population but the exploited labor population and exploited citizens of countries targeted by the United States. The 1975 defeat of the United States in Vietnam served as a sort of peak for modern socialism.
The socialism/communism split that was developed following the 1917 revolution meant that socialism, or more specifically “democratic socialism” (often referred to as social democracy) planted its roots in the North and West of Europe. What socialism means, in this context – as argued by Professor Wolff, is that you “leave enterprises in their private capitalist form (employer/employee), yet it remains socialism because you superimpose a government, which is given considerable power to make this capitalism serve a whole host of social functions, which is not done in the United States, and done less so in Great Britain than the rest of the European continent.” In these regions the workplaces were still primarily dominated and controlled by private capitalists, however, the government would control and operate some major industries such as banks and transport while simultaneously emphasizing heavy taxation and regulation of the economy. Most European countries have successfully implemented aspects of socialism into its life as socialist parties have procured a seat at the political table, and sometimes the head of said table, such as in Portugal. There, the Socialist Party has the most representation in parliament followed by the Social Democratic Party and is trailed by the several smaller parties such as the Communists, People’s Party, and The Greens. In Germany, secondary education is 100% free at the point of service for all citizens and non-citizens, meaning that anyone who desires an education may receive one without having to take on back-breaking loans or second and third jobs. In France, not only do its citizens receive numerous social benefits, but (unlike Americans) receive a percentage breakdown of where their taxes go when they pay their bill. Citizens in France, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Italy, and many more European nations are happy to pay slightly more in taxes while receiving a well-developed financial safety net for all citizens and the closer prospect of equal opportunity for all. These people generally are not pushed to the ends of the Earth struggling for work to survive, rather the means to survival are provided and people are permitted to act in accordance to their desires and encouraged to build a supportive community. Finally, most European countries – upwards of 25 – have a universal healthcare system in which people are provided healthcare on the basis of necessity not commodity. In Europe, citizens are not tasked with deciding whether or not to visit the doctor on an economic basis but on a needs basis – if one is in need of medical assistance, it is provided. Healthcare and education are two of many socialized programs that have aided in the prosperity of these nations. The taxes may tend to be higher, but no one has to spend fortunes on things like tuition, health insurance, and child-care because the majority of their taxes do not go towards buying tanks, missiles, and shiny new paint jobs on AC-130 Gunships.
While socialism was developing, maturing, and growing across Europe, it took a peculiarly skewed view in the United States. The people in the United States who were adamantly against socialism as well as much of the population, came to the understanding that the terms “socialist,” “communist,” “anarchist,” “Marxist,” and for many also “liberal,” were synonymous. As far as anyone was concerned, each of these words had only one meaning: they were all “anti-American” thus, they need not to be distinguished from one another.
As professor Wolff states, “This unusual perspective was partly the fruit of an admittedly poor education system unbalanced by Cold War ideological imperatives. Waves of McCarthyite opposition to communism – as well as left-wing, center-left, and even liberal politics – have swept through the US since the mid 1940s, faded in some parts of the country while remaining strong in others. Such opposition has resurfaced again now in the Trump era. Those waves effectively destroyed the US communist and socialist parties to an extent rarely equaled elsewhere after World War II. The repressions also taught large portions of the US public to suspect, dismiss, demonize, and avoid all the synonyms equally.”
Anti-communism in the United States following World War II was pervasive, it prevented socialism from even being taught in most schools – and when it was mentioned, it was dismissive and brief. Throughout the 1950’s teachers were routinely fired and arrested for being known socialist sympathizers, because of that they needed to prove anti-socialist and anti-communist credentials by a continous demonization of all socialist institutions. Even US labor unions were disrupted by anti-communist sentiments and forced to turn against “often their most militant members and organizers.”
Former President Harry S. Truman made a speech in Syracuse, New York in 1952 which applies as readily today as it did 70 years ago. He commented on socialism and said this:
“Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people. When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan ‘Down With Socialism’ on the banner of his ‘great crusade,’ that is really not what he means at all. What he really means is ‘Down with Progress – down with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal,’ and ‘down with Harry Truman’s fair Deal.’ That’s all he means.”
Just as people did not have a true grasp on the reality of socialism in 1952, the same applies to the population of today. As per a Gallup poll from 2018, which displayed the differences in Americans’ understanding of the term “socialism” in 1949 and in 2018, the two most popular responses was the idea of equality (equal standing for everybody, all equal in rights, equal in distribution) and of government ownership and control of everything. This is the complete table of responses:
Socialism’s origins in the United States is often associated with Victor Berger, an Austrio-Hungarian born intellectual and worker who later moved to the United States and was the first declared socialist to be elected to the United States Congress. Berger, as a new politicized immigrant, was arrested for union organizing and conducting strikes for the advocacy of Railway workers. He later won election to the House of Representatives in 1910 in the state of Wisconsin after creating the American Socialist Party in 1897. During his time in Congress (1911-1913, 1919-1919, 1923-1929) he expressed anti-war sentiments, fought for labor rights, and was recognized “as a man who was sincere in his belief and a pleasant, courteous gentleman.” As an anti-war candidate, he won re-election in 1918, however was denied his seat due to his active opposition to U.S. participation in World War I. Because of this he was prosecuted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Perhaps the best known socialist to US history students is Eugene V. Debs, a labor organizer and the first Socialist Party candidate to run for president of the US. Between the years of 1900 and 1920 Debs ran five times. Debs was from the Indiana heartland of America and was the embodiment of the growing power of skilled union activists in the labor movement and mass politics. In the 1900 presidential election he received a mere 96,000 votes, however, in the following cycle he increased his votes to reach 400,000 in 1904. By 1920 he had accumulated 915,000 votes for that term. Unfortunately, and ironically, his 1920 presidential run (and most successful, in terms of number of votes) occurred while he was serving a prison sentence. Similarly to Berger, it was because of his anti-war sentiments. He was released in 1921 by presidential order but was still stripped of U.S. citizenship. Due to the harsh prison conditions and adverse health, Debs died in 1926 and was only restored his citizenship posthumously, in 1976. Debs’ most profound influence, some have said, was on presidential candidate Norman Thomas, during the 1930s and 1940s.
Due to the success of the American Socialist Party and maintaining 6% of the vote, 900,000 at the time, tensions rose amongst members of the US Justice Department. Following World War I came massive inflation, unemployment, strikes, and race riots. But the broader world was also changing. The Russian Revolution in 1917 changed the field of play with the creation of the first “socialist” nation. What had been a “potential” for revolution had now been realized. Damaged capitalist economies were suddenly vulnerable to communist as well as extreme nationalist threats. 1919, in the midst of a pandemic, was a year of chaos, and on “May Day” (also known as International Workers’ Day) there were a series of 36 explosive packages that were sent to politicians and appointees. One package was sent to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer which – coupled with the fact that Lenin proclaimed world revolution and attempted to spread his ideology beyond Soviet borders (much like the U.S. does globally) – led him to believe that there was a Bolshevik conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America. What followed has been later named the Palmer Raids, the Red Raids, or the First Red Scare. It began on November 7, 1919 when U.S. federal and local authorities conducted a raid on the headquarters of the Union of Russian Workers in New York City and arrested over 200 workers. On December 21, 249 individuals were packed into the USS Buford and deported to Russia. On January 2, 1920, the climax of the Palmer Raids occurred. Thousands of people (estimates anywhere from roughly 3,000 to 15,000) were arrested across more than 30 US cities. The next day, more raids were conducted and more individuals were arrested and deported. In all of the Palmer Raids, arrests greatly exceeded the number of warrants that had been obtained from the courts, and many of those arrested were guilty of nothing more than having a foreign accent.
When Stalin came to power in 1928 he proclaimed “not worldwide revolution, but socialism in one country,” which led to a de-escalation of anti-Soviet talks. The growing Nazi menace led to a series of “popular fronts” in which communist and democratic parties worked in tandem. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt extended diplomatic recognition to the USSR in 1933, however this also represents the period in which FDR was accused of socialist leanings or being a closet communist – some viewed the New Deal to be a simple cover to hide a global conspiracy. Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill were the major 3 allied leaders of WWII, but that wartime alliance further created accusations of “conspiracy.” Wartime cooperation was not always easy but it was extensive. The Soviets received massive American aid under FDR’s Lend Lease policy and the Yalta Conference was seen by American conservatives as far too conciliatory. Thus, the post-war environment was partially poisoned by old accusations in new bottles.
The second Red Scare refers to the fear of communism that permeated American politics, culture, and society from the late 1940s through the 1950s, during the opening phases of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The term McCarthyism came to prominence during the 1950’s in which a senator from the state of Wisconsin conducted a series of investigations and hearings to attempt to “expose” the communist infiltrators of our government. Joseph McCarthy, elected to the Senate in 1946, made a speech in 1950 in West Virginia claiming that there were 57 communists which had infiltrated the State Department. This second Red Scare existed prior to and long after Joseph McCarthy, yet McCarthyism has come to represent the tactic in which one undermines political opposition by making unsubstantiated claims and attacks regarding one’s loyalty to the United States. He regularly investigated the CIA, the State Department, and other government departments while making “colourful and cleverly presented accusations” which drove many people out of their jobs and served to bring about condemnation from others. The “McCarthy hearings” consisted of 36 days of televised investigative hearings led by McCarthy in 1954 to investigate espionage and communist sympathy within the highest and lowest levels of government. This moment marked the peak and downfall of McCarthy’s spotlight as his credibility diminished following the hearings, however, anti-communism persevered and maintained for many years to come.
“For many, communism, socialism, Marxism, anarchism, and more recently terrorism, are all noxious anti-American ideologies and practices that differ only in their spelling. From the mid-1940s until Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign for president, any candidate accepting the label ‘socialist’ thereby risked political suicide,” says Wolff. It has been a usual occurrence for nearly all government activity (apart from the military) to be attacked as socialist (some examples being: the post office, Amtrak, Medicare, and Medicaid). Wolff also states that, following the end of the Cold War, “countless Soviet scholars could and did explain that the USSR was socialist – or even state capitalist – and merely hoped one day to develop further into communism. Nonetheless, few in the US paid attention. For most, either word applied synonymously. Such was not the case in Europe, where most people knew from family, neighbors, newspapers, and so on, what rough boundaries separated socialists from communists.”
The post World War II era viewed the economic surge of Western capitalism as supreme ascendency, and with the collapse of the world’s first socialist state as well as its allies, that view of ascendency was reinforced greatly. As Wolff says, “the 20th century’s struggle between capitalism and socialism seemed over, won definitively by capitalism. The future would be perpetual capitalist growth benefiting all. Warning signs – including the hard historical fact that capitalism has suffered costly, periodic boom-and-bust cycles across its history – were widely ignored. Both government and corporate debts accumulated, and new populations were introduced to the joys of consumer debts. Many thought it need never end, but it did in 2007 and 2008 when debt bubbles burst and took down the global capitalism system.” The megabanks and megacorporations deemed “too big to fail” suddenly ceased their bashment of government as “wasteful, inefficient burdens on the private sector’s back.” They begged for multi-trillion dollar bailouts of government money (the people’s money) which were given to the corporations as they have maintained extreme political power. Wolff states that, “they financed huge bailouts with massive additional government debts. Once done, governments decided to rein in the exploding debts by imposing austerity – at least slowing, if not reducing, government spending and borrowing. Public employment, pensions, and public services beame major targets for cuts. After its global crash in 2008-2010, capitalism’s veneer was badly broken and a renewed socialism burst forth. In the US, the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 included explicit and self-confident affirmations of both anti-capitalism and pro-socialism convictions in ways not seen in the prior half century of mass social movements. Then Bernie Sanders’ breakthrough 2016 campaign, in which he ran for president as an explicit ‘democratic socialist,’ returned socialism to a place within major portions of public discourse about US politics and society.”
Modern day America is vastly different from the fear driven culture of the Cold War. People like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and some others have been working tirelessly to achieve basic dignities and liberties for often underrepresented and overlooked communities. Wolff said to me that the 21st century inequalities of the United States and the wealth gap is something not seen since the times of the Ancient Egyptians and Pharaohs. As increasingly larger numbers of Americans had to experience the harsh realities of capitalism and perhaps sought something better they turned to a senator from Vermont who has dedicated his life’s work to advocating for those who lack the voice to do so and trying to create a better America for all of its people.
In 2016, Sanders proved that politicians can run and win using the title “socialist” – his campaign was not a fluke, but rather the evidence of a changing ideological base of American voters.
Labeled “radical” by both Fox News and MSNBC alike, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez believes “that in a modern, moral and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live.” AOC and “the Squad” are powerful representatives of the American people who ought to use their collective power to enact even more good than they have already advocated for and achieved.
New Squad member and freshman representative for New York’s 16th congressional district, Jamaal Bowman, stated in an interview that “[he] believes capitalism is slavery by another name.” We have learned a lot from the revolutions of the 20th century, and the new socialists of today will use those lessons learned to create a better tomorrow for the people of today.
Former labor secretary Robert Reich stated:
“If we don’t want to live in a survival-of-the-fittest society in which only the richest and most powerful can endure, government has to do three basic things: regulate corporations, provide social insurance against unforeseen hardships, and support public investments such as schools and public transportation. All of these require that we pool our resources for the common good. Regardless of whether this is called democratic socialism or enlightened capitalism, all are necessary for a decent society.
Finally, America spends very little on social programs compared to other industrialized nations. As a result, almost 30 million Americans still lack health insurance, nearly 51 million households can’t afford basic monthly expenses including housing, food, child care, and transportation. And we’re the only industrialized nation without paid family leave.
Our infrastructure is literally crumbling, our classrooms are overcrowded, and our teachers are paid far less than workers in the private sector with comparable education.
We can and must do more.
So don’t let them scare you with words like ‘socialism.’ These policies are just common sense.”
Professor Richard Wolff articulates the necessity of understanding this ideology:“In each country on earth, socialism exists, advances, and retreats. It processes the lessons and bears the scars of its history there. Yet each country and its socialism are also shaped by socialism’s global history: by now a richly accumulated tradition of many diverse streams (interpretations, tendencies, etc.). They reflect its two centuries of gains and losses, successes and failures, declines and rebirths, and critical responses to capitalism’s shifting fortunes and contradictions. Socialism’s repeated revivals, like its global spread, attest to its deep relevance to a troubled capitalist world, past and present. We need to understand socialism because it has shaped, and will continue to shape, us all. It is the greatest assemblage we possess of the thoughts, experiences, and experiments accomplished by those yearning to do better than capitalism.”
Socialism is only idealistic or unpragmatic insofar as we allow for the inequalities, injustices, and exploitation to continue to occur. Sure, socialism is an idealistic ideology; its tenets are what we ought to work toward; an ideal is something to attempt to achieve, not run from. We ought to work towards a society in which we do not give excuses for the tragedies of today, rather we try to fix the problems from the root of its source: capitalism.
