The Proletarian Party of America (PPA) was a small communist political party in the United States, originating in 1920 and terminated in 1971. Originally an offshoot of the Communist Party of America, the group maintained an independent existence for over five decades. It is best remembered for carrying forward Charles H. Kerr & Co., the oldest publisher of Marxist books in America.
Charles Hope Kerr, was an American publisher and editor. A son of abolitionists, he was a vegetarian and Unitarian in 1886 when he established Charles H. Kerr & Co. in Chicago. His publishing career is noted for his views' leftward progression toward socialism and support for the Industrial Workers of the World.
The Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company is an American publishing company. The company was established in Chicago, Illinois, in 1886 as Charles H. Kerr & Co. by Charles Hope Kerr, originally to promote his Unitarian views. As Kerr's personal interests moved from religion to populism to Marxism and he became interested in the labor movement, the company's publications took a similar turn. During the 1920s Kerr ceded control of the firm to the Proletarian Party of America, which continued the imprint as its official publishing house throughout its four decades of organized existence.
The Socialist Propaganda League of America (SPLA) was established in 1915, apparently by C. W. Fitzgerald of Beverly, Massachusetts. The group was a membership organization established within the ranks of the Socialist Party of America (SPA) and is best remembered as direct lineal antecedent of the Left Wing Section of the SPA and its governing National Council — the forerunner of the American Communist movement. It published a journal, The Internationalist, renamed The New International in 1917, last published in 1919.
John Spargo was a British political writer who, later in life, became an expert in the history and crafts of Vermont. At first Spargo was active in the Socialist Party of America. A Methodist preacher he tried to meld the Protestant Social Gospel with Marxist socialism in Marxian Socialism and Religion: A Study of the Relation of the Marxian Theories to the Fundamental Principles of Religion (1915). He also founded a settlement house in Yonkers, N.Y. Spargo moved steadily to the right after 1917 when he supported American intervention in World War I. With AFL leader Samuel Gompers he organized the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy in 1917. Spargo helped draft the Colby Note that formalised the Wilson administration's anti-communist policies. He strongly denounced the Bolshevik Revolution in Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy (1919). He opposed the foreign policy of the New Deal, especially its recognition of the USSR in 1933. He supported the House Un-American Activities Committee in the late 1930s and Senator Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950s. He endorsed Barry Goldwater In the 1964 Elections.
Tie Vapauteen was a Finnish language monthly magazine published by Finnish members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the United States from 1919 to 1937. The magazine advanced an explicitly syndicalist position marked by Marxian class analysis. The magazine featured regular analysis of American industry, working life, and political commentary alongside poetry, fiction, and humor. The publication was also closely tied to the Finnish Work People's College in Duluth, Minnesota, and would occasionally publish contributions written by Work Peoples' College students.
The Finnish Socialist Federation was a language federation of the Socialist Party of America which united Finnish language-speaking immigrants in the United States in a national organization designed to conduct propaganda and education for socialism among their community.
Louis C. Fraina was a founding member of the Communist Party USA in 1919. After running afoul of the Communist International in 1921 over the alleged misappropriation of funds, Fraina left the organized radical movement, emerging in 1926 as a left wing public intellectual by the name of Lewis Corey. During the McCarthy era, deportation proceedings were initiated against Fraina-Corey. After a protracted legal battle, Corey died of a cerebral hemorrhage before the action against him was formally abandoned.
The New York Call was a socialist daily newspaper published in New York City from 1908 through 1923. The Call was the second of three English-language dailies affiliated with the Socialist Party of America, following the Chicago Daily Socialist (1906–1912) and preceding the Milwaukee Leader (1911–1938).
Louis B. Boudin was a Russian-born American Marxist theoretician, writer, politician, and lawyer. He is best remembered as the author of a two volume history of the Supreme Court's influence on American government, first published in 1932.
The Class Struggle was a bi-monthly Marxist theoretical magazine published in New York City by the Socialist Publication Society. The SPS also published a series of pamphlets, mostly reprints from the magazine during the short period of its existence. Among the initial editors of the publication were Ludwig Lore, Marxist theoreticians Louis B. Boudin and Louis C. Fraina, the former of whom left the publication in 1918. In the third and final year of the periodical, The Class Struggle emerged as one of the primary English-language voices of the left wing factions within the American Socialist Party and its final issue was published in 1919 by the nascent Communist Labor Party of America.
Walter Thomas Mills (1856–1942) was an American socialist activist, educator, lecturer, writer, and newspaper publisher. He is best remembered for the role he played in the Socialist Party of America during the first decade of the 20th Century as one of the leaders of the organization's moderate wing. He also was a key actor in the labor movement of New Zealand as a founder of the United Labour Party in 1912. He returned to the United States in 1914 with the advent of World War I and worked unsuccessfully to keep the country out of the bloody European conflict, eventually leaving the socialist movement in the 1920s.
Mary Edna Tobias Marcy was an American socialist author, pamphleteer, poet, and magazine editor. She is best remembered for her muckraking series of magazine articles on the meat industry, "Letters of a Pork Packer's Stenographer," as author of a widely translated socialist propaganda pamphlet regarded as a classic of the genre, Shop Talks on Economics, and as an assistant editor of the International Socialist Review, one of the most influential American socialist magazines of the first two decades of the 20th century.
Algie Martin Simons (1870–1950) was an American socialist journalist, newspaper editor, and political activist, best remembered as the editor of The International Socialist Review for nearly a decade. Originally an adherent of the Socialist Labor Party of America and a founding member of the Socialist Party of America, Simons' political views became increasingly conservative over time, leading him to be appointed on a pro-war "labor delegation" to the government of revolutionary Russia headed by Alexander Kerensky in 1917. Simons was a bitter opponent of the communist regime established by Lenin in November 1917 and in later years became an active supporter of the Republican Party.
For a number of decades after its establishment in August 1901, the Socialist Party of America produced or inspired a vast array of newspapers and magazines in an array different languages. This list of the Non-English press of the Socialist Party of America provides basic information on each title, along with links to pages dealing with specific publications in greater depth.
Anna Agnes Maley (1872–1918) was an American school teacher, journalist, newspaper editor, and political activist. One of a small number of top female leaders of the Socialist Party of America during the years prior to World War I, Maley is best remembered as the first woman to run for governor of Washington state in 1912.
The Socialist Labour Party was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1903 as a splinter from the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) by James Connolly, Neil Maclean and SDF members impressed with the politics of the American socialist Daniel De Leon, a Marxist theoretician and leading figure of the Socialist Labor Party of America. After decades of existence as a tiny organisation, the group was finally disbanded in 1980.
May Wood Simons was an American socialist writer, editor, teacher and economist. She developed nationally acclaimed programs for the assimilation of immigrants and the political education of women, and published several notable works, including "Women and the Social Problem" and "Outline of Civics". She and her husband were members of the Socialist Labor Party and she became a significant figure in the socialist movement as a lecturer and assistant editor of the Chicago Party Socialist (1907-1910). Simons was the translator of several books by German-speaking European Marxists, including Wilhelm Liebknecht and Karl Kautsky. Simons married fellow socialist Algie Martin Simons in 1897.
The Socialist Party of Missouri was the Missouri state section of the Socialist Party of America (SPA), an organization originally established in 1901 as a federation of semi-autonomous state organizations. The Missouri organization was the direct lineal descendant of the Social Democratic Party of Missouri, which emerged in 1898.
Bérmunkás was a Hungarian language newspaper published in the United States by the radical syndicalist trade union Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The paper was launched as a bi-weekly in November 1912. During the years of World War I American government repression of the IWW and its press forced the publication to make a series of name changes in an attempt to keep ahead of postal authorities. The original name was restored in 1923 and Bérmunkás continued until its eventual termination in 1953.
