Socialist Labor Party of America

The Socialist Labor Party (SLP)^[2] is a political party in the United States. It was established in 1876, and was the first socialist party formed in the country.

"Socialist Labor Party" redirects here. For other uses, see Socialist Labor Party (disambiguation).

Socialist Labor Party

July 15, 1876 (1876-07-15)

Workingmen's Party of the United States

Mountain View, California

The Weekly People (1891–2011)

77^[1]

Marxism
Lassallism (until 1899)
De Leonism (after 1899)

Left-wing

Red

Originally known as the Workingmen's Party of the United States, the party changed its name in 1877 to Socialistic Labor Party^[3] and again sometime in the late 1880s to Socialist Labor Party.^[4] The party was additionally known in some states as the Industrial Party or Industrial Government Party.^[5] In 1890, the SLP came under the influence of Daniel De Leon, who used his role as editor of The Weekly People, the SLP's English-language official organ, to expand the party's popularity beyond its then largely German-speaking membership. Despite his accomplishments, De Leon was a polarizing figure among the SLP's membership. In 1899, his opponents left the SLP and merged with the Social Democratic Party of America to form the Socialist Party of America.

After his death in 1914, De Leon was followed as national secretary by Arnold Petersen. Critical of both the Soviet Union and the reformist wing of the Socialist Party of America, the SLP became increasingly isolated from the majority of the American Left. Its support increased in the 1950s and into the early 1960s, when Eric Hass was influential in the party, but slightly declined in the mid-1960s. The SLP experienced another increase in support in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but then subsequently declined at a fast rate with the party last nominating a candidate for president in 1976. In 2008, the party closed its national office and the party's newspaper The People ceased publications in 2011.

The party advocates "socialist industrial unionism", the belief in a fundamental transformation of society through the combined political and industrial action of the working class organized in industrial unions.

(The Warning) (1874–1924) – Chicago weekly. Predated the SLP, party organ 1876–1878. Broke with SLP for anarchism in the early 1880s.

Vorbote

(Worker's Voice) (1876–1878) – New York City weekly. Predated the SLP under the title Sozial-Demokrat. New York Public Library holds master negative film.

Arbeiter Stimme

(April 1876–December 1881) – New York City. Originally organ of the Social-Democratic Workingmen's Party of North America under title The Socialist. New York Public Library holds master negative film.

The Labor Standard

(c. 1877) – New York daily.

The Social Democrat

(May 1878 – 1879) – Cincinnati official organ with John McIntosh as editor.

The National Socialist

(1879–1883) – published in Detroit and New York City.

Bulletin of the Social Labor Movement

Der Sozialist

The Workmen's Advocate

(c. 1891) – German language. Pittsburgh weekly.

Pittsburgher Volkszeitung

Seán Cronin, "The Rise and Fall of the Socialist Labor Party of North America," Saothar, vol. 3 (1977), pp. 21–33. .

in JSTOR

(2008). Syndicalism and the Transition to Communism. Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-3617-5.

Darlington, Ralph

Nathan Dershowitz, Politics [New York], vol. 5, no. 3, whole no. 41 (Summer 1948), pp. 155–158.

"The Socialist Labor Party,"

Philip S. Foner, The Great Labor Uprising of 1877. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1977.

Philip S. Foner, The Workingmen's Party of the United States: A History of the First Marxist Party in the Americas. Minneapolis, MN: MEP Publications, 1984.

Frank Girard and Ben Perry, Socialist Labor Party, 1876–1991: A Short History. Philadelphia: Livra Books, 1991.

Howard Quint, The Forging of American Socialism: Origins of the Modern Movement: The Impact of Socialism on American Thought and Action, 1886–1901. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1953.

L. Glen Seratan, Daniel Deleon: The Odyssey of an American Marxist. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979.

James Andrew Stevenson, Daniel DeLeon: The Relationship of Socialist Labor Party and European Marxism, 1890-1914. PhD dissertation. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1977.

Charles M. White, The Socialist Labor Party, 1890-1903. PhD dissertation. University of Southern California, 1959.

Socialist Labor Party of America