A UNITED SOCIALIST TICKET IN THE NOVEMBER ELECTIONS Though the United States never had a mass Socialist Party on the scale of those in Europe, it possesses an old and too often forgotten Socialist electoral tradition. Beginning late in the last century, famed fighter Eugene Debs barnstormed the country in campaigns as extensive as those of the capitalist candidates, and received massive voting support. On the (provincial) level, Socialists were elected to legislatures, and the alas successful effort of the capitalists to prevent the elected Socialist "assemblymen" from taking their seats in the New York legislature provoked an immense scandal at the beginning of World War I. Even as late as the 1930s, in a revival of "radicalism" under the impact of 127:000 the depression, the reformist Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas was still receiving surprisingly big protest votes.,
The demagogy of Roosevelt changed all that. The Socialist vote dropped to derisory figures. The founding of the American Labor Party gave hope of a revival of independent anti-capitalist electoral activity on at least. the British model, but, largely under Stalinist influence, the new party rapidly became a mere appendage of the capitalist Democratic Party (two years ago the ALP was dissolved.) The potential socialist vote was atomized. A handful of ballots went to the Socialist Party or the Socialist-Labor Party the deLeonites. The Stalinists, apart from some occasional ultra-left zigzags, did everything they could to canalize possible socialist electoral sentiment into support of the Democratic Party, presented as the more "pro-labor" of the two capitalist
The Trotskyists, represented by the Socialist Workers Party, repeatedly entered candidates for various
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72 national, staie, and municipal offices, and, though isolated and slandered, strove courageously to uphold the banner of socialism on the electoral as on other planes; but though its campaigns, first for signatures to fulfil reactionary requirements for getting on the ballot, and then for election, carried the message of socialism to ever wider audiences who could otherwise not have been reached, , their votes 8,000 and highly creditable showing (usually between 20,000), were inevitably not ot a mass nature. But a change has been occurring in the USA of late. The great sleeping giant of American labor has not yet awakened politically, that is to say, no mass radicalization has spurred great masses of new elements to examine the socialist solution -save for some hopeful stirring among the youth. But among the already radicalized, there has been an extraordinary ebullience, especially since the crisis produced in the CP and its periphery by the XXth Congress of the CPSU and the Polish and Hungarian Octobers. Under the sign of "regroupment," incessant realignments have been taking place, characterized by a generally centripetal tendency, an instinctive search for some kind of unification of socialist forces. Not all the monkey-wrenches thrown into the gears by the semi-routed bureaucracy of the American CP have been able to halt this still confused but highly promising process. This situation has now found reflection on the electoral level as well. In late May, there was issued a call for a conference to form a united socialist electoral grouping, adopt a minimum socialist programme, and nominate candidates for the November elections. Among the sponsors were several former leaders of the defunct American Labor Party : Dr Corliss Lamont, lecturer at New York University; Mrs Muriel McAvoy, widow of the late Clifford McAvoy; Henry Adams; Annette Rubinstein; and John MacManus of the well-known leftist publication, National Guardian. Others were : Joyce Cowley, SWP mayoralty candidate in the 1957 New York elections; W E DuBois, noted Negro historian; Russ Nixon, officer of the United Electrical Workers Union; and Richard deHaan, chairman of the Young Socialist Alliance. Close to 500 people attended the conference, held in New York City from June 13th to 15th. The most intense discussion, lasting seven hours, centred on the question whether to run a "full ticket" (candidates| for five offices) or only one candidate. The latter position was presented by the CP leaders, who were already committed to supporting capitalist candidates, especially the notorious "cold-war" enthusiast Averill Harriman, multi-millionaire Democrat candidate for governor, and wanted only one purely symbolic candidacy to color up their otherwise class-collaborationist
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL policy. Seeing that they were going to be in a minority, they walked out before the end of the discussion, but many CP rank and file remained. The final vote was overwhelmingly in favor of a full slate of five. The programme, while largely of only minimum demands (plus an occasional transitional demand), does call tor socialism as ultimately the only solution. It is highly progressive in content, and above all offers the voters a clear sharp contrast with the "planks" of the two capitalist-party platforms, difficult to distinguish one from the other. The Jnited Independent-socialist programme calls tor : peacetul relations with the rest of the world, recognition of China, an end to the cold war, abandonment of foreign bases and withdrawal of troops, renunciation of military alliances; transformation of the arms budget into a peace budget for public works, repeal of taxes on all incomes below $ 10,000 a year, reduction of the working-week to 30 hours with no reduction in pay, unemployment benefits for the full period of joblessness and at full pay-scale, a moratorium on payments for goods purchased on credit, distribution of surpluses to the needy at home and abroad, state operation of shut-down plants under a management subject to election by their workers, planned trade exchanges with the Soviet bloc; an immediate end to racial discrimination, to "Jim Crow"; restoration of all civil liberties taken away by the witchhunt (an end to "subversive lists," to FBI snooping, to parliamentary "investigations," to refusal to grant passports), and restoration of civil rights and jobs to its victims; repeal of the anti-trade-union Taft-Hartley Act; formation of a mass labor party. The programme ends with a clear and well-reasoned exposé of what socialism can do for humanity and demonstration that it is nowise utopian, but perfectly feasible. The programme was adopted almost unanimously. Candidates were then chosen for the United IndependentSocialist slate. This first time, a campaign of collecting signatures will be necessary in order to place the new ticket on the ballot. But if it receives more than 50,000 votes in the November election, it will automatically remain thereon. The CPUSA attacks the new grouping on the grounds that the American workers are still unpoliticized and cling to the
Party, hence socialists must work within that party to influence their and its leftward development. The Social-Democratic Federation - Socialist Party terms it "totalitarian" because it does not savagely attack what it calls "Soviet imperialism." Obviously neither argument is serious enough to waste space to answer here. The Socialist Workers Party is giving the new electoral slate full backing, and its members have thrown themselves into its campaign with their proverbial energy and drive.
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