Turning against CapitalismI. American Radicalism

A. American traditionsB. Foreign importsC. Explaining failure

II. New and Growing OrganizationsA. SocialistsB. CommunistsC. Other groups

III. 1930s UprisingA. Work and reliefB. Farm aidC. Jim Crow and Civil Rights

IV. SignificanceA. ImpactB. Problems

American Traditions

• Labor republicanism– Anti-slavery

movement– Knights of Labor

• Utopian Reform– Brook Farm, Oneida

• Radical Libertarianism– IWW

Imported Ideologies

• Anarchism• Communism

Perfect Storm• Reasons radicals had

failed

– Conservative society

– Upward mobility

– Corporate power

– Racial, ethnic divisions

– Seemed too foreign

• Impact of Depression

– Question old values

– Unemployment

– Business is weak

– Poverty elides differences

– Radicals adopt Am. idiom

Socialists

• Debs dies, 1926

• Replaced by Norman Thomas– Presbyterian minister– Reform background– Ivy-educated– All-American face for

ethnic party

Communists• Interlocking

organizations controlled by party apparatus

• Aggressively organize disaffected workers, unemployed, African Americans, & farmers

• Appeal to young idealists, artists, & actors

• Foster edged by Earl Browder– Midwestern– Middle-class– Smooth– All-American

Other groups

Milo Reno, pres. of the Farmers’ Holiday Association

Dorothy Day

Editor, The Catholic Worker

Work and Relief

• Unemployed Councils

• Trade Union Unity League

– Formerly Trade Union Education League

– Shifts strategy from “boring within” the AFL to independent unionism

• Ford Hunger March, 1932

Farm aid

• Block roads, threaten producers, announce strikes• Organize to prevent foreclosures• Communists form Sharecroppers’ Unions

Jim Crow & Civil Rights

• Scottsboro, AL 1931

Impact

• Popular uprisings put pressure on AFL and Democratic Party.

• Seek to capture dissent, prevent Communists from gaining support among farmers and workers.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

AFL pres. William Green

Problems• CP shows weak

commitment to democracy, freedom of thought

– Deviationism

– Purges

• Naiveté

– For some, faith in Marxism & the USSR turns into blind obedience to Stalin

– Some radicals become complicit in his crimes

Josef Stalin, circa 1910