Socialist party definition of Socialist party in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Socialist party, in U.S. history, political party formed to promote public control of the means of production and distribution. In 1898 the Social Democratic party was formed by a group led by Eugene V. Debs Debs, Eugene Victor, 1855–1926, American Socialist leader, b. Terre Haute, Ind. Leaving high school to work in the railroad shops in Terre Haute, he became a railroad fireman (1871) and organized (1875) a local of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen.
..... Click the link for more information. and Victor Berger Berger, Victor Louis, 1860–1929, American Socialist leader and Congressman, b. Austria-Hungary. After studying at the universities of Budapest and Vienna, he emigrated (1878) to the United States and settled in Milwaukee.
..... Click the link for more information. . Two years later, Debs ran for president with the support of the more moderate wing of the Socialist Labor party Socialist Labor party, in the United States, begun in 1877 by New York City socialists. Its membership came largely from German-American workingmen. During the 1880s a national organization was established and the party concentrated, unsuccessfully, on electoral
..... Click the link for more information. , and in 1901 this group, led by Morris Hillquit Hillquit, Morris, 1869–1933, American lawyer and Socialist leader, b. Riga, Latvia (then in Russia). He came to the United States in 1886. He was the leader of the right-wing, or constitutional, Socialists in their revolt against the radical leadership of
..... Click the link for more information. , united with the Social Democratic party to form the Socialist party. The new party differed from the more radical Socialist Labor party in favoring an evolutionary, as opposed to revolutionary, socialism, and it soon outsized the older organization.

The Socialist party did not show much electoral strength until 1910 and 1911, when its candidates won numerous state and local elections. In 1912, Debs received nearly 900,000 votes (6% of the votes cast) as the party's presidential candidate. The party reached its peak membership (nearly 120,000) in that year. Allan Benson ran for president in 1916, but his percentage of the national vote dropped to 3%. In 1917 the party opposed the American entry into World War I, with a small faction of dissenting prowar members seceding from the party. Debs and a number of others were arrested for their opposition to the war, although Debs ran for president in 1920 while imprisoned and received 920,000 votes. After serving part of his sentence he was pardoned by President Harding. Following the Russian Revolution, a substantial group within the party advocated that the organization drop its evolutionary and reformist position and work instead for the immediate overthrow of the capitalist system. In 1919 this faction withdrew from the party, thereby substantially weakening it, and formed the Communist party Communist party, in the United States, political party that espoused the Marxist-Leninist principles of communism .

Origins

The first Communist parties in the United States were founded in 1919 by dissident factions of the Socialist party.
..... Click the link for more information. of the United States.

In 1924 the Socialist party supported the Progressive party candidate for president, Robert La Follette Belle Case La Follette, 1859–1931, b. Juneau co., Wis., obtained a law degree, worked for woman suffrage, engaged in journalism, and ably advised her husband throughout his life. Their older son,

Robert Marion La Follette, Jr., 1895–1953, b. Madison, Wis.
..... Click the link for more information. , but in 1928 it once again nominated its own candidate, Norman Thomas Thomas, Norman Mattoon, 1884–1968, American socialist leader, b. Marion, Ohio; grad. Princeton (1905), Union Theological Seminary (1911). He served as pastor of several Presbyterian churches and did settlement work in New York City until 1918.
..... Click the link for more information. , who ran in the following five presidential elections. The party lost much of its support during the 1930s when the New Deal New Deal, in U.S. history, term for the domestic reform program of the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt ; it was first used by Roosevelt in his speech accepting the Democratic party nomination for President in 1932.
..... Click the link for more information. came into effect, implementing many programs that the Socialists had long demanded. Since then the party's influence has steadily declined. In the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections Darlington Hoopes ran as the Socialist candidate, receiving fewer than 2,500 votes in the latter election. Although other minor parties espousing socialism currently participate in national elections, the Socialist party decided in 1960 to withdraw from national politics and concentrate on education. Since the 1950s the party has reorganized and changed its name several times, with the main group taking the name Social Democrats, USA in 1972.

Bibliography

See W. B. Hesseltine, The Rise and Fall of Third Parties (1948, repr. 1957); I. Kipnis, The American Socialist Movement (1952, repr. 1972); D. Shannon, The Socialist Party of America (1955, repr. 1967); H. Nash, Jr., Third Parties in American Politics (1959); J. Weinstein, The Decline of Socialism in America, 1912–1925 (1967); R. W. Judd, Socialist Cities: Municipal Politics and the Grass Roots of American Socialism (1989).