Matt Andrews has asked us to confront our history, and I agree. Somehow, however, he feels from the post I saw, that Norman Thomas was somehow responsible for the failure of the Socialist Party in the 1960's to grow at a time when all around the US there was ferment.
I don't believe in hero worship, and I think I have made that clear. I do, however, want us t o confront the past as honestly as we can. The attacks on Norman Thomas bother me because it is part of a sectarian orientation that would demonize the "social democratic" elements in what is a genuinely broad tradition. When we speak about the tradition of Debs and Thomas we are talking about two different kinds of tradition, both clearly democratic as opposed to Trotskyist, Leninist, or Stalinist, but one being more clearly revolutionary and the other being more moderate. Both are part of our history.
Thomas was absolutely not responsible for our failures in the 1960's. He was then already elderly. He had carried our banner with courage and dignity through six Presidential elections. He had rallied our forces in the 1930's and helped make the Socialsit Party a genuine force from 1928 through the end of the 1930's. Virtually all radical politics in this country ceased during World War II and when the Cold War began almost immediately after the end of that war the Left - all of it - was deeply weakened, divided, shattered, demoralized.
The Communist Party was decimated. The Trotskyists increasingly irrelevent, and the Socialist Party reduced to a membership about as small as it is now. Thomas simply cannot be blamed for this.
Since "I was there" let me give a swift summary. Irwin Suall, a centrist who later went to the far right, then saw the chance for the Socialist Party to use the name of Thomas and rally the very elements Matt refers to - to make the Socialist Party a truly non-dogmatic "center" for a new and decent left. He thought (as did I) of the Socialist Party as a kind of "Village Voice" of the Left, which would not have a "party line", would welcome new thoughts, and give a home to the forces in the Civil Rights movement (the Vietnam movement hadn't yet begun).
Norman Thomas was happy to have his name used. He gave his support to bringing Shachtman into the Socialist Party - Shachtman entered with the promise that he would use the occasion of his joining to help bring in the group around Bert Cochran, to bring in the Gates people who had left the CP, and to really "open" to the emerging New Left.
Unhappily Shachtman didn't do this. Once "in" he closed and locked the door behind him and set about taking over the SP.
But to blame Thomas for this is really a gross exaggeration of the history of the 1960's. I refer comrades to Maurice Isserman's works on the New Left (I don't have the names of his books at hand).
Thomas was happy to be used by the New Left as a symbol, he spoke at the anti-war rallies.
So my first point is that Thomas did his best, as an old man in weakened health, to let his name be used by those of us who were then young. His actions were decent, honorable, and a little desperate as he saw the SP as little more than a tiny fraction of what it had been. Events, not Thomas, had reduced us. Events, not Gus Hall, had reduced the Communist Party. Events, not James Cannon, had left the Trotskyist movement as a tiny sect.
Second, what does disturb me about the discussion of Thomas is that I have the feeling there are those who would prefer NOT to have a multi-tendency party. Who would, if they could, drive out those who feel that both Thomas and Debs are a legitimate part of our history, a part of our history of which we should be proud.
I don't plan to leave the SP if Eric Chester were nominated - though I think his nomination would be unwise. The more serious question is why, in the year 2003, Norman Thomas is a target for some in the SP. Matt refers to the article in the Socialist which attacked Chester. I don't think it did. It was a generally favorable review. But the Socialist was in a no-win situation. If the editors didn't review Chester's book, there would be a hue and cry about censorship. And if it did run a review which was, in part, critical, then the editors would come under attack.
What did Matt want? A policy under which the review had to be favorable? I don't think he meant to say that, and I don't that that is his position, but it is how it came across.
I doubt Chester will be the nominee, but he is certainly a socialist, he is a good speaker, he has virtues to which I admit I have not always paid proper tribute. In general I would hope that we don't run a candidate. If we do, I would hope it would be someone who would united us, not divided us. And while I think new blood is welcome and good, I think it should take on lesser posts - Congress, for example - and draw on comrades who have more experience in the SP, and are more widely known.
Fraternally,
David McReynolds