The Class Struggle was a bi-monthly Marxist theoretical magazine published in New York City by the Socialist Publication Society. The SPS also published a series of pamphlets, mostly reprints from the magazine during the short period of its existence. Among the initial editors of the publication were Ludwig Lore, Marxist theoreticiansLouis B. Boudin and Louis C. Fraina, the former of whom left the publication in 1918. In the third and final year of the periodical, The Class Struggle emerged as one of the primary English-language voices of the left wing factions within the American Socialist Party and its final issue was published in 1919[1] by the nascent Communist Labor Party of America.
The Class Struggle and most of the pamphlets associated with it bore distinctive brown cardstock covers.
The Left Wing movement
Even prior to the establishment of the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in the summer of 1901, there had been a more or less conscious left wing movement, which looked with disdain upon advocacy of a "minimum program" of ameliorative reform, instead arguing for the wholesale revolutionary transformation of politics and society. World War I intensified the feelings of alienation of the left wing from the moderate leadership of the SPA and their almost exclusive concentration upon electoral politics.[2] The Left saw the failure of the parliamentary Socialists of Europe to avert the catastrophe of war as indicative of what one historian has aptly characterized as the "fatal dilution of revolutionary principles by the party."[3] The radicals, in ever more strident terms, objected to the "parliamentary cretinism" and "sausage socialism" of the moderate wing of the socialist movement, gradually coming to view its existence as an impediment on the achievement of socialist change.
Further impetus to the Left Wing was provided by the victory of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party, headed by V.I. Lenin in November 1917. The Bolshevik triumph seemed to validate the perspective of the radicals that socialist change would come through revolutionary upheaval rather than through piecemeal parliamentary reform. Parallel revolutionary efforts in Germany, Finland, and Hungary seemed to signal a new historical moment to the often young and always enthusiastic Left Wing movement. This movement sought to organize itself and to give voice to its ideas via the printed word. The magazine The Class Struggle, established late in the spring of 1917, was a particularly important vehicle for this emerging Left Wing.
Earlier American left wing theoretical journals
The Class Struggle was by no means the first radical theoretical magazine in America. Two publications stood out as key influences during the first two decades of the 20th Century — Charles H. Kerr'sInternational Socialist Review, published in Chicago from 1900 to 1918, and The New Review, a New York magazine published from 1913 to 1916 to which future Class Struggle editor Louis C. Fraina was a key contributor.
Historian Theodore Draper credits a successor to The New Review, called The New International, as the newspaper which played the "historic role as the first propaganda organ" of the proto-Communist Left Wing Section.[4] Ten issues of the four-page newspaper were produced in New York, also edited by Louis Fraina and financed in large part by radical Dutch engineer S.J. Rutgers.[5] No more than 1,000 copies were produced of each issue and the practical influence of the publication was ultimately limited.[4] While not properly a theoretical journal itself, The New International did clearly play a transitional role linking the earlier publications of the Left Wing with The Class Struggle.
Establishment of the publication
Early in 1917, leading Russian-Jewish revolutionary socialistLeon Trotsky arrived in New York. He was immediately drawn into a meeting on January 14, 1917 of about 20 Left Wing Socialists at the home of German-American radical Ludwig Lore.[6] Also attending the gathering were several other top émigrés from the Russian empire, including feminist Alexandra Kollontay, theoretician Nikolai Bukharin, and orator V. Volodarsky.[6] Joining them were Sen Katayama, an exile from Japan, engineer S.J. Rutgers, and leading American radicals Louis B. Boudin, Louis C. Fraina, and John D. Williams of the 1Socialist Propaganda Society1 of Boston.[6] This meeting, called to discuss "a program of action for Socialists of the Left," debated whether American radicals should separate themselves from the Socialist Party of America or stay within the organization.[7] While Bukharin called for a prompt split, Trotsky sought the Left Wing to remain in the party and won the debate on the question.[7]
The January 14 meeting formed a subcommittee to construct a definite proposal for the next session of the group. This committee came back with a proposal for the establishment of a bimonthly theoretical journal to further advance the views of the Zimmerwald Left in America.[7]The Class Struggle would ultimately emerge as the publication envisioned by this committee established by New York City radicals.
The Class Struggle was produced by a publishing holding company known as the Socialist Publication Society.[8] Physical production of the magazine took place at the 15 Spruce Street address of the New Yorker Volkszeitung, the German-language socialist daily newspaper then edited by Ludwig Lore.
Demise of the publication
At a special meeting of the Socialist Publication Society in October 1919, it was decided to transfer ownership of The Class Struggle, along with all pamphlets and books published during its existence to the Communist Labor Party, the organization which Ludwig Lore and a majority of the German Socialist Federation supported.[9] With co-editor Fraina gone to the rival Communist Party of America and nominal co-editor Eugene V. Debs in the penitentiary for his anti-war speech delivered at Canton, Ohio, a reshuffling of the editorial board was in order. Joining Lore were the two other members of the CLP's editorial committee — Jack Carney, editor of the Duluth, Minnesota CLP weekly, Truth, and Russian Federation member Gregory Weinstein, formerly the editor of the Russian-language weekly, Novyi Mir.
This shift of formal ownership proved to be ill-advised and fatal to the publication, however, as in November 1919 a series of raids began against the nascent American communist movement, culminating in the nationwide "Palmer Raids" of January 2/3, 1920. The Communist Labor Party was driven underground in the aftermath, its membership decimated, its sources of income disconnected, its legal expenses exponentially increased. The November 1919 issue of The Class Struggle, proved to be the magazine's last.
Throughout the course of its existence, a total of 13 issues of The Class Struggle were produced, along with approximately a dozen pamphlets reissuing selected articles from its pages. The Class Struggle was reissued in book form in three bound volumes by the Greenwood Reprint Company in 1968, assuring its availability to research libraries around the world. Every issue of "The Class Struggle", digitized by the Riazanov Library digital archive project, can also be viewed and downloaded as a pdf file from The Class Struggle page at the Marxists Internet Archive.
David E. Brown, "Class Struggle," in Joseph R. Conlin (ed.), The American Radical Press, 1880-1960. In two volumes. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974; vol. 1, pp. 138-139.
