Eugene V. Debs (Twayne's United States authors series)

By Harold W. Currie

appears unread, withdrawn lib. tage on spine and pocket, but appears unread, very nice copy. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805771670
• ISBN13: 9780805771671
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: Twayne Publishers
• Length: 157 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Voice Of Pre-World War I Socialism

Every January militants of the left wing of the international labor movement, the European sections more than the American, honor the Three L's, the key leaders of the movement in the early 20th century- Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht. Since opening this space in early 2006 I have paid individual honor to all three in successive years. In that same spirit for this year's, and for future January observances, I will highlight some other lesser figures of the revolutionary pantheon or those who contributed in some way to the development of this movement, mainly American at first as befits the title of this blog but eventually others in the international movement as well. This year's first honoree was the Trotskyist founder and organization leader James P. Cannon. Cannon represented that first American generation who formed the core of cadre directly influenced to the left by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Here I take a step back to the pre-World War I period and honor probably the most well-known socialist of that period, Eugene V. Debs. For many reasons, the most important of which for our purposes here are the question of the nature o the revolutionary party and of revolutionary leadership, the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was a turning point in the international labor movement. In its aftermath, there was a definitive and I would argue, necessary split, between those leftists (and here I use that term generically to mean socialists, communists, anarchists, syndicalists and the like) who sought to reform the capitalist state from within and those who saw that it needed to be destroyed `root and branch' and new institutions established to create a more just society. This division today continues, in truncated form to be sure, to define the contours of the question. The heroic American pre- World War II socialist labor leader and icon, Eugene V. Debs, as is very well described in this little book, contained within his personal political trajectory all the contradictions of that split. As will be described below in more detail we honor Debs for his generosity of socialist spirit while at the same time underscoring that his profile is, in the final analysis, not that of something who could have led a proletarian revolution in the earlier part of the 20th century. Professor Currie here has done the very valuable service of outlining the highlights of Debs' political career and of his inner ideological turmoil for those who need a short course on what set Debs, above all others except, perhaps, "Big Bill" Haywood in the pre-World War I movement. The professor makes clear that his is a political profile and not the extensive detailed informational one of traditional biography. For that, if one is so inclined in that direction after reading this primer, then it is still necessary to go Ray Ginger's "The Bending Cross: A Biography of Eugene V. Debs". I will review that effort in this space at a later time. For now though let me give the hig