To the present generation of young Americans the so-called two party system appears to be an almost unshakeable and permanent feature of the nation's polity. Several well-known American liberals (as, for instance, Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois and Walter Reuther, head of the powerful United Automobile Workers), who, in earlier years had reposed little faith in the Republican and Democratic parties, have gradually veered round to the view that the quest for reform must be pursued within the framework of the two major political parties. “Third parties” on the American scene have become virtually skeletonized for various reasons and their plans and platforms receive scant notice at the hands of the media of mass communication. With the advent of good times during the war and post-war years, organizations advocating a radical reconstruction of the social and economic order have found a progressively shrinking audience. Radicalism among the intelligentsia has become a factor of minor significance. Will there be any important changes in such a state of affairs if the current business “recession” continues much longer or intensifies? Do “bad times” favor the growth of militant parties of protest and dissent? Few students of the American scene expect that in the foreseeable future there will be any widespread move away from the two traditional parties. It is interesting in this connection to examine the developments in the United States a quarter of a century ago when the nation was plunged into one of the most serious economic crises in its annals. This paper will examine some aspects of life and politics in the United States in 1932 with special reference to the campaign of the Socialist Party of America to emerge as a significant political force.

With the publication in 1926 of Zur Psychologie des Sozialismus the hitherto obscure Belgian radical Hendrik de Man became a figure of international import in socialist circles. The work, aptly retitled in some later editions as Beyond Marxism, was a categorical and comprehensive challenge to the ideological monopoly that Marxism had long maintained on the dominant forms of the Continental labor and socialist movements. The appearance of the book in German, the author explained, was particularly appropriate in view of the role of that language in the historical development of Marxist theory, as well as because of the critical importance of Germany to the socialist movement. The treatise rapidly received broader circulation by translation into some ten European languages, and enjoyed 14 editions; it provoked the comment of just about every socialist theoretician on the Continent, excited the attention of academics, and made its author the center of violent controversy. If the declarations of Bernard Lavergne and Hermann Keyserling that it was the most important work in socialist theory since Das Kapital could be dismissed as extravagant and interested, Theodor Heuss' more modest judgment that this was “the weightiest analysis of the Marxist thinker [i.e., Marx] and his effects that up to now has been attempted from the explicitly socialist side” carried telling conviction. The stature of the author was soon confirmed by the awesomely authoritative Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik through the appearance in its pages of de Man's reviews of the newest publications concerned with the problems of the worker in industrial society, and there was even an abortive attempt made on the part of fellow-thinkers to launch a periodical with de Man as editor-in-chief.

Im Laufe der Herbstwochen des Jahres 1904 wurde das nicht nur für Aussenstehende unentwirrbare Labyrinth der Richtungen unter den russischen Sozialisten mehr und mehr zu einem internationalen Ärgernis. Die chronische Misere der Exilintrigen und Organisationsrivalitäten, die schliesslich nicht allein das gespaltene Lager der russischen Sozialdemokratie zerrütteten, war in ihren grösseren Zusammenhängen erneut während des Amsterdamer Sozialistenkongresses in das Bewusstsein der europäischen Parteien getreten. Anteil daran hatte weniger der Machtkampf zwischen Menschewiki und Bolschewiki, wenngleich das “Internationale Sozialistische Büro” bei der Bestätigung der russischen Mandate auch damit befasst wurde, als vielmehr die Debatten über die Stimmberechtigung der nationalen Fraktionen und Gruppen aus Russland und Österreich-Ungarn. Die nationale Frage musste in Amsterdam als Organisationsproblem der Internationale vor allem deshalb neu durchdacht werden, weil die grossen Parteien erstmals der Gefahr einer Majorisierung durch kleine nationale Gruppen gegenüber zu stehen glaubten. Mit der gleichberechtigten Aufnahme der russischen Sozialrevolutionäre in die Internationale war in bezug auf Russland vor allem die Stellung des 1903 aus der RSDRP ausgeschiedenen jüdischen Arbeiterbundes spruchreif geworden, dem nach seinem Austritt aus der RSDRP (August 1903) ein gesondertes Stimmrecht neben den Sozialdemokraten verweigert worden war. Die leidenschaftlichen Proteste des Auslandskomitees der Bundisten gegen diese Regelung hat den Führungsgremien der Sozialistischen Internationale fraglos Sorgen bereitet, Zumal der Bund mit Recht auf seine für russische Verhältnisse bewundernswert gefestigten und regen Komitees verweisen konnte. Neben dem jüdischen Arbeiterbund waren in Amsterdam auch ukrainische, lettische und armenische Gruppen im Gefolge der sozialdemokratischen Delegation aufgetreten und hatten bei den mittel- und westeuropäischen Kongressteilnehmern an der Verhärtung des Eindrucks mitgewirkt, dass das organisatorische Chaos in Russland schwerlich an einen koordinierten Einsatz der Kräfte gegen das autokratische Regime denken liess.

The conference held at Bradford in 1893 to form an Independent Labour Party was accompanied by a Labour Church service which some 5,000 people attended. It was organised by John Trevor, who in 1891 had left his Unitarian pulpit in Manchester and founded the first Labour Church. “God in the Labour Movement”, he explained “– working through it, as once he worked through Christianity, for the further salvation of the world – that was the simple conception that I had been seeking, and which at last came to me…” The fullest account of this movement created by Trevor has been given in H. M. Pelling's The Origins of the Labour Party, where it is sensibly cited as a stage in the “transfer of social energy from religion to politics.” The purpose of the present article is to dissent from certain judgments made by Mr. Pelling and to suggest, in some particulars, a different interpretation.

On the spectrum of Victorian politics Birmingham stands at one extreme – the exemplar of class harmony and co-operation. Where other towns were torn by strife and discord, here the forces of cohesion and stability were triumphant. An alliance between the middle and working classes remained the cardinal fact of political life from Thomas Attwood's Political Union to Joseph Chamberlain's caucus. Political tranquillity reflected the deeper harmony of a well integrated culture, in which the masters and artisans of a small workshop economy shared a commitment to the social and moral values of the community.