Lives of the Left: Daniel De Leon (1990)

Book Review from the July-Aug 1990 issue of the Discussion Bulletin

Daniel De Leon by Stephen Coleman [Manchester University Press, "Lives of the Left" series] Manchester, England, 1990; cloth, 192 pp. U.S. readers see below for ordering information.

This volume differs from the two earlier De Leon biographies (Reeve 1972 and Seretan 1978) in that its author does not regard DeLeon's anti-reformist, anti-statist socialism as an aberration. Stephen Coleman'a political thinking derives from the same turn-of-the-century opposition to social democratic reformism from which De Leon and the post-1900 Socialist Labor Party sprang, and he can understand the political situation and the choices that faced the SLP and DeLeon.

Coleman has divided his book into eight chapters, which we can assume reflect his interests and concerns: The Enigma of Daniel De Leon, The Socialist Labor Party, Trade Unionism and the Abolition of the Wages System, the Battle against Reformism, De Leon and the Wobblies, The De Leon-Connolly Conflict, De Leon's Conception of Socialism, and the Last Years and Legacy of De Leon.

Part of the "enigma" Coleman sees is the irony that the man he characterizes as ". . . the most outstanding American thinker, writer, orator, and political organizer of the years from 1890 until the eve of the First World War" should be so hated by his contemporaries on the left and in the labor movement. In addition to a list of these historians of the Hilquit school of labor history, he points out what he calls ". . .  the legacy of contemporary vilification by the likes of Dubofsky et al., who have accepted without thought the prejudices of the Hilquitians."

In "The Socialist Labor Party" Coleman traces De Leon's influence on the SLP and the dynamics that brought about the 1899 split between the reformists and revolutionaries. As the European socialist parties of the Second International grew during the 1880s and 90s, the possibility of gaining political office and presumably bringing about socialism piecemeal through capitalisms political machinery became vary real. The success of "socialist' politicians in transforming the "immediate demands" of the socialist parties into their dominant programs caused splits in nearly all the parties of the Second International. In the U.S. the anti-De Leonists left to help form the Socialist Party identified with Hilquit, Debs, and Haywood. In Britain both the Socialist Party of Great Britain (to which Coleman belongs) and the British SLP left Hyndman's Social Democratic Federation. In Russia the situation produced the Menshevik-Bolshevik split and in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and elsewhere splits and factional disputes that were often resolved by events precipitated by the Russian Revolution.

In Coleman's judgment "The 1899 split was not essentially about specific SLP policies, but was a final effort by approximately half of its members to assert the compatibility between a socialist party and a possibilist [reformist] strategy or, conversely, to remove what they saw as the theoretical shackles of De Leon's uncompromising impossibilism." While recognizing that De Leon's confidence in his own wisdom and eagerness to combat error sight easily give rise to accusations of authoritarianism, he disposes of the charges of bossism by citing the record: ". . . De Leon enjoyed no power within the SLP to which he was not elected, and made no decisions alone but as a result of winning a majority."

The evolution of the SLP's position on unionism, which culminated in the organization of the Socialist Trades and Labor Alliance in 1895 was not, in Coleman's view, a sectarian plot by De Leon but had already been initiated in 1889 before De Leon joined the SLP by socialist trades unionists in Now York City, who had called for "New Trades Unionism' and split from the Central Labor Union to form the Central Labor Federation. Coleman sees the lack of success of the STALA as well as the isolation impossibilism entailed for the SLP as the reason behind De Leon's eager embrace of the IWW in 1905.

As one might expect, Coleman's SPGBist differences with De Leonism become clear in the chapter, "De Leon's Conception of Socialism." While giving De Leon credit for attempting to answer the hard questions workers ask about the nature of the new society, he expresses serious doubts about De Leon's answers, finding the source of much of what he considers the less desirable elements in De Leon's and the SLP's vision of the future society in Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward. He sees not only the idea of labor vouchers and of the socialism-in-one-country concept as arising from De Leon's association with Nationalism in the 1880s but the roots of the whole concept of socialist industrial unionism, which he relates to Bellamy's work-oriented, militaristic view of the social organization of the future. Coleman's conclusions here will offend not only the most orthodox of De Leonists but revisionists of various degrees as well. Space doesn't allow this reviewer to combat Coleman's findings. But we will find space for readers of the book to refute him.

Also offensive to some readers will be the final chapter in which, among other things, he examines what he regards as De Leon's efforts to break out of the isolation that anti-reformism (impossiblism) imposed on the SLP. These included the embrace of the IWW and its reformist SP contingent and the 1905-8 unity effort, which culminated in his Unity address. Interestingly Coleman presents Reinstein as De Leon's ally in 1908, not his enemy as official history suggests. He rather decently finds De Leon not guilty of the official SLP's claim [charge?] that his writings influenced Lenin. The final chapter also contains an interesting section on the differences between the British and American SLPs. Part of De Leon's legacy is the SLP. Here is Coleman's verdict: "De Leon stamped his authority upon the SLP because he was the party's most able and active thinker. That De Leon’s comrades offered him such deferential respect . . .  respect created a tradition that was abused terribly by the less intellectually vivacious, sterile dogmatists who succeed the De Leon role."

Although there are a couple of flaws—De Leon was referring in Reform or Revolution to the future socialist society, not the party of socialism, with his illustration of the orchestra director—, Coleman has done his reading and his research. Indeed this is a political biography in the finest sense of the term. Coleman in not a De Leonist and his critical stance and political differences are apparent, as indeed they should be. But I think that De Leon would not have wished for a fairer, wittier, more sympathetic treatment from a political opponent. We can only assume that had Coleman been afforded more time and more pages, he would have modified his views on Socialist Industrial Unionism.

Like all books worth reading, the price is steep even for a clothbound book. U.S. readers can obtain the book directly from St. Martin's Press for $29.95 or send a 25-cent stamp to DB for a flier that offers a 20 percent discount making the price $23.95.

Frank Girard