FDR
DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM sin base para Rev Popular
1
THIS IS A CRITIQUE TO FDR By : Seymour Martin
Lipset, Gary
Marks
[[ I did put in brakes my Comments
]]
“It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed
in the United States”, by Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks
…
With the coming of the Great
Depression in the 1930s, a sharp increase in protest and anti-capitalist
sentiment threatened to undermine the existing political system and create new
political parties. The polls, as well as the electoral support given to
local radical, progressive, and pro-labor candidates, indicate that a large amount
of Americans were ready to back social democratic proposals. It is significant,
then, that even with the growth of class consciousness in America, no national
third party was able to break the duopoly of the Democratic and Republican
Parties.
The thirties dramatically demonstrated not only the power of
America’s coalitional two-party system to dissuade a national third party but
also the deeply anti-statist, individualistic character of its electorate.
[[ FALSE :
a 3rd Party was organized by FDR
in 1936 & he won the election but he couldn’t change the
system. The insurrectional party was not created. ]]
THE NATION SHIFTS TO THE LEFT
Powerful leftist third-party
movements emerged in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and New York. In other
states, radicals successfully advanced alternative political movements by
pursuing a strategy of running in major-party primaries. In California, Upton Sinclair, who had run as a Socialist for
governor in 1932 and received 50,000 votes, organized the End Poverty in
California (EPIC) movement, which won a majority in the 1934 Democratic
gubernatorial primaries. He was defeated after a bitter
business-financed campaign in the general election, though he secured more than
900,000 votes (37 percent of the total). By 1938,
former EPIC leaders had captured the California governorship and a U.S. Senate
seat.
In Washington and Oregon,
the Commonwealth Federations, patterning themselves after the social democratic
Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of Canada, won a number of state and congressional
posts and controlled the state Democratic Parties for several years. In North Dakota, the revived radical Nonpartisan
League, still operating within the Republican Party, won the
governorship, a U.S. Senate seat, and both congressional seats in 1932 and
continued to win other elections throughout the decade. In Minnesota, the Farmer-Labor Party captured the
governorship and five house seats. Wisconsin, too, witnessed an electorally powerful Progressive
Party backed by the Socialists.
The Socialist and Communist Parties
grew substantially as well. In 1932 the Socialist Party had 15,000 members.
Its electoral support, however, was much broader, as indicated by the 1932
presidential election, in which Norman Thomas received close to 900,000 votes,
up from 267,000 in 1928. The Socialist Party’s membership had increased to
25,000 by 1935. As a result of leftist enthusiasm for President Roosevelt,
however, its presidential vote declined to 188,000 in 1936, fewer votes than
the party had attained in any presidential contest since 1900. The Communist Party, on the other hand, backed President
Roosevelt from 1936 on, and its membership grew steadily,
numbering between 80,000 and 90,000 at its high point in 1939. Communists
played a role in “left center,” winning electoral coalitions in several states,
notably California, Minnesota, New York, and Washington.
National surveys suggest that the leftward shift in public
opinion during the 1930s was even more extensive than indicated by third-party
voting or membership in radical organizations. Although large leftist third
parties existed only in Minnesota, New York, and Wisconsin, three Gallup polls taken between December 1936 and January
1938 found that between 14 and 16 percent of those polled said they would not
merely vote for but “would join” a Farmer-Labor Party if one was organized.
Of those interviewees expressing an opinion in 1937, 21 percent voiced a
readiness to join a new party.
CO-OPTING THE LEFT
If the Great Depression, with all
its attendant effects, shifted national attitudes to the left, WHY was it that no
strong radical movement committed itself to a third party during these years? A
key part of the explanation was that President Roosevelt succeeded in including
left-wing protest in his New Deal coalition. He used two basic tactics. First,
he responded to the various outgroups by incorporating in his own rhetoric many
of their demands. Second, he absorbed the leaders of these groups into
his following. These reflected conscious efforts to undercut left-wing
radicals and thus to preserve capitalism.
[[ What? ]]
[[wrong interpretation:
the US hate to bolchevik Rev & their Victory against west interv was high ]]
[[ this can be interpreted in
opposite way: his dissatisfaction
with current Capitalism. In other words FDR mascaraed as dem-capitalism his
pro-socialism and new type of system: democratic
socialism ]]
Franklin Roosevelt demonstrated his skill at co-opting the
rhetoric and demands of opposition groups the year before his 1936 reelection,
when the demagogic Senator Huey Long of Louisiana threatened to run on a
third-party Share-Our-Wealth ticket.
To prevent this, Roosevelt shifted
to the left in rhetoric and, to some extent, in policy, consciously seeking to
steal the thunder of his populist critics. Roosevelt also responded to
the share-the-wealth outcry by advancing tax reform proposals to raise income
and dividend taxes, to enact a sharply graduated inheritance tax, and to use
tax policy to discriminate against large corporations. Huey Long reacted by
charging that the president was stealing his program.
President Roosevelt also became more
overtly supportive of trade unions, although he did not endorse the most
important piece of proposed labor legislation, Senator Robert Wagner’s labor
relations bill, until shortly before its passage.
Raymond Moley, an organizer of Roosevelt’s “brain trust,” emphasized
that the president FDR, through these and other policies and statements, sought
to identify himself with the objectives of the unemployed, minorities, and
farmers, as well as “the growing membership of the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO).
DESTROYING THE THIRD-PARTY THREAT
This strategy had an impact. In 1937, Philip La Follette’s executive
secretary told Daniel Hoan, the Socialist mayor of Milwaukee, that a
national third party never would be launched while Roosevelt was “in the
saddle,” because Roosevelt had “put so many outstanding liberals on his
payroll [that] . . . any third party movement would lack sufficient leadership.”
The president FDR told leftist leaders that he was on their side and that his
ultimate goal was to transform the Democratic Party into an ideologically
coherent progressive party in which they could hope to play a leading role. A
few times he even implied that, to secure ideological realignment, he personally might go the third-party route, following in
the footsteps of his cousin Theodore Roosevelt.
FDR DID CREATE A 3RD
PARTY OPTION, but he didn’t move beyond electoralism
Franklin Roosevelt ran his 1936
presidential campaign as a PROGRESSIVE COALITION,
not as a Democratic Party activity. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. has
described Roosevelt’s tactics as follows:
As the campaign developed, the Democratic
party seemed more and more submerged in the New Deal coalition. The most active
campaigners in addition to Roosevelt—[Harold] Ickes, [Henry] Wallace, Hugh
Johnson—were men identified with the New Deal, not with the professional
Democratic organization. Loyalty to the cause
superseded loyalty to the party as
the criterion for administration support. . . . It was evident that the basis
of the campaign would be the mobilization beyond the
Democratic party of all the elements in the New Deal coalition—liberals,
labor, farmers, women, minorities. [[ FDR succeeded ]]
Roosevelt was reelected by an
overwhelming majority in 1936. Yet his second term proved much less
innovative than his first. This was due, in part, to several Supreme Court
decisions during 1936 striking down various New Deal laws as unconstitutional
and the president’s subsequent inability to mobilize popular protest against
the Court. Reacting to a perceived shift in the public mood to the right,
particularly from 1938 on, Roosevelt substantially reduced his reform efforts.
The change, however, did not lead to a loss of leftist support.
The economic crisis of the 1930s presented American radicals
with their greatest opportunity to build a lasting third party since World War
I, but the constitutional system defeat him.
[[ WHY? what happens? Se necesitaba un Pdo
insurreccional y eso no se construyó.. el pacifismo electoral fue una trampa
para el mismo FDR. Le paso lo mismo que a Velasco en Peru .. inicio una Rev
desde arriba y victoriosa.. pero no supo eliminar los enemigos internos en las
FFAA.. fue asesinado. FDR no, pero lo liquidaron politicamente. Quien si
fue victorioso.. fue Chavez en
Ven. Sus militares lo apoyaron y restauraron en el poder ]]
On the assumption that the 1937–38
recession had undermined Roosevelt’s prestige, Wisconsin governor Philip
La Follette attempted in 1938 to create a new third party, the National
Progressives of America. The president responded with a
renewed effort to co-opt such opposition.
FUE
FDR UN TRAIDOR A LAS FINALES?
NO LO CREO
The midterm elections in November 1938, however, made it
unnecessary for President Roosevelt to react to a possible electoral threat
from the left. Both the Wisconsin Progressive Party and the Minnesota
Farmer-Labor Party suffered crushing defeats, losing most of their
congressional seats, and Republicans badly defeated both Philip La Follette in
Wisconsin and Elmer Benson in Minnesota in their gubernatorial reelection
campaigns. Although unhappy about the Republicans’ gaining 81 seats in the
House, 8 seats in the Senate, and 13 governorships, the president noted that
some good things had occurred: “We have on the positive
side eliminated Phil La Follette and the Farmer-Labor people in the Northwest
as a standing Third Party Threat.”
[[where this text comes from?.. no se menciona fuente alguna]]. [[ Quiza fue un intento de venganza de los
enemigos millonarios ..contra FDR ]]
[ Why FDR betrayed the 3rd
party option, IF HAPPENS ]: FDR left fronts were unable to stop de Fed
Court when in 1936 several Supreme Court decisions strike down various New Deal
laws as unconstitutional and “the president’s
subsequent inability to mobilize popular protest against the Court”. This
created a perceived shift in the public mood toward the right, particularly in
1938. So, Roosevelt reduced
his reform efforts.
[[
La respuesta contra las Cortes debió ser LA REV POPULAR y este
pueblo no fue preparado para ello. In short, FDR en su mejor momento
lidero un anti-capitalismo (un socialismo democratico) pero si un programa
insurreccional como ocurrió en RU. Eso fue lo que fallo. HUBO líder para un prog
de cambio reformista hacia el socialismo democ, PERO NO base política para
implementarlo. In short, el NEW DEAL de FDR contenía
reformas a favor del “socialismo democ” pero no bases para el Socialismo Insurreccional
requerido ]]
CONCLUSION
Although party divisions became more class based, efforts to
build a national left-wing third party failed. This cannot be explained by any
absence of protest or popular support for radical efforts. Several developments
attest to the growth of class conflict and the vigor of anti-capitalist feeling
that resulted from the Great Depression: mass
demonstrations of the unemployed, the aggressive tactics and radical views of
farm groups, widespread militancy and disdain for private property exhibited by
many groups of workers, leftist views expressed by large amounts in the opinion
surveys, and, finally, the strong and disparate
electoral support given to leftist third parties and organized factions within
the major parties in New York, Washington, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska,
North Dakota, Oregon, and California.
|
Franklin Roosevelt succeeded in undercutting the growth of
left-wing political movements in the mid-1930s by adopting much of the
rhetoric of the left and co-opting many of its leaders.
[[ This statement covert FDR in
intentional betrayal of the leftist mov. The left parties and FDR really mov
against the type of capitalism we have in the 1900 –similar to the kind of capitalist
collapse & decomposition we have today-. It was a democratic socialist reform
that was inside the NEW DEAL (the best of FDR) and that was the program that the left
joined (they were nor forced or tricked to get inside). They wanted in
the US a pacific transition to socialism and they got
not what the Chilean got with Allende (the brutal neo-nazi response) in the
US we got a pacific restoration of capitalism that couldn’t eliminate many of
FDR reforms until the 1970’ . FDR’
experience can’t be interpreted as anti-socialist or anti-comunist as
the Hoover Institution wanted.]]
|
President Roosevelt recognized that the long-range interests
of his coalition and the Democratic Party were best served by encouraging
radical groups, whether inside or outside the party, to feel as though they
were part of his political entourage. Thus, as we have
seen, he showed a willingness to endorse local and statewide third-party or
independent candidates and give them a share of federal patronage. In return,
they were expected to support the president’s reelection.
Time and again between 1935 and 1940, meetings to lay the
basis for a national third party went awry because those involved recognized
that the bulk of their constituencies favored reelecting the president. And, in
the last analysis, most radical, labor, and minority-group leaders supported
the president as well. [[Back to the duo-political view
Dems-v- Reps stupid story; SEE
BELOW]]
|
The fact that left-wing parties did not make significant
inroads during the Great Depression dramatically demonstrated not only the
power of America’s coalitional two-party system to dissuade a national third
party but also the deeply antistatist, individualistic character of its
electorate. [[ pure distortion of facts above ]]
|
The economic crisis of the 1930s was more severe in the
United States than in any other large society except Germany. It presented
American radicals with their greatest opportunity to build a third party since
World War I, but the constitutional system and the brilliant way in which
Franklin Delano Roosevelt co-opted the left prevented this.
[[ It was not FDR intention to prevented.. there was a
missing point in his Program: Revolutionary insurrection. This was not in FDR mind
because he was physically incapacitated. How to offer an Rev insurrection when
he was in wells-chair ?]]. The
Socialist and Communist Parties saw their support drop precipitously in the
1940 elections. America emerged from the Great Depression as the most
antistatist country in the world. [[ It is it now? YES ,
I would say & THANKS TO FDR ]]
….
Adapted from the book It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States, by
Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks, published by W. W. Norton. Used by
permission of W. W. Norton and Company.
….
===
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