1. Turning against Capitalism I.American Radicalism A.American traditions B.Foreign imports C.Explaining failure II.New and Growing Organizations A.Socialists B.Communists C.Other groups III.1930s Uprising A.Work and relief B.Farm aid C.Jim Crow and Civil Rights IV.Significance A.Impact B.Problems

2. American Traditions Labor republicanism –Anti-slavery movement –Knights of Labor Utopian Reform –Brook Farm, Oneida Radical Libertarianism –IWW

3. Imported Ideologies Anarchism Communism

4. Perfect Storm Reasons radicals had failed –Conservative society –Upward mobility –Corporate power –Racial, ethnic divisions –Seemed too foreign Impact of Depression –Question old values –Unemployment –Business is weak –Poverty elides differences –Radicals adopt Am. idiom

5. Socialists Debs dies, 1926 Replaced by Norman Thomas –Presbyterian minister –Reform background –Ivy-educated –All-American face for ethnic party

6. Communists Interlocking organizations controlled by party apparatus Aggressively organize disaffected workers, unemployed, African Americans, & farmers Appeal to young idealists, artists, & actors Foster edged by Earl Browder –Midwestern –Middle-class –Smooth –All-American

7. Other groups Milo Reno, pres. of the Farmers’ Holiday Association Dorothy Day Editor, The Catholic Worker

8. Work and Relief Unemployed Councils Trade Union Unity League –Formerly Trade Union Education League –Shifts strategy from “boring within” the AFL to independent unionism Ford Hunger March, 1932

9. Farm aid Block roads, threaten producers, announce strikes Organize to prevent foreclosures Communists form Sharecroppers’ Unions

10. Jim Crow & Civil Rights Scottsboro, AL 1931

11. Impact Popular uprisings put pressure on AFL and Democratic Party. Seek to capture dissent, prevent Communists from gaining support among farmers and workers. Franklin Delano Roosevelt AFL pres. William Green

12. Problems CP shows weak commitment to democracy, freedom of thought –Deviationism –Purges Naiveté –For some, faith in Marxism & the USSR turns into blind obedience to Stalin –Some radicals become complicit in his crimes Josef Stalin, circa 1910