Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee

After nearly a decade of internal acrimony, the Socialist Party of America-Social Democratic Federation was clearly headed for a split as the decade of the 1970s opened. While sharing a common antipathy to the worldwide Communist movement, the organization was divided over two primary issues:

1. Should democratic socialists call for either an immediate withdrawal of United States forces from Vietnam or a negotiated peace settlement along with an immediate end to the bombing of North Vietnam?
2. Should the democratic left continue its traditional focus of organizing the working class in labor unions or should it shift its focus to (predominantly middle class) peace activists?

In its 1972 convention, the Socialist Party of America (SPA) had two Co-Chairmen, Bayard Rustin and Charles S. Zimmerman of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU);[1] and a First National Vice Chairman, James S. Glaser, who were re-elected by acclamation.[2] In his opening speech to the convention, Co-Chairman Bayard Rustin called for Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) to organize against the "reactionary policies of the Nixon Administration" while at the same time criticized the "irresponsibility and élitism of the 'New Politics' liberals".[2]

The party changed its name to SDUSA by a vote of 73 to 34.[2] Renaming the party as SDUSA was meant to be "realistic". The New York Times observed that the SPA had last sponsored a candidate for President in 1956, who received only 2,121 votes, which were cast in only 6 states. Because the party no longer sponsored candidates in presidential elections, the name "Party" had been "misleading" as "Party" had hindered the recruiting of activists who participated in the Democratic Party, according to the majority report. The name "Socialist" was replaced by "Social Democrats" because many American associated the word "socialism" with Soviet Communism.[2] The party also wished to distinguish itself from two small Marxist parties, the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Labor Party.[3]

During the convention, the majority (Unity Caucus) won every vote by a ratio of two to one. The convention elected a national committee of 33 members, with 22 seats for the majority caucus, eight seats for the Coalition Caucus of Michael Harrington, two for a Debs Caucus and one for the independent Samuel H. Friedman.[4] Friedman and the minority caucuses had opposed the name change.[2]

The convention voted on and adopted proposals for its program by a two-one vote. On foreign policy, the program called for "firmness toward Communist aggression". However, on the Vietnam War the program opposed "any efforts to bomb Hanoi into submission" and instead it endorsed negotiating a peace agreement, which should protect Communist political cadres in South Vietnam from further military or police reprisals. Harrington's proposal for a ceasefire and immediate withdrawal of United States forces was defeated.[4] Harrington complained that after its convention the Socialist Party had endorsed George McGovern only with a statement loaded with "constructive criticism" and that it had not mobilized enough support for McGovern. The majority caucus's Arch Puddington replied that the California branch was especially active in supporting McGovern while the New York branch were focusing on a congressional race.[3]

Even before the convention, Michael Harrington had resigned as an Honorary Chairperson of the SPA.[2] Some months after the convention, he resigned his membership in SDUSA. Harrington and his supporters from the Coalition Caucus soon formed the DSOC. Many members of the Debs Caucus resigned from SDUSA and formed the Socialist Party USA. Despite opposing the majority of the SPA, Harrington acknowledged the validity of its members' concerns:

The anti-war activists of the sixties were overwhelmingly white and middle class. Many of them were unconcerned about the domestic political consequences of their actions and were even contemptuous of that majority of Americans who supported the war. There was a profoundly elitist tendency in the movement that [the majority of the Socialist Party leadership] denounced as dilettantish and collegiate. Moreover, there was a vocal, and regularly televised, fringe of confrontationists, exhibitionists, and Vietcong flag wavers who could plausibly be dismissed as freakish, or sinister, or both.[5]

Harrington's caucus in the SPA endorsed the New Politics movement and sought to expand that tendency into a viable left-wing pressure-group within the Democratic Party, advancing an explicitly socialist agenda and attempting to win influence over elected officials for that program. Harrington led many members of this caucus and from his networks to establish the DSOC in 1973.

Harrington, a former editor of the SPA's weekly newspaper, New America,[6] was the most important figure in the establishment of DSOC. Harrington had resigned as National Co-Chairman of the SPA, many of whose leaders criticized McGovern, when Harrington focused his efforts on electing McGovern in October 1972.[7]

In his first memoir, published in 1973, Harrington defended his choice of peace activists over trade unionists:

But in their derogatory comparison of this movement with the trade unionists, my comrades failed to notice two of its historic aspects. First, the anti-war young were right: Vietnam was not only an immoral conflict, it was counterproductive from all points of view, including that of progressive anti-Communism. Secondly, the new strata of the issue-oriented and college-educated who provided the mass bass for this phenomenon were, and are, extremely important to the creation of a new majority for change in this country.[5]

At its start, the DSOC had 840 members, of which 2 percent served on its national board; approximately 200 had previously had membership in the SDUSA or its predecessors in 1973 when SDUSA stated its membership at 1,800, according to a 1973 profile of Harrington.[8]

The June 1973 issue of Newsletter of the Democratic Left, the fourth monthly magazine off the press, announced to its subscribers that the never-before-mentioned National Board of the DSOC had issued a call for the launch of "a new, nationwide socialist organization".[10] The founding convention of the DSOC was initially slated to begin on October 12, 1973 in New York City.[10] For the first time, membership dues were solicited, with rates of $3.50 for students and $7.00 for regular membership accepted until January 1, 1974.[10]

The Founding Convention was to be a three-day-long affair, beginning at 8 pm at the Eisner and Lubin Auditorium of New York University.[11] The convention was not composed of elected delegates, but was rather open to a general admission and about 500 people were in attendance.[12] The keynote speaker chosen by the organizers of the DSOC to address this gathering was David Lewis, one of the key architects of the New Democratic Party, the social-democratic parliamentary opposition party of Canada.[11]

The following day on October 13, the convention moved to the McAlpin Hotel, located at the corner of Broadway and 34th Street in New York City and began in earnest. Harrington delivered an address to those attending the gathering which was undelegated and open to all desiring to attend from the general public and then the attendees broke up into various small workshops.[11] Small group subjects included "the unions", "feminism", "racial equality", "Democratic Party", "equality" and "detente".[11] Workshop chairs were appointed in advance and included Michael Walzer, Bogdan Denitch, Christopher Lasch and others.[11] A panel discussion on "Socialism and the Welfare State" was also held, featuring prominently Harrington's close political associate, the historian and magazine editor Irving Howe, an individual who would become one of the organization's leading faces.[11]

The final day saw the election of a governing National Board and ratification of a constitution for the new organization.[11]

According to the group's founder Michael Harrington, the DSOC began with a core of about 250 members.[13] The group's first paid staffer was Jack Clark, a 23-year-old from Boston who received $50 a month and use of a spare bed in the home of Debbie Meier, herself a second generation socialist and important figure in the DSOC inner circle.[13] Meier's home served as the group's base of operations up to the October 1973 convention, at which time the DSOC rented a tiny basement office.[14]