Hal Draper
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Hal Draper (born Harold Dubinsky; September 19, 1914 – January 26, 1990) was an American
socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
activist and author who played a significant role in the
Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
,
Free Speech Movement The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a massive, long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The Movement was informally under the central leadership of B ...
. He is known for his extensive scholarship on the history and meaning of the thought of
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
. Draper was a lifelong advocate of what he called "socialism from below", that is, self-emancipation by the working class, in opposition to capitalism and
Stalinist Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...
bureaucracy. He was one of the creators of the
Third Camp The third camp, also known as third camp socialism or third camp Trotskyism, is a branch of socialism that aims to oppose both capitalism and Stalinism by supporting the organised working class as a "third camp". The term arose early during W ...
tradition, a form of
Marxist socialism The socialist mode of production, sometimes referred to as the communist mode of production, or simply (Marxian) socialism or communism as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the terms ''communism'' and ''socialism'' interchangeably, is a specif ...
.


Biography


Early years

Harold Dubinsky was born in
Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
, in 1914, the son of Jewish immigrants from
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, then part of the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
.Adam Bernstein
"Scholar, Historian Theodore Draper,"
''Washington Post,'' February 23, 2006.
His father, Samuel Dubinsky (d. 1924), was the manager of a shirt factory.Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

''New York Times,'' February 22, 2006.
His mother, Annie Kornblatt Dubinsky, ran a candy store to make ends meet following her husband's death. He was one of four children, and
Theodore Draper Theodore H. Draper (September 11, 1912 – February 21, 2006) was an American historian and political writer. Draper is best known for the 14 books he completed during his life, including work regarded as seminal on the formative period of the Ame ...
was his brother. When Hal was eighteen, his mother insisted upon changing the family name to the "American-sounding" name "Draper" to shield the children from anti-Semitism as they entered their careers. Hal graduated from
Boys High School Single-sex education, also known as single-gender education and gender-isolated education, is the practice of conducting education with male and female students attending separate classes, perhaps in separate buildings or schools. The practice of ...
and earned a bachelor's degree from
Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...
in 1934.


Political career

During his teenage years he joined the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL), then the youth affiliate of the
Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...
, and he became a leader of the national student movements of the day that organized against fascism, war, and unemployment. Draper's political choices were in contrast to those made by his brother
Theodore Draper Theodore H. Draper (September 11, 1912 – February 21, 2006) was an American historian and political writer. Draper is best known for the 14 books he completed during his life, including work regarded as seminal on the formative period of the Ame ...
, a
fellow traveler The term ''fellow traveller'' (also ''fellow traveler'') identifies a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member of that o ...
of the
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
in the 1930s who would later be disillusioned with
Communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
and become a prominent historian. Their sister Dorothy (Dora) Draper would marry Jacob Rabkin (1905–2003), one of the intellectual founders of US tax law. Within the YPSL, Hal Draper was won over to
Trotskyism Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
and became an important leader of the YPSL's Trotskyist " Appeal Tendency" during 1936 and 1937. He was elected the organization's national secretary, its top post, at its September 1937 convention, which renounced the
Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
ist
Third International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...
in favor of a new Trotskyist
Fourth International The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of wor ...
. The great majority of the YPSL supported that position and left or was expelled by the Socialist Party in the fall of that year. Along with his YPSL activity, Draper took part in the founding of the Socialist Workers Party in 1937–1938. As debates erupted within the newly formed SWP, Draper aligned with those who objected to the internal regime of that party and were developing an analysis of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
under
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
as a new form of society, neither socialist nor capitalist, in which a new class, the state bureaucracy, held social and state power. In 1940, that faction, led by
Max Shachtman Max Shachtman (; September 10, 1904 – November 4, 1972) was an American Marxist theorist. He went from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL–CIO President George Meany. Beginnings S ...
,
James Burnham James Burnham (November 22, 1905 – July 28, 1987) was an American philosopher and political theorist. He chaired the New York University Department of Philosophy; his first book was ''An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis'' (1931). Burn ...
, and
Martin Abern Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austral ...
, split from the SWP to form the Workers Party. Draper joined them in founding the new organization. During the war, he and his wife Anne Draper, the former Anne Kracik, lived in
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, where they were active among shipyard workers and in antifascist and antiracist campaigns. Returning to New York in the mid 1940s, Draper became a major writer and functionary for the Workers Party. He would often write and edit almost the entire contents of issues of the group's paper, ''Labor Action.'' By 1948, the Workers Party came to believe that the prospects for revolution were receding and that it must adopt a more realistic strategy, given the diminished prospects. Therefore, it changed its name to the Independent Socialist League, an acknowledgement that its size and capacities did not warrant the name "party." With a shrinking membership (although its youth work was buoyant), the ISL leadership around Shachtman decided that the time had come to join forces with the Socialist Party of America, which occurred in 1958. Although Draper personally opposed the decision, he submitted to the majority. He regretted the rightward tendency of the organization, however, and in 1962, Draper, by then resident in
Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
, as a part-time microfilm acquisitions librarian at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, broke with the Socialist Party to form the Independent Socialist Club (ISC), which had a heavy youth composition. During this period, Draper received a master's degree from Berkeley in 1960. In 1964, Draper was heavily involved in the Free Speech Movement, an important precursor of that decade's
New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...
, on the Berkeley campus. He was a mentor to leader
Mario Savio Mario Savio (December 8, 1942 – November 6, 1996) was an American activist and a key member of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. He is most famous for his passionate speeches, especially the "Bodies Upon the Gears" address given at Sproul ...
and others. In the introduction to Draper's ''Berkeley: The New Student Revolt'' (1965), Savio acknowledges Draper's encouragement and friendship and cites the influence of Draper's pamphlet ''The Mind of Clark Kerr'' (October 1964) on the development of the Free Speech Movement. In 1968, ISC became the International Socialists as it expanded nationally. Draper left the organization three years later, arguing that the group had become a sect. From then on, he worked as an independent radical scholar, producing a stream of scholarly works on Marxism and the workers' movement.


Death

Draper died of pneumonia at his home in Berkeley, California, on January 26, 1990.''New York Times'' obituary, January 31, 1990


Legacy

Draper's magnum opus is his five-volume '' Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution'' (Monthly Review Press, 1977–1990), a seminal re-evaluation of the whole of Marx's political theory, based on an exhaustive survey of the writings of both Marx and Engels. He saw their political perspective as summarized by the phrase "socialism from below," which he had introduced in his pamphlet ''
The Two Souls of Socialism ''The Two Souls of Socialism'' is a socialism, socialist pamphlet by the Marxist writer Hal Draper, in which the author posits a fundamental division in socialist thought and action between those who favor "Socialism from Above" and those who favor ...
''. Draper was also the editor of a three-volume ''Marx-Engels Cyclopedia,'' detailing the day-to-day activities and writings of the two founders of modern socialism. Besides his overtly political writings, Draper wrote the short story ''
Ms Fnd in a Lbry ''MS Fnd in a Lbry'' (probably intended to be understood as "Manuscript Found in a Library") is a satire, satirical science fiction short story about the disastrous effects of the exponential growth of information. The story was written by Hal Dra ...
'', a satire of the
information age The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during ...
, in 1961. In 1982, Draper also published an English translation of the complete poetic works of the 19th-century German poet
Heinrich Heine Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of '' Lied ...
, the fruit of three decades of work conducted alongside his better-known political activity.


Associations

During his life, he was a member of the following organizations: * Young People's Socialist League * Socialist Workers Party * Workers Party *
Independent Socialist League The Workers Party (WP) was a Third Camp Trotskyist group in the United States. It was founded in April 1940 by members of the Socialist Workers Party who opposed the Soviet invasion of Finland and Leon Trotsky's belief that the USSR under Josep ...
*
Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...
*
Free Speech Movement The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a massive, long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The Movement was informally under the central leadership of B ...
* Independent Socialist Club/International Socialists He was also a member of the editorial board of '' New Politics''.


Works

* ''Out of their own mouths: a documentary study of the new line of the Comintern on war'' New York: Young People's Socialist League, Greater New York Federation, 1935 * ''Are you ready for war?'' New York : Young People's Socialist League, 1937
''The truth about Gerald Smith: America's no. 1 fascist''
San Pedro, Calif: Workers Party, Los Angeles Section, 1945
''Jim Crow in Los Angeles''
Los Angeles: Workers Party, 1946 * ''ABC of Marxism: outline text for class and self study'' Los Angeles: Workers Party, 1946 * ''Labor, key to a better world'' Austin, Tex: Young People's Socialist League, 1950–1959? * ''The two souls of socialism: socialism from below v. socialism from above'' New York : Young People's Socialist League, 1963 * ''Joseph Weydemeyer's "Dictatorship of the proletariat".'' .p.Labor History, 1962 * ''Notes on the India–China border war'' U.S.?: s.n., 1962 * ''Marx and the dictatorship of the proletariat'' Paris : I.S.E.A, Cahiers de l'Institut de science économique appliquée #129 Série S,; Etudes de marxologie #6 1962 * ''Introduction to independent socialism; selected articles from Labor action'' Berkeley, Independent Socialist Press 1963
''The mind of Clark Kerr.''
erkeley, Calif.Independent Socialist Club 1964 * ''Independent socialism, a perspective for the left'' Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Committee, 1964 Independent Socialist Committee pamphlet #1 * ''Third camp; the independent socialist view of war and peace policy'' Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Committee, 1965 Independent Socialist Committee pamphlet #2
''Berkeley: the new student revolt''
New York : Grove Press, 1965

'' New Politics'', 1966 * ''Strike!: the second battle of Berkeley : what happened and how can we win'' (with others) [Berkeley, Calif.? : s.n., 1966 * ''The fight for independence in Vietnam.'' Berkeley, Calif. Independent Socialist Club 1966 * ''Independent socialism and war; articles'' Berkeley, Calif. Independent Socialist Committee 1966 Independent socialist clippingbooks, #2 * ''Zionism, Israel, & the Arabs: the historical background of the Middle East tragedy'' [Berkeley, Calif. : s.n.] 1967 Independent socialist clippingbooks, #3 * ''The first Israel-Arab war, 1948–49'' Berkeley : Independent Socialist Clippingbooks, 1967 Independent Socialist Clippingbooks Xerocopy series #X-2 * ''The dirt on California; agribusiness and the University'' [Berkeley, Calif., Independent Socialist Clubs of America, 1968 * ''Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: articles in the New American cyclopaedia.'' Berkeley, Calif. Independent Socialist Press 1969 Independent socialist clippingbooks, #5 * ''The Permanent war economy'' Berkeley, Calif. Independent Socialist Press 1970 Independent socialist clippingbooks, #7 * ''Notebook on the Paris Commune; press excerpts & notes. by Karl Marx Berkeley, Calif. Independent Socialist Press 1971 (editor) Independent socialist clippingbooks, #8 * ''Writings on the Paris Commune'' by Karl Marx New York Monthly Review Press 1971 (editor) * ''The Politics of Ignazio Silone: a controversy around Silone's statement "My political faith" : contributions (with Ignazio Silone, Lucio Libertini and Irving Howe) Berkeley, Calif. Independent Socialist Press 1974 Independent socialist clippingbooks, #10 * ''Karl Marx's theory of revolution'' Vol. 1 ''State and bureaucracy'' New York Monthly Review Press 1977 * ''Karl Marx's theory of revolution'' Vol. 2 ''The politics of social classes'' New York Monthly Review Press 1978 * ''The complete poems of Heinrich Heine: a modern English version'' by Heinrich Heine Boston: Suhrkamp/Insel; Oxford: Distributed by
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
1982 * ''The annotated Communist manifesto'' Berkeley, CA: Center for Socialist History 1984 * ''The adventures of the Communist manifesto'' Berkeley, CA: Center for Socialist History 1984 * ''The Marx–Engels register: a complete bibliography of Marx and Engels' individual writings'' New York : Schocken Books, 1985 * ''The Marx–Engels chronicle: a day-by-day chronology of Marx and Engels' life and activity'' New York : Schocken Books, 1985 * ''The Marx–Engels cyclopedia'' New York : Schocken Books, 1985–1986 * ''Karl Marx's theory of revolution'' Vol. 3 ''The "Dictatorship of the Proletariat"'' New York Monthly Review Press 1986 * ''The "dictatorship of the proletariat" from Marx to Lenin'' New York Monthly Review Press 1987 * ''America as overlord: from Yalta to Vietnam '' Berkeley, CA: Independent Socialist Press 1989 Draper papers, #1 * ''Karl Marx's theory of revolution'' Vol. 4 ''Critique of other socialisms'' New York Monthly Review Press 1990 * ''Socialism from below'' Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1992 * ''War and revolution: Lenin and the myth of revolutionary defeatism'' Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1996 * The Hidden History of the Equal Rights Amendment (co-author: Stephen F. Diamond), Center for Socialist History, Berkeley, CA, 2013.


See also

*
Socialism from below {{No references, date=September 2022 Socialism from below (''Socialisme par en bas'', SPEB), founded in 1997 and disbanded in 2007, was one of two socialist groups in France based on the International Socialism tradition of the Trotskyist movement. ...


References


Sources

* Geier, Joel. "Socialism from Below: Hal Draper's Contribution to Revolutionary Marxism," ''International Socialist Review,'' no. 107 (Winter 2017-18), pp. 87–108. * Haberkern, Ernest.
Introduction to Hal Draper
, Marxists Internet Archive, 1998 * Phelps, Christopher. "Draper, Hal," in ''Encyclopedia of the American Left,'' 2d ed., ed.
Mari Jo Buhle Mari Jo Buhle (born 1943) is an American historian and William R. Kenan Jr., William J. Kenan Jr. University Professor Emerita at Brown University. Early life and education Buhle was born in 1943 as Mari Jo Kupski. She graduated from North Chi ...
et al. (Oxford University Press, 1996).
"Hal Draper, 75, Socialist Writer Who Recounted Berkeley Protest," ''The New York Times,'' January 31, 1990


External links

*

at
marxists.org Marxists Internet Archive (also known as MIA or Marxists.org) is a non-profit online encyclopedia that hosts a multilingual library (created in 1990) of the works of communist, anarchist, and socialist writers, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Enge ...
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Draper, Hal 1914 births 1990 deaths Jewish American writers Jewish socialists Brooklyn College alumni Members of the Socialist Workers Party (United States) Members of the Workers Party (United States) Members of the Socialist Party of America Members of the International Socialists (U.S.) American anti-capitalists American Marxists American political writers American communists American socialists American Trotskyists American male non-fiction writers California socialists Marxist theorists Marxist writers New York (state) socialists 20th-century American non-fiction writers Boys High School (Brooklyn) alumni Deaths from pneumonia in California 20th-century American male writers