The 1934 Declaration of Principles was a

political platform A political party platform (US English), party program, or party manifesto (preferential term in British & often Commonwealth English) is a formal set of principle goals which are supported by a political party or individual candidate, in order ...

of the

Militant faction The Militant faction was an organized grouping of Marxists in the Socialist Party of America (SPA) who sought to steer that organization from its orientation towards electoral politics and towards direct action and revolutionary socialism. The fa ...

passed at 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 ...

(SPA) May 1934 National Convention held in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. The document committed the organization to "refuse collectively to sanction or support any international war" and condemned the "bogus democracy of capitalist

parliamentarism A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...

" in favor of establishment of a "genuine workers' democracy." The 1934 Declaration of Principles was instrumental in causing a split of the SPA, with its so-called "Old Guard" faction exiting the organization en masse to establish a rival organization, the

Social Democratic Federation The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on 7 June 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury, Jame ...

, in 1936.

History

The chief author of the 1934 Declaration of Principles was Devere Allen, a

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaig ...

follower of Socialist Party leader

Norman Thomas Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. Early years Thomas was the ...

from

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

.Brad Bennett, "Devere Allen (1891-1955)," in Roger S. Powers, et al. (eds.), ''Protest, Power, and Change: An Encyclopedia of Nonviolent Action from ACT-UP to Women's Suffrage.'' London: Routledge, 1997; pp. ??. It was vocally supported by the party's organized "Militant" faction. In closing the debate at the convention, New York "Old Guard" leader

Louis Waldman Louis Waldman (January 5, 1892 – September 12, 1982) was a leading figure in the Socialist Party of America from the late 1910s and through the middle 1930s, a founding member of the Social Democratic Federation, and a prominent New York labo ...

railed against adoption of the Declaration of Principles:

"I warn against these dangerous, provocative proposals, which will lead the party to ruin. They are
anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...
ic, illegal,
Communist 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 ...
doctrine. This is a wild, irresponsible declaration."

Then Norman Thomas went forward to close the debate in favor of adoption of the new declaration. Waldman recalls:

"When Thomas rose, he received a great ovation from the Militants, but he was pale and nervous. He had been maneuvered into a position inconsistent with his long time stance as a social
reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement ...
er. He was ill-suited to be a leader of a
revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
ary movement committed to violence and dictatorship. I considered him more a captive than a leader. While I felt that the leadership and encouragement he had given the Militants had helped bring the party to the brink of disaster, if not past it, I was nevertheless sympathetic to a man who had been cast in a role so alien to his past.

"But he had passed the point of no return. He rejoiced in the declaration, he said. He praised Allen. As a pacifist, he had little difficulty in making a general and eloquent statement about the horror of war, which he condemned. When he got to the question of seizure of power and the imposition of a dictatorship, he seemed lost. He declared that
Fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and th ...
, which he said the declaration clearly implied was now at hand, 'left the Socialist Party no alternative but to seize power whether or not it had a majority."

The 1934 Declaration of Principles was approved at the Detroit convention by a vote of delegates representing 10,882 members in favor, and delegates representing 6,512 opposed.Waldman, ''The Good Fight:,'' pg. 220.

History

Footnotes

Further reading