When Socialism Came To Reading, Pennsylvania
How past victories and defeats can guide the present
(This article was originally published in The Washington Socialist).
Nearly one hundred years ago, socialism was on the rise in America. Registration for the Socialist Party of America (SPA) peaked at over 100,000 members in 1912. Socialist leaders were elected to local and state offices all over the country, ranging from Santa Cruz, California, to Curranville, Kansas, to Charleston, West Virginia. Interest stayed high for the remainder of the decade, with dues-paying members in the tens of thousands.
However, this started to change in 1919 when America went through its first Red Scare. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia had started several years earlier and would not be concluded until 1923. In combination with other factors like increased labor strikes and self-proclaimed “anarchists” mailing bombs to prominent Americans, the government started to crack down on “radical” organizations. Thousands were arrested and deported. This stigmatization and violence, in combination with the SPA’s “unpatriotic” anti-war stance during WWI, meant that dues-paying members were halved in the following years, and socialist politicians all over the country lost their seats.
