Debs and Bolshevism
In his famous 1918 anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, in which he martyred himself for a prison term that would last beyond the World War and shave years off his life, Eugene V. Debs declared, “From the top of my head to the tip of my toes, I am a Bolshevik, and proud of it.” This quote is often taken out of context by some to argue that in his later years Debs was turning towards Lenin’s doctrine and perhaps would have joined the Communist Party had he lived long enough. Too many socialists attempt to freeze Debs in a particular moment and argue that because the pioneering leader of American socialism took a certain position, say, forming new industrial unions to compete with and replace the American Federation of Labor in 1907, that that is the correct position for socialists in 2007, even if Debs himself contradicted that position […]