Ypsl and the Socialist Party - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Political issues and parties in the USA and Canada.

Moderator: PoFo North America Mods

Forum rules: No one line posts please.
By Un Owen
#127438
Lately, I have been doing research into the radical left in the USA, and, I have a few questions concerning the nature of the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL) and the Socialist party.

Some time ago, I read Seymour Martin Lipset's Why Socialism failed in the United States, and its critique of the Socialist Party and the internal politics of the party; despite their infighting over theory, the Party did exceptionally well in local, state and federal elections; has anyone on this board ever come across an explanation why they fell so far? Why did a party which generally received more than 5 million votes in the early 20th Century turn into a 'nothing party'? Can this be chalked up to Cold-War politics or is/was there something else to blame for their decline.

Also, does anyone here know anything about the nature of YPSL. From reading their website ( http://ypsl.org ) I have learned that they joined the Socialist Party as their youth-wing in 1989; did they exist, as a Party, before this? Their constitution and 'aims' section is pretty pedantic. Can anyone shed some light onto their political background?
User avatar
By SonofRage
#127457
I don't agree with everything in this article, but it may give you some of the background history you are looking for:

http://www.socialistworker.org/2001/376 ... arty.shtml

YPSL doesn't seem very active as far as I know. Last I checked their website, it hadn't been updated in a while.

The SP-USA is a multi-tendency party so there is a mix of revolutionaries and the more social democratic types. You may want to check out a newly formed caucus of the SP-USA called the "Deb's Tendency" (of which I am a founding member).

http://www.debstendency.org

EDIT:

just to add some of my own perspective, I think a few things happened. One, the Democratic Party co-opted some of the SP-USA's transitional-type reform demands and a lot of the Social Democrat types got absorbed into the Democratic Party. With the Russian Revolution happening in 1917, a lot of the more militant revolutionaries ended up getting absorbed into the Communist Party USA which was basically a puppet party for the USSR.
By Un Owen
#128030
Thank you for your help. I will look over the proposed websites and see what they have to say about the matter.

You rown perspective is very much in tune with that put forward by Lipset, and is in the end the most logical explanation for the past 80 years of Socialist party history.

Thanks again,

Un Owen
Russia-Ukraine War 2022

@Potemkin They've spent the best part of two […]

Juan Dalmau needs to be the governor and the isla[…]

Whats "breaking" here ? Russians have s[…]

@Puffer Fish You dig a trench avoiding existin[…]