From the archive of struggle: student activism in the 1930s

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This is another post highlighting on-line historical materials. This week, we feature two interesting on-line exhibitions on 1930s student activism in the USA. CUNY‘s Virtual New York City is a fantastic local history resource. It includes an exhibit on the struggle for free speech at CCNY. The exhibit’s perspective is basically a Stalinist fellow travelling one, in my view, but it is interesting and well put together, and has some material about the student arm of Norman Thomas‘ Socialist Party. This is from the Student Rebels section:

The Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID) is the student section of the League for Industrial Democracy, which can be traced to the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, founded in 1905 by CCNY graduate and popular writer/activist Upton Sinclair. Here, SLID members demonstrate to encourage office workers to support their union during the summer of 1935 in NYC’s garment district.

The Young People’s Socialist League (YPSL) is the youth affiliate of the Socialist Party. Its main rival on campus is the Young Communist League. This flyer advertises an anti-war meeting in Harlem.

There is also a brief mention and some nice engravings of the famous “alcoves” at CCNY. Alcove no.1 was the anti-Stalinist alcove, home to Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, Daniel Bell and Irving Howe.

The New Deal Network is a web of US educational sites on the 1930s. Among its sections is one on student activism in the period. SLID features again here, with, for example, twenty-one autobiographical essays from the 1935 Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID) Summer Leadership Institute, from the Joseph P. Lash Papers at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Libary.

Further reading:

Arguing the World; Apt.11D on Alcove no.1; Irving Kristol’s alcove memories; orgtheory on Arguing the World; Robert Schrank’s alcove memories.

From the archive of struggle

From last week’s feast at Entdinglichung:

* Virgil J. Vogel: The first Libertarian Socialist League, 1949-1956 (1975)
* Young Socialist League (YSL): What is the Young Socialist League? (1957)
* Petr Kropotkin: Anarchistische Moral (1922)
* Ante Ciliga: L’insurrection de Cronstadt (1946)
* Socialist Party of America (SPA): Socialist Call, 10. April 1953
* Socialist Party of America (SPA): Socialist Call, 1. Mai 1953
* Socialist Party of America (SPA): Socialist Call, 4. September 1953
* Eugene Debs: Apostrophe to Liberty (1904)

* Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM): Révolution espagnole, 14. November 1936

* Wilebaldo Solano; Discours au Gran Price de Barcelone (1936)

* Socialisme ou Barbarie, April/Mai 1952
** La guerre et la perspective révolutionnaire (pdf-Datei)
** A. Véga: La lutte des classes en Espagne (pdf-Datei)
** La vie de notre Groupe
** Claude Lefort: Pascal [Donald Simon]
** G. Pétro: La grève des chemins de fer de Mars 1951 (pdf-Datei)
** Pascal: Un aventurer dans le monde bureaucratique: “La vie et la mort en U.R.S.S.” de Le Campesino (pdf-Datei)
** Annonce: Réunion publique (pdf-Datei)
** Imprimeur (pdf-Datei)
** À paraître aux prochain numéros (pdf-Datei)

* Clara Zetkin: Rosa Luxemburg (1919)
* Isaac Deutscher: On the Chinese “Cultural Revolution“ (1966)

* Paul Avrich: Anarchism and Anti-Intellectualism in Russia (1970)
* Paul Avrich: The Legacy of Bakunin (1966)
* Steven Hirsch: Anarcho-syndicalism in Peru, 1905-1930 (?)
* George Robertson: “Speak out now when others grow silent”: The Messenger, the IWW and debates over New Negro radicalism (?)

* Paul Foot: Karl Marx: The Best Hated Man (2004)

* Rudolf Rocker: Gegen den Strom (1930, Auszug)

 

 

 

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