‘The Revolutionary Heritage of Eugene Victor Debs’ by James P. Cannon from Labor Defender. Vol. 1 No. 12. December, 1926.

‘EUGENE VICTOR DEBS lived and did his work in the pregnant years which marked the rise and development of American imperialism, when American industry expanded on a gigantic scale and when the working class, which holds the future in its hands, went through a series of stormy struggles which were the harbinger of far greater ones to come.

‘In 1894, after a record of successful activity in building the railroad brotherhoods, he led the first great strike of an industrial union, the American Railway Union strike against the Pullman company. It was in this strike that the injunction was first used against workers combined in struggle and it was Debs who led the fight against it. This fight led him into Woodstock jail and it set his feet on the road of the revolutionary movement. Debs came out of jail a convinced socialist, firm in the belief he held to the last that the emancipation of the workers could be achieved only by the unity of their political and economic power and that socialism was the goal of their struggle.

‘He aided in the foundation of the Socialist Party, which reached the apex of its revolutionary spirit and power when the United States entered the imperialist world war. In his party, he was never identified with those who sought to smooth the road with respectability and base compromise. To the contrary his voice was always raised with those in his party who stood for a revolutionary policy.

‘Debs was one of the most active spirits in organizing the Industrial Workers of the World. In it he hoped to embody and vitalize the idea of industrial unionism which he cherished so passionately and defended to the last. Even in later years, when he had ceased to belong to the I.W.W., he continued to defend it and its members. There were those, particularly in the period before and after the war, who anxiously protested their disagreement with and disassociation from the despised and hunted “wobblies”; but Debs was not among them. In the greatest speech of his life at Canton, in the midst of the lynching campaign against the I.W.W., he extended his great spirit of solidarity to them. He de- fended Haywood and the others on trial at Chicago, just as strongly as he denounced Gompers hobnobbing with the war mongers at Washington.

“If they attempt to murder Moyer, Haywood and their brothers, a million revolutionists, at least, will meet them with guns…Let them dare to execute their devilish plot and every state in this Union will resound with the tramp of revolution…

‘Debs did not fear to align himself with unpopular causes. When Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone faced legal assassination by the servile courts of Idaho, Debs rallied to their cause with unforgettable revolutionary fervor. He poured his entire rebel body and mind into a rousing call to the workers of America. In the Appeal to Reason to which he contributed at that time, he issued his appeal, “Arouse, Ye Slaves!”

“Get ready, comrades, for action!… A special revolutionary convention of the proletariat at Chicago, or some other central point, would be in order, and, if extreme measures are required, a general strike could be ordered and industry paralyzed as a preliminary to a general uprising.

“If the plutocrats begin the program, we will end it.”

‘The revolutionary activity of Comrade Debs reached its highest point at Canton, Ohio, and the trial which followed in the courtroom in Cleveland. When the imperialists of this country entered the world war, when the masses were armed to shoot down their brothers in other lands for the profit of the master class, when the workers found themselves dragooned and betrayed on every hand, their organizations debauched and suppressed; when the traitors and cowards — the Spargos and Wallings and Bensons — went over openly to the side of the enemy; when the masses sought for some authentic voice of opposition, they heard it from the lips of Eugene Debs.

‘The speech of Debs at Canton was a call to action for the class-conscious workers of America. It was a courageous and revolutionary defiance of the war mongers and of the Judases in the ranks of labor. Debs realized the consequences of his word and deed. Just as proudly therefore did he bear himself during the trial at Cleveland. Just as staunchly did he refuse to crave the pardon of the ruling class while he served his term of imprisonment in Atlanta. He left the prison with shattered health, but his revolutionary spirit was stronger than ever, supported by the greetings of solidarity sent him by workers from all parts of the world.

‘In the closing years of his life Debs took a different path from that followed by many of those who had stood closest to him in the times of trial and stress. The world war and the Russian revolution had changed the face of the world in which Debs had formed his conceptions and done his work. In drawing the conclusions from these world-shaking events many of us parted company politically with the Socialist Party. Debs did not go with us in this. In many respects we found ourselves in serious disagreement with him, but at the same time we always drew a sharp distinction between Debs and those who, while wearing the cloak of socialism, actually forsook the cause to which Debs sincerely and honestly devoted all his life.

‘Debs always stood for unity in the struggle. He made his word a deed in many instances, especially by his persistent support of the International Labor Defense, upon whose national committee he served from the very beginning. The old class war prisoner knew the value of a unified movement to batter down the walls and bars that hold our comrades confined. How different was his sincere and untiring support of this work from the malicious attacks of the Jewish Daily Forward! No one could more sharply mark the distinction between two differing spirits and traditions in the movement than did Debs, by his actions and work for the I.L.D., in comparison with those of the Forward who, without basis, claim him as their own. It is not to them that Debs belongs.

‘Debs was no colorless saint standing above the battle. He was a warm and passionate partisan and his whole life’s activity is a record of unceasing devotion to the cause of the workers in the class struggle. His great love for the masses cannot be understood if it is separated from the movement whose struggles and ideals he incarnated. He was such a superior personality that he was able, while fighting in the sordid environment of capitalism, to keep a clear vision of the goal of the struggle. He saw always the golden future which will follow the final victory of the workers and he was able, in the fight for that future, to conduct his personal life according to its nobler and higher standards.

‘In honoring the memory of Comrade Debs we should strive to emulate some of his attributes to show some little part at least of his dauntless courage, his uncalculating generosity and his marvelous comrade spirit Debs was not only a tireless agitator against capitalism and a champion of the workers in the revolutionary struggle. He was also a herald of the comrade-world which will be organized after the final conflict and victory when classes and class exploitation will have been abolished, when culture becomes universal and the finer and nobler aspects of the human character become not merely the possession of rare individuals but the attributes of the entire race.

‘Capitalism, with its corruption and decay its hypocrisy and cynicism, its injustice and oppression, makes it difficult to visualize the society which the regenerated human race will construct upon the ruins of capitalism. But the personality of Comrade Debs has given us a glimpse of it.

‘Debs left to the American workers a great tradition of persistent revolutionary struggle.

‘The great fighter was our elder brother, and he remains ours, in spite of the differences that we may have had with him. We know that he grew to the full stature of his greatness in the storm of struggle, that he was identified prominently with every outstanding movement and battle of the American workers since the last part of the nineteenth century.

‘The influence of Eugene V. Debs has not ended with his death. The modern militant labor movement, which is the heir and successor of that movement of revolt which took shape in the years preceding the world war, has taken to heart the death of Debs, the most authentic spokesman of the earlier movement. It is to this movement, inheriting the best of the traditions of the past, that Debs belongs. It is the best representative of the revolutionary spirit and work of the dead leader.

‘The death of Eugene V. Debs has called forth the most profound sorrow from the ranks of the American workers. At his grave we greet him as a great warrior and pay our tribute to him by pledging ourselves to the continuation of his work.

‘The “Debs’ Enrollment” which has been initiated by International Labor Defense is intended as a tribute to Debs and as a memorial to him. Those who enter the ranks and march with them will continue the work of the prisoner of Atlanta and Woodstock, who, having overcome both of these prisons, continued to the end to fight for the release of the whole working class from that greater prison which is capitalism.’

Labor Defender was published monthly from 1926 until 1937 by the International Labor Defense (ILD), a Workers Party of America, and later Communist Party-led, non-partisan defense organization founded by James Cannon and William Haywood while in Moscow, 1925 to support prisoners of the class war, victims of racism and imperialism, and the struggle against fascism. It included, poetry, letters from prisoners, and was heavily illustrated with photos, images, and cartoons. Labor Defender was the central organ of the Scottsboro and Sacco and Vanzetti defense campaigns. Not only were these among the most successful campaigns by Communists, they were among the most important of the period and the urgency and activity is duly reflected in its pages. Editors included T. J. O’ Flaherty, Max Shactman, Karl Reeve, J. Louis Engdahl, William L. Patterson, Sasha Small, and Sender Garlin.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1926/v01n12-dec-1926-ORIG-LD.pdf