St. Louis revolutionaries organize their branch to the exclusion of petty-bourgeois reformists in 1913.

‘St. Louis industrial Socialists’ from International Socialist Review Vol. 13 No. 7. January, 1913.

Comrade W.H. Betts, Branch No. 1, sends the following interesting information: “We, of branch 1, accept as members only, those who earn their living by actual labor, as we doubt that one who is not up against the actual grind can be class conscious. As all branches have complete autonomy, they are at liberty to accept as members any one they wish, but no professional man can be accepted as delegate to the City Central Committee. We have ten branches represented at the Central Committee.

We “reds” are going to make a Socialist movement in St. Louis that will relegate the reform office seekers to the Progressive party where they have always belonged. The machine here is composed of A. F. of L. fakers and reform Socialists who have repudiated Comrade Debs in the past and they are at the present time doing all in their power to do away with the democratic spirit and membership control in the organization. We are holding a regular Lyceum lecture course at Aschenbroedel Hall every Saturday night. Speakers from the I.W.W., Syndicalists, Socialists and social reformers have presented their various points of view. A lecture by Dr. Ray on “The Red Flag” last Saturday night was conceded by all to be one of the best ever given in St. Louis. Our meeting are well attended and revolutionary comrades will always find the Red Flag flying here.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v13n07-jan-1913-ISR-go-ocr.pdf