Starting in Boston in 1916 and expanding to New York City in 1917, the Socialist Propaganda League organized the hard left of the East Coast Socialist Party before the Russian Revolution.

‘The Socialist Propaganda League in Brooklyn’ from New International. Vol. 1 No. 4. June 2, 1917.

THAT the Socialist Propaganda League is an absolute necessity is proven by the activities of the Brooklyn Branch of the Socialist Prop. League. Now you of the Down Hearted League, look this over and get me inspiration to get back into the harness

Chief among the activities of the Prop. League of Brooklyn are the Anti-Militarist Mass Meetings which are rousing successes. The first one held a month ago resulted in packing in 1400 people in a comparatively small hall, and turning away hundreds. The doors were closed at 9 o’clock for lack of room. Overflow meetings were held in the street. The second Mass Meeting to protest against conscription held two weeks later in the same hall resulted in another overflow crowd, too large to be accommodated. The collections have never been equalled before by any other meeting held in Brooklyn. Enough was collected at both meetings to pay all expenses, and leaving a nice surplus which was turned over to the Mooney Defense Committee.

Hundreds of copies of the New International were sold at this meeting, also quite some “subs” were obtained for our paper.

The Propaganda League was well rep resented on the speakers’ list. The following is a list of the speakers who ad dressed these mass meetings: L.C Fraina, Editor of the New International Joseph Schlossberg, Secretary of the Amal. Garment Workers, Ad. Goldfarb B. Vladek, and S.P. Kramer of the Socialist Party, Winter Russel of the World Peace Fed. and Harry Weinberger of the Free Speech League. Ed Lindgren and J.C. Rovitch presiding.

Another Mass Meeting to line up the workers against Conscription and to enlist sentiment for the repeal of the bloody bill was to have been held Fri day, May 31, but the proprietor refused to open the hall and the meeting was held in the street.

Our business meetings are well attended. The S.P. reds are lining up with the old timers who dropped out of the S.P. due to a disgust of its conservative middle class tactics.

Open air meetings are being held for the purpose of securing funds for the Mooney Defence and for imprisoned Westinghouse strikers. The first open-air meeting netted $5 for the Mooney Defence though the night was too cold for open air meetings.

We have decided to pay for 200 copies of the New International of each issue though we will sell more.

This live wire branch meets at the headquarters of the 14th A.D. S.P. at 225 S. 1st Street, every Thursday night Discussions on timely topics follow the business session.

Give us a visit. If interested, call at the above address, or write to S. Nesin, Organizer, 294 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn Watch this paper for more news of the Banner Local.

For the Revolution,

Press Committee, per S.N.

P. S. We have sent about $20.00 to the Mooney Defence.

New International was the paper of the Socialist Propaganda League of America begun in Boston as ‘The Internationalist’ at the start of January 1917 and first edited by John D. Williams. The SPLA was founded by Left Wing SPer C.W. Fitzgerald , who had contacted Lenin in the fall of 1915 over their shared opposition to the war and positions around the Zimmerwald Conference. Lenin and continued their correspondence. With publisher and editor John D Williams and Dutch revolutionary SJ Rutgers, Fitzgerald officially began the SPLA in November, 1916, the first po-Bolshevik organization in the US. In early 1917 Williams went to New York to tour for the SPLA. On January 16, 1917 a meeting in Brooklyn attended by Leon Trotsky, Nikolai Bukharin, Alexandra Kollontay, V. Volodarsky, and Grigory Chudnovsky representing the Russian revolutionary movement with Louis B. Boudin, Ludwig Lore, Louis Fraina, and John D Williams of the SPLA. Both the New International(ist) and Class Struggle journals were born at this meeting. In the spring of 1917 SPLA headquarters moved to New York where Louis Fraina took over as editor. The paper lasted only about a year before Fraina began publishing Revolutionary Age.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-international/v1n04-jun-02-1917-ni.pdf