An invitation to the join the Socialist Propaganda League of America. The SPLA was founded by in Boston 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, and that city’s revolutionary Letts. With publisher and editor John D. Williams and Dutch revolutionary S.J. Rutgers, Fitzgerald officially began the SPLA in November, 1916. 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 SPLA would fold all of its activities into the Left Wing in 1919.

‘The Socialist Propaganda League’ from New International. Vol. 1 No. 5. June 16, 1917.

THE dominant feature of the Socialist Movement in Europe today is the organization of the revolutionary minority into definite groups. In Germany there has been an actual split, and the organization of an Independent Social-Democratic Party. In France the minority has just organized a sort of Council of Socialist Safety, and is daily becoming more aggressive and definite in its purposes. This tendency prevails equally in the other nations. And everywhere the principles and tactics of the Left Wing are becoming ascendant in the opposition.

The Socialist Movement of the United States has it within its power to make or break the new forces of Socialist reconstruction now active throughout the world. This reconstruction is the historic task of the revolutionary minority, and accordingly it becomes the task of the minority in our movement to organize for definite action.

Never was a finer opportunity offered. The membership of the Party is revolutionary, and has compelled the intelligent and unscrupulous portion of our bureaucracy to adapt themselves to the situation in order to maintain their ascendancy. But the bureaucracy has been badly shaken. Some of its members are being expelled, others are resigning, and the remainder are trying to assume the garb of the lion, while surreptitiously pursuing their opportunistic tactics. The membership is awake, assertive, aggressive. One great struggle, and the party and its future

In the meanwhile, the minority must organize and act. The Socialist Propaganda League offers the opportunity and the means.

The Socialist Propaganda League is an organization of revolutionary, international Socialism. It is the American expression of the Left Wing in Europe. Its principles are the fundamental principles of Socialism, its tactics the fundamental tactics of revolutionary Socialism adapted to the era of Imperialistic Capitalism.

Ours is not a temporary task. It isn’t simply an expression of the requirements of Socialist action during war. War is the continuation of peace, and peace is the continuation of war. The Socialist Movement must be prepared to meet the test of peace equally with the test of war. Our program, accordingly, is a general, comprehensive program for a thorough reconstruction of the movement.

The Socialist Propaganda League, wherever it is, is driving the party on toward aggressive action. It is organizing the minority. It is striking hands across the seas with our revolutionary Comrades.

Our program arises out of the actual conditions of contemporary life, it is not the fine-spun web of a dreamer’s imagination.

This program bases itself solidly on the repudiation of all wars waged under the conditions of Imperialistic Capitalism, the necessity for relentlessly waging the class struggle equally during war and peace, and under any and all conditions, international solidarity as the indispensable means of fighting Imperialism and expressing proletarian interests, and the necessity of basing the whole activity of the Socialist Working Class movement upon economic mass action.

The Socialist Party is in chaos. The whole future of Socialism in this country is in danger. Only the action of the minority can shape events for progress and achievement.

The Socialist Propaganda League has twenty branches in twelve different states. It is growing. Are you a member? If not, join immediately! If you know of five or more comrades who wish to organize a branch get in touch with the Secretary, who will give you full information.

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/v1n05-jun-16-1917-ni.pdf