While the Left in the U.S. is unimaginable without the decisive contribution of many Jewish activists, for many years the largest left parties in the U.S. were at pains to present themselves as ‘American’, playing down both Jewish membership and issues.Even as the Socialist Party included many Jews, and its Yiddish-speaking federation was one of its largest, it generally did not promote Jews to national leadership or, outside of Jewish communities, as standard-bearers, with the Party rarely promoting specific-Jewish issues. There are, of course, exceptions, but the fact is that Party did not want to be seen as ‘foreign’ and this meant not addressing the interests of ‘minority’ populations in general, and of its own members in particular. Much the same would also be true of the Communist Party, with an even larger proportion of Jewish membership than the S.P. The explosion of violence during the Russian Civil War against Jewish communities saw tens of thousands die in pogroms, mainly conducted by the imperialist-supported forces of counter-revolution, and brought the issue of anti-Jewish reaction to the broad public, ‘allowing’ the Socialist Party to pass this resolution.

‘Resolution on Anti-Semitism’ by the Socialist Party of America from Socialist World. Vol. 1 No. 6. December 15, 1920.

The exploiting class has found no better method for keeping the workers in subjection than by dividing them along religious, race and color lines. The stimulation of race hatred is the best and most effective means of keeping the workers suspicious and hostile towards each other. The deliberately stimulated race hatred against the Negroes in the South, the emphasizing of racial and religious differences in other sections of the country is, one of the means by which the industrial masters of America prevent the unity of the working people which is necessary before they can achieve their emancipation.

For centuries the tyrants of Europe have ere created hatred and suspicion against the Jews by causing suspicions and false information to be spread broadcast, and have deliberately encouraged a vast anti-Semitic sentiment which has resulted in the murder of thousands of Jewish workers and the continued subjection of millions of non-Jewish workers kept in subjection by the belief that the Jew, rather than the capitalist system. is their enemy.

This is the explanation of the ghastly massacres and persecution of the Jews that is going on today in Poland, in the Ukraine, in Roumania and other parts of Europe. The government of the United States has been a partner in these crimes by reason of the aid that has been furnished the reactionary government of Poland, the Czarist adventurer, Wrangel, and others who have been the foremost agencies in this policy of Jewish persecution.

The liberal capitalist press of America often denounces this vicious policy and even drops a tear upon the graves of the murdered Jews. Nevertheless, they wholeheartedly support our own and foreign governments whose policies are the cause of these persecutions. The Jewish bankers and business men of the United States protest against the persecution of their co-religionists, but at the same time are warm adherents of that policy and that system which makes the massacres and persecutions inevitable.

The Socialist Party of the United States, through its National Executive Committee, denounce. And protests against the Jewish pogroms and massacres in Europe and demands that the government of the United States immediately cease giving material aid or moral support to the governments which have tolerated the elements which have instigated these wholesale murders of innocent and defenseless workers.

This policy, meaning just what it has meant in Europe, has now been imported into America. The systematic campaign of misrepresentation that is being waged, and the kindergarten story of the mythical Jewish plot to capture the world are part of a well financed campaign to sow suspicion and breed dissension between the Jew and the Gentile workers in order to take their minds from their own problems and direct them towards hatred of men and women of other blood.

The Socialist Party of the United States, through its National Executive Committee, denounces this campaign as one of this most sinister influences that can enter our National Life. We call upon the working class of America in their own interests to ignore this campaign of hatred and slander, to resist the attempt to divide them on racial or religious issues. We call upon them to unite with all their fellow workers of whatever race, creed or color, to the end that industrial oppression may be ended and the world be made free for men and women of all races and or all nations.

The Socialist World was published monthly and, after the tumult of 1917-1919 and the demise of Socialist Appeal (1914-1917), became the party’s more or less official voice in 1920. Published in Chicago as an official paper of the Socialist Party of America, and nominally edited by Eugene Debs for much of its run, it was Debs’ main outlet for articles. Otto Branstetter was the managing editor. It ceased publishing in August of 1926 to form American Appeal as a semi-official organ of the Socialist Party of America in the later 1920s.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/socialist-world/v01n06-dec-15-1920-Soc-World.pdf