Grass-Roots Socialism
Grass-Roots Socialism

Author: James R. Green

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 1978-07-01

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 9780807107737

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Grass-Roots Socialism answers two of the most intriguing questions in the history of American radicalism: why was the Socialist party stronger in Oklahoma than in any other state, and how was the party able to build powerful organizations in nearby rural southwestern areas? Many of the same grievances that had created a strong Populist movement in the region provided the Socialists with potent political issues—the railroad monopoly, the crop lien system, and political corruption. With these widely felt grievances to build on, the Socialists led the class-conscious farmers and workers to a radicalism that was far in advance of that advocated by the earlier People’s party. Examined in this broadly based study of the movement are popular leaders like Oklahoma’s Oscar Ameringer (“The Mark Twain of American Socialism”), “Red Tom” Hickey of Texas, and Kate Richards O’Hare, who was second only to Eugene Debs as a Socialist orator. Included also is information on the party’s propaganda techniques, especially those used in the lively newspapers which claimed fifty thousand subscribers in the Southwest by 1913, and on the attractive summer camp meetings which drew thousands of poor white tenant farmers to week-long agitation and education sessions.

Socialist Cities
Socialist Cities

Author: Richard W. Judd

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1989-07-28

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 1438408099

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Socialist Cities is a comparative treatment of grass-roots Socialist successes. It marks the first comprehensive look at the urban working-class base of the American Socialist movement in the early part of the century, and reveals the importance of municipal politics as an organizing strategy. The author assesses the reactions of both workers and non-workers to the party, and provides a fresh perspective on the perennial question of why socialism 'failed' in America. He demonstrates that the subtle and ongoing dialogue between the party's own internal theoretical and tactical weaknesses and the broader class and structural obstacles against which it struggled, contributed to its failure.

Constructing Socialism at the Grass-Roots
Constructing Socialism at the Grass-Roots

Author: C. Ross

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2000-03-23

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 9780333789803

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In the two decades following the defeat of the Third Reich, East Germany was transformed from a war-ravaged occupation zone into an apparent model of Soviet style socialism. Based on extensive archival research, this book explores the building of socialism in East Germany not from the standard perspective of the party and state authorities. It also examines the effect this had at the grassroots level, where patterns of popular opinion, social and cultural continuities from the pre-communist past and the divided loyalties of local functionaries played a crucial role in shaping the face of real existing socialism.

Agrarian Socialism in America
Agrarian Socialism in America

Author: Jim Bissett

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2002-04-01

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 9780806134277

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Why was Oklahoma, of all places, more hospitable to socialism than any other state in America? In this provocative book, Jim Bissett chronicles the rise and fall of the Socialist Party of Oklahoma during the first two decades of the twentieth century, when socialism in the United States enjoyed its golden age. To explain socialism’s popularity in Oklahoma, Bissett looks back to the state’s strong tradition of agrarian reform. Drawing most of its support from working farmers, the Socialist Party of Oklahoma was rooted in such well-established organizations as the Farmers Alliance and the Indiahoma Farmers’ Union. And to broaden its appeal, the Party borrowed from the ideology both of the American Revolution and of Christianity. By making Marxism speak in American terms, the author argues, Party activists counteracted the prevailing notion that socialism was illegitimate or un-American.

Maoism at the Grassroots
Maoism at the Grassroots

Author: Jeremy Brown

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-10-13

Total Pages: 477

ISBN-13: 0674287207

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Maoism at the Grassroots challenges state-centered views of China under Mao, providing insights into the lives of citizens across social strata, ethnicities, and regions. It reveals how ordinary people risked persecution and imprisonment in order to assert personal beliefs and identities, despite political repression and surveillance.