The Principle of Participatory Democracy

DSA Night School
January 30, 2024

The New Left is an umbrella term given to a political movement made up primarily of college students during the 1960s.  Students for a Democratic Society was the main political organization of the New Left and is best known for leading opposition to the Vietnam War.  At its height in 1969, SDS had a membership of around 100,000, roughly twice the size of DSA today as a proportion of the US population.  The term “New Left” was adopted from a 1959 essay by the sociologist C. Wright Mills titled, “Letter to the New Left,” which differentiated the new social and political movements of the 1950s from the Stalinist, Trotskyist, and Socialist parties of the “old” Marxist left.  Mills and the New Left put more emphasis on immediate participation in democratic struggles against racial discrimination, the Cold War arms race, and McCarthyite limits on employment and free speech than on trade union struggles and the future goal of socialism, although most new leftists did believe in the eventual need for socialist economic planning of some kind.

Although critical of the Old Left, the New Left actually originated as an offshoot of a debate within the Trotskyist movement in 1939/40 regarding the nature of Stalinism and the prospects for revolution in both the Soviet Union and the capitalist west. Trotsky’s side in this debate is Leon Trotsky: In Defense of Marxism (1939/1940).  Trotsky granted in these writings that if WWII did not result in a working class revolution, then Marxists would have to rethink their entire theory of historical development.  Dwight MacDonald, a former Trotskyist, began this rethinking with the establishment of “politics” magazine in 1944 and in a lengthy 1946 essay, The Root Is Man.  C. Wright Mills published articles in “politics” and shared many of MacDonald’s views on the inadequacy of traditional Marxist theory.  Mills’ association with MacDonald and the beginnings of a distinctive New Left perspective on the American political and social system is covered in Kevin Mattson, Intellectuals in Action.

For the history of the New Left in general and SDS specifically, Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS, James Miller, Democracy Is in the Streets, and Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, are basic.  The Marxist phase of the New Left is covered in Max Elbaum, Revolution in the Air.  Many source documents on SDS are available at https://www.sds-1960s.org/, and documents of the Marxist New Left are collected at https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/erol.htm.

My interpretation of New Left history is here, You Can’t Use Weatherman to Show Which Way the Wind Blew.

—Gil Schaeffer

Timeline

Vietnam War begins.

Sociologist C. Wright Mills coined the term the “New Left” in his essay titled Letter to the New Left, in which he distinguished the new post-WWII social and political movements from the Stalinist, Trotskyist, and Socialist parties of the “Old Left.”

SDS outlined its conception of “participatory democracy” in its manifesto, The Port Huron Statement.

Bernie Sanders arrested in Chicago.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organized the first mass protest against the Vietnam war.

Final SDS national convention was held.

Weatherman rally in Chicago (Days of Rage)

Rally at Fort Dix

National student strike against the invasion of Cambodia at the New Haven May Day Rally.

George Jackson was killed at San Quentin Prison.

Vietnam War ends.

Sources & Further Reading

Books

Miller, Jim. “Democracy is in the streets” : from Port Huron to the siege of Chicago. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.
https://archive.org/details/democracyisinstr0000mill_j0l5/page/6/mode/2up

Sale, Kirkpatrick. SDS: The rise and development of the Students for a Democratic Society. Vintage Books, 1973. https://archive.org/details/sds_kirkpatrick_sale/page/n23/mode/2up

Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam Books, 1993. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/60551/the-sixties-by-todd-gitlin/

Elbaum, Max. Revolution in the air : sixties radicals turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. London, New York: Verso, 2002. https://archive.org/details/revolutioninairs0000elba

Harding, Neil. Lenin’s Political Thought: Theory and Practice in the Democratic and Socialist Revolutions. United Kingdom: Haymarket Books, 2009. https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/882-lenin-s-political-thought

The Political Ideas of Marx and Engels
Vol. 1:  Hunt, Richard N. Marxism and totalitarian democracy, 1818-1850. London: Feffer and Simons, Inc., 1974. https://archive.org/details/marxismtotalitar0000hunt

Vol. 2:  Hunt, Richard N. Classical Marxism, 1850-1895. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984. https://archive.org/details/classicalmarxism0000hunt

By Topic

Bernie Sanders’ 1963 Arrest

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-bernie-sanders-1963-chicago-arrest-20160219-story.html

https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/Felsenthal-Files/March-2016/Bernie-Sanders-Arrest-Kartemquin-1963/

https://sandersinstitute.org/event/bernie-sanders-arrest-at-chicago-civil-rights-protest

Students for a Democratic Society

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_a_Democratic_Society

https://depts.washington.edu/moves/sds_map.shtml

https://www.sds-1960s.org/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-was-protest-group-students-democratic-society-five-questions-answered-180963138/

https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/students-for-a-democratic-society/

https://wallstreetwindow.com/students-for-a-democratic-society-and-the-vietnam-war

The Port Huron Statement (1964)
http://www.progressivefox.com/misc_documents/PortHuronStatement.pdf 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Huron_Statement

March on Washington to End the War in Vietnam (April 17, 1965)
http://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/exhibits/show/exhibit/the_teach_ins/national_teach_in_1965

May Day Rally (May 1, 1970)
https://www.newhavenmuseum.org/museum-collections/online-exhibitions/may-day-1970/

Student Strike of 1970
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_strike_of_1970

Weatherman

Ono, Shin’ya. You Do Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows
https://www.sds-1960s.org/Ono-weatherman.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Rage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Seven

The New Left

https://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/exhibits/show/exhibit/origins-of-students-for-a-demo

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/22/the-making-of-the-new-left

https://www.marxists.org/subject/humanism/mills-c-wright/letter-new-left.htm

Fort Dix

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Dix_38

https://www.nytimes.com/1969/10/14/archives/protest-at-fort-dix-is-called-a-success.html

GI Coffeehouses

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._coffeehouses

C. Wright Mills

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Wright_Mills

George Jackson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Jackson_(activist)

Participatory Democracy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_democracy

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/participatory-democracy-port-huron-statement-occupy-wall-street/

Dangers of Sectarianism 

Mark Rudd’s Lessons From SDS and the Weather Underground for Today’s Radicals 

Half the Way with Mao Zedong (jacobin.com)

Bayard Rustin Showed the Promise and Pitfalls of Coalition Politics (jacobin.com)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._10

The U.S. is Not a Democracy

America Is Not a Democracy (January 29, 2024)
https://prospect.org/politics/2024-01-29-america-is-not-democracy/

Quoted in the Presentation

Hal Draper 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/index.htm

Steve Hamilton, On the History of the Revolutionary Union (Part One)
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/periodicals/theoretical-review/19791302.htm

Lenin, The Drafting of 183 Students Into the Army
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/jan/drafting.htm

Engels, Friedrich. The Principles of Communism (1847)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

Marx & Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party (February 1848)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf?source=post_page—————————

Marx & Engels. Demands of the Communist Party in Germany (March 1848)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/03/24.htm#:~:text=%2A%20%2A%20%2A%201%201.%20The%20whole%20of,the%20parliament%20of%20the%20German%20people.%20More%20items

Engels. A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Program of 1891
https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1891/06/29.htm

Engels. Reply to the Honourable Giovanni Bovio (1892)
https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1892/02/critica-sociale.htm

Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party Second Congress Programme of the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, adopted at the Second Congress of the Party (1903)
https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/rsdlp/1903/program.htm

The Socialist Party Platform of 1912
https://www.sageamericanhistory.net/progressive/docs/SocialistPlat1912.htm

By and About Gil Schaeffer

Publications

Princeton War Debate Taken to Ball Field; Pacifist Team Beats R.O.T.C. in Touch Football Game
https://www.nytimes.com/1967/11/18/archives/princeton-war-debate-taken-to-ball-field-pacifist-team-beats-rotc.html

You Can’t Use Weatherman To Show Which Way The Wind Blew: The Unfinished History Of the New Left; Participatory Democracy, Marxism, and the Goal of a Democratic Constitution https://democraticconstitutionparty.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/you-cant-use-weatherman-3.pdf

Taking Democracy Seriously – Socialist Forum
https://socialistforum.dsausa.org/issues/2023-dsa-national-convention-discussion/taking-democracy-seriously/

Newpol.org Author Tag: Gil Schaeffer
https://newpol.org/authors/schaeffer-gil/

KeyWiki – Gil Schaeffer
https://keywiki.org/Gil_Schaeffer

Podcasts

Cosmopod Interview –  A Participant’s History (October 30, 2023)
https://cosmopod.libsyn.com/a-participants-history-of-the-students-for-a-democratic-society-with-gil-schaeffer

Cosmopod
https://cosmonautmag.com/2021/06/democracy-and-socialism-the-two-edges-of-marxisms-knife/

Slideshow Sources

Slide 1: 

Photo: https://archive.org/details/SdsAnIntroduction/ 

Slide 2: 

Photo: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-bernie-sanders-1963-chicago-arrest-20160219-story.html 

Slide 3: 

Left: https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums457-b03-f13-i007 

Right: SDS Poster, “End the War in Vietnam March on Washington April 17, 1965”,” Resistance and Revolution: The Anti-Vietnam War Movement at the University of Michigan, 1965-1972, accessed January 24, 2024, http://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/items/show/155.

Slide 4: 

Background: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:C._Wright_Mills.jpg 

Inset right: https://newleftreview.org/issues/i5

Slides 5 & 6: 

Photo & text: http://www.progressivefox.com/misc_documents/PortHuronStatement.pdf 

Slide 7: 

Left: https://archive.org/details/new-left-notes-sds-1969-06-25/

Center: https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/gsb-7-7-69.pdf

Right: https://archive.org/details/convention-report-sds-1969-07/ 

Slide 8: 

Background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fort_Dix_Stockade_Entrance_Sign_1969.jpg

Left and right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Free_the_Fort_Dix_38_Demo_12Oct1969.jpg

Center: https://biblio.ie/book/original-poster-free-ft-dix-38/d/1275756609

Slide 9: 

Lyrics: https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/subterranean-homesick-blues/ 

Screenshot of music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0&t=63s

Slide 10: 

Left: https://biblio.ie/book/original-poster-free-ft-dix-38/d/1275756609

Right: https://www.abebooks.com/Bring-Home-SDS-Students-Democratic-Society/30671315739/bd

Slide 11: 

Left: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thousands_March_on_Fort_Dix_12Oct1969.jpg

Right: https://www.newspapers.com/article/abilene-reporter-news-details-on-fort-di/8542527/

Slide 12: 

Photo: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/10/13/issue.html

Slide 13: 

Left: https://leftwingbooks.net/en-us/products/sds-students-for-a-democratic-society

Right: https://www.amazon.com/SDS-development-Students-Democratic-Society/dp/0394478894

Slide 14: 

Background: http://collections.newhavenmuseum.org/MADetailImg.aspx?rID=PColl%2023/2-Box%201#001&img=0&db=biblio&dir=PHOTOCOLL 

Inset left: http://collections.newhavenmuseum.org/MADetailImg.aspx?rID=PColl%2023/1-Box%201#017&img=0&db=biblio&dir=PHOTOCOLL

Inset top right: http://collections.newhavenmuseum.org/MADetailImg.aspx?rID=PColl%2023/1-Box%201#002&img=0&db=biblio&dir=PHOTOCOLL 

Inset bottom right: http://collections.newhavenmuseum.org/MADetailImg.aspx?rID=PColl%2023/1-Box%201#019&img=0&db=biblio&dir=PHOTOCOLL

Slide 15: 

Left: https://archive.org/details/revolutioninairs0000elba/

Center: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-02661-6 

Right: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/882-lenin-s-political-thought

Slide 16: 

Background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George_Jackson.png

Inset top center left: https://www.amazon.com/Soledad-Brother-Prison-Letters-Jackson/dp/1556522304 

Inset top center right: https://www.amazon.com/Blood-My-Eye-George-Jackson/dp/0933121237 

Inset bottom center: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1971/09/03/79151476.html?pageNumber=1 

Inset right: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1971/09/20/79153306.html?pageNumber=1

Slide 17: 

Photo: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/photo/1895-1917/1910-1.htm 

Slide 18: 

Photo: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/photo/1918/028.htm 

Slide 19: 

Photo: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/photo/engels/pages/56fe1.htm

Text: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm 

Slide 20: 

Photo: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/page.jpg

Text: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm 

Slide 21: 

Photo & text: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/03/24.htm 

Slide 22: 

Photo: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/photo/engels/pages/91fe2.htm

Text: https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1891/06/29.htm

Slide 23: 

Photo: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/photo/engels/pages/93fe1.htm

Text: https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1892/02/critica-sociale.htm 

Slide 24: 

Text: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/rsdlp/1903/program.htm

Background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Soviet_Union_1970_CPA_3844_stamp_(2nd_Congress_of_the_RSDRP_(After_Yuri_Vinogradov)).jpg

Slide 25: 

Photo: https://www.sageamericanhistory.net/progressive/docs/SocialistPlat1912.htm 

Slide 26: Background: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/constitution