What was the Labor Party, What is a Worker’s Party?
“Capital is dead labor, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks. The time during which the laborer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labor-power he has purchased of him. If the laborer consumes his disposable time for himself, he robs the capitalist. The capitalist then takes his stand on the law of the exchange of commodities… Suddenly the voice of the laborer, which had been stifled in the storm and stress of the process of production, rises:
The commodity that I have sold to you differs from the crowd of other commodities, in that its use creates value, and a value greater than its own. That is why you bought it... I must be able on the morrow to work with the same normal amount of force, health and freshness as today... What you gain in labor, I lose in substance. The use of my labor-power, and the spoliation of it, are quite different things... You pay me for one day’s labor-power, whilst you use that of three days. That is against our contract, and the law of exchanges. I demand, therefore, a working-day of normal length, and I demand it without any appeal to your heart, for in money matters sentiment is out of place... I demand the normal working-day because I, like every other seller, demand the value of my commodity.”
~Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1
The Labor parties:
A Debtor’s Prison, permanently shut down as a consequence of the political action of the earliest American Workingmen’s parties.
The world's first labor parties appeared in a number of American cities starting in 1828, on the initiative of the newly founded labor organizations. They supported a variety of causes, but ultimately failed to develop into a national force, and scarcely survived the depression that began in 1837. The Workingmen's Party was a political organization established in Philadelphia in 1828 to promote candidates of concern to the working class. Emerging from the city's trade union federation, the Mechanics' Union of Trade Associations, as its electoral arm, the Workingmen's Party fielded candidates in elections held in 1828, 1829, 1830, and 1831. The Philadelphia Workingmen's Party was the first of approximately 60 independent workers parties to emerge in urban centers of the United States during the period between 1828 to 1832. The Workingmen's Party of New York, founded in 1828, was led by Thomas Skidmore and George Henry Evans. The party advocated for land reform, labor rights, and economic equality, and was supported primarily by artisans, mechanics, and laborers in New York. Workingmen's parties emerged in other states and cities, including Boston and Baltimore. The 1840s saw the continued growth and influence of Workingmen's parties, particularly in urban areas with large industrial and labor populations. They often advocated for shorter workdays, fair wages, and the abolition of debtors' prisons. The influence of the parties began to wane by the late 1840s and early 1850s, due to internal divisions, economic fluctuations, and political challenges.
~Illustration of the inaugural address of the IWA in St. Martin’s Hall
The American Civil War breaks out between 1861 and 1865. In 1864, partially inspired by the looming Union victory over Slavery, the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) is founded in St. Martin’s Hall in London.
The General German Workers' Association (ADAV) was established in 1863 by Ferdinand Lassalle, a prominent socialist leader in Germany. It was one of the earliest organizations to advocate for workers' rights and social reforms, focusing on issues such as workers' cooperatives and collective bargaining. The ADAV later merged with other socialist groups to form the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), founded in 1875 during the Gotha Congress.
~Image: Poster commemorating the 1875 founding of the SPD, Marx and Lassalle at center, beneath slogan, ‘Honor to our predecessors, Guidance to our youth!’
The National Labor Union (NLU) was founded in 1866 in Baltimore, called to organize skilled and unskilled laborers, farmers, and reformers into a coalition to pressure Congress to limit the workday to eight hours. The first labor organization to develop to national scope in the US, the NLU was able to successfully form into the short-lived National Labor Reform Party between 1870 and 1872, as an alternative to the two dominant existing parties. In 1876, U.S. sections of the IWA, the Workingmen’s Party of Illinois, the Social-Democratic Workingmen’s Party of North America, and the Social Political Workingmen's Society of Cincinnati all merged to form the Workingmen’s Party of the United States, which was eventually to became the Socialist Labor Party, in 1877, and in 1901, Populist-Socialists in the orbit of Eugene Debs would merge with elements from the Party to found the Socialist Party of America. Coming out of the same coalition orbiting the NLU, the Greenback Labor Party was founded nationally in 1878. Terence V. Powderly, the best-known leader of the Knights of Labor, was elected mayor of Scranton on a Greenback Labor ticket in 1878, and later helped found the Populist Party in 1889. By then, however, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had replaced the Knights as the chief national labor organization, and they refused to support the labor-wing of the Populist Party, owing to the ‘apolitical’ philosophy of its president, Samuel Gompers.
The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, known as Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), was founded in 1879 by Pablo Iglesias as a socialist and workers' party, aiming to promote socialist principles, workers' rights, and social justice. The PSOE played a key role in the Spanish labor movement, and the broader political landscape in Spain.
~Images: Casa Labra, where PSOE was founded; Pablo Iglesias speaking at a rally
~Illustration of Jules Guesde speaking in Paris
The French Workers' Party (POF), founded in 1879, was the earliest worker’s party in France. Led by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue, the POF advocated for Socialist principles and workers' rights.
~Illustration of the 1886 Strike in Belgium
The Belgian Worker’s Party, founded in 1885 through the merger of socialist and labor organizations, including the Belgian Labor Party of Jules Destrée and the Socialist Party of Edouard Anseele, became a leading force in Belgian politics, advocating for workers' rights, socialist principles, welfare programs, and labor reform.
~Illustrations of the Haymarket riot; Campaign of Henry George
The United Labor Party, founded in 1886 in New York after the Haymarket Affair, was an alliance of 115 different labor unions and labor parties, including the Knights of Labor and the Socialist Labor Party. Coalescing under the leadership and candidacy of Henry George, conflict between Populist-Socialists and Georgists led the coalition to fall apart after a few years. Similar labor parties appeared at the same time in Chicago, and other cities, and occasionally grew to state level organizations.
~Illustration of an Australian Labor Party rally, early 1890s
The Australian Labor Party (ALP), established in the 1890s, became a major political force representing the interests of labor and working-class Australians. It played a crucial role in advancing labor rights and social reforms in Australia. Before the ALP's formation, Political Labor Councils existed in various Australian colonies. These councils brought together labor representatives, trade unionists, and socialist activists to coordinate political campaigns, promote labor-friendly policies, and support candidates sympathetic to workers' interests.
Filippo Turati
Costantino Lazzari
The Italian Workers' Party, or Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani (POI), was the earliest labor party in Italy. It emerged in 1882 in Milan as a socialist and labor-oriented organization representing the interests of workers, peasants, and urban dwellers. The POI participated in political campaigns, organized labor strikes, and promoted socialist ideals. It’s main founders were Giuseppe Croce, Costantino Lazzari, and Filippo Turati. The party played a significant role in the labor movement and political activism in Italy during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1892, it merged with several other socialist and workers' organizations to form the Italian Socialist Party (PSI).
~Keir Hardie speaking at a labor rally
The Independent Labor Party (ILP) was established in 1893 by Keir Hardie and others in the United Kingdom. It aimed to represent the interests of working-class people and promote socialist policies through parliament. The ILP was instrumental later in the formation of the Labor Party. The Labor Party's formation in the United Kingdom can be traced back to the Labor Representation Committee (LRC), which was established in 1900 at the Congregational Memorial Hall in London. The LRC initially operated as a coalition of socialist and labor organizations. In 1906, the Labor Representation Committee transformed into the Labor Party, marking a significant milestone in the history of British politics, and the development of a distinct political entity representing the interests of labor and socialism.
~Vladimir Lenin speaking at a rally
The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) was founded in 1898. The RSDLP was the first organized political party to form in (still Czarist) Russia, and played a pivotal role in the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the subsequent establishment of the Soviet Union.
From 1900 to 1911, organized labor in San Francisco, in opposition to the dominant two parties, promoted a Union Labor Party, that effectively took power in the city government for that period.
Later on; initiated by several state federations of labor and city centrals, the National Labor Party formed in 1919, and it renewed it’s earlier (as NLU) alliance with farmers' groups by organizing the Farmer-Labor Party (FLP) the following year. In 1924, the AFL joined in coalition with the FLP in support of Robert M. La Follette's presidential candidacy under the banner of the Conference for Progressive Political Action (CPPA). Disappointing hopes for a new national party, the CPPA disintegrated after the election, and the FLP following, dissolved slowly after.
“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language... In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it, only when he moves in it without recalling the old, and when he forgets his native tongue.”
~Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
The Worker’s Party:
From Labor’s history, only one takeaway can be drawn. We see, time and time again, the working class creates it’s own economic organs, thus constituting itself as a class, in-itself. The worker’s themselves fulfill this task, almost by instinct. What this constituted class lacks, however, is self-consciousness, which society has alienated from them through the exploitation of living labor. The other product of our society are intellectuals; those workers whom, by laboring all their lives directly on Capital, on that constituted dead labor which haunts the lives of all the living, alone possess the key to that self-consciousness. And so, the constitution of our class, in-itself, however necessary, is never sufficient. Our organized class, now constituted, must develop politically; we must become for-ourselves, if we are to remain constituted as such. Human history, subsumed under the Capitalist condition, is presented with an eternal Choice; we are either to constitute ourselves, as workers, politically; Or, disconstitution will develop, slowly at first, and then more rapidly, until Nothing of the constituted class remains. We proceed towards Socialism, or accept Barbarism and death. Everything which now exists, that is organized and constituted, yearns to Live, yearns to have it’s own Representation. This is the sole Task of Socialist Intellectuals in our present-Epoch. We must develop, politically, into a Party, or we shall all perish.
~Written by Aimee Zee, DSA Member, San Francisco Bay Area