THE CENTENNIAL OF NORMAN THOMAS
Tyler, Gus
These remarks were delivered in New York on November 17, 1984, at the celebration of Norman Thomas's centennial. — Eos. I should like to argue with Norman Thomas who, I will assume, is present...
...I should like to argue with Norman Thomas who, I will assume, is present in absentia...
...It had power but no plans...
...but, to me, they were "unscientific...
...His socialism did not seem to begin with capitalism or modern times but with an ancient ethic inherent in humanity or, at least, in the human potential...
...It found that it needed planners, social engineers, technicians, who could plot miniutopias on the installment plan...
...About two-thirds of the people on this planet live under regimes that came into power in the name of the working class...
...We did not then, in the first instance, address ourselves to "the head," as the utopians did with their socially engineered planning...
...To me, the socialist movement was composed of three major strains...
...I guess you would call it "at-one-ment," making one out of many, like e pluribus unum...
...Power has to be taught and tamed by an ethic...
...To us Marxists, ethics did not spring into being from a vacuum and hence could not be a thing unto itself independent of the society, the times, or the classes from which it issued...
...But the "utopian" blueprints and the class conflicts were expressions of a more profound commitment: Thomas's compulsion as the supreme pulpiteer to preach an ethic with the serene faith of the New Testament and the thunderous wrath of the Old Testament...
...And in countries where working-class parties are not in control, there are influential labor movements whose presence cannot be denied...
...the momentum was "the movement...
...Indeed, without some such ethic, what is it for which our planners plan...
...Once the proletariat took over, all else would follow...
...As Irving Howe said earlier, in Norman Thomas's later years, this celebrated socialist leader concluded that his career had been a failure...
...Whether that ethic is rooted in a deity or derived from a secular humanism is secondary...
...So where does that leave us...
...The LID was much more modest...
...Nor did we address ourselves fundamentally to "the heart," as did the Christian socialists...
...The class struggle was not somebody's idea, it was a pureandsimple fact of life...
...I know perfectly well that it is not arithmetically possible for three to equal one...
...If you knew the mass and calculated the momentum and determined the direction, you would be able to predict exactly what would happen at some future time...
...In too many instances, the proletariat has come to power and then discovered that it did not know what to do with the power...
...True, it did not offer grandiose all-embracing designs for social reorganization, in the style of Fourier or Saint-Simon or Robert Owen...
...His sermons were scintillating...
...The fact that socialism might be seen as an extension of a Judeo-Christian ethic was not repugnant to us...
...Now we gather here several decades later with a chance to look back at our various views of socialism...
...What ethic...
...We would ask...
...the direction was socialism...
...Unlike the utopians, we did not start by arguing that socialism was a more desirable system—although we did believe that, too—but by pointing to the forces inherent in capitalism that would provide the necessary dynamic to put the proletariat in power...
...210 Christian socialism—more appropriately, a JudeoChristian socialism—was embodied in Norman Thomas...
...Yes, the "hands" of history continue to do their work...
...Most of them openly identify with the doctrines of Karl Marx, as each regime interprets them...
...As a many-times candidate for president of the United States, he needed a platform with all the customary planks...
...But metaphysically, I have no difficulty...
...I claim the right to quarrel with Norman now because I believe that no one in this room quarreled more with him than I did...
...To me, Norman was a socialist who came to his political convictions because he believed in the perfectibility of humankind and because he expected that someday His Kingdom would come on earth as it is in Heaven...
...This is not an uncommon practice...
...But the last several generations have also taught us that power alone, even in the hands of the working class or its institutional surrogates, does not necessarily solve problems...
...And then there were the "scientific socialists," like me...
...Norman spoke from two "mounts...
...So I declare this day, Norman Thomas's onehundredth birthday anniversary, my Day of Atonement...
...There were the utopian socialists, whose modern incarnation was the League for Industrial Democracy...
...I have decided that my socialism today is an ecumenical socialism that appeals to the hands, the head, and the heart...
...There were the Christian socialists, whose approach was embodied in Norman Thomas...
...I did not object to this sort of exercise, a way of drawing in thoughtful citizens who had no real feel for the class struggle...
...So I say to you, Norman, if that's the way you feel, it is not the first time you've been wrong...
...I felt it was peddling miniutopias on the installment plan...
...The fact that socialism was intellectually desirable— more efficient, egalitarian—was a fringe benefit...
...We addressed ourselves to the "hands," to those people who were not uncommonly referred to as "hired hands...
...But the need for an ethic that rests on respect for the dignity of every human being is primary...
...He identified with the struggles of the working class, throwing himself bodily and personally into the combat with fearless fury...
...Why were we "scientific...
...But I did feel that most of the dainty blueprints were "utopian," without meaning until the proletariat took power—and we would know what to do, without consulting those social engineers and accountants at that bloodless LID...
...Mainly because Karl Marx said that we were...
...The dynamic of the class struggle is undeniable...
...Nor was our starting point a dedication to some universal ethic, like that of the Christian socialists...
...we usually refer to it as "atonement," coming to terms with one's self...
...Nor was he unaware of those "hands" out there...
...Norman Thomas did not reject the appeal to "the head," the programmatic approach to socialism...
...211...
...It would come out several times a year with fairly specific proposals on how to fix up one part of the society or another...
...He spoke from Mount Sinai, casting "shalt nots" at the sinners against humanity...
...And without an ethic, what is the ultimate purpose of the "final conflict" except another conflict, and then another...
...To "scientific socialists," socialism was inevitable, arising instinctively from the struggle of an oppressed class against its oppressors...
...In all the years that I worked with Norman Thomas, I never felt that his brand of socialism was mine...
...it had its dream house but no architect...
...Here at my advanced age I publicly confess that I have come to accept that trinity...
...Scientific socialism" was a kind of Newtonian physics applied to the social realm...
...His was an appeal to "the heart...
...To us, the mass was the working class...
...To us, these were the hands of history, the shapers of the coming commonwealth...
...In those days I looked upon the League for Industrial Democracy as utopian in its approach...
...Power could corrupt those who spoke for the working class in the same way as it corrupted those who spoke for all classes—and the more absolute the power the more absolute the corruption...
...Hence our focus was not on the exact design of the future nor on the discovery and application of some external ethic but on the "road to power...
...Is there anything to be learned from a brief retrospective...
...And he spoke from that other "mount" from which Jesus preached his sermon, warning the rich that they would have a hell of a time getting into heaven, promising the poor that the "meek shall inherit the earth," recalling the beatitudes with their injunction to turn the other cheek...
...How shall one define this metaphysical process of turning three into one...
...The class struggle was as inherent in capitalism as the law of gravity in the universe...
...it had the will but not the way...
...but ethics per se was not and could not be our point of departure...
...A bourgeois ethic or a proletarian ethic...
...In these same decades we discovered that proletarians and their institutions—whether parties, unions, or soviets—could be as corrupt, self-seeking, and tyrannical as the bourgeoisie, the czars, or the fascists...
...Are you listening up there, Norman...
Vol. 32 • April 1985 • No. 2
