Hal Draper (born Harold Dubinsky; September 19, 1914 – January 26, 1990) was an American

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

activist and author who played a significant role in the

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

, Free Speech Movement. He is known for his extensive scholarship on the history and meaning of the thought of

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

. Draper was a lifelong advocate of what he called "socialism from below", that is, self-emancipation by the working class, in opposition to capitalism and Stalinist bureaucracy. He was one of the creators of the Third Camp tradition, a form of Marxist socialism.

Biography

Early years

Harold Dubinsky was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York, in 1914, the son of

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

immigrants from

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

, then part of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

.Adam Bernstein
"Scholar, Historian Theodore Draper,"
''Washington Post,'' February 23, 2006. His father, Samuel Dubinsky (d. 1924), was the manager of a shirt factory.Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

''New York Times,'' February 22, 2006. His mother, Annie Kornblatt Dubinsky, ran a candy store to make ends meet following her husband's death. He was one of four children, and Theodore Draper was his brother. When Hal was eighteen, his mother insisted upon changing the family name to the "American-sounding" name "Draper" to shield the children from anti-Semitism as they entered their careers. Hal graduated from Boys High School and earned a bachelor's degree from

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn in New York City, United States. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls nearly 14,000 students on a campus in the Midwood and Flatbush sections of Brooklyn as of fall ...

in 1934.

Political career

During his teenage years he joined the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL), then the youth affiliate of the

Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of America ...

, and he became a leader of the national student movements of the day that organized against fascism, war, and unemployment. Draper's political choices were in contrast to those made by his brother Theodore Draper, a fellow traveler of the Communist Party in the 1930s who would later be disillusioned with

Communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

and become a prominent historian. Their sister Dorothy (Dora) Draper would marry Jacob Rabkin (1905–2003), one of the intellectual founders of US tax law. Within the YPSL, Hal Draper was won over to

Trotskyism Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...

and became an important leader of the YPSL's Trotskyist " Appeal Tendency" during 1936 and 1937. He was elected the organization's national secretary, its top post, at its September 1937 convention, which renounced the Stalinist Third International in favor of a new Trotskyist

Fourth International The Fourth International (FI) was a political international established in France in 1938 by Leon Trotsky and his supporters, having been expelled from the Soviet Union and the Communist International (also known as Comintern or the Third Inte ...

. The great majority of the YPSL supported that position and left or was expelled by the Socialist Party in the fall of that year. Along with his YPSL activity, Draper took part in the founding of the Socialist Workers Party in 1937–1938. As debates erupted within the newly formed SWP, Draper aligned with those who objected to the internal regime of that party and were developing an analysis of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

under

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

as a new form of society, neither socialist nor capitalist, in which a new class, the state bureaucracy, held social and state power. In 1940, that faction, led by Max Shachtman,

James Burnham James Burnham (November 22, 1905 – July 28, 1987) was an American philosopher and political theorist. He chaired the New York University Department of Philosophy. His first book was ''An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis'' (1931). Bur ...

, and Martin Abern, split from the SWP to form the Workers Party. Draper joined them in founding the new organization. During the war, he and his wife Anne Draper, the former Anne Kracik, lived in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, where they were active among shipyard workers and in antifascist and antiracist campaigns. Returning to New York in the mid 1940s, Draper became a major writer and functionary for the Workers Party. He would often write and edit almost the entire contents of issues of the group's paper, ''Labor Action.'' By 1948, the Workers Party came to believe that the prospects for revolution were receding and that it must adopt a more realistic strategy, given the diminished prospects. Therefore, it changed its name to the Independent Socialist League, an acknowledgement that its size and capacities did not warrant the name "party." With a shrinking membership (although its youth work was buoyant), the ISL leadership around Shachtman decided that the time had come to join forces with the Socialist Party of America, which occurred in 1958. Although Draper personally opposed the decision, he submitted to the majority. He regretted the rightward tendency of the organization, however, and in 1962, Draper, by then resident in

, as a part-time microfilm acquisitions librarian at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, broke with the Socialist Party to form the Independent Socialist Club (ISC), which had a heavy youth composition. During this period, Draper received a master's degree from Berkeley in 1960. In 1964, Draper was heavily involved in the Free Speech Movement, an important precursor of that decade's

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement that emerged from the counterculture of the 1960s and continued through the 1970s. It consisted of activists in the Western world who, in reaction to the era's liberal establishment, campaigned for freer ...

, on the Berkeley campus. He was a mentor to leader Mario Savio and others. In the introduction to Draper's ''Berkeley: The New Student Revolt'' (1965), Savio acknowledges Draper's encouragement and friendship and cites the influence of Draper's pamphlet ''The Mind of Clark Kerr'' (October 1964) on the development of the Free Speech Movement. In 1968, ISC became the International Socialists as it expanded nationally. Draper left the organization three years later, arguing that the group had become a sect. From then on, he worked as an independent radical scholar, producing a stream of scholarly works on Marxism and the workers' movement.

Death

Draper died of pneumonia at his home in Berkeley, California, on January 26, 1990.''New York Times'' obituary, January 31, 1990

Legacy

Draper's magnum opus is his five-volume '' Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution'' (Monthly Review Press, 1977–1990), a seminal re-evaluation of the whole of Marx's political theory, based on an exhaustive survey of the writings of both Marx and Engels. He saw their political perspective as summarized by the phrase "socialism from below," which he had introduced in his pamphlet '' The Two Souls of Socialism''. Draper was also the editor of a three-volume ''Marx-Engels Cyclopedia,'' detailing the day-to-day activities and writings of the two founders of modern socialism. Besides his overtly political writings, Draper wrote the short story '' Ms Fnd in a Lbry'', a satire of the

information age The Information Age is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on information technology ...

, in 1961. In 1982, Draper also published an English translation of the complete poetic works of the 19th-century German poet

Heinrich Heine Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; ; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was an outstanding poet, writer, and literary criticism, literary critic of 19th-century German Romanticism. He is best known outside Germany for his ...

, the fruit of three decades of work conducted alongside his better-known political activity.

Associations

During his life, he was a member of the following organizations: * Young People's Socialist League * Socialist Workers Party * Workers Party * Independent Socialist League *

* Free Speech Movement * Independent Socialist Club/International Socialists He was also a member of the editorial board of '' New Politics''.

Works

* ''Out of their own mouths: a documentary study of the new line of the Comintern on war'' New York: Young People's Socialist League, Greater New York Federation, 1935 * ''Are you ready for war?'' New York : Young People's Socialist League, 1937
''The truth about Gerald Smith: America's no. 1 fascist''
San Pedro, Calif: Workers Party, Los Angeles Section, 1945
''Jim Crow in Los Angeles''
Los Angeles: Workers Party, 1946 * ''ABC of Marxism: outline text for class and self study'' Los Angeles: Workers Party, 1946 * ''Labor, key to a better world'' Austin, Tex: Young People's Socialist League, 1950–1959? * ''The two souls of socialism: socialism from below v. socialism from above'' New York : Young People's Socialist League, 1963 * ''Joseph Weydemeyer's "Dictatorship of the proletariat".'' .p.Labor History, 1962 * ''Notes on the India–China border war'' U.S.?: s.n., 1962 * ''Marx and the dictatorship of the proletariat'' Paris : I.S.E.A, Cahiers de l'Institut de science économique appliquée #129 Série S; Etudes de marxologie #6 1962 * ''Introduction to independent socialism; selected articles from Labor action'' Berkeley, Independent Socialist Press 1963
''The mind of Clark Kerr.''
erkeley, Calif.Independent Socialist Club 1964 * ''Independent socialism, a perspective for the left'' Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Committee, 1964 Independent Socialist Committee pamphlet #1 * ''Third camp; the independent socialist view of war and peace policy'' Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Committee, 1965 Independent Socialist Committee pamphlet #2
''Berkeley: the new student revolt''
New York : Grove Press, 1965

'' New Politics'', 1966 * ''Strike!: the second battle of Berkeley : what happened and how can we win'' (with others) [Berkeley, Calif.? : s.n., 1966 * ''The fight for independence in Vietnam.'' Berkeley, Calif. Independent Socialist Club 1966 * ''Independent socialism and war; articles'' Berkeley, Calif. Independent Socialist Committee 1966 Independent socialist clippingbooks, #2 * ''Zionism, Israel, & the Arabs: the historical background of the Middle East tragedy'' [Berkeley, Calif. : s.n.] 1967 Independent socialist clippingbooks, #3 * ''The first Israel-Arab war, 1948–49'' Berkeley : Independent Socialist Clippingbooks, 1967 Independent Socialist Clippingbooks Xerocopy series #X-2 * ''The dirt on California; agribusiness and the University'' [Berkeley, Calif., Independent Socialist Clubs of America, 1968 * ''Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: articles in the New American cyclopaedia.'' Berkeley, Calif. Independent Socialist Press 1969 Independent socialist clippingbooks, #5 * ''The Permanent war economy'' Berkeley, Calif. Independent Socialist Press 1970 Independent socialist clippingbooks, #7 * ''Notebook on the Paris Commune; press excerpts & notes. by Karl Marx Berkeley, Calif. Independent Socialist Press 1971 (editor) Independent socialist clippingbooks, #8 * ''Writings on the Paris Commune'' by Karl Marx New York Monthly Review Press 1971 (editor) * ''The Politics of Ignazio Silone: a controversy around Silone's statement "My political faith" : contributions (with Ignazio Silone, Lucio Libertini and Irving Howe) Berkeley, Calif. Independent Socialist Press 1974 Independent socialist clippingbooks, #10 * ''Karl Marx's theory of revolution'' New York : Monthly Review Press, 1977-1990 ** Vol.: 1 - ''State and bureaucracy'' New York : Monthly Review Press, 1977 ** Vol.: 2 - ''The politics of social classes'' New York : Monthly Review Press, 1978 ** Vol.: 3 - ''The "Dictatorship of the Proletariat"'' New York : Monthly Review Press, 1986 ** Vol.: 4 - ''Critique of other socialisms'' New York : Monthly Review Press, 1990 * ''The complete poems of Heinrich Heine: a modern English version'' by Heinrich Heine Boston: Suhrkamp/Insel; Oxford: Distributed by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

1982 * ''The annotated Communist manifesto'' Berkeley, CA: Center for Socialist History 1984 * ''The adventures of the Communist manifesto'' Berkeley, CA: Center for Socialist History 1984 * ''The Marx–Engels Cyclopedia'' New York : Schocken Books, 1985–1986 ** Vol.: 1 - ''The Marx–Engels Chronicle: a day-by-day chronology of Marx and Engels' life and activity'' New York : Schocken Books, 1985 ** Vol.: 2 - ''The Marx–Engels Register: a complete bibliography of Marx and Engels' individual writings'' New York : Schocken Books, 1985 ** Vol.: 3 - ''The Marx–Engels Glossary: Glossary to the Chronicle and Register, and Index to the Glossary'' New York : Schocken Books, 1986 * ''The "dictatorship of the proletariat" from Marx to Lenin'' New York Monthly Review Press 1987 * ''America as overlord: from Yalta to Vietnam '' Berkeley, CA: Independent Socialist Press 1989 Draper papers, #1 * ''Socialism from below'' Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1992 * ''War and revolution: Lenin and the myth of revolutionary defeatism'' Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1996 * The Hidden History of the Equal Rights Amendment (co-author: Stephen F. Diamond), Center for Socialist History, Berkeley, CA, 2013.

References

Sources

* Geier, Joel. "Socialism from Below: Hal Draper's Contribution to Revolutionary Marxism," ''International Socialist Review,'' no. 107 (Winter 2017-18), pp. 87–108. * Haberkern, Ernest.
Introduction to Hal Draper
, Marxists Internet Archive, 1998 * Phelps, Christopher. "Draper, Hal," in ''Encyclopedia of the American Left,'' 2d ed., ed. Mari Jo Buhle et al. (Oxford University Press, 1996).
"Hal Draper, 75, Socialist Writer Who Recounted Berkeley Protest," ''The New York Times,'' January 31, 1990

External links

*

at marxists.org * {{DEFAULTSORT:Draper, Hal 1914 births 1990 deaths Jewish American non-fiction writers Jewish socialists Brooklyn College alumni Members of the Socialist Workers Party (United States) Members of the Workers Party (United States) Members of the Socialist Party of America Members of the International Socialists (United States) American anti-capitalists American Marxists American political writers American communists American Trotskyists American male non-fiction writers California socialists Marxist theorists American Marxist writers New York (state) socialists 20th-century American non-fiction writers Boys High School (Brooklyn) alumni Deaths from pneumonia in California 20th-century American male writers