''The Revolutionary Age'' was an American radical newspaper edited by

Louis C. Fraina Louis C. Fraina (October 7, 1892 – September 15, 1953) was a founding member of the Communist Party USA in 1919. After running afoul of the Communist International in 1921 over the alleged misappropriation of funds, Fraina left the organized ra ...

and published from November 1918 until August 1919. Originally the publication of Local Boston,

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of t ...

, the paper evolved into the ''de facto'' national organ of the

Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party The Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party was an organized faction within the Socialist Party of America in 1919 which served as the core of the dual communist parties which emerged in the fall of that year—the Communist Party of America ...

which battled for control of the Socialist Party throughout the spring and summer of 1919. With the establishment of the Left Wing National Council in June 1919, the paper was moved from

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

gained status as the official voice of the nascent American communist movement. The publication was terminated in August 1919, replaced by the official organ of the new

Communist Party of America The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...

, a weekly newspaper known as '' The Communist.''

Publication history

Background

During the decade of the 1910s, Boston was at the time one of the centers of the foreign language federations of the Socialist Party of AmericaMartin Glaberman and George P. Rawick, "The Revolutionary Age, Boston and New York, 1918-1919," in Joseph R. Conklin (ed.), ''The American Radical Press, 1880-1960.'' In two volumes. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974; vol. 1, pg. 155. — organized groups of

immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...

conducting their activities in languages other than English. Many of these foreign language groups, particularly those hailing from the

Russian empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

, were deeply inspired by the Marxist revolutionary movement which overthrew the

Tsarist Tsarist autocracy (russian: царское самодержавие, transcr. ''tsarskoye samoderzhaviye''), also called Tsarism, was a form of autocracy (later absolute monarchy) specific to the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states ...

regime in 1917. This emerging revolutionary left in the Socialist party sought to advance its ideas through the establishments. The immediate forerunner of ''The Revolutionary Age'' was a newspaper called ''The New International,'' issued n New York under the auspices of the Socialist Propaganda League.Theodore Draper, ''The Roots of American Communism.'' New York: Viking Press, 1957; pg. 131. This paper was launched early in 1917, but ran out of funds by summer, forcing its outright suspension from the middle of July until the start of October 1917. Only a few irregularly appearing issues of ''The New International'' were issued after that date due to these ongoing financial concerns, leaving a void for the emergence of a new

revolutionary socialist Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revoluti ...

publication. At the beginning of 1918 revolutionary socialists won majority control of Local Boston, Socialist Party, with the powerful Boston-based Lettish Socialist Federation functioning as the leading center of the movement.Draper, ''The Roots of American Communism,'' pg. 132. The Boston City Committee made the decision to bring ''New International'' editor Louis Fraina from New York City to Boston to take charge of party educational work from that center. By the end of the year a new publication had emerged, issued with Local Boston providing financial support and with educational director Fraina at the helm. This publication was known as ''The Revolutionary Age.''

Establishment

At the time of its November 1918 launch, ''The Revolutionary Age'' was scheduled to appear three times a week, although due to financial constraints the papers was never able to come out more than twice each week and it was soon downgraded to more typical weekly status. Joining Fraina as associate editor was Irish-American radical Eadmonn MacAlpine. Contributing editors included

Scott Nearing Scott Nearing (August 6, 1883 – August 24, 1983) was an American radical economist, educator, writer, political activist, pacifist, vegetarian and advocate of simple living. Biography Early years Nearing was born in Morris Run, Tioga Coun ...

, John Reed, Ludwig Lore, and

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, as well as Nicholas Hourwich and Gregory Weinstein of the Russian Socialist Federation. The first issue of ''The Revolutionary Age'' appeared dated Saturday, November 16, 1918 — less than one week after the formal termination of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. The front page of the tabloid newsprint publication was dominated by a banner headline warning against the war's continuation as a military intervention against

Soviet Russia The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...

."There Shall Not Be a New War — Against Socialism!"
''The Revolutionary Age'' oston vol. 1, no. 1 (Nov. 16, 1918), pg. 1. Additional material was dedicated to the ongoing revolution in Germany, thereby assuring that the issue's whole content lived up to the slogan printed on the publication's masthead — "A Chronicle and Interpretation of Events in Europe." Cover price of the paper was 2 cents per issue.

Relationship with the Left Wing Section

In the aftermath of the meeting of the National Left Wing Conference in New York City late in June 1919, ''The Revolutionary Age'' was named the official organ of the

.Archibald E. Stevenson (ed.), ''Revolutionary Radicalism: Its History, Purpose and Tactics with an Exposition and Discussion of the Steps Being Taken and Required to Curb It: Being the Report of the Joint Legislative Committee Investigating Seditious Activities, Filed April 24, 1920, in the Senate of the State of New York: Part 1: Revolutionary and Subversive Movements Abroad and at Home
Volume 2
'' Albany, NY: J.B. Lyon Co., 1920; pg. 1322. The publication was merged with the organ of the Left Wing Section of Greater New York, '' The New York Communist'' and operations were henceforth conducted from an office located at 43 West 29th Street in Manhattan. A new volume of the publication, "Volume 2," was launched in conjunction with the move. The paper continued to be edited by Louis Fraina, assisted by a managing council of 11. The circulation of the combined publication averaged 16,000 copies a week, according to the report of the

Lusk Committee The Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities, popularly known as the Lusk Committee, was formed in 1919 by the New York State Legislature to investigate individuals and organizations in New York State suspected of sedition. ...

established in 1919 by the New York State Senate to study the activities of the radical movement in that state.

Termination and legacy

The last issue of ''The Revolutionary Age'' appeared on August 23, 1919. Walter Goldwater, ''Radical Periodicals in America, 1890-1950.'' New Haven, CT: Yale University Library, 1964, pp. 35-36. The paper was succeeded by the organs of the two new Communist Parties established at Chicago conventions during the first week of September — the

and the

Communist Labor Party of America The Communist Labor Party of America (CLPA) was one of the organizational predecessors of the Communist Party USA. The group was established at the end of August 1919 following a three-way split of the Socialist Party of America. Although a legal ...

. The name ''The Revolutionary Age'' was used again in 1929 as the title of an American communist newspaper by the so-called

Communist Party (Majority Group) The Lovestoneites, led by former General Secretary of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) Jay Lovestone, were a small American oppositionist communist movement of the 1930s. The organization emerged from a factional fight in the CPUSA in 1929 and un ...

headed by

Jay Lovestone Jay Lovestone (15 December 1897 – 7 March 1990) was an American activist. He was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Centr ...

.Goldwater, ''Radical Periodicals in America, 1890-1950,'' pg. 36. The Lovestone group, which including such veterans of the Left Wing Section

Benjamin Gitlow Benjamin Gitlow (December 22, 1891 – July 19, 1965) was a prominent American socialist politician of the early 20th century and a founding member of the Communist Party USA. During the end of the 1930s, Gitlow turned to conservatism and wrote t ...

and Bertram D. Wolfe, chose to pay homage to the seminal earlier publication by choosing the same name for their own official organ.

Footnotes

External links

Index to complete run of ''Revolutionary Age,''
Marxists Internet Archive, www.marxists.org/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Revolutionary Age Publications established in 1918 Publications disestablished in 1919 Defunct newspapers published in Massachusetts Socialist Party of America publications Communist Party USA publications Communist periodicals published in the United States Defunct newspapers published in New York City 1918 establishments in Massachusetts 1919 disestablishments in the United States