Daniel De Leon

• Born: December 14, 1852
• Birthplace: Curaçao, Dutch West Indies
• Died: May 11, 1914
• Place of death: New York, New York

Socialist leader

De Leon was an influential Marxist theorist and leading figure in the Socialist Labor Party from 1890 until his death in 1914.

Areas of achievement: Activism; government and politics

Early Life

Born on the Dutch-owned island of Curaçao in 1852, Daniel De Leon (deh lee-OWN) was the son of Salomon De Leon, a surgeon and official in the Dutch colonial army, and Sarah Jesurun. Both parents were Sephardic Jews of Spanish and Dutch ancestry. Following the death of De Leon’s father in 1865, his mother took him to live in Germany, where he presumably completed his secondary education. In later years, he told followers that he had graduated from a German gymnasium (secondary school) and then studied medicine at the University of Leiden for two years. No documentary evidence, however, has been found concerning his European studies. Even though the extent of his formal schooling is unclear, there is no question about his acquiring fluency in several languages and his ability to do general research.

In 1874, De Leon emigrated to the United States and settled in a Latino community in New York City. After teaching foreign languages and mathematics at a private school in Westchester County, New York, he studied law at Columbia College (now Columbia University), graduating with an LL.B. degree with honors in 1878. He then moved to Brownsville, Texas, where he practiced law for about four years. In 1882, he married Sara Lobo, the daughter of a prosperous Jewish family from the West Indies. The couple had four children, but only one survived. Sara died during childbirth in 1887.

Life’s Work

In 1883, De Leon won a contest that allowed him to return to New York with an appointment to do research and give lectures on Latin American politics at Columbia. Three years later, he became actively engaged in politics for the first time when he supported Henry George, the famous single-tax reformer, for mayor of New York. In 1888, De Leon was attracted to Edward Bellamy’s utopian novel, Looking Backward (1888), and he joined one of Bellamy’s Nationalist clubs. Soon becoming dissatisfied with the middle-class nature of Bellamy movement, De Leon joined the Knights of Labor, the most notable mass labor organization of the period. His newfound interest in the labor movement and socialism led him to study the works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and De Leon was soon converted to their version of “scientific socialism,” which called for a transformation of society based on public ownership of large-scale industries and natural resources. In 1889, De Leon’s appointment at Columbia was not renewed. Scholars disagree about whether nonrenewal was a result of his radical views or his limited academic credentials.

In 1890, De Leon jointed the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), a small Marxist organization dominated by German immigrants. Advancing rapidly, he was the party’s candidate for governor of New York in 1891, and the following year he became editor of its newspaper, People, a position he held for the rest of his life. When making a nationwide tour for the Socialist Labor Party in 1891, De Leon made the acquaintance of a Kansas schoolteacher, Bertha Canary, whom he married the following year. The couple had five children, and they lived in a small apartment, the children sleeping on folding cots in the kitchen.

De Leon anticipated Vladimir Lenin’s ideas about a disciplined party being necessary to lead workers to victory; in contrast to Lenin, De Leon disdained violence and argued that socialism in America could be achieved through peaceful elections. He strongly disagreed with moderate socialists who advocated piecemeal reforms as the path to socialism. As the SLP’s ideological leader, De Leon and his allies controlled the party’s agenda and established its firm commitment to orthodox Marxism. Following bitter dissension, a majority of members seceded from the party in 1899, and they formed the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in 1901. Soon thereafter, the SPA became the mainstream socialist organization in the country, and the De Leon’s SLP barely managed to survive.

Although never able to convince large numbers of workers to join his crusade, De Leon nevertheless took a keen interest in the U.S. labor movement. He harshly denounced the American Federation of Labor and other nonsocialist unions, accusing them of betraying the working class. In 1895, he was one of the founders of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance (ST and LA), which remained a small union closely allied with the SLP. In 1905, he helped to organize the broader-based Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), but his participation in the IWW was acrimonious and short-lived. De Leon wanted the IWW to support the SLP in political activities, whereas “Big Bill” Haywood and the majority wanted the union to engage in direct action without cooperating with any particular political party. After De Leon was expelled from the IWW in 1908, he helped to establish a rival organization, the Workers’ International Union, which never had much success.

De Leon was a talented speaker and debater. He was not a prolific writer, although he did publish a large number of newspaper essays. Several of his lectures were published in pamphlets, including Reform or Revolution (1896) and Socialist Reconstruction of Society (1905). Early in the twentieth century he contracted a bacterial infection in his heart muscles. At the time no effective medications existed for the ailment, and he died at the age of sixty-two in 1914.

Significance

During his lifetime, De Leon was the most prominent leader of left-wing Marxists who refused to support attempts to reform capitalism. His message failed to resonate with large numbers of Americans, and he never had as much influence as more moderate socialists who were willing to compromise and accept whatever reforms were possible. In the early twenty-first century, nevertheless, the Socialist Labor Party continued to praise him as one of the greatest revolutionary leaders and thinkers of all time.

Bibliography

Chester, Thomas. True Mission: Socialists and the Labor Party Question in the U.S. Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, 2004. A good introduction to the historical context of De Leon’s career.

Coleman, Stephen. Daniel De Leon. Manchester, England: University of Manchester Press, 1990. A favorable biography that covers the life and times of De Leon.

De Leon, Daniel. Writings of Daniel DeLeon. St. Petersburg, Fla.: Red and Black, 2008. A collection of his essays with a useful introduction to his life and career.

Girard, Frank, and Ben Perry. Socialist Labor Party, 1876-1991: A Short History. Philadelphia: Livra Books, 1991. The interesting story of the left-wing party that De Leon dominated for many years.

Reeve, Carl. The Life and Times of Daniel De Leon. New York: AIMS/Humanities Press, 1972. Worthwhile review of De Leon’s life, but not as scholarly or interesting as the later works by Seretan and Coleman.

Seretan, L. Glen. Daniel De Leon: The Odyssey of an American Marxist. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979. A comprehensive though critical biography of De Leon.