Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles
available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Socialist
Propaganda League of America was established in 1915, apparently by C.W.
Fitzgerald of Beverly, Massachusetts. As a membership organization
within the ranks of the Socialist Party of America, the Socialist
Propaganda League was the direct lineal antecedent of the Left Wing
Section of the Socialist Party and its governing National Council - the
forerunner of the American Communist movement. In the fall of 1915,
Fitzgerald wrote and sent a leaflet to Vladimir Lenin of the Russian
Social Democratic Workers Party. Lenin replied, outlining his views on
the situation faced by the revolutionary socialist movement. It was not
until November 1916 that any sort of broad-based organization was
established. A November 26, 1916, meeting in Boston approved a first
manifesto for the organization and established an official journal, The
Internationalist. According to the group's constitutional objectives,
"The SPLA declares emphatically and will work uncompromisingly in the
economic and political fields for industrial revolution to establish
industrial democracy by the mass action of the working class."
