Who was Daniel De Leon ?
Daniel De Leon was an American Marxist who developed the program of socialist industrial unionism. De Leon was born Dec. 14, 1852, on the island of Curacao in the Dutch West Indies. He was educated in Europe and settled in America, joining the faculty of Columbia University in 1883 as a lecturer on international law. Subsequently, he became interested in the labor movement and politics. Involvement in Henry George’s single tax movement and Edward Bellamy’s national movement led De Leon to study the writings of Marx and Engels. After leaving Columbia University, De Leon became active in the Socialist Labor Party. He was appointed editor of The People in 1892, about two years after joining the party. He remained editor until his death on May 11, 1914. De Leon was also editor of The Daily People from its founding in 1900 until it ceased publication in February 1914. In addition, De Leon served the socialist movement as a writer, speaker, theorist, tactician and translator. He stood for po
” The People, March 5, 1983 More “Accordingly, the economic organization of labor and struggle on the industrial field are essential for the success of the working-class movement. That economic organization is the socialist industrial on movement. Its purpose is to organize workers to take, hold and operate the industries of the land under their own democratic authority, thereby removing the capitalist class from the seat of its economic power and effecting the change to socialism.” — From the article “Socialist Industrial Unionism: For Workers’ Emancipation”, The People, October 6, 1990 More “To win the struggle for socialist freedom requires enormous efforts of organizational and educational work. It requires building a political party of socialism to contest the power of the capitalist class on the political field, and to educate the majority of workers about the need for socialism. It requires building socialist industrial union organizations to unite all workers in a class-consci
