SUMMARY:
With the midterms behind us and the new government not yet seated, HoosLeft pauses electoral coverage to sit down with Shawn Gude — a fellow Midwesterner, former Jacobin editor, and author of the first newly researched, mass-market biography of Eugene V. Debs in decades. Debs, the Terre Haute-born labor leader, five-time Socialist presidential candidate, and Indiana’s own, died 100 years ago last month. Gude walks Scott through Debs’ radicalization from a moderate railroad-union man to the Socialist Party’s standard-bearer; the “Jimmy and Jenny Higginses,” the anonymous rank-and-file volunteers — newspaper sellers, canvassers, soapboxers — who actually built the party’s reach; the deep rifts between trade unionists and industrial unionists, socialists and the IWW, that eventually helped sink the movement; and Debs’ evolution on race, from conventionally racist young man to a figure praised by W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells by the end of his life, including his friendship with A. Philip Randolph. The conversation also covers Debs’ internationalism and opposition to World War I, the brutal wartime repression of the Socialist press and its leaders, and why Gude thinks a new “New Deal”-scale political realignment is overdue — and possible.
Shawn Gude: https://www.shawngude.com/
Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net
HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us
WHAT’S INSIDE:
00:00:00 Introduction: A Pause for an Important New Book
Scott opens by noting the show will pause its focus on electoral politics for several weeks — with the midterm election having just concluded — then introduces this pre-recorded interview marking 100 years since Eugene V. Debs’ death, and his guest, Shawn Gude, author of American Socialist: The Life and Legacy of Eugene V. Debs (Simon & Schuster).
00:03:16 Why a New Debs Biography Now?
Scott welcomes Shawn Gude to discuss his new book, calling it an accessible, invaluable read even for those who don’t know Debs’ life well.
Gude explains the last full-length biography was nearly 50 years old and written during the Cold War, when democratic socialism was politically radioactive; he wanted to update the story with new research and push back on the myth that socialism never had a real foothold in America.
00:07:48 From Moderate Railroad Man to Radical
Gude traces Debs’ path: born in Terre Haute in 1855, joins the railroad union at 14(!!!), becomes a local union leader by 19 in the cautious, temperance-society-like Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen — nothing like a class-struggle organization yet.
00:11:05 The Pullman Strike and Radicalization
The 1894 Pullman strike — a massive, multi-trade industrial action brutally crushed by court injunctions and federal troops — lands Debs in jail and pushes him toward socialist politics.
00:13:25 Reading His Way to Socialism in Jail
Debs enters prison “curious” and emerges transformed after being given Marx’s Capital by Victor Berger; he publicly declares himself a socialist in a New Year’s Day 1897 open letter.
00:16:14 Synthesizing Christianity, Marxism, and the Revolutionary Tradition
Gude explains Debs’ rhetorical power came from blending radical Christianity, Marxism, the American Revolutionary and abolitionist traditions — ideas already present in working-class culture, not imported ones.
00:19:09 “Don’t Expect a Moses”: Debs and the Question of Leadership
Scott asks about Debs’ shift from admiring “masterful men” like Caesar and Alexander the Great to rejecting great-man leadership; Gude says Debs was genuinely torn between craving the spotlight and believing workers must emancipate themselves — a tension Gude says persists in left politics today.
00:25:02 The Jimmy and Jenny Higginses: The Movement’s Rank and File
Gude introduces the ordinary volunteers who made the Socialist Party’s reach possible: at its peak, 120,000 members, 1,200 elected officials, and 80 mayors in 36 states — built on the backs of local canvassers, soapboxers, and newspaper sellers like Milwaukee’s highly organized “Bundle Brigade.”
00:26:13 Louis Klamroth and the Appeal Army
Gude highlights one of these volunteers, Louis Klamroth, a traveling Appeal to Reason subscription salesman arrested 29 times who reportedly sold 100,000 subscriptions over his career despite being run out of town and physically attacked repeatedly for his politics.
00:30:05 Why Socialism Thrived in the Rural Midwest
Gude, an Iowan himself, pushes back on the idea that socialism was ever just a “coastal” phenomenon — the party’s deepest strength was in the Midwest and rural plains, with Oklahoma hosting the strongest state party and massive socialist encampments.
00:36:19 Fault Lines on the Left: AFL vs. the Wobblies, Socialists vs. Communists
Scott and Gude discuss the era’s internal rifts — trade unionists vs. industrial unionists, the AFL vs. the IWW (”Wobblies”), and ultimately socialists vs. communists after the Russian Revolution, a split Gude says helped destroy the party.
00:40:28 Debs in the Middle: Electoral Politics vs. Direct Action
Debs tried to stay above the factional fighting between Victor Berger (electorally focused) and Big Bill Haywood (favoring union action and general strikes); Gude argues Debs ultimately saw electoral politics mainly as a platform to spread the socialist message.
00:45:23 Debs and the Evolution on Race
Gude details Debs’ arc from conventionally racist views as a young man born in a segregated city to, by the end of his life, being praised by W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells — shaped by his friendship with A. Philip Randolph and contact with other Black socialists.
Gude cites Debs’ relationships with Black socialist preacher George Washington Woodbey, Indiana’s own Ross D. Brown, and A. Philip Randolph as key to that shift.
00:49:49 Debs and Mexican Revolutionaries
Scott highlights a lesser-known thread from the book: Debs’ relationships with Mexican revolutionaries fighting the authoritarian, U.S.-aligned government of the time, and his view that American and Mexican workers’ fates were materially linked, not just morally.
00:52:45 World War I and the Espionage Act
Scott connects Debs’ opposition to WWI — which he saw as a war fought by workers for owners’ profit — to his imprisonment under the Espionage Act of 1917, and draws a parallel to National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, the directive on domestic political violence signed by the Trump administration last year.
00:53:27 Wartime Repression of the Socialist Press and Leaders
Gude details the scale of WWI-era repression: most socialist newspapers shut down, local and national leaders jailed, elected socialists barred from serving, and organizers tarred and feathered in the streets.
00:56:05 Running for President from Prison
Debs ran for president a fifth time from prison in 1920, winning over a million votes (his high-water mark in raw numbers, though not percentage — that was an earlier run).
00:56:42 Debs’ Legacy in the New Deal and Civil Rights Movement
Gude argues the industrial union militancy of the 1930s, and later the civil rights movement, both carried a distinctly “Debsian” spirit, even though Debs didn’t live to see either.
00:58:30 Could Bernie’s Campaigns Be a Precursor to a New “New Deal”?
Gude lays out the roughly 30-to-40-year cycle of American political realignments (1896, 1932, 1980) and argues the country is now overdue for another one, with the 2008 financial crisis as a missed opportunity and today’s democratic socialist resurgence as a possible precursor.
01:02:17 What Readers Should Take From Debs’ Legacy
Gude’s central takeaway: socialism is American, not a foreign import — citing the rank-and-file Higginses, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King’s debt to Debs — and that this forgotten history exists in nearly every state, not just the usual coastal strongholds.
01:04:34 Where to Find Shawn Gude and the Book
American Socialist: The Life and Legacy of Eugene V. Debs is out now from Simon & Schuster; Gude’s Twitter/X handle is @ShawnGude; he encourages readers to request it at their local libraries and buy from independent booksellers.
01:06:51 Show Outro
