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Hal Draper
Hal Draper (born Harold Dubinsky; September 19, 1914 – January 26, 1990) was an American socialist activist and author who played a significant role in the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement. He is known for his extensive scholarship on the history and meaning of the thought of Karl Marx and Marxian socialism.
Draper was a lifelong advocate of what he called "socialism from below", that is, self-emancipation by the working class, in stark opposition to both capitalism and Stalinist or Bolshevik bureaucracy. He was one of the creators of the Third Camp tradition, a form of Marxist socialism emancipated from State apparatus.
Harold Dubinsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1914, the son of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. His father, Samuel Dubinsky (d. 1924), was the manager of a shirt factory. His mother, Annie Kornblatt Dubinsky, ran a candy store to make ends meet following her husband's death. He was one of four children, and Theodore Draper was his younger brother.
When Hal was eighteen, his mother insisted upon changing the family name to the "American-sounding" name "Draper" to shield the children from anti-Semitism as they entered their careers.
Hal graduated from Boys High School and earned a bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College in 1934.
During his teenage years he joined the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL), then the youth affiliate of the Socialist Party of America, and he became a leader of the national student movements of the day that organized against fascism, war, and unemployment.
Draper's political choices were in contrast to those made by his brother Theodore Draper, a fellow traveler of the Communist Party in the 1930s who would later be disillusioned with Communism and become a prominent historian. Their sister Dorothy (Dora) Draper would marry Jacob Rabkin (1905–2003), one of the intellectual founders of US tax law.
Within the YPSL, Hal Draper was won over to Trotskyism and became an important leader of the YPSL's Trotskyist "Appeal Tendency" during 1936 and 1937. He was elected the organization's national secretary, its top post, at its September 1937 convention, which renounced the Stalinist Third International in favor of a new Trotskyist Fourth International. The great majority of the YPSL supported that position and left or was expelled by the Socialist Party in the fall of that year. Along with his YPSL activity, Draper took part in the founding of the Socialist Workers Party in 1937–1938.
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Hal Draper
Hal Draper (born Harold Dubinsky; September 19, 1914 – January 26, 1990) was an American socialist activist and author who played a significant role in the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement. He is known for his extensive scholarship on the history and meaning of the thought of Karl Marx and Marxian socialism.
Draper was a lifelong advocate of what he called "socialism from below", that is, self-emancipation by the working class, in stark opposition to both capitalism and Stalinist or Bolshevik bureaucracy. He was one of the creators of the Third Camp tradition, a form of Marxist socialism emancipated from State apparatus.
Harold Dubinsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1914, the son of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. His father, Samuel Dubinsky (d. 1924), was the manager of a shirt factory. His mother, Annie Kornblatt Dubinsky, ran a candy store to make ends meet following her husband's death. He was one of four children, and Theodore Draper was his younger brother.
When Hal was eighteen, his mother insisted upon changing the family name to the "American-sounding" name "Draper" to shield the children from anti-Semitism as they entered their careers.
Hal graduated from Boys High School and earned a bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College in 1934.
During his teenage years he joined the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL), then the youth affiliate of the Socialist Party of America, and he became a leader of the national student movements of the day that organized against fascism, war, and unemployment.
Draper's political choices were in contrast to those made by his brother Theodore Draper, a fellow traveler of the Communist Party in the 1930s who would later be disillusioned with Communism and become a prominent historian. Their sister Dorothy (Dora) Draper would marry Jacob Rabkin (1905–2003), one of the intellectual founders of US tax law.
Within the YPSL, Hal Draper was won over to Trotskyism and became an important leader of the YPSL's Trotskyist "Appeal Tendency" during 1936 and 1937. He was elected the organization's national secretary, its top post, at its September 1937 convention, which renounced the Stalinist Third International in favor of a new Trotskyist Fourth International. The great majority of the YPSL supported that position and left or was expelled by the Socialist Party in the fall of that year. Along with his YPSL activity, Draper took part in the founding of the Socialist Workers Party in 1937–1938.