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According to Luce, “The operations for the Cuban trips were like a mixture of Mission Impossible and Jonathan Winters. The results included thirteen federal indictments, two House Unamerican Activities Committee hearings, a number of recruits for Progressive Labor, considerable propaganda for the Cubans and a black eye for the State Department.”[12]

The American government put as many difficulties in the way of the PLM organized visitors to Cuba as possible. As a consequence, instead of flying from Canada to Cuba, as originally planned, they went via Paris and Czechoslovakia. According to Luce, who was one of the leaders of the 1963 trip, the Americans were treated with great enthusiasm by the Cubans, and during the two months the 1963 group were there, they traveled all over the island and spoke with the widest variety of people, including top figures in the Castro government.[13]

Virtually all of those who had organized and led the 1963 and 1964 trips to Cuba were indicted. However, the courts threw out the indictments, and no one was ever tried.[14]

Of PLM’s participation in the bloody riots in Harlem in the summer of 1964, Phillip Luce wrote, “Of course Progressive Labor did not start the Harlem riots—either through its proclaimed revolutionary zeal or its alleged radicalization of Harlem residents. PL did, however, seize upon an incident involving police and a young Harlem black, and used this incident to spur hard-core radical elements to action.”[15]

The apocalyptic view the PLM had of these riots, in which Bill Epton, the head of the PLM Harlem branch, took a leading part, was shown in an editorial in Challenge, the party newspaper. It said that “the rebellion, … will not end soon—in fact, indications are that it is spreading throughout the City. The vision of half a million—or a million—angry black men and women, supported by allies in the Puerto Rican and other working class communities, standing up to their oppressors, is haunting the ruling class.”[16]

Bill Epton was subsequently indicted and convicted of “criminal anarchy,” and spent some time in prison.[17]

The Progressive Labor Movement was formally converted into the Progressive Labor Party at a convention on April 15—18, 1965. There were reported to be delegates present from 12 states and the District of Columbia, representing 1,500 members. A National Committee of twenty was chosen, and Milton Rosen was named president of the party, with Mort Scheer and Bill Epton as vice presidents.[18]

The constitution of the new party proclaimed, “We resolve to build a revolutionary movement with the participation and support of millions of working men and women as well as those students, artists and intellectuals who will join with the working class to end the profit system. … With such a movement we will build a socialist U.S.A., with all power in the hands of the working people and their allies.”[19]

The PLP and Elections

The Progressive Labor Party engaged in a variety of activities. In spite of its fiery rhetoric and sometimes extremist behavior, during its first few years it participated sporadically in elections. As early as 1963, the PLM ran Bill Epton as a candidate for New York City Council.[20] Then, in 1965, he was the PLP candidate for New York State Senate, and after a very poor showing claimed that his name had been left off of many ballots.[21]

In 1966, although saying “we know that, in the long, run electoral campaigns and elections are not going to resolve the problems of our people,” the PLP nonetheless endorsed candidates for U.S. Congress in one district each in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York City, as well as three such nominees in New Jersey “who have manifested themselves totally opposed to the war in Vietnam.” They also had their own candidate, Wendy Nakashima, as nominee for the New York State Assembly.[22]

In 1968, the PLP people worked inside the Peace and Freedom Party of California, saying, “Only independent political action will make PFP a viable movement and Party.” They participated in what they called “the working class caucus” in that party.[23] The Peace and Freedom Party was a legally recognized rival of the Democrats and Republicans in California, in which a diversity of far-left groups operated.

In 1969, the PLP supported one “independent” candidate for the New York City Council, Barbara Lawrence.[24]

However, by 1971, the PLP was opposed to electoral participation, particularly in the forthcoming 1972 general election. They raised the slogan “Evil, Yes! Lesser, No! Don’t Vote. … Organize!”[25]

The PLP and Students for a Democratic Society

Particularly in its early years, the PLP was most heavily involved in the student movement, most particularly with the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The SDS was the successor of the Student League for Industrial Democracy, an organization generally associated with the Socialist Party, and particularly with Norman Thomas. However, in the 1960s, it had largely severed these connections and by the middle of the decade had become by far the largest student radical organization, expressing a somewhat vague belief in “participatory democracy.”

In its PLM phase, the PLP had organized its own student movement, the May Second Movement. This originated as a committee to plan an anti-Vietnam War meeting in New York on May 2, 1964. Although the committee at first had some representatives of the Trotskyites and independent radicals, it was soon taken over by the PLM people and after the May 2, 1964 meeting was converted into a permanent organization. Of the 13 members of its National Coordinating Committee, 11 belonged to Progressive Labor.[26] The group came to be known as M2M, an obvious copying of Castro’s July 26 Movement, frequently referred to as 2J6. According to Harvey Klehr, M2M was the first student group to oppose the military draft.[27]

However, it was the SDS, not M2M, which was growing most rapidly in the raid- 1960s. As a consequence, as the PLPers wrote in a sketch of their party’s history, “In the winter of 1965—1966, we won the majority of the M2M members to dissolving that organization and joining SDS. We realized that most of the students who were joining SDS to actively oppose the war did not have an anti-imperialist outlook, and to learn from them at the same time, we had to be where they were—in SDS.”[28]

Within the SDS, the PLPers were distinctive for at least two reasons. One of these was their opposition to the so-called “youth culture” advocated by many of the leaders and rank and filers of SDS—that is, drug use, sexual promiscuity, and other forms of “personal liberation.” The other was their advocacy of a “worker-student alliance.”

In personal behavior, the PLPers became virtually puritanical. Phillip Luce wrote about this. “The leaders became so paranoid over the issue of their ‘public image’ that they told members to shave their mustaches, wear coats and ties, forget the cowboy boots, be careful whom they were seen with, stay away from people who take dope, date only certain girls, attend classes regularly, and watch their language in public.”[29]