Progressive Party (united States, 1948)

Progressive party stood for one thing and Wallace another. Actually the party organization was controlled from the outset by those representing the radical left and not liberalism per se. This made it extremely easy for Communists and fellow travelers to infiltrate into important positions within the party machinery. Once this happened, party stands began to resemble a party line. Campaign literature, speech materials, and campaign slogans sounded strangely like echoes of what Moscow wanted to hear. As if wearing moral blinkers, Wallace increasingly became an imperceptive ideologue. Words were uttered by Wallace that did not sound like him, and his performance took on a strange Jekyll and Hyde quality—one moment he was a peace protagonist and the next a propaganda parrot for the Kremlin.

• At one pole were the extreme leftists, three closely related groups—admitted Communists, past and present; the party-liners and fellow travelers who failed to differ noticeably with the Communists as to either policy or principle; and finally those non-Communists who, in … 1944–50 failed to take issue with the Communists on policy, but whose underlying principles seemingly differed….


• In the middle were grouped an apparently large majority of Progressive Party followers—the moderates. Exemplified by both national candidates, these individuals were willing to accept Communist support, because they felt that it was inconsistent, in the light of their ideals, to oppose Redbaiting by others, yet attempt to read Communists out of the new party.


• At the right were arrayed those who, feeling that Communist support should have been disavowed in no uncertain terms, yet were unwilling to adopt the ADA tactic of violent attack on the Communists. This group would have approved making the Progressives “non-Communist” rather than “antiCommunist”, excluding but not assailing the Reds. Most persons sharing this view had, like Max Lerner, completely avoided the party, but others like Rexford Guy Tugwell joined and stayed, if reluctantly, through the campaign….


• In the period following 1948, these groups tended to leave the party in the order of their views from right to left. Most of the rightists departed during or shortly after the campaign, accompanied by many of the moderates. And the moderate defection, so marked following election day, 1948, became a nearly complete walkout in the summer of 1950, with the policy rift over Korea and Wallace's departure. Consequently, by the close of 1951 the few remaining portions of the Wallace Progressive Party were composed almost exclusively of the earlier extreme left group. These were the ones who had favored a “narrow” organization; after the Wallace break, they finally achieved this goal, with the departure of almost everyone else.

• Culver, John C. and John Hyde. ''American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace'' (2002)


• Willlam B. Hesseltine. ''The Rise and Fall of Third Parties: From Anti-Masonry to Wallace'' (1948)


• Markowitz, Norman D. ''The Rise and Fall of the People's Century: Henry A. Wallace and American Liberalism, 1941–1948'' (1973)


• C. D. MacDougall, ''Gideon's Army'' 3 vol. (1965), by insider


• Howard P. Nash Jr. ''Third Parties in American Politics'' (1959)


• Schapsmeier, Edward L. and Frederick H. Schapsmeier. ''Prophet in Politics: Henry A. Wallace and the War Years, 1940–1965'' (1970)


• Schmidt, Karl M. ''Henry A. Wallace, Quixotic Crusade 1948'' (1960)


• White, Graham, and John Maze. ''Henry A. Wallace: His Search for a New World Order'' (1995)


• Walker, J. Samuel Walker. ''Henry A. Wallace and American Foreign Policy'' (1976)