Some doctrinaire American Marxists like Daniel DeLeon - who had never seen a farm in his life - denounced them because they refused to sign on to his program of socialization of all means of production, including collective farming. At the farmer-labor congresses, the populists would try to replace "all" MoP with "socialization of the MoP where practicable." Then DeLeon would storm out. The populists were for nationalizing the railroads, banks, telegraphs, grain elevators, and all industry.
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Socializing a la DeLeon is/was not the same as nationalizing a la populism. Doctrinaire American Marxists like DeLeon and unions like the IWW, demanded the abolition of the wages system, classes and the State. Populists, comfortable with State capitalism and privately owned farms, would have been in disagreement with this communist position. It's easy to see how non-IWW reformists in the Socialist Party could have been/are more in tune with bourgeois democrataic versions of State capitalism.
Regards,
Mike B)
Read "Penguins in Bondage": http://happystiletto.blogspot.com/
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