“I Believe in Socialism as Well as Democracy”: Du Bois’s Discourse on, and Development of, Democratic Socialism Both before and after In Battle for Peace

Abstract

In 1951 Du Bois was indicted by the U.S. federal government for being an agent of a foreign state as a result of his work with the Peace Information Center, an organization committed to peace activism and nuclear disarmament. As detailed in his often-overlooked 1952 book, In Battle for Peace: The Story of My 83rd Birthday, the then eighty-two-year-old Du Bois was arrested, handcuffed, searched for concealed weapons, fingerprinted, briefly jailed, and subsequently released on bail. However, his passport was immediately revoked and remained canceled until 1958. Du Bois’s misguided support for dictatorial leaders like Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung, who claimed to be communist and committed to Marxist principles, has caused many scholars to disregard or even lampoon his late life work and instead focus almost exclusively on his early and middle years prior to his 1935 publication of Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880. Considering the complex nature of his life, scholarship, and activism, this article’s primary objective is to provide a brief overview of Du Bois’s discourse on, and development of, democratic socialism, both before and after In Battle for Peace.