Jeffrey A. Johnson . “They Are All Red Out Here”: Socialist Politics in the Pacific Northwest, 1895–1925. Norman : University of Oklahoma Press . 2008 . Pp. xii, 234. $34.95.

Abstract

As Jeffrey A. Johnson points out, in the early twentieth century the Pacific Northwest was the home of a particularly vibrant and robust brand of labor and socialist organization, making it “one of the nation's most famously radical regions” (p. 4). This book represents the first regional study of the socialist movement in the Pacific Northwest, and its author promises us a work that “departs from a formulaic or theoretical framework and does not take a polemical position” (p. 7). For the most part, he delivers on that promise. The book lays out the trajectory of socialism in the Pacific Northwest clearly and succinctly. Rooted in nineteenth-century Marxist organizations, especially the Socialist Labor Party, socialism in the region took off following the formation of the Socialist Party of America in 1901. The party enjoyed considerable success in the years that followed, supporting a thriving network of local organizations and electing numerous socialists to local offices. This success proved to be short-lived, however, peaking early in the second decade of the twentieth century, followed rapidly by “chronic and characteristic party infighting” that led to the “slow and steady demise” of socialism in the region (p. 9). By the mid-1920s, socialism had all but ceased to exist in the Pacific Northwest, the victim of the anti-radical hysteria that accompanied American involvement in World War I.