The existence of the "Militants" and the threat they represented to the political line of the SPA caused traditional electorally oriented members to form an organized grouping of their own, known as the "Old Guard faction."
In 1935 the personal and political friction between these two basic tendencies lead to an organizational split, with the Old Guard faction leaving to establish the Social Democratic Federation (SDF).
The Militant faction itself shattered in the aftermath of the 1935 party split with only a small core loyal to perennial Presidential candidate Norman Thomas remaining in the organization by the coming of World War II.
[1] Moreover, the party was nearly insolvent: its coffers empty, printing bill unpaid, and the organization nearly two years in arrears in the payment of its dues to the Labor and Socialist International in Switzerland.
[2] Even though the Militant faction emerged as a coherent unit in the Socialist Party late in 1930[3] and congealed in 1931, as early as 1926 observers were noting evidence of a fissure.
Communist Party member Bertram D. Wolfe wrote in a September 1926 article tellingly entitled "The Socialist Party Furnishes Its 'Insurgents'": "For some time there has been growing discontent manifested within the ranks of New York Socialists, especially among the younger elements, against the methods used by the [Jewish Daily] Forward crowd in fighting the Communists, in opposing the united front proposals of the Workers (Communist) Party, in splitting unions and other labor organizations and expelling progressive and left wing elements, in using gangsterism — in short, in all the methods employed by the old socialist leadership to ruin the labor movement that they can no longer rule.
* * * "Even a small section of the leadership, such men as Norman Thomas, have been criticizing these policies ... because they are causing a further loss of membership and a further disintegration of the Socialist Party.
Not only did the Old Guard treat the ideas of the Militants as a repulsive sort of quasi-Bolshevism; it also found intolerable the enthusiasm of these naive young comrades, their expectation that Norman Thomas booming out the credo of 'socialism in our time' was something to be taken seriously.
They were a vague group of recent members, representing many shades of opinion, who were greatly dissatisfied with the slowness, the lack of activity, of the Old Guard.
This party once in office would extend democracy and civil liberties, socialize basic industries, and move rapidly in the direction of what is nowadays called the welfare state.
They have in recent years lived in eternal fear of offending labor leaders, and have therefore kept silent in the face of reaction and racketeering within the unions.
"[11]SPA National Chairman Leo Krzycki sent the new publication his warm greetings at the time of its launch, although beseeching it to "steer clear of party controversy.
Other frequent contributors to the publication during its first year included Haim Kantorovitch, Samuel DeWitt, Herbert Zam, and McAlister Coleman.