Hal Draper (1914-1990) Berkeley New Left organizer and socialist theoretician. Born to immigrant garment workers, Draper became involved in the socialist movement in 1932 during the Depression. He joined the Socialist Workers Party and in 1939 joined Max Shachtman's SWP split, the Workers Party (see: Independent Socialist League). During the 1950's, Draper was editor of the independent socialist journal Labor Action, highly regarded internationally for its critical Marxist perspective. As Shachtman began to move more and more towards the right, Draper became less comfortable in his organization. When Shachtman's ISL joined the Socialist Party and advocated work with the Democratic Party, Draper officially broke with Shachtman. Draper traveled to Berkeley and formed an Independent Socialist Club. Playing a prominent role in the Berkeley free speech movements, the clubs grew and spread to New York. Draper soon reorganized the Independent Socialist Clubs as a national organization — International Socialists (IS). Though continuing his Shachtmanite anti-communism, he maintained a revolutionary socialist outlook and began looking back on works by Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg. He wrote a four-volume series called Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution and began using new theoretical terms such as "micro-sect" and "political centers." He also edited the Marx-Engels Cyclopedia. In 1977, supporters of British Trotskyist Tony Cliff's Socialist Workers Party split from Draper's IS and formed the International Socialist Organization (ISO). The other half of Draper's IS fused with some other Trotskyist groups in 1986 to form Solidarity. Draper continued to write prolifically on revolutionary socialist theory until his death in 1990.

See the Hal Draper Internet Archive and the Center for Socialist History.