Hal Draper

Who was Hal Draper?

Hal Draper was an American socialist activist and author who played a significant role in the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement and is known for his extensive scholarship on the history and meaning of the thought of Karl Marx.

Draper was a lifelong advocate of what he called "socialism from below," self-emancipation by the working class in opposition to capitalism and Stalinist bureaucracy, both of which, he held, practiced domination from above. He was one of the creators of the Third Camp tradition, a form — the form, according to its adherents — of Marxist socialism.