“Salvation through socialism”: Conversion in the Work of Jack London and Upton Sinclair

Abstract

The most common motif in early twentieth-century radical literature is the conversion narrative. Walter Rideout has observed that the conversion story is a central element in one-third of all the labor novels written in the first three decades of the twentieth century. A variation on the bildungsroman, these works feature techniques used by evangelical revivalists and depict conversions to socialism or to the labor movement that are modeled on religious experience. Here, a character’s salvation is achieved through the acquisition of class consciousness, which is described as a kind of rebirth, awakening, or recognition of revelation.1 The most widely read and emblematic radical authors to consistently employ this trope were Jack London and his protégé Upton Sinclair. Not only did London and Sinclair use the conversion story in their fiction and nonfiction time and again, but they also both described their own discovery of socialism as a religious conversion. In their work, both authors seek to conflate Christianity and socialism, to prove that the two are compatible, and that authentic conformity to Christian principles demands the endorsement of socialism. London and Sinclair use their writing as an instrument of evangelism that aims to convince their audience that socialism is a religious enterprise and a means to salvation.