Workers Party (US)
Encyclopedia
Not to be confused with the modern Marxist-Leninist party, Workers Party, USA
.
The Workers Party (WP) was a Third Camp
Trotskyist group in the United States
. It was founded in April 1940 by members of the Socialist Workers Party who opposed the Soviet invasion of Finland
. They included Max Shachtman
, who became the new group's leader, Hal Draper
, C. L. R. James
, Martin Abern
, Joseph Carter, Julius Jacobson
, and Irving Howe
. The party's politics are often referred to as Shachtmanite.
At the time of the split, almost 40% http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/mnsocialist/novack-swp-history.html&date=2009-10-26+20:32:24 of the membership of the SWP left the SWP. The WP had approximately 500 members. Although it recruited among workers and youth during the war years it never grew substantially, despite having more impact than its numbers would suggest.
which was grouped around the figures of two leading intellectuals CLR James and Raya Dunayevskaya
. This tendency took the name the Johnson-Forest Tendency
for its principal leaders' pseudonyms. It developed the viewpoint that Russia was state capitalist. The tendency developed the view that the WP should rejoin the Fourth International due to the imminence of a pre-revolutionary situation. In the meantime the SWP had from 1943 onwards developed a loose oppositional tendency led by Felix Morrow
and Albert Goldman
which, among other things, called for the WP to be readmitted to the SWP.
In 1945 and 1946, these two tendencies argued for their parties to regroup. However, discussions decelerated after Goldman was found to be working with the WP's leadership. He left the SWP in May 1946 to join the WP, with a small group of supporters including James T. Farrell
. C. L. R. James
' tendency left the WP in October 1947 in order to rejoin the SWP, while Farrell and Goldman left in 1948 to join the Socialist Party of America
.
Working in the labor movement, the party grew rapidly, largely as at a time of labor shortages which allowed its mainly New York Jewish intellectual members to take industrial jobs which would otherwise have been closed to them. At the same time the draft prevented the construction of a stable industrial base as much of the youthful membership was inducted into the armed forces. In the same period younger members, for example were recruited.
in 1946. After the merger of a number of a group from the Young Peoples Socialist League in the early 1950s, including Michael Harrington
, it renamed itself the Young Socialist League. They merged back with the YPSL at about the same time as the adult organization was merging with the SP-SDF in August 1958. A group led by Tim Wohlworth did not approve of this merger and joined the SWP affiliated Young Socialist Alliance
.
too but continued to consider itself to be in political sympathy with the movement internationally. In order to give expression to this the WP founded a Committee for the Fourth International to regroup its international co-thinkers, including a group of emigre Germans. After WW 2 Shachtman would attend the Second World congress of the Fourth International as an observer only to reject the organisation as irredeemably sectarian.
after a lengthy court battle, but failed to grow as Howe and others left to start Dissent
In 1957, the ISL joined the Socialist Party of America
, dissolving the following year. Some members took leading positions in the Socialist Party. A small group around Hal Draper left to form the Independent Socialist Clubs
.
The group soon developed an analysis of the Soviet Union
as bureaucratic collectivist. It was the first group to use the slogan "Neither Washington nor Moscow
", implying that they preferred neither capitalism
nor the states allied to the Soviet Union
.
Workers Party, USA
Not to be confused with the defunct Trotskyist party, Workers Party .The Workers Party is a small left-wing political party in the United States. Based in Chicago, Illinois, the Workers Party stands on a platform of anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism, and publishes a biweekly newspaper The Worker...
.
The Workers Party (WP) was a Third Camp
Third camp
The third camp, also known as third camp socialism or third camp Trotskyism, is a branch of socialism which aims to oppose both capitalism and Stalinism, by supporting the organised working class as a "third camp"....
Trotskyist group in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It was founded in April 1940 by members of the Socialist Workers Party who opposed the Soviet invasion of Finland
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
. They included Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman was an American Marxist theorist. He evolved from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL-CIO President George Meany.-Beginnings:...
, who became the new group's leader, Hal Draper
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 perhaps best 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...
, C. L. R. James
C. L. R. James
Cyril Lionel Robert James , who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J.R. Johnson, was an Afro-Trinidadian historian, journalist, socialist theorist and essayist. His works are influential in various theoretical, social, and historiographical contexts...
, Martin Abern
Martin Abern
Martin Abern was a Marxist politician who was an important leader of the Communist youth movement of the 1920s as well as a founder of the American Trotskyist movement.-Early years:...
, Joseph Carter, Julius Jacobson
Julius Jacobson
Julius Jacobson was an American socialist writer and editor who edited Anvil, New International, and New Politics, all publications in the Third Camp tradition of socialism, a democratic Marxist tradition sometimes called "Shachtmanite" after its significant theorist, Max...
, and Irving Howe
Irving Howe
Irving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Life and career:...
. The party's politics are often referred to as Shachtmanite.
At the time of the split, almost 40% http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/mnsocialist/novack-swp-history.html&date=2009-10-26+20:32:24 of the membership of the SWP left the SWP. The WP had approximately 500 members. Although it recruited among workers and youth during the war years it never grew substantially, despite having more impact than its numbers would suggest.
Early years
By 1941 the party had developed a minority tendencyMulti-tendency
Multi-tendency when used in regards to a political organization, especially a left-wing or anarchist one, means that the organization recognizes or at least tolerates members who are affiliated with or identify with a variety of ideologies within the broad stance of the organization...
which was grouped around the figures of two leading intellectuals CLR James and Raya Dunayevskaya
Raya Dunayevskaya
Raya Dunayevskaya was the founder of the philosophy of Marxist Humanism in the United States of America. At one time Leon Trotsky's secretary, she later split with him and ultimately founded the organization News and Letters Committees and was its leader until her death.-Biography:Of Jewish...
. This tendency took the name the Johnson-Forest Tendency
Johnson-Forest Tendency
The Johnson–Forest tendency, sometimes called the Johnsonites, refers to a radical left tendency in the United States associated with Marxist theorists C.L.R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya, who used the pseudonyms J.R. Johnson and Freddie Forest respectively...
for its principal leaders' pseudonyms. It developed the viewpoint that Russia was state capitalist. The tendency developed the view that the WP should rejoin the Fourth International due to the imminence of a pre-revolutionary situation. In the meantime the SWP had from 1943 onwards developed a loose oppositional tendency led by Felix Morrow
Felix Morrow
Felix Morrow was an American communist political activist and newspaper editor. In later years, Morrow left the world of politics to become a book publisher. He is best remembered as a factional leader of the American Trotskyist movement....
and Albert Goldman
Albert Goldman (politician)
Albert Goldman was an American Trotskyist and lawyer to the labor movement.Born Albert Verblen in Chicago, he studied at Medhill High School and then the University of Cincinnati. He also studied to be a rabbi at the Hebrew Union College...
which, among other things, called for the WP to be readmitted to the SWP.
In 1945 and 1946, these two tendencies argued for their parties to regroup. However, discussions decelerated after Goldman was found to be working with the WP's leadership. He left the SWP in May 1946 to join the WP, with a small group of supporters including James T. Farrell
James T. Farrell
James Thomas Farrell was an American novelist. One of his most famous works was the Studs Lonigan trilogy, which was made into a film in 1960 and into a television miniseries in 1979...
. C. L. R. James
C. L. R. James
Cyril Lionel Robert James , who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J.R. Johnson, was an Afro-Trinidadian historian, journalist, socialist theorist and essayist. His works are influential in various theoretical, social, and historiographical contexts...
' tendency left the WP in October 1947 in order to rejoin the SWP, while Farrell and Goldman left in 1948 to join the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
.
Working in the labor movement, the party grew rapidly, largely as at a time of labor shortages which allowed its mainly New York Jewish intellectual members to take industrial jobs which would otherwise have been closed to them. At the same time the draft prevented the construction of a stable industrial base as much of the youthful membership was inducted into the armed forces. In the same period younger members, for example were recruited.
Youth organizations
The organization created a youth section, the Socialist Youth LeagueSocialist Youth League (US)
The Socialist Youth League was the youth group affiliated with the Workers Party, a splinter Trotskyist party led by Max Shachtman. The parent group changed its name to the Independent Socialist League in 1950. In February 1954, the Socialist Youth League merged with the a faction of the Young...
in 1946. After the merger of a number of a group from the Young Peoples Socialist League in the early 1950s, including Michael Harrington
Michael Harrington
Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Personal life:...
, it renamed itself the Young Socialist League. They merged back with the YPSL at about the same time as the adult organization was merging with the SP-SDF in August 1958. A group led by Tim Wohlworth did not approve of this merger and joined the SWP affiliated Young Socialist Alliance
Young Socialist Alliance
The Young Socialist Alliance was a Trotskyist youth group of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States of America. It was founded in 1960, although it had roots going back several years earlier. It was dissolved in 1992...
.
International affiliation
Having departed the SWP the newly founded WP found itself outside the ranks of the Fourth InternationalFourth International
The Fourth International is the communist international organisation consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky , with the declared dedicated goal of helping the working class bring about socialism...
too but continued to consider itself to be in political sympathy with the movement internationally. In order to give expression to this the WP founded a Committee for the Fourth International to regroup its international co-thinkers, including a group of emigre Germans. After WW 2 Shachtman would attend the Second World congress of the Fourth International as an observer only to reject the organisation as irredeemably sectarian.
Independent Socialist League
In 1949, the group renamed itself the Independent Socialist League. It was removed from the US Attorney General's List of Subversive OrganizationsAttorney General's List of Subversive Organizations
The United States Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations was a list drawn up on April 3, 1947 at the request of the United States Attorney General. The list was intended to be a compilation of organizations seen as "subversive" by the United States government...
after a lengthy court battle, but failed to grow as Howe and others left to start Dissent
In 1957, the ISL joined the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
, dissolving the following year. Some members took leading positions in the Socialist Party. A small group around Hal Draper left to form the Independent Socialist Clubs
International Socialists (US)
The International Socialists was a Third Camp Trotskyist group in the United States.The roots of the IS went back to the fall of 1964 when the Berkeley locals of the SP-SDF and YPSL left with 16 members to found the Independent Socialist Club led by Hal Draper and Joel Geier...
.
"Third Camp"
From the start, the group distinguished itself from the SWP by advocating a Third Camp perspective. In an article published in April 1940, entitled "The Soviet Union and the World War", Shachtman concluded:The revolutionary vanguardRevolutionary VanguardRevolutionary Vanguard was a political party in Peru founded in 1965 by various Marxist groups. Leaders included Ricardo Napurí , César Benavides, Ricardo Letts and Edmundo Murrugarra.In 1977 VR took part in the foundation of the UDP...
must put forward the slogan of revolutionary defeatism in both imperialist camps, that is, the continuation of the revolutionary struggle for power regardless of the effects on the military front. That, and only that, is the central strategy of the third camp in the World War, the camp of proletarian internationalismProletarian internationalismProletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is a Marxist social class concept based on the view that capitalism is now a global system, and therefore the working class must act as a global class if it is to defeat it...
, of the socialist revolution, of the struggle for the emancipationEmancipationEmancipation means the act of setting an individual or social group free or making equal to citizens in a political society.Emancipation may also refer to:* Emancipation , a champion Australian thoroughbred racehorse foaled in 1979...
of all the oppressed.
The group soon developed an analysis of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
as bureaucratic collectivist. It was the first group to use the slogan "Neither Washington nor Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
", implying that they preferred neither capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
nor the states allied to the Soviet Union
Communist state
A communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist-Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state...
.
Publications
- F. ForestRaya DunayevskayaRaya Dunayevskaya was the founder of the philosophy of Marxist Humanism in the United States of America. At one time Leon Trotsky's secretary, she later split with him and ultimately founded the organization News and Letters Committees and was its leader until her death.-Biography:Of Jewish...
Outline of Marx's Capital: volume one [United States]: Educational Dept. Workers Party, U.S.A., - C. L. R. JamesC. L. R. JamesCyril Lionel Robert James , who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J.R. Johnson, was an Afro-Trinidadian historian, journalist, socialist theorist and essayist. His works are influential in various theoretical, social, and historiographical contexts...
My friends: a fireside chat on the war (as "Native Son") New York : Workers Party 1940 - This is not our war! New York, N.Y., Workers party 1940
- Labor's voice against the war: election platform of the Workers Party. New York, N.Y., Workers Party, Local New York, 1940
- Conscription--for what? : an open letter to the President of the United States. New York, N.Y. : Workers Party and the Young Peoples Socialist League, 1940
- Walter Weiss How to get jobs for all New York : Workers Party Election Campaign Committee, 1940
- Jim Crow on the run!: Negro bus drivers today, Negroes in the war industries tomorrow. New York, N.Y. : Workers Party and the Young Peoples Socialist League, 1941
- Henry PelhamHenry PelhamHenry Pelham was a British Whig statesman, who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 27 August 1743 until his death in 1754...
On to Washington for Negro rights New York, N.Y. : Workers Party, 1941 - Henry Judd India in revolt New York, N.Y., Workers party 1942
- Ernest Erber The role of the party in the fight for socialism New York, N.Y., Educational Dept., Workers Party, U.S.A., 1942
- Max ShachtmanMax ShachtmanMax Shachtman was an American Marxist theorist. He evolved from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL-CIO President George Meany.-Beginnings:...
For a cost-plus wage New York; The Workers party 1943 - Paul TemplePaul TemplePaul Temple is a fictional character created by British writer Francis Durbridge for the BBC radio serial Send for Paul Temple in 1938. Temple is an amateur private detective and author of crime fiction...
ABC of Marxism. New York City, Workers Party, National Education Dept. 1943 - J. R. JohnsonC. L. R. JamesCyril Lionel Robert James , who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J.R. Johnson, was an Afro-Trinidadian historian, journalist, socialist theorist and essayist. His works are influential in various theoretical, social, and historiographical contexts...
Education, propaganda, agitation: post-war America and Bolshevism. New York City, Workers Party, National Education Dept. 1943 - Max Shachtman The Struggle for the New Course New York: New International Pub. Co. 1943; originally published together with Trotskys The New Course
- Ernest Lund Plenty for all; the meaning of socialism New York, The Workers party, 1943
- The labor party question; resolutions of 1938 and 1944 on the relationship of the Marxists to the movement for a labor party. [New York?] National Educational Dept., Workers Party, 1944
- Hal DraperHal DraperHal Draper was an American socialist activist and author who played a significant role in the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement and is perhaps best 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...
The truth about Gerald Smith: America's no. 1 fascist San Pedro, Calif: Workers Party, Los Angeles Section, 1945 - Max Shachtman Socialism: the hope of humanity New York: New International Pub. Co. 1945
- Workers Party election platform, New York City, 1945. New York, N.Y. : Issued by Workers Party Campaign Committee, 1945
- David Coolidge The New York elections and the fight against Jim Crow New York, N.Y. : Issued by Workers Party Campaign Committee, 1945
- Sing!: labor and socialist songs. [Los Angeles, Calif.] Workers Party, Los Angeles Section, 1945
- Security and a living wage; why workers strike. [New York, Workers Party, 1945
- Albert GlotzerAlbert GlotzerAlbert Glotzer , also known as Albert Gates was a professional stenographer and founder of the Trotskyist movement in the United States...
Incentive pay: the speed-up new style New York: Workers Party, 1945 (as Albert Gates) - Irving HoweIrving HoweIrving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Life and career:...
Smash the profiteers: vote for security and a living wage, New York, N.Y. : Workers Party Campaign Committee, 1946. - Max Shachtman The Fight for Socialism: The Principles and Program of the Workers Party New International Publishing Co., New York, 1946.
- Hal Draper Jim Crow in Los Angeles Los Angeles: Workers Party, 1946
- Hal Draper ABC of Marxism: outline text for class and self study Los Angeles: Workers Party, 1946
- 1947 municipal platform Chicago : Workers Party Campaign Committee, 1947
- Leon Trotsky Marxism in the United States (introduction) New York: Workers Party, 1947 (as Albert Gates)
- Irving Howe Don't pay more rent!, Long Island City, N.Y. : Published by Workers Party Publications for the Workers Party of the United States 1947.
- Albert GoldmanAlbert Goldman (politician)Albert Goldman was an American Trotskyist and lawyer to the labor movement.Born Albert Verblen in Chicago, he studied at Medhill High School and then the University of Cincinnati. He also studied to be a rabbi at the Hebrew Union College...
The question of unity between the Workers party and the Socialist workers party, [Long Island City, Workers party publication, 1947 - Stop the enemies of the working people: a program for the Detroit elections. New York, N.Y. : Workers Party of America, 1947
- Ernest ErberThe role of the trade unions: their economic role under capitalism Long Island City, N.Y. : National Educational Dept., Workers Party, 1947
- Herman W. Benson The Communist Party at the crossroads : toward Democratic Socialism or back to Stalinism New York, Published for the Independent Socialist League by New International Publishing Co., 1957.
- The case for unity : new perspectives for American socialism : resolution adopted by the July 1957 Convention of the Independent Socialist League New York, N.Y. : Independent Socialist League, 1957
Similarly named parties
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