- Workers Party (U.S.)
The Workers Party (WP) was a
Third Camp Trotskyist group in theUnited States . It was founded in April1940 by members of the Socialist Workers Party who opposed the Soviet invasion of Finland. They includedMax Shachtman , who became the new group's leader,Hal Draper ,C.L.R. James ,Martin Abern ,Joseph Carter andJulius Jacobson . As a result, the party's politics are often referred to asShachtmanite .At the time of the split, almost 40% [http://www.geocities.com/mnsocialist/novack-swp-history.html] of the membership of the SWP and a majority of the
Young People's Socialist League , the "Yipsels", left the SWP. The WP was initially estimated as having recruited half of those who had split: 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.Having departed the SWP the newly founded WP found itself outside the ranks of the
Fourth International 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 aCommittee 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.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 vanguard must put forward the slogan ofrevolutionary defeatism in bothimperialist 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 proletarianinternationalism , of thesocialist revolution , of the struggle for theemancipation of all the oppressed.The group soon developed an analysis of the
Soviet Union asbureaucratic collectivist . It was the first group to use the slogan "Neither Washington norMoscow ", implying that they preferred neithercapitalism nor the states allied to the Soviet Union.Early years
By 1941 the party had developed a minority tendency which was grouped around the figures of two leading intellectuals
CLR James andRaya Dunayevskaya . This tendency took the name theJohnson-Forest Tendency for its principal leaders' pen-names. It developed the viewpoint that Russia wasstate 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 byFelix 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 October1947 in order to rejoin the SWP, while Farrell and Goldman left in 1948 to join theSocialist Party of America .Working in the labor movement, the party grew rapidly, largely as at a time of labour shortages its mainly New York Jewish intellectual members were able 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 members such as
Irving Howe , a leader of the YPSLs, andMichael Harrington were recruited.Independent Socialist League
In
1949 , the group renamed itself the Independent Socialist League. It was removed from the USAttorney General's List of Subversive Organizations after a lengthy court battle, but failed to grow as the right wing around Howe and Harrington split to work with the "Dissent" journal.In
1957 , the ISL joined theSocialist Party of America , dissolving the following year. Some members took leading positions in the Socialist Party, but moved increasingly to the right. A small group around Hal Draper left to form the Independent Socialist Clubs.Earlier Historical Parties By The Same Name in the U.S.
*
Workers Party of the United States
*American Workers Party
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