Socialist Workers Party (United States)

Origins

The SWP traces its origins back to the former Communist League of America (CLA), founded in 1928 by members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) who were expelled for supporting Russian communist leader Leon Trotsky against Joseph Stalin.^[9]: 19

In the 1930s, the CLA pursued a "French Turn" of entryism into larger groups. In 1934, CLA merged with the American Workers Party to form the Workers Party of the United States (WPUS).^{[3]: 775–778} WPUS was deeply divided over entryism. In 1935, the pro-entryism majority faction won, and WPUS determined to enter the Socialist Party of America. A minority faction split to form the Revolutionary Workers League.^{[3]: 779–783} In 1936, the WPUS joined the Socialist Party of America (SPA), the largest US socialist organization.^{[10]: 113–115} In 1937, after a year of acrimony, the SPA expelled the Trotskyists, who formed the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).^[10]: 140

1940s–1950s

In 1940, the SWP was split between a majority faction, led by Jim Cannon, who held Trotsky's position that the Soviet Union was a "degenerated workers' state" that should be supported, and a minority faction, led by Max Shachtman and James Burnham who opposed the SU in its war with Finland. Like this debate, most SPW factional disputes centered on revolutions in other countries.^{[3]: 793–810} The minority faction split and formed the Workers Party, taking almost 40% of the party's membership and 80% of its youth organization.^{[11][3]: 793–810}

During World War II, the SWP adopted the Fourth International's "Proletarian Military Policy", which opposed the war as "imperialist". Many party leaders were arrested under the Smith Act of 1941, including Cannon. (See also Smith Act Trials.)^[12] The SWP supported labor strikes, despite the popular wartime "no-strike pledge".^{[3]: 824–825} The SWP also held protests against racist discrimination, such as A. Philip Randolph's March on Washington Movement.^{[3]: 824–825}

The SWP grew after the war, but was soon beset by splits.^[3]: 825 In 1947, the Johnson–Forest Tendency left the Workers Party and rejoined the SWP, then left in 1951 to form the Correspondence Publishing Committee. In 1953, supporters of Pabloism split from the SWP to form the American Socialist Union. In 1958, Sam Marcy's Global Class War faction, which supported the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, split from the SWP to form the Workers World Party.

1960s–1970s

In the 1960s and 1970s, The SWP grew again amidst anti-war activism and radical youth movements. In 1963, the SWP successfully negotiated a reunification of the splintered Fourth International, leading the International Secretariat of the Fourth International (ISFI) and the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) to merge into the reunified Fourth International (USFI). In 1962, the Revolutionary Tendency (RT) faction rejected this merger. The RT itself split into a majority faction and the Reorganized Minority Tendency (RMT) minority faction. In 1963, the SWP expelled both, and the RT formed the Spartacist League and the RMT formed the Socialist Equality Party.^{[3]: 923–929} In 1966, in protest of alleged suppression of internal democracy, the Seattle branch left to form the Freedom Socialist Party, as did Murray and Myra Tanner Weiss.^{[3]: 937–938} These groups later attempted to form the Committee for a Revolutionary Socialist Party. After the collapse of Students for a Democratic Society in 1969, the SWP's youth organization saw massive growth. In the 1970s, SWP membership and influence went into decline.^{[3]: 867–868}

During the 1960s, the SWP supported both the civil rights movement and the black nationalist movement, specifically praising the militancy of black nationalist leader Malcolm X, who spoke at SWP forums until his 1965 assassination.^{[3]: 856–858} The SWP also increasingly supported the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro, which SWP leaders including Cannon and Joseph Hansen saw as qualitatively different from the Stalinist states of Eastern Europe.^{[3]: 334–335} In 1972, Jack Barnes became national secretary and further shifted the SWP toward Castroism.^[3]: 853 From 1961 to 1976, the FBI conducted COINTELPRO operations against the SWP, revealed by the Church Committee report of 1976.^[13] Between 1960 and 1976, the FBI obtained 1,300 informants within the SWP and YSA, including a member of the SWP National Committee.^{[3]: 836–837} In 1986, the SWP won a lawsuit against the FBI.^[14]

1980s–1990s

In 1978, the SWP decided the party's key task was the "turn to industry", which entailed party members getting jobs in blue-collar industries in preparation for increasing mass struggles. This provoked enormous dissent.

In the 1970s–1980s, the SWP drifted away from the Trotskyist label. In 1982, SWP director Jack Barnes gave a speech, Their Trotsky and Ours: Communist Continuity Today, in which he rejected Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. Several Trotskyist opposition groups formed, which were expelled in 1983, and would form Fourth Internationalist Tendency, Socialist Action, and Solidarity.^{[3]: 886–895} The SWP formally left the Trotskyist Fourth International in 1990. SWP's international formation is the Pathfinder tendency, named because each party operates a Pathfinder Bookstore that sells SWP's Pathfinder Press publications.

Decline

Since the 1990s, the SWP has experienced an unusually long period of internal peace. It has also declined steadily in both membership and political influence.^[15] In 2003, the party sold its headquarters.^[16] In 2021, a former member said SWP's 100 remaining members were "retired or nearly so".^[15]

Presidential elections

The SWP has run candidates for President since 1948. It received its greatest number of votes in 1976, when its candidate Peter Camejo received 90,310 votes.

Congressional elections

SWP has not fielded a candidate for Congress who achieved ballot access since 2012.

National Secretaries

• James P. Cannon (1938–1953)
• Farrell Dobbs (1953–1972)
• Jack Barnes (since 1972)

Notable current and former members