The Workers Party of the United States (WPUS) was established in December 1934 by a merger of the

American Workers Party The American Workers Party (AWP) was a socialist organization established in December 1933 by activists in the Conference for Progressive Labor Action, a group headed by A.J. Muste. Formation The American Workers Party was established in Dec ...

(AWP) led by

A.J. Muste Abraham Johannes Muste ( ; January 8, 1885 – February 11, 1967) was a Dutch-born American clergyman and political activist. He is best remembered for his work in the labor movement, pacifist movement, antiwar movement, and civil rights movement ...

and the Trotskyist

Communist League of America The Communist League of America (Opposition) was founded by James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman and Martin Abern late in 1928 after their expulsion from the Communist Party USA for Trotskyism. The CLA(O) was the United States section of Leon Trotsky's I ...

(CLA) led by

James P. Cannon James Patrick Cannon (February 11, 1890 – August 21, 1974) was an American Trotskyist and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party. Born on February 11, 1890, in Rosedale, Kansas, the son of Irish immigrants with strong socialist convicti ...

. The party was dissolved in 1936 when its members entered the

Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a 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 of Ameri ...

en masse.

Organizational history

Fusion

The formation of the U.S. Workers Party was the fusion of two revolutionary socialist organizations that had both successfully led two militant strikes to victory. The Communist League of America had led the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934 and the American Workers Party helped lead the 1934 Toledo

Auto-Lite strike The Toledo Auto-Lite strike was a strike by a federal labor union of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) against the Electric Auto-Lite company of Toledo, Ohio, from April 12 to June 3, 1934. The strike is notable for a five-day running b ...

to victory. These strikes, along with the

1934 West Coast Longshore Strike The 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike (also known as the 1934 West Coast Longshoremen's Strike, as well as a number of variations on these names) lasted 83 days, and began on May 9, 1934 when longshoremen in every US West Coast port walked out ...

(led by the

Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Rev ...

), were important victories after years of union defeats led by class collaborationist union bureaucrats. As such they served as catalysts for the rise of

industrial unionism Industrial unionism is a trade union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union, regardless of skill or trade, thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in ...

in the 1930s, much of which was organized through the

Congress of Industrial Organizations The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of ...

. Speaking of the role of vanguard parties leading the 1934 strike wave James P. Cannon said, “It has been the lack of precisely this element, which only a Marxist party can supply, that condemned the insurgent labor movement of the past to futility and defeat. Lacking a class theory of its own, which can come into the labor movement in no other way than through the Marxist party, the American workers, with all their militancy and capacity for sacrifice, fell victim to all kinds of quackery and treason and landed in a blind alley every time.�

It was also these strikes that led to the fusion of the two organizations. In 1933 the American Workers Party had initially formed as a separate organization from the Trotskyist Communist League of America (CLA) partly out of the concern that the CLA did not have a strong base in American politics. The origins of the CLA was a split from the Communist Party USA over the deep theoretical differences between

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...

and

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...

and how those differences related to building the world communist movement. Yet after both the CLA and AWP had successfully led important strikes in 1934 James P. Cannon declared, “We, on our part, venture to say that the work of the League in the Minneapolis strikes helped convince the members of the AWP that we also are able to “speak American"; that our internationalism is not an abstraction but a guide to action on the national field. Joint work of the two organizations in practical work, limited though it has been, has demonstrated in practice an ability to work out a common policy and to cooperate loyally in advancing it.�

Socialist Party of America

Many members of the Workers Party of the United States, in turn, decided to join the

in 1936 to propagate their views inside that party. The Socialist Party had developed a left wing and the party had declared itself open to other tendencies. As members of the Socialist Party the Trotskyists continued to exist as an independent tendency and continued publishing their own newspaper, '' Socialist Appeal (US, 1935), Socialist Appeal''. However, soon differences developed between the rest of the party and the "

Socialist Appeal tendency ''Socialist Appeal'' was a newspaper published by American Trotskyists from 1935 to 1941. It was founded by supporters of the Trotskyist Workers Party of the United States in Chicago who had practiced entryism of the Socialist Party of America ...

", as the Trotskyists were known, and they split to form their own group, the Socialist Workers Party, soon thereafter.Shannon, David A. ''The Socialist Party of America: a history'' New York; Macmillan Company 1955 pp.251-253

Footnotes

Publications

Newspaper

* ''New Militant: Weekly Organ of the Workers Party of the U.S..'' James P. Cannon, editor. New York. *
Volume 1: December 14, 1934 to December 28, 1935.
*
Volume 2: January 4, 1936 to June 6, 1936.

Pamphlets

''Declaration of Principles and Constitution of the Workers Party of the US.''
New York: Workers Party of the US/Pioneer Publishers, 1935. * ''Which Party for the American worker?'' by A. J. Muste New York : Published for the Workers Party of the U.S. by Pioneer Publishers, 1935 * John West (pseudonym for

James Burnham James Burnham (November 22, 1905 – July 28, 1987) was an American philosopher and political theorist. He chaired the New York University Department of Philosophy; his first book was ''An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis'' (1931). Burn ...

)
''War and the Workers.''
New York: Workers Party of US, 1935. * ''May Day Manifesto of the Workers Party of the United States.'' New York: Workers Party of the US, 1935.

External links

{{Authority control Defunct Trotskyist parties in the United States Defunct communist parties in the United States Political parties established in 1934 Political parties disestablished in 1936 1934 establishments in the United States 1936 disestablishments in the United States