Workers Party of America

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Workers Party of America was the name of the legal party organization used by the Communist Party USA from 1920 until about 1930. As a legal political party the Workers Party accepted affiliation from independent socialist groups such as the African Blood Brotherhood and the Workers' Council of the United States. In the meantime, the underground Communist Party, with overlapping membership, conducted political agitation despite the repression of the Palmer raids. By 1923, the aboveground party sought to engage the Socialist Party of America in united front actions, but was rebuffed. Both the WPA and the SPA engaged in separate labor party efforts, prior to the Presidential election of 1924. The SPA participating in the Conference for Progressive Political Action, which dissolved itself into the Progressive Party. The WPA succeded in dominating the national Farmer-Labor Party, but that organization quickly returned to its constituent parts.

As the Comintern intered the "Third Period", the principle of a leftist united front was abandoned in favor of a single above ground Communist Party. The aboveground WPA and underground party were gradually merged in a series of party conferences in the late 1920's.

[edit] Other Parties By The Same Name in the U.S.

• Workers Party (US). Party led by Max Shachtman. 1940-1949.
• Workers Party, USA. Chicago-based organization. 1992 - present.
• Workers Party of the United States the name was used by the fused organisation of the Socialist Workers Party and the American Workers Party of A. J. Muste in 1934, prior to its temporary merger with the Socialist Party of America in 1935.

[edit] External links

• Constitution of the Workers Party of America. Adopted at National Convention, New York City, December 24-26, 1921. Published in the pamphlet, Program and Constitution, Workers Party of America. (New York: Lyceum and Literature Department, Workers Party, [1922]), pp. 20-28. PDF archived at arMaxist History Archive. Retrieved August 23, 2006.

• Workers' Council of the United States (1921). Predecessor organization of first Workers' Party, originating in split of the Socialist Party of America. Retrieved August 23, 2006.

[edit] Workers Party publications

• Browder, Earl. Class struggle vs. class collaboration. A study of labor banks, the B. & O. Plan, insurance schemes, and "workers education". Published for the Workers Party of America by the Daily Worker Publishing Co., Chicago. [1924?].
• Lovestone, Jay. The government -- strikebreaker; a study of the role of the government in the recent industrial crisis. Workers Party of America, New York. May 1, 1923.
• Pepper, John, pseud for Josef Pogany. "Underground radicalism;" an open letter to Eugene V. Debs and to all honest workers within the Socialist Party. Workers Party of America, New York. [1923?].
• Ruthenberg, Charles E. The Farmer-Labor United Front. Literature Department, Workers Party of America, Chicago. 1924.