Workers World Party
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Workers World Party (WWP) is a communist party in the United States founded in 1959 by Sam Marcy. Marcy and his followers split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1958 over a series of long-standing differences, among them Marcy's group's support for Henry A. Wallace's Progressive Party in 1948, the positive view they held of the Chinese Revolution led by Mao Zedong, and their endorsement of the 1956 Soviet intervention in Hungary, all of which the SWP opposed.
The WWP describes itself as a party that has, since its founding, "supported the struggles of all oppressed peoples. It has recognized the right of nations to self-determination, including the nationally oppressed peoples inside the United States. It supports affirmative action as absolutely necessary in the fight for equality. It opposes all forms of racism and religious bigotry." Initially the WWP was confined to the Buffalo, New York area, where it had constituted the Buffalo and two other smaller branches of the SWP, but expanded in the 1960s. During the Civil Rights Movement the WWP had a youth movement, "Youth Against War and Fascism", which opposed the Vietnam War. Workers World and YAWF were also notable for their consistent defense of the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground along with Vietnam Veterans Against the War and the Puerto Rican Independence movement.
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[edit] Mission
Ideologically, the WWP is a fusion of Trotskyism and several other interpretations of communism. WWP continues to make available the writings of many historic communists including Trotsky, Stalin, and Mao. The inclusion of Stalin and Mao along with Trotsky in a communist party is unusual, and is possibly unique to WWP.
[edit] Activities and Organizational Structure
Among activists, WWP has been well-known for sponsoring or directing numerous popular front groups, which critics allege are actually front groups. The party founded the Act Now To Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) coalition shortly after 9/11, and has run both the All People's Congress (APC) and the International Action Center (IAC) for many years. The APC and the IAC in particular share a large degree of overlap in their memberships with cadre in the WWP. In 2004, a youth group close with the WWP called Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST) was founded, but FIST claims an independent left-wing political orientation and does not define itself as the WWP youth group.
Also in 2004, the San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington DC branches of WWP left almost in their entirety to form the Party for Socialism and Liberation. The newly formed PSL assumed leadership of the ANSWER coalition, leaving the WWP to build a new group, the Troops Out Now Coalition.
True to what it sees as its fundamental principles, WWP has always remained primarily action-oriented. Its pamphlets and books are scarcely theoretical, though the documents are steeped in historical analysis and idiom as a platform for agitation. The party claims it is the most skillful practitioner of united front strategy (as opposed to just tactics) on the U.S. left. They prefer to win influence and leadership through what they see as their higher-than-usual degree of militancy, rather than purely through ideological advances. Critics contend that WWP is not nearly as grassroots or militant as it makes itself out to be, but defenders typically counter, either implicitly or vocally, that such criticism amounts to nothing more than anti-communist and/or right-wing banter. The WWP considers itself an important United States ally of third world solidarity movements.
WWP lists regional offices in 20 major US cities [1]. The WWP claims donations and volunteerism as the source of its funding and operational resources. However, because WWP is not a registered PAC or non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, ultimate sources of the funds of the party are not public information.
[edit] Controversy
Within the U.S. communist movement, WWP's politics are controversial. The party agrees with Trotsky's description of pre-1991 Russia as being a "workers' state" and that current governments in countries such as Cuba, North Korea and China are also workers states. But members of the party also use the term "socialist" to describe these states, and they often support them much more energetically than do other U.S. communist parties. The WWP also supports Iraq and Libya as countries they consider victims of U.S. imperialism — though it should be noted that WWP does not describe either of those two states as being socialist. The party also has a controversial position regarding the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, which it describes as "a battle, not a massacre." Finally, the party opposed both Gulf Wars but was also one of the few U.S. communist groups other than the modern Spartacist League to hail the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
Most controversially of all, however, is the fact that WWP has defended Slobodan Milošević and Saddam Hussein against attacks from both the right and the left. Notably, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, founder of the International Action Center, is in Iraq as of December 2005 acting as a consult to Hussein's defense team. Clark also spoke sympathetically of Milošević at his funeral in March 2006, telling the crowd, "History will prove that Slobodan Milošević was right."
[edit] Presidential candidates
- 1980 - Deirdre Griswold and Gavrielle Holmes
- 1984 - Larry Holmes (or in some states Gavrielle Holmes) and Gloria LaRiva
- 1988 - Larry Holmes and Gloria LaRiva
- 1992 - Gloria LaRiva and Larry Holmes
- 1996 - Monica Moorehead and Gloria LaRiva
- 2000 - Monica Moorehead and Gloria LaRiva
- 2004 - John Parker and Teresa Gutierrez
[edit] References
[edit] External links
[edit] Further reading
- Roots of the Workers World Party by Ken Lawrence, Marxmail Discussion List. January 1999. Retrieved April 12, 2005.
- Politics 1 Guide to US Political parties contains brief entry on WWP.
