Socialist Workers' Party (Great Britain)

Members and supporters of the Socialist Workers Party have worked with the farm movement and have covered farm protests for the Party's newspaper, The militant, since the 1970s. The items in this collection were collected by various members who were active with the farm movement.

From the description of Farm protests collection, 1954-1990, n.d. (Iowa State University). WorldCat record id: 221317319

American socialist political party.

From the description of Socialist Workers Party records, 1928-1990. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 123379206

The Trotskyist faction of the Socialist Party of America (SPA) formed this political organization after it was expelled from the SPA in 1937.

From the description of Socialist Workers Party reports and publications, 1938-1946, bulk 1945-1946. (Cornell University Library). WorldCat record id: 63540399

Historical Note

The Socialist Workers Party had its origins in the Communist League of America, formed in 1928 by former members of the Workers (Communist) Party of America who had been expelled as followers of Leon Trotsky. The Communist League of America merged with the American Workers Party in 1934 to create the Workers Party of the United States. This organization dissolved in 1936 to allow its members to enter the Socialist Party, where they constituted a left wing. Members of the left wing, after expulsion from the Socialist Party, founded the Socialist Workers Party at the beginning of 1938.

From its outset as the Communist League of America, the Socialist Workers Party viewed itself as the American section of an international left wing of the communist movement whose outstanding leader was Leon Trotsky. This current first found organizational expression as the International Left Opposition in 1930. A belief that the program and practices of the Communist International were in need of drastic reform gradually gave way to the conviction that that organization was incorrigible and should be supplanted. The course of this progression of thought is indicated by the transformation of the International Left Opposition into the International Communist League in 1933 and then into the Movement for the Fourth International in 1936. The Fourth International was established in 1938 with the proclaimed goal of serving as the world party of socialist revolution.

World War II disrupted the workings of the Fourth International and many of its sections. A European Secretariat in exile functioned in the United States during the war. The passage in 1940 of the Voorhis Act, which required parties belonging to any international political organization to register with the United States government and provide lists of members and contributors, prompted the Socialist Workers Party to formally disaffiliate from the Fourth International. When the International resumed its operations after the war, the party maintained a close relationship with it and was recognized as a fraternal organization but never formally rejoined as its American section.

Political differences within the Fourth International resulted in a rupture in 1954. Most of the continental European sections adhered to the orientation of the International Secretariat, the International's continuing directing body. The Socialist Workers Party aligned itself with some other sections in establishing a rival International Committee. For all practical purposes Fourth International (International Secretariat) and Fourth International (International Committee) operated as separate organizations. Unity of most forces on both sides was restored in 1963, with a newly created United Secretariat as continuing directing body.

Rupture again threatened but was averted in the 1970s. The Socialist Workers Party aligned itself with a number of Latin American sections in creating a Leninist-Trotskyist Tendency (subsequently Leninist-Trotskyist Faction) within the International in 1973. This was opposed by an International Majority Tendency representing most of the European sections. The factions were dissolved in 1977.

The Socialist Workers Party found itself increasingly in disagreement with the Fourth International in the 1980s as the party ceased to define itself as Trotskyist. The Fourth International meanwhile accorded recognition to two organizations originating in splits from the party, Socialist Action and the Fourth Internationalist Tendency, as sympathizing American sections in addition to the Socialist Workers Party. The 12th World Congress of the Fourth International in 1985 was the last in which representatives of the Socialist Workers Party participated. Since the party was not formally a member of the Fourth International the question of formal withdrawal did not arise. However by the end of the decade the Socialist Workers Party had broken off all connections with the Fourth International.

From the guide to the Socialist Workers Party Records, 1928-1990, (Hoover Institution Archives)