Talk:Socialist Workers Party (United States)

Untitled
Discussion about the title of this article and its recent change can be found at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (acronyms). Feel free to contribute. -- hike395 16:33, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Add tp list of members
I added Dan Dierdorf. (Football commentator) Throught it was significant. Qwerty18 17:19, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Widly POV
I have cut this addition: ''It is most famous for having been the largest and most active promoter of Trotskyism in the country for most of the 20th Century. By the beginning of the 1990s, the SWP had irrevocably lost most of its prior influence, and the mantle of Trotskyism was to pass to other groups, most notably the International Socialist Organization.'' This is POV because --Duncan 11:51, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * SWP was famous?
 * Some would say SWP was Trotskyist only from 38 to 40, or 48, or 53, or 63, or never
 * ISO is Trotskyist?

was SWP famous

 * Among Leftist circles, absolutely. It was the main Trotskyist competitor for recruits, for example, in the Students for a Democratic Society versus the Maoist groups. It was the main contender against what a lot of the Maoists wanted to do on college campuses. I say that neither as a Trotskyist nor as a Maoist.


 * The SWP was long the most active promoter of Trotskyism even when it wasn't any longer officially Trotskyist. That is to say, it was the largest and most active promoter of the theoretical works of Trotsky even after the SWP itself had officially turned over to Castroism.


 * Any reasonable person that had lived through the era would know what I am talking about. The person that removed the new intro obviously didn't live through the period.


 * Yes, ISO is Trotskyist, at least by origin, and by its core fundamental principles. It self-IDs as revolutionary socialist, but read their stuff and they're obviously Trotskyist. Anyone that knows the ISO would know this, too. (Not that I really know them, but I've talked with them enough about the Soviet Union to know they agree with Trotsky, and that they agree with Permanent Revolution etc., which makes them Trotskyist.)


 * No, while I respect ISO and their political work, it is misleading to state that they agreed with Trotsky and are "Trotskyist." Actually their views of the Soviet Union and the "socialist countries" of which Cuba is still extant are squarely rooted in the views of Max Schactmann and the Workers Party of the 1940s.  This was a party formed after the first and most portentuous split in the SWP in which almost half the party left in 1940 because they disagreed with the view that the Soviet Union was a workers state and should be defended in World War II.  Trotsky squarely confronted these views in "In Defense of Marxism" and other works in which he called for the defense of the Soviet Union against imperialism, this during the period of the Stalin-Hitler Pact.  Moreover, it is leads to obfuscation and obstructs the illumination of political issues by centering them around reference to one's views as consistent with dogma of sanctified dead leaders.  It is a mode of thinking that is naive, not rooted in empiricism and leads to a theological like mode of reasoning or lack thereof.  It is an erroneous methodology inconsistent with materialism and good decisions, to say nothing of a libertarian ethos. Thus the question of the character of the Soviet Union is one that is independent of what Trotsky thought about it, although his views merit serious consideration as part one's own independent inquiry.  However, one should not be cowed by that and be ready to disagree Trotsky, the Pope, Jim Jones or whoever and articulate one's own opinion without intimidation and without having to disingenously claim the mantle of a deceased demigod. Tom Cod 15:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I am restoring the intro I wrote. It is not POV, or if it is, it requires only a couple minor adjustments to be NPOV. Figure it out; don't just delete it.

71.125.178.200 05:57, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Hold on! The goal of the Talk page is to win consesus. To simply say 'no, this is not POV, I will restore my comments right now' is not the right way to move forard. Publishing Trotsky does not make the SWP Trotskyist e.g. the do publish Trotsky and not-one would call them Trotskyist. The ISO could call itself Trotskyist, and is clearly of Trotskyist decent (as is the SWP), but to say that the ISO is Trotskyist is POV. --Duncan 18:12, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

1972 Presidential Election
I've seen the SWP votes broken down to 52,799 Linda Jenness, 13,878 Evelyn Reed (see e.g. http://www.search.eb.com/elections/etable3.html ). Which states did each candidate run in, and why were there two SWP candidates that year?Schizombie 09:22, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, did Jenness and Reed both have the same running mate, or different ones? Schizombie 03:15, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually to my best recollection Jenness was the sole candidate as part of the Jenness/Pulley campaign. For technical legal reasons, someone else may have been listed on the ballot in certain states. The sole public candidates, to my best recollection were Jenness/Pulley. While I voted for them as a party member, I felt demoralized as a result of the emergence of the McGovern campaign which came under withering fire from Nixon and the government along with the demonization of Jane Fonda. I felt McGovern, notwithstanding his being a "capitalist poliitican", represented a real choice, although I agree with the SWP and others that "bourgois" electoral politics should not be counterposed to the mass movement in the street which the SWP, to its credit had done such yeoman work in the past in building causing even Tom Hayden to grudgingly refer to the "hardworking trotskyist foot soldiers of the movement." Unfortunately, the SWP increasingly counterposed itself as a sect to the mass movement in the street, something with much less credibility than McGovern (or later Jesse Jackson). This resulted in the SWP not being taken seriously as a political group by serious people by the mid-70s and reflected their conservative retreat from the real political struggles of the day, something they have rectified in part since the early '80s.

1980 Presidential Election
This seems to be the breakdown of the votes, not sure about the site, though. http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=1937
 * Andrew Pulley   =     6,272 counted votes.
 * Richard Congress  Ballot access: Ohio = 4,029 counted votes
 * Clifton DeBerry = 38,737 counted votes.

1992 Presidential Election
It appears that in 1992, James "Mac" Warren had two different running mates, Estelle DeBates and Willie Mae Reid. Which states did each candidate run in, and why were there two SWP VP candidates that year? Schizombie 03:15, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Cut by mistake?
The last edit also cut some useful information without giving a reason. I will reintroduce it. --Duncan 23:24, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Internationalist Tendency 1973-1974 corrections
The article errs in several respects with regard to the 1973-74 tendency discussion in the SWP and the YSA. The SWP leadership position advocated the public and open construction of Leninist parties in Latin America along the same lines as the SWP had been pursuing in the United States. USec and its Americans supporters defended armed self-defense in what were militarized dictatorships and urged greater flexibility. Subsequent developments in Chile, Nicaragua and elsewhere did not vindicate the SWP leadership's position.

However, the arguments most relevant to the US was the state of the radicalization in the advanced industrial nations of Europe and America. The USec sections in Europe advocated a much broader, less sectarian approach not only to the building of mass movements but of the sections. They argued that a new mass vanguard had emerged as a byproduct of the 1968 revolts in France and their aftermath. This debate had considerable relevance to the American circumstances which cried out for a regroupment as the anti-Vietnam War movement went into a decline. The Internationalist Tendency saw opportunities for regroupment and a more active participation in broader struggles, as well as in the trade unions and the black struggle, from which the SWP had consistently abstained, despite a sound analysis.

The International Tendency was technically not expelled. Rather, the SWP leadership unilaterally declared the IT to be not only a faction, which it was not, but a distinct political party. It recognized in writing the existence of the "Internationalist Tendency Party" on July 4, 1974 as an act of defiance of USec and an explicit break from the party's own bylaws protecting the democratic rights of dissent among members.

Subsequently, it was not just "some" members of the IT who rejoined the SWP. Rather the tendency voted to pursue a policy of "reintegration" into the SWP as a matter of policy. This was generally accomplished over the next two years.
 * A parent article for Tendency would be nice. I'm not quite sure what it means. Шизомби 03:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

___________________________

As a member of the minority of the IT that opposed that course of action I can state that it was opposed by whole local branches and reflected a 'bend over and take it' attitude befitting certain victims of the purges in Stalinist Russia, albeit in an extremely petty context. We viewed this pathetic episode as an example of how far the SWP had gone in that period in becoming a moribund Shactmanite sect hostile to the radical movement and devoid of any sense of solidarity with the real struggles in society. Keep in mind that this is when the coup in Chile occurred (as well as Watergate). In fact I asked Barry Sheppard about this at the time but all he wanted to do was talk about the "crisis" in the "Fourth International" caused by the "Barzman Letter," where Barzman called Barnes and he-gasp-"assholes" among other things. This whole episode merits nothing but contempt being the work of intellectually dishonest 'student government' type clowns, if not agents (in fact, one of the SWP leaders involved in staging this provocation, Ed Heisler, was actually later exposed as a long time FBI informant). We put our focus our working with the broad mass movement, which is the REAL movement, working with groups like Workers World to the extent we were oriented around any political party. It is to the credit of the SWP that they made a turn away from this inward anti-communist leaning orientation in the early 80s and got rid of hacks like Sheppard. This petty history brings to mind Mao's comment regarding certain petty small minded officials, "a harvest of fleas" (as opposed to the mighty dragons he wanted to lead the revolution and society). Tom Cod

POV accounts of splits
There's a strong tendency, in various versions of this article, to always blame the SWP majority for every split. It's commonly asserted that opposition factions are treated unfairly.

In contrast, the SWP's allies in other countries are blamed for splitting sections of the Fourth International (before my lastest edit.) So whether the SWP and its allies are in the majority or the minority, expelling or expelled - either way they take the blame.

These things can be and have been endlessly debated, of course. In response to the various accusations which have been included in various versions of this article, the SWP leadership could explain why its various expulsions are in its view justified under its longstanding rules - or that some members quit voluntarily. Or its allies in Britain could complain they were unfairly expelled from the International Marxist Group before setting up the Communist League.

But what would be the point of having all those charges and countercharges in an article presumably written for the general public? There's a disproportionate amount of material on various minor splits and faction fights already - probably 'cause the descendents of each of those splits wants to be represented. It'd be easy to think the SWP has done little else in its history.

I think it's best to simply say the split occurred, with as little editorializing as possible.


 * I think Evan has a point here. However, it clearly is the case that - at an international level - the SWp's tendency did split from the Fourth International. In cases where the SWP's co-thinkers were the majority, those organisations still left. It was the SWP's choice to withdraw from the international, and that reflected real differences.--Duncan 15:17, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Unclear use of the 'former members' section
What policy should we use to decide which section to allocate people to. Some people who later resigned from the SWP, such as Goldman, are listed in the members section rather than as former members. However, even the concept of former members is a little unclear: people who died as members, surely, should not be listed as members should they? --Duncan 19:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Leedham not member
I couldn't find any citations for Tom Leedham being a member (google search for ""Tom Leedham" "Socialist Workers Party"" doesn't return any pages that claim he is.) And since he's running for president of the Teamsters as a lefty sort of candidate, I suspect listing him here may be election year foul play.

Fred Halstead
A greater discussion, and perhaps a picture, of Fred Halstead is merited. He was the SWP's presidential candidate in 1968 and was also one of the principal leaders of the anti-Vietnam War movement along with Dave Dellinger and others. Tom Cod 06:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Manhattan not in NYC?
The opening paragraph says the party moved from NYC to Manhattan? Huh? 207.203.80.14 21:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Viewpoint of The Spark - Lutte Ouvriere's comrades
Just saw this very interesting 1972 article which offers a very distinct viewpoint of the SWP's transformation. --Duncan 07:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * A group representing followers of Pierre Lambert in France, who like his former colleague Gerry Healy, were stuck in a time warp of the 1930s. Thus the 1972 article's allegations have little to do with anything remotely connected with the 60s and 70s but dwell on events of the 30s and 40s.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.218.196.188 (talk) 02:25, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Just a note: Lutte Ouvrier are not the Lambertistes and shouldn't be considered as such. Lambert's group in the US is Socialist Organizer, a member of the Fourth International (ICR). LO and The Spark are their own kettle of fish different from Lambert & co. I don't support or endorse any of the above. Cadriel (talk) 18:07, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced but true
These claims have been cut. It wil be hard to find sources, but they are true. --Duncan 23:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * ''The organizations linked to the SWP have remained very small (no more than two dozen members in any of the half-dozen groups.
 * ''The party has declined to a membership of about two hundred in recent years

A bunch of kooks
Whenever the SWP is written about, the writers seem to feel a need to legitimize them and paint them as a majoe player in left wing politics, and the membership as some deeply devoted intellectuals. The fact is however, from James Cannon to today, the SWP, the YSA, and it's other associated groups that have come and gone over the years, have always been the "Village Idots" of left wing politics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.160.5.25 (talk) 22:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Uh, no, some of their sectarian ultra-orthodox critics may fit that label, but the SWP during the 60s, led by Fred Halstead, Peter Camejo and others, played a significant role in organizing the mass demonstrations of the anti-war movement creating a political situation that played the key domestic political role in the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.Tom Cod 01:22, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * But now it has about 17 members and has less influence than people who believe in reptilian humanoids. The article should make some effort to reflect this. Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 11:48, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Far from being “kooks”, the SWP / YSA up until the early 90s, was a significant organization in the venue of Left wing American and international politics. While they were never viable in elections, even as a minor party, the did make a significant impact in many ways, including but not limited to:

The core organization which originaly planned and organized “the mobilization for peace and justice in central America and southern Africa” in 1986, which grew into want was at the time, the largest demonstration in the US since the civil rights movement, attended by some 240,000 people

The win in the “Cointelpro” law suit with the FBI

The SWP and YSA were officially recognized by the African national congress, and were an iatrical part of the anti apartheid movement both in the US and South Africa

Pathfinder press is to this day, a widely recognized source of material and reference for information and research on the history of far left politics in America and internationally

Being small in numbers and embracing views that are not widely held, is not necessarily indicative of a lack of substance, and certainly not a sign of a lack of intellect or sanity Cosand (talk) 15:43, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

can anyone give us estimates of size of membership, over the years ? how many would they have today ? Cognoscente18 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:50, 28 January 2010 (UTC).

Reorganization of members lists
I took the liberty of renaming and combining the two alphabetical members lists, which had a few repetitions of names in both and was epically unclear as to the difference between A and B. I also renamed the section "Current and former members" which should cover things, yes? This follows Wikipedia practice on Socialist Party of America and Communist Party of America.

I also have periodized the earlier phase of the history (which needs a fairly substantial rewrite) and tried to get the point size of the headings into order. Hopefully no one feels like their ox is gored...

I'll try to write a bit to get the early history up to snuff. I was working on James Burnham yesterday and am feeling it right now...

---Tim Davenport --- Early American Marxism website --- Corvallis, OR --- Carrite (talk) 17:35, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Rebecca Leigh Williamson arguably needs a personal wiki entry before she'd be a notable member. I'm not going to do it, but did enough research to find that she is in fact a member and did pull 6,258 votes in running for congress in 2010 . See also: []. DJ Silverfish (talk) 18:47, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Party logo
Is there a logo for this party? The SWP (UK) has a logo, but apparently it applies only to them and the Irish Party. TFD (talk) 22:07, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no logo. It's not connected to the British SWP.--Duncan (talk) 14:36, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Castroism
I see that a change listing the current ideology as "Castroism" was cut by another editor with a reprimand to discuss such changes on this page. Consider this an opening of the discussion: the group's current orientation is indeed "Castro-centric," however you want to phrase that... Carrite (talk) 17:29, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The SWP does not call itself Castroist, but neither does it not call itself Castroist. That is important, but not final. If we look at how Wikipedia defines Castroism, then I think that fits the SWP alongside the other descriptions we have for it. The view that the SWP is, amongst other things, Castroist is widely held by others. Peng, the FIT, the USFI, the ICFI (of course). The real question is: it it helpful to a reader to know that this party's ideology includes Castroism as Wikipedia defines it. Because it is the case that this is part of the party's ideology, I think it's helpful to add it. However, it means also adding something into the article to day that the SWP does not use the term Castroism anymore. --Duncan (talk) 00:27, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

POV-laden intro
The introduction as it currently sits smacks of an essay on the current SWP, rather than a summary of the content of the page. It needs to be chopped off at ground level and started over. I'm just going to avert my eyes and write early history stuff today though. Carrite (talk) 16:15, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934
I think that the role of the early Trotskyists in the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934 bears mentioning, as it was important in both the history of the American labor movement and the Trotskyist movement. The strike marked the ascendance of the early Trotskyists, in their Workers Party incarnation, as a dynamic force in the labor movement, when they had previously been an isolated group mainly concerned with publishing a newspaper and trying to found a political party. The experience and authority gained from the Teamsters Strike gained them the following within the Socialist Party that doubled their numbers and made them more effective. They were among the foremost advocates of industrial unionism in the 1930s.
 * That happened before the SWP was founded so I' not sure this is the right page to mention that. What do others think? --Duncan (talk) 00:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

New Left drift in the 1960s.
I think that some understanding of a doctrinal and cultural drift of the SWP towards New Left politics in the late 1960s is important for understanding the factional fights and splits that occurred during that era, and the crisis that led to the "turn to industry" in 1978. Maybe these perspectives could be worked into the article.

One dynamic of the 1960s left was the tension between the Marxist Left and the New Left that emerged from the Frankfurt School and the ideas of C. Wright Mills. The New Left saw the American working class as a part of the international ruling class and promoted the idea that transformative social change would emerge from a vanguard of intellectuals and racial minorities. The activists recruited by the Socialist Workers Party were increasingly from a student, or student-identified, milieu associated with the Civil Rights movement, the antiwar movement, black and chicano nationalist movements, and eventually the feminist and gay movements. The SWP attempted to integrate their emphasis on student-based New Left identity movements with Marxist theory and internal cultural and doctrinal divisions occurred as a result. The Robertson/Wohlforth split was largely driven by those divisions in addition to other doctrinal issues. The Freedom Socialist Party split was largely about how much to embrace New Left identity politics versus orthodox Marxist ideology, as well as FSP's insistence that the antiwar movement should be a "revolutionary support" movement. The Proletarian Orientation Tendency, which largely left the ranks of the SWP in 1971, was concerned by the SWP's embrace of movements that they saw as increasingly petty-bourgeois, divisive, and actually hostile to the working class. The SWP's membership numbers looked impressive during the early 1970s, but they masked a high rate of turnover as the old labor Marxist cadre grew disaffected and members whose main concern was identity politics never really embraced Marxist doctrine. Radical feminist and gay movements targeted SWP members for recruitment. The "turn to industry" was an acknowledgment that the SWP had come up empty after a decade of embracing New Left identity politics.

The question of International affiliation
I'm concerned about the following text in the section entitled 'The question of International affiliation:'

"Rumors of Jack Barnes's eccentricity, and his indulgence of sexual-molestation offenses among leading party members, have further undermined the SWP's reputation. Former SWP colleagues in Europe have also noted that, unlike other Marxist parties of various sorts, the SWP no longer produces any literature of its own..."

Stating that Jack Barnes indulges sexual-molestation offenses among leading party members seems libelous to me. This is the only place that I have ever read these allegations, so I think it's either malicious or the author confused the SWP (US) with SWP (UK) where there have in fact been numerous discussions since 2013 surrounding rape within the SWP (UK); however, Barnes was never mentioned, of course, in these discussions. I'm also concerned about reporting rumors to Wikipedia. The section begins by reporting, "Rumors" of Barnes' eccentricity..." The section also continues with heresy where it reports that other have "noted" that the party doesn't produce literature.  In addition to it being heresy I also question its validity because the SWP (US) produces a weekly newspaper and publishes hundreds of books through Pathfinder Press including many introductions by party leaders and books by party leaders including one released in June 2016.

So, having said all that, I'd suggest that we delete the text I quotes above. Thoughts please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Constructivary (talk • contribs) 19:57, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

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