Talk:Workers World Party

Party Color
Hello all, I am editing pages related to the 1984 US presidential election. I am noticing a void in specific party color for Worker's World. I think this would be a good color to use for Worker's World, for political spreadsheets and the like:

{{legend|#FF033E}}

Let me know if I'm wrong. Thanks!

--7partparadigm talk 15:13, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Unnamed Section
Someone logged in should correct the following: "...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". Note that the SWP did not opposed the Chinese revolution, but supported the revolution and opposed the Chinese CP led by Mao. -- D. Keil, 8/07

Perhaps I am being dense, but how can Trotsky have said anything about pre-1991 Russia when he's been dead for 66 years?

>> Politically, the WWP agrees with Trotsky's description of pre-1991 Russia as being a "degenerated workers' state,"
 * No, that is an incorrect charecterization of Workers World Party's views Tom Cod 06:56, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

A link I added was removed saying that the WWP was "not really supporting Milosevic" but if you read the article it does say that "he represents the masses of people of all nationalities in Yugoslavia, including the workers and peasants" which clearly does support him. SonofRage 05:47, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Is it possible for someone to post links to a platform or something that would relatively - reliably state this parties views? Perhaps their historical support of Mao (note, even the Wiki only states his initial revolution - which any moron with a history text book knows was about as legit as a revolution can be - and not his later reign, political failures or that Cultural Revolution thing. We all know what Cheng was interested in. Guns 'n' Money, right?) and Stalin could be cited as well, and if they ever acknowledged the purges etc. They wouldn't be the first to be duped by Stalin's propaganda. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.15.196.94 (talk) 14:32, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I reverted to an earlier revision because the recent revisions first started taking a non NPOV and the whole flow of the article just started getting lousy. If you are going to make such major changes, at least post to the Talk page explaining why.

SonofRage

-

Can anyone here evidence WWP support of Saddam Hussein (as opposed to the Iraqi people in general)? If not, it should be removed. Ramsey Clark has supported Saddam personally, but he's hardly the WWP. Rei

links

 * What you should know about the WWP, an anarchist perspective on ANSWER and Workers World.

Someone keeps removing this link. Any reason? It appears to be relevant and substantive. -Willmcw July 7, 2005 21:39 (UTC)

POV
"The WWP has defended political leaders such as Slobodan Miloševic and Saddam Hussein, holding the opinion that Serbia and Iraq enjoy a right to national self-determination, and that this right overrides perceived U.S. interests."

Support for the government that runs a country and support for the right of a country to self-determination are not the same thing. Many people who oppose American militarism and support the right of self-determination for Iraq and Serbia do not support Milosevic and Hussein. Similarly, many people on the radical left (probably including the WWP) are critical of the president of Columbia, without in any way challenging the right of the people of Columbia to self-determination.

Furthermore, it could be argued that both Hussein and Milosevic came to power more because of the support that they got from foreign governments (including the US) than people in Iraq or Serbia. If one accepts this, then support for Milosevic and Hussien (especially by an American group) would seem to be the opposite of support for the self determination of Iraq and Serbia. Regardless, it should be obvious that just because “Serbia and Iraq enjoy a right to national self-determination, and that this right overrides perceived U.S. interests,” it does not logically follow that people outside of these countries should actively support the dictatorships that exist in Iraq and Serbia.

POV...continued
It should also be pointed out that the WWP's support for Soviet imperialism (e.g. Hungary, '56)belies their alleged commitment to self-determination...

These parties, as with all shadow political parties, should be called "extremist." This is quite neutral when you see their party platforms. JHerdez

"Chinese Revolution"
SUGGEST YOU CHANGE 'CHINESE' to 'CULTURAL' —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pitnos (talk • contribs) 11:30, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

It seems that AntiWWP is vandalizing this article on a daily basis. Anyone for banning him/her? 02:25, 4 November 2006 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dolaro (talk • contribs)


 * So far there've only been two incidents, over three days. If vandalism continues the account will be blocked (especially since  hasn't yet made any constructive edits to any articles), but I don't think it's an urgent issue at this point.
 * That said, I would be interested to see if AntiWWP is the same person as, who also vandalized the article recently, but stopped when AntiWWP showed up. I think administrators have the ability to check this.  -David Schaich Talk/Cont 02:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

"Controversy" section
I tagged this section as "unreferenced" due to its numerous claims that are unsubstantiated. Unreferenced statements are marked:. --Horse Badorties


 * I did some basically minor revisions to the Controversy section, but the more I read it, the more I doubted that it needs to be there at all. Maybe, rather than say the WWP has some controversial positions, it would be better to lay out what those positions are -- e.g., describe the issues involved in Hungary in 1956, and the WWP's position, in a section called Hungary.


 * Maybe I can start to work on that next week.--Horse Badorties

That is a good idea. The old article that I began to revise completely, appeared to have been made almost totally as a criticism of the WWP by its detractors, and was not a neutral overview of what the party stands for and its history. Needless to say, I don't think that such a biased/negative POV article would have been on here for long had it been about the Democrats or Republicans. Cmrdm 03:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

2004 split
I added a brief section on the 2004 split. Hopefully, as we approach the third anniversary of the split, someone will come forward to fill in some of the details! --Horse Badorties 03:01, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I added a citation request for the claim that the WWP and PSL have "few if any ideological differences between them," and that the split was due to "other internal disagreements between party members." While it is my understanding that this is true, and that the split had a lot to do with divergent approaches to their anti-war activities, we need to provide a source, or just phrase it in a way that indicates that it's all speculation as to why the split occurred. --Horse Badorties 02:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that a link would be nice for that. However I do not have one with me. There was never much information about the split posted publicly when it happened (by either side). In regards to tactical disagreements, I do vaguely remember something about Haiti, but not much else. I had a friend in the party at the time whom told me what happened, but that doesn't count as a source... Cmrdm 02:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I thought the split was caused over whether or not the Party should run its own presidential candidate or go for the Anybody But Bush strategy and endorse Kerry? Even though its not a source, what did your friend say?ChipMD 22:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I (using a pseudonym) asked the PSL (via their web site) why a US-based socialist should work with PSL in preference to WWP. I received in reply: "We work with many Socialist Parties in the US; however, we are building a party based on revolutionary Marxist principles which we felt was not in existence in any other party structure in the US. In studying revolutionary movements you will see that often the leadership that is able to take advantage of revolutionary moments and build real relationships with the mass is the party with such a perspective. -- For the PSL, John Daly". Would "Personal communication from John Daly" make a valid citation for an assertion that according to the PSL, the reason for the split was over whether or not to follow "revolutionary" Marxist principles? Jack W. 06:43, 26 November 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 9cep22202@sneakemail.com (talk • contribs)

Reverting page to pre-vandalism copy
The edit summary incorrectly reads "rv vandalism by 219.148.86.36 to last version by David Shear". I copied the line out of the Help:Reverting page and accidently hit the Return key before changing the necessary fields. It should have read "rv vandalism by 66.137.92.223 to last version by Grenavitar". --Horse Badorties 15:12, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

That same vandal is continuing to vandalize this page with the following IP addresses: 66.137.92.71 and 66.137.92.41. --Cmrdm 00:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Why was the information on the 2004 Split Removed?
They used to be information on the 2004 split that caused the formation of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (which then caused the International Action Center from being removed from the ANSWER steering committee and the formation of Troops Out Now). This seems significant,why was it removed?

ChipMD 22:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

deletions on internal splits make it useless
This article and the article on the PSL seem useless as encyclopedia entries; in no small part because neither entry discusses the reasons behind the split (or even mentioning the that the information is not publicly avb, or something.

If the various parties are allowed to edit their own pages, or sabotage each others pages, the wiki system breaks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by You Big Weirdo (talk • contribs) 00:43, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

Glaring Omitions

 * Very little discussion of why the Party was called Stalinist (a characterization I happen to disagree with). Whether or not their stance towards the socialist countries was uncritical, that's only part of it. They dropped any mention of Trotsky anywhere and completely broke themselves off from the Trotskyist movement. No one is even supposed to know that they're Trotskyist. Their uncritical support and glowing praise, today, of North Korea doesn't help either. Nor does their support for openly Stalinist parties in Russia. I could go on.


 * No mention at all of the PSL split. WTF? Therefor also not mentioned is the fact that the PSL took ANSWER with them, and there's no mention at all of the Party's new Troops Out Now coalition.

-- MQ Duck 08:20, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * A third one I can't remember.


 * There. I believe I did a pretty good job, if I may say so myself. But by all means, critique. -- MQ Duck 09:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe there is a problem with the wording and a few details given in the 'split' section. You say, "the San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Washington, D.C. branches of WWP left almost in their entirety to form the Party for Socialism and Liberation." I also read such things about the extent of the split on e-mail lists back in 2004. However, I do not think that we have a legitimate source to make that statement on Wikipedia. I believe we should remove this sentence, unless PSL or WWP actually says this in a statement. Then we could word the sentence as "according to PSL" or "according to WWP". See what I mean? Cmrdm (talk) 17:06, 2 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I stole that information directly from the PSL article. Perhaps a better place to take this up would be there? -- MQ Duck 00:22, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

McKinney
Will she have a WWP ballot line in any states? Or does the WWP not have any ballot access? Шизомби (talk) 01:31, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * They do not. They were only on the ballot in three states in 2004, two by petition, the third through the Liberty Union Party, which has nominated the Socialist Party USA ticket this year.  -David Schaich Talk/Cont 00:54, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Should she appear in the succession box at John Parker (activist)? 05:03, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I would say not. I don't think she had much of anything to do with the WWP at all. -David Schaich Talk/Cont 02:12, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I know of no involvement on her part with WWP, but I was wondering if their endorsement of her warrants putting her as the successor to Parker. Шизомби (talk) 03:14, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

New section on North Korea
Would someone review a new section that was added regarding North Korea? It's quite extensive, and I'm sure there's some valuable information in there, but it seems rather POV to me. 78.26 (talk) 05:09, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

This section is incredibly outdated. Brian Becker is one of the WWP leaders that left to form the PSL. He is no longer affiliated with WWP or the International Action Center. The statement at the end "This begs the question: Where does the WWP consider the center of imperialism?" is incredibly suggestive and irrelevant as well. Along with that, the term "front group" is misused. The organizations that WWP works with such as IAC and other organizations are coalition groups that consist of dozens, often hundreds of other organizations and independent volunteers. This section needs to be cleaned up in regards to outdated information and bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.133.195.43 (talk) 23:47, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, not only does the section contain POV language (e.g. "front groups"), but the material is also dated and massively overstates one issue (i.e. the WWP's position on North Korea), which was already mentioned before. For example, it would be as if someone added a massive new section to the Republican or Democratic parties' pages regarding their relationship with the House of Saud, discussing various personalities actions on the matter. The information might be true, if written in a biased manner, but also, so what? I'm in favor of removing the entire section. RERoger (talk) 07:47, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Support for the Weathermen
Does anyone have any references for the WWP's support for the Weathermen. A long time ago I used to know a former Weatherman who had later joined YAWF, the WWP's youth group. He told me that the WWP was opposed to the Weathermen, because the latter supported revolution by a small group whereas the WWP aimed for mass insurrection. Apparently, there were a lot of former Weathermen in YAWF. Bostoner (talk) 02:10, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Criticism not just from anarchists, social democrats and liberal left
"WWP also faces opposition from ideological groups that are critical of other Marxist-Leninist and Trotskyist parties. On the political left, this criticism comes from anarchists, social democrats and the liberal left"

There is also criticism of WWP by non-revisionist, true proletarian communist parties. They see WWP as tailing the spontaneous movement with no programmatic explanation of what socialism is. WWP sees itself basically as a party of the "fightback," that is, in practice, as militant fighters for reforms. In particular WWP does not talk of the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Here we must say that the CP is more forthright, they openly say that they do not believe in it. WWP, by not speaking of it as the only way to achieve socialism and what socialism means, rejects it by default.

As a party of the "fightback", WWP does not try to lead (or, as Lenin always put it, to divert) this spontaneous movement onto the path of socialism. It thus in practice tails this movement, even where it helps to organize it. It thinks that socialism will come by itself; spontaneously, out of these fights for reform.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:7:8500:982:450A:3748:E877:B49B (talk) 09:25, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Notable members / Splits - Caleb Maupin???
Posting here because I tried this edit twice and had it removed, so this really needs to be discussed. Why is Caleb Maupin included in this article? He's listed under both "Notable members" and even more confusingly, the "Splits" section. There is no Wikipedia article for this person, so his inclusion hardly meets the standards of notability. As the listing notes, he is no longer a member of this party so that seems especially odd to include a former member with no Wikipedia page himself. In fact someone created a page for him and it was deleted for lack of notability (see Articles for deletion/Caleb Maupin (2nd nomination)). The only citation for his membership listing is a link to articles he wrote for the website, so yes he certainly was a member, but this article hardly lists every member of the party, let alone former members. Also the inclusion of his departure in the Splits section makes no sense, since a) one person leaving does not constitute a split, b) there is no independent sources or coverage suggesting this departure had any significant effect on the party, and c) the only citation for that whole paragraph is a link to one of Maupin's personal YouTube videos, which is neither an independent source nor does it relate to his departure from the party. Also the section makes a number of unsourced claims of dubious certainty or relevance. There are no citations suggesting Maupin held any leadership role within the party, and even if he did that seems like something that wold only matter internally to members of the party, not really something that merits mention in an encyclopedic overview of the party itself. Otherwise we'd have to mention everyone in every leadership position of the internal party bureaucracy as well as every former member who held a leadership position. There's no mention of the names of any of the people who led the split from the party to form the PSL, and those people have actually had a demonstrable effect on the party. But of course it would be needlessly over-detailed to mention any of them, so similarly it doesn't make any sense to mention Maupin.

I highly suspect all the edits mentioning Maupin were all done by Maupin himself or by friends of his, as was the creation of the now-deleted article about him. If you look at all the edits to this page that add in mentions of Maupin, or those edits which re-add the link brackets to his name (despite the deletion of the article about him) they are almost all done by the same couple of users, all unregistered accounts whose short edit histories consist largely or exclusively of inserting Maupin into articles. (Special:Contributions/69.203.135.167, Special:Contributions/38.140.255.146, Special:Contributions/2604:2000:7140:3400:5481:4F67:8B1B:1E4, Special:Contributions/50.14.138.20, Special:Contributions/2604:2000:7140:3400:7D07:6836:9434:5620) So this is clearly being done either by the subject himself or by acquaintances of the subject, which again just underscores how there is really no external coverage going on here, just the subject personally or his acquaintances trying to advertise a private individual. This is really inappropriate to keep on the page. VolatileChemical (talk) 00:52, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Contradictory claims for SWP versus WWP
This article states that the WWP broke from the SWP due to various disagreements. But the article is inconsistent on which party took which side.

The first paragraph (emphasis added):


 * Marcy and his followers split from the SWP in 1958 over a series of long-standing differences, among them their support for Henry A. Wallace's Progressive Party in 1948, their view of People's Republic of China as a workers' state, and their defense of the 1956 Soviet intervention in Hungary, some of which the SWP opposed.

This seems to state that the SWP supported Wallace, deemed China a worker's state, and defended the invasion of Hungary. The WWP (Marcy), which disagreed, broke with them.

Then the third paragraph says this:


 * The WWP had its origins in the Global Class War Tendency, led by Sam Marcy .... Throughout the 1950s, the Global Class War Tendency expressed positions at odds with official SWP policy, categorizing the Korean War as a class, rather than imperialist, conflict; support of the People's Republic of China as a workers' state, if not necessarily supporting the Mao Zedong leadership; and supporting the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution by the Soviet Union in 1956.

Now we have the exact opposite. The WWP (GCWT) deemed China a worker's state, and supported the invasion of Hungary, whereas the SWP disagreed.

Which was it? Is this a contradiction, or are the paragraphs just confusing because they have too many pronouns with unclear antecedents? &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 22:25, 11 October 2023 (UTC)