Contributing Institution: Holt Labor Library at CSU Dominguez Hills

Title: Socialist Workers Party collection

Creator: Socialist Workers Party

Creator: Fourth International

Creator: Young Socialist Alliance (U.S.)

Identifier/Call Number: HLL.2019.031

Physical Description: 85 boxes Cartons and document cases.

Physical Description: 34 Linear Feet

Date (inclusive): 1934-2003, undated

Date (bulk): 1940-1994, undated

Abstract: The collection comprises bulletins, convention and forum constitutions, programs, and leaflets, correspondence, reports, flyers, and subject files relating to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), which was founded in 1928 by James P. Cannon.

Language of Material: Collection materials are in English, Spanish, and French.

The Socialist Workers Party collection, 1934-2003, bulk 1940-1994, comprises materials that reflect the activities and statuses of the Socialist Workers Party. It includes Discussion Bulletins; Information Bulletins; Internal Bulletins; Internal Information Bulletins; International Bulletins; International Information Bulletins; International Internal Discussion and Information Bulletins; Joint Discussion Bulletins between the Socialist Workers Party and the Communist League; and local and regional branch Discussion Bulletins for various cities, states and regions in the United States as well as Australia. Convention and forum constitutions, programs, leaflets, bulletins, and other materials are present, as are correspondence and reports regarding various topics such as the Shachtmanite split within the party in 1940. "Political Committee mailings" comprising convention materials, meeting minutes, letters, reports, and other documents sent to Political Committee members from 1973-1979 are included as well. Education for Socialists conference reports, course and study outlines, bulletins and notes are included, in addition to flyers, brochures, and a study guide from the West Coast Vacation School and Camp. The collection also includes San Francisco and national election campaign leaflets, flyers, pamphlets and bulletins. There are minutes of the National Executive Committee, Political Committee, and the Organization Committee present, editions of the Party Builder and Party Organizer, and subject files regarding various topics including Hungary, Rosa Luxemburg, Stalinism and the Russian Revolution, Trotskyism in India, Vietnamese communism, and others. Individual series comprising files pertaining to the Fourth International, as it related to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), as well as files regarding the Internationalist Tendency, the Leninist-Trotskyist Faction, and the Young Socialist Alliance within the SWP, are present. These series contain bulletins, journals, articles, pamphlets, correspondence, reports, minutes, subject files, and convention and committee documents. There are also graphic materials including: cartoon prints by Laura Gray (Laura Slobe); one postcard; black-and-white and color photographs of SWP members and an event relating to Art Preis' book Labor's Giant Step: The First Twenty Years of the CIO: 1936-55; one black-and-white negative; one file of black-and-white still photographs from the 1987 film Matewan.

For information about citing archival material, see the Citations for Archival Material  guide, or consult the appropriate style manual.

The Socialist Workers Party collection was donated to the Holt Labor Library in San Francisco, California between 2003 and 2019, and was acquired by the Gerth Archives and Special Collections at California State University, Dominguez Hills, in 2019.

There are no access restrictions on this collection.

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director of Archives and Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical materials and not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.

Allison Ransom processed the collection and wrote the finding aid in December 2020.

The collection is arranged in 12 series: Series I. Bulletins, 1939-1994, undated; Series II. Convention and Forum materials, 1934-1982; Series III. Correspondence and reports, 1939-1994, undated; Series IV. Education for Socialists materials, 1940-2001, undated; Series V. Election materials, 1940-1970; Series VI. Minutes, 1965-1981; Series VII. Subject and research files, 1939-1989, undated; Series VIII. Publications, 1944-1983; Series IX. Fourth International files, 1938-2003, undated; Series X. Internationalist Tendency files, 1973-1976; Series XI. Leninist-Trotskyist Faction files, 1972-1981, undated; Series XII. Young Socialist Alliance files, 1957-1982, undated.

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a political organization that was founded in 1938 by James P. Cannon. It was established as a Trotskyist political party that had the goal of establishing international socialism by way of permanent revolution. After James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman, and Martin Abern were expelled from the Communist Party USA for their Trotskyist ideas in 1928, they formed the Communist League of America (CLA), which became the United States section of the International Left Opposition (ILO). The ILO was an opposition group within the Comintern that was founded in 1930 and was renamed the International Communist League (ICL) in 1933. In 1934, the Communist League of America joined the American Workers Party, and in 1936 the party joined the Socialist Party of America, following the trend started by the French Trotskyist Communist League of entering Socialist organizations to spread Trotskyism, which was known as the French Turn. While part of the Socialist Party of America, Cannon, Schachtman, and Abern's faction maintained their allegiance to Trotsky and their support of the Soviet Union while denouncing Stalin, which led to their expulsion in 1937. On December 31, 1937, the expelled faction members established the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) at a founding convention in Chicago. In 1940, an internal dispute between Cannon and Shachtman regarding the definition of the Soviet Union as a socialist state led to Shachtman and his oppositional faction leaving the SWP and establishing the Workers Party.

In 1938, the Fourth International was established in France by Leon Trotsky and his followers, who believed that the Comintern was too closely affiliated with Stalin which was contrary to what Trotsky thought would lead to the establishment of an international socialist revolution. The SWP was originally affiliated with the Fourth International, but the 1940 Voorhis Act, which required anti-American foreign political organizations that had sections in the United States to officially register with the Justice Department, led to the SWP leaving the Fourth International.. Although the SWP never officially rejoined the Fourth International, it shared the Fourth International's goal of non-Stalinist socialist revolution and supported revolutionary movements in Latin America and Asia. In the 1970s, the Internationalist Tendency (IT) was developed within the SWP which condoned guerrilla warfare tactics in Latin America, a position that the Fourth International supported but that led to the faction's expulsion from the SWP. The Leninist Trotskyist Faction (LTF) of the SWP, which was active from 1973 to 1977, opposed the Fourth International's stance on guerrilla warfare as well. In the 1960s the SWP reunified with the International Secretariat of the Fourth International on the basis of their shared opinion that Cuba was not a Stalinist state.

In 1982, Jack Barnes, who was the National Secretary of the SWP, gave a speech at a SWP plenum denouncing Trotskyism and the theory of the Permanent Revolution, and advocated for a worker and farmer-led government instead of an anti-capitalist revolution. An opposition bloc formed in the SWP's National Committee that was expelled from the Party in 1983. Expelled members founded the Socialist Action and Fourth Internationalist Tendency organizations that maintained their allegiance to James P. Cannon's Trotskyist ideas. After the shift away from Trotskyism, the SWP has been known as a communist organization. The Party has published The Militant, the since it was founded by James P. Cannon in 1928, and has maintained Pathfinder Press as its publishing arm.

The SWP supported the Cuban Revolution, as demonstrated by its involvement with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, as well as the civil rights and black nationalist movements. The Young Socialist Alliance, the youth group of the SWP that was founded in 1960, dissolved in 1992, and published the Young Socialist magazine, was active during the anti-Vietnam War movement in the 1960s and 1970s. The SWP also advocated for Chicano nationalism by endorsing La Raza Unida and supported women's rights. The SWP also supported industrial unionism, in which workers in the same industry are organized rather than workers affiliated with a specific union, and has endorsed various strikes such as those led by the United Mine Workers of America after World War II.