Communist Workers Party (United States)

The Communist Workers Party (CWP) was a Maoist group in the United States. It was founded in 1969 as the "Workers' Viewpoint Organization". Its founding cadre were drawn mainly from those in the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) who had grown disenchanted with the group and disagreed with its [http://www.plp.org/pl_magazine/nationalismpl69.pdf new position on nationalism] . The party is mainly remembered for the "Greensboro Massacre" of 1979.

The CWP followed the policies of Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, and later Pol Pot,Fact|date=September 2008 and originally gave some support to the Islamists of the Iranian Revolution, which it held to be objectively anti-imperialist. It later changed its line on the Iranian revolution and backed the Iranian left opposed to the ruling Ayatollahs. The CWP also incorporated aspects of the CPUSA's anti-racist pre-Popular Front program. In particular the CWP emphasized unionization and self-determination for African-Americans.

The CWP enjoyed some success in textile cities of North Carolina. The new party established branches in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Greensboro, West Virginia, Colorado and other locations. Before forming itself into a party in October 1979 (the founding congress was held in the back room of a discoteque in New York City), the group was known as the Workers Viewpoint Organization. Under its umbrella, it directed groups as the Revolutionary Youth League, the African Liberation Support Committee, and the Trade Union Education League.

Confrontations with the Klan were particularly acute in Greensboro, North Carolina, where the Klan attempted to disrupt the work of the CWP and vice versa. In July, 1979, the Klan held a rally and viewing of "The Birth of a Nation" in China Grove, near Greensboro, which was disrupted by CWP members who burned a Confederate flag and taunted members of the KKK. There were also challenges in the press. "The KKK is one of the most treacherous scum elements produced by the dying system of capitalism." We challenge you," CWP leader Paul Bermanzohn taunted the Klan, "to attend our rally in Greensboro." These apparent provocations provided the KKK a pretext for a coming violent showdown.

November 3, 1979 saw members of the KKK, including a police informant, and the American Nazi Party attack a "Death to the Klan!" rally organized by the CWP. Members of the Klan were armed, as were some members of the CWP. Two members of the CWP and three rally participants were killed in the assault by the KKK. This was the incident that became known as the "Greensboro Massacre". In response to the acquittal of the accused killers, the CWP attempted to storm the 1980 Democratic National Convention and succeeded in setting off firecrackers in Madison Square Garden.

From its earliest phase as the Workers Viewpoint Organization, the CWP had considered itself as maoist and supported the so-called Gang of Four after Mao's death. Following the line of Mao, it considered the Soviet Union and its bloc as restored capitalist countries. For some time after the arrest of the Gang of Four, the groupremained silent about the events in China but later accused China also of having taken the capitalist road.

In 1980, there was a dramatic reversal of this line. In his book "The Socialist Road", CWP Chairman Jerry Tung announced that both the Soviet Union and China were socialist, albeit an unhealthy bureaucracy had taken shape in the governments of both countries.

Subsequent to the Greensboro massacre, the group gave up its leninist structure and moved towards a social democratic formation that would work for peaceful transition to socialism; it dissolved the Communist Workers Party and formed the New Democratic Movement in 1985. The New Democratic Movement lasted but a few years. The most important remnant of the CWP/NDM can be found in the Greensboro Justice Fund which http://www.gjf.org which continues to this day and promotes groups struggling for social justice.

External links

*Chapman, Yonni. [http://www.sdonline.org/34/yonni_chapman.htm Book review of Signe Waller's Love And Revolution] . Socialism and Democracy Issue #36 Vol 18, No. 2. 2002. Retrieved May 23, 2005.
*Kay, Barbara. [http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=15763 Book review of Sally Avery Bermanzohn's Through Survivor's Eyes] . FrontPageMagazine.com. November 17, 2004. Retrieved May 23, 2005.

Further reading

*Klehr, Harvey. "Maoists Move in on Manhattan Dems." "Our Town", 2 August 1987.
*Waller, Signe. "Love And Revolution: A Political Memoir: People’s History Of The Greensboro Massacre, Its Setting And Aftermath". London & New York: Rowman & Littlefield. 2002. ISBN 0-7425-1365-3.
* [http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/k/ku_klux_klan/index.html?query=COMMUNIST%20WORKERS%20PARTY,%20USA&field=org&match=exact New York Times Articles on the Ku Klux Klan and the Communist Workers Party] . List retrieved August 23, 2006.

Archives

* "Workers Viewpoint". New York, NY. Publisher: Communist Workers Party. 1983-1986. Box: 252a, current. [http://dlib.nyu.edu:8083/tamwagead/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=periodicals.xml&style=saxon01t2002.xsl Tamiment Library Boxed Newspapers Collection. 1873-, (Bulk 1960-1990)] .