Workers' Communist Party

The Workers' Communist Party was an American socialist political party. It was the last major party to form in the Old United States, winning it's final election, and was the founding and de facto ruling party of the UASR during the First Period. Founded in 1876 as the "Workingmen's Party of the United States" as a merger of various Marxist and reformist socialist parties, the party quickly rebranded itself as the Socialist Labor Party. Despite initial difficulties, the party gradually grew amongst the American working class over the next few decades under the firm hand of Daniel DeLeon, absorbing Eugene V. Debs' Social Democracy of America in 1898, along with remnants of the Populist movement. The SLP later absorbed the Social Democratic Party in 1908, a party created by SDA dissidents opposed to the initial merger.

The Socialist Labor Party became the leader of anti-war sentiment during the Great War, despite intensifying persecution under the National Unity Government, and quickly assumed a similar role during the Biennio Rosso, although it failed to result in the desired revolution before it fizzled out in 1920. With the collapse of the social-democratic Second International and the rise of Lenin's Third Communist International, the SLP changed it's name to the Worker's Party of America to adhere to the 21 Conditions in 1920. The newly rechristened WPA grew to become a significant challenger to the established Republican and Democratic parties, despite a brief loss of momentum admist a period of economic growth and the triumph of Leonard Wood's progressive Republicans until his assassination in 1927.

With the beginning of the Great Depression in 1930 and new directives from the TCI, the Workers' Communist Party assumed its final name, and once more began to coordinate insurrectionary activity against the floundering Second Republic. The WCP would also enter into the electoral pact known as the Popular Front with the agrarian socialist Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, running Norman Thomas in the 1932 presidential election, winning the presidency, a super-majority in the House of Representatives and a plurality in the Senate. In response, reactionary elements within the American government and military orchestrated a coup d'etat under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur, and liquidated key members of the WCP, including Thomas.

The remaining leadership of the Party regrouped in Chicago under the aegis of the Provisional Government and I Congress of Soviets, quickly assuming command of both bodies, and leading the Red forces in the Second American Civil War, resulting in the establishment of the United Republics and the exile of the putschists to Cuba. Victorious in the civil war, the WCP assumed leadership of the infant Socialist state under the banner of the United Democratic Front, alongside the DFLP and Democratic-Republican Party, the reorganized remains of the anti-putsch wings of both parties. The WCP helped initiate the revolutionary wave in Latin America and the First Cultural Revolution in America, and lead the UASR to victory in the Global Anti-Fascist Struggle. Disagreements over foreign policy after the war regarding the newly-established Franco-British Union and Alliance of Free States, and how the party should be organized, resulted in the party's split into the council communist Liberation Communist Party and the centralist Communist Labor Party in the 1950s.

Foundation as Workingmen's Party of the United States
The history of the Workers' Communist Party ultimately began with the rump moving it's headquarters to New York City (now Metropolis) in 1872 after the  resulting in the expulsion of 's anarchist faction. In 1874, American elements of the floundering body worked to establish the Social-Democratic Party of North America, the first national Marxist party in the Old United States, but divides between the German immigrant movement, which favored the reformist politics of, and Anglo-Americans who favored trade union organization as a prelude to revolution, hindered it's effectiveness. In April of that year, delegates representing these two sections of the workers' movement agreed to convene a Unity Congress in July to oversee the foundation of a new political party, upon which the remnants of the First International would be dissolved.

On July 19th, 1876, seven delegates representing 3,000 members of four organizations: the Marxists of the now disbanded International, the Social-Democratic Party of North America, the Workingmens' Party of Illinois and the Social Political Workingmen's Society, formed the first incarnation of what would eventually become the WCP, as the "Workingmen's Party of the United States", with the Anglo-American Philip Van Patten elected as it's Corresponding Secretary.

The Socialist Labor Party and the Coming of Daniel DeLeon (1877-1897)
The following year, a Party Congress in Newark, New Jersey would see the party's name changed to the "Socialist Labor Party". The party during this initial phase was dominated by German emigres - although there was already an active English section of the party in Chicago at the time - and experienced a brief surge in its heart of Illinois, at its height electing a state senator and three state representatives, while the party's candidate for Mayor of Chicago won 20% of the vote. However, economic crisis and factional infighting between anarchists who sought to form a militia to protect strikers against the backdrop of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, and the party's more electorally inclined leadership saw the party shed most of it's initial momentum, dipping below two and a half thousand members at the end of the decade.

The beginnings of the 1880s saw the party come under an even tighter grip by German emigres fleeing a new wave of state repression in the Kaiserreich, many of whom naturally more inclined to direct action on behalf of their inability to vote as non-citizens. Coupled with the split of the anarchist-controlled New York Section as the Revolutionary Socialist Labor Party, choosing to affiliate with the "Black International" of the 1880s and 90s, saw most of it's English speaking members depart. The SLP contracted further into a tiny, almost exclusively German party. The party would only register one and a half thousand members in 1883, and it's Secretary, Philip Van Patten, faked suicide and defected to become a government employee. Fortunately for the party's fortunes, Marxists forcefully reestablished control over the organization and began to aggressively proselytize. The party would grow from 30 sections in 1884 to double that number only two years later, and attempted to cultivate a relationship with the Knights of Labor, although they would not make much headway before it's collapse. Despite this, the SLP struggled to connect with English speaking workers and mainly consisted of local Sections loosely bound by a National Executive Committee throughout the 1880s.

1890 is usually understood as a watershed year for the Socialist Labor Party as the year it came under the influence of academic-turned-Marxist theoretician Daniel DeLeon, a brilliant, if secretarian, scholar of Marx and promoter of uncompromising "impossiblism." Perhaps most importantly, he was a excellent and multi-lingual lecturer in a party where only two members of it's National Executive Committee spoke fluent English and only 17 of it's 77 Sections used it as a first language. DeLeon quickly obtained the positions of "National Lecturer", touring the country weeks at a time espousing the revolutionary cause, and chief editor of the Weekly People, the SLP's official English language paper, making him the organization's de facto leader. As the party slowly drew in supporters from Germans and Anglo-Americans alike, it began to participate in political and industrial action once more. The party would put forth candidates for the Mayor of New York City, DeLeon himself as Governor of New York State, and even for the Presidency of the United States, an office the party sought to abolish, for the first time under it's own name, although they would not gain much traction. At the same time, the SLP formed the, an explicitly industrial unionist federation to counter the declining Knights of Labor and rising American Federation of Labor, both of whom were craft-union federations that dealed with more short term issues and were often in the pocket of the American ruling class, distancing themselves from the socialist movement. The STLA, along with the Industrial Workers of the World and the AFL would eventually merge to form the "Solidarity" federation in 1912, one that would see increasing importance in the coming years.

Eugene Debs and Growth of the SLP (1898-1913)
1898 would prove to be a critical turning point in the SLP, as it would be the year it absorbed Eugene Debs' newborn Social Democracy of America. Formed from the carcass of the American Railway Union so viciously crushed during the Pullman Strike of 1894, the organization, a hybrid between utopian colonization society and political party, SDA proved to be a short lived coalition of Marxists, trade union veterans, utopian socialists and former populists, along with other radicals. After initial plans for colonization in one of the Western states fell apart, the party began to drift into the orbit of the SLP, with Debs and DeLeon forming a tense, but fruitful relationship, with DeLeon recognizing the importance of a reconstituted ARU within the STLA and Debs the importance of the institutions the SLP had built over it's operational history. With the organization's Second Congress taking place just a day before the one year anniversary of it's founding, the National Convention, dominated by Debs' Marxists and unionists, voted to dissolve the organization into the SLP, although the decision was not unanimous: delegates of the organization's reformist faction, led by Victor Berger, would break from the party and form the Social Democratic Party of America in October of that year.

Debs and DeLeon would form an uneasy duumvirate over the SLP, with the former quickly appointed as the National Executive of the Party, until DeLeon's death in 1911. His influence with the SLP quickly became obvious with the softening of the party's confrontational stance to non-socialist parties and the growing emergence of the STLA from DeLeon's shadow, crowned by a reconstituted ARU, with Eugene Debs it's national chairman. Debs would be put forth as the party's nominee for the Presidency in the 1900 elections, winning 165,000 votes, putting the party in 4th place. It would be the first election where SLP would achieve more than 1% of the popular vote, although it was still dwarfed by the major parties of it's day. The STLA's growth, on the other hand, was more immediate and obvious: bolstered by the reformed ARU, it would begin to gain traction, assisting to organize a strike of newsboys who would later join the STLA, the Coal Strike of 1902 and the Butte Copper Strike. The United Mineworkers of America, radicalized by McKinley's suppression of the coal strike, would absorb the Western Federation of Miners and join the STLA, allowing it to pose a legitimate threat to the AFL.

The 1904 elections would see Debs be renominated for a second time, alongside William Wesley Cox as his running mate. A brilliant orator, he would expand the membership rolls of the SLP throughout the campaign, giving a human face to socialist treason, so viciously decried by the Democratic and Republican parties alike. Crucial to it's growth was the collapse of the Populist party as a national organization, with the SLP expanding into it's former domains and endorsed by some of it's most prominent figures. While the acceptance of an alliance with the mostly industrial SLP was lukewarm at best within the remnants of the Populist movement, the opposition to alignment was so disorganized they were unable to either continue the alliance with the Democratic party or put forth an independent Populist nominee. The results were striking: it would achieve 705,000 votes in the election, surging to 5% of the popular vote, although it still failed to obtain a single Elector in the Electoral College.

Joining the Third International (1920-1929)
The militancy of the Biennio Rosso was further inflamed during the transition to peacetime economy. Within the Socialist Labor Party, revolutionaries fought a factional war against the reformist tendencies. Many formerly reformist leaders, such Morris Hilquit and Robert LaFollette moved into the revolutionary camp, while others left politics.

The working masses continued to organise even when the party appeared reticent to act. Beginning in May 1920, workers organized soviet congresses and armed militias to defend their prerogatives. The working class was in open insurrection against capital, and no call for conciliation could be countenanced.

The Party had sent a delegations to the previous year's Comintern congress. This world meeting of revolutionary workers' parties, under the spiritual leadership of the Bolsheviks, was to forge a united communist revolutionary movement, and that required uniting the working class behind an international set of principles.

The 21 Conditions would be adopted in the August Convention, which brought the various fractions of the Socialist Labor Party into programmatic unity. In alignment with both the revolutionary spirit of the time, and Lenin's doctrine for the First Period's revolutionary moment, the Socialist Labor Party was reorganized into two parallel organizations. The party would continue its above-ground political activities, including standing in elections, disciplining the trade union movement, and organizing public demonstrations as the Workers' Party of America.

And underground, parallel organization, the Communist Party of North America, would coordinate the party's illegal, insurrectionist activities. This would include organizing and arming the Spartacus League paramilitaries, illegal strikes by federal railway and postal workers, acts of sabotage in areas under the Jim Crow regime, and the funneling of intelligence to their Bolshevik allies. Additionally, the CPNA united the above ground parties in the US and Canada into organizational unity.

This organizational split would be rendered defunct during the Comintern's transition to the Second Period policy of regroupment, but during this crucial insurrectionary period it provided most of the bite in fighting against state repression. Leadership in both organizations overlapped heavily, even as the underground branches in northern states became defunct. Even after the party adopted more conciliatory stances in 1924, the parallel underground organizations continued to exist in Southern states.

The Party had established itself as separate, distinct pillar in American civil society. Around the Workers' Party, a cluster of parallel institutions formed to provide for the material and morale needs of the working class: youth groups, civic clubs, grocery co-ops, schools, radio stations, newspapers, printers, art and even housing co-operatives.

The Party would take a leading role in the struggle against Jim Crow in the South, providing the boots on the ground required to spur the federal government into action. By the end of the 1920s, the legal face of Jim Crow had been destroyed, and many of its cultural institutions were under assault by the cross-racial alliances between white and black workers.

As the Comintern moved towards the Third Period policy of revolutionary agitation, the ECCI required Comintern parties to make their affiliation explicit in their name. At the 1929 convention, the party considered a number of name changes. The centre favored the name Communist Party of the United States. The party's left flank, indebted to the theoretic lineage of the KAPD, wished to adopt the name Communist Workers' Party of America. Since the latter would be an unpalatable sign of left-deviation in Moscow, the ultimate compromise bowed to the reality that the brand of the Workers' Party was well established. As the Roaring Twenties came to an end, the Party adopted the name Workers' Communist Party of America.