Workers Party of America


The Workers Party of America was the name of the legal party organization used by the Communist Party USA from the last days of 1921 until the middle of 1929.

Background

As a legal political party, the Workers Party accepted affiliation from independent socialist groups such as the African Blood Brotherhood, the Jewish Socialist Federation and the Workers' Council of the United States. In the meantime, the Communist Party, with overlapping membership, conducted political agitation. By 1923, the aboveground party sought to engage the Socialist Party of America in united front actions, but it was rebuffed. Both the WPA and the SPA engaged in separate labor party efforts, prior to the presidential election of 1924. The SPA participated in the Conference for Progressive Political Action, which dissolved itself into the Progressive Party. The WPA succeeded in dominating the national Farmer–Labor Party, but that organization quickly returned to its constituent parts. At its 1925 convention, the group renamed itself the Workers Party and in 1929 the Communist Party, USA. The party's youth affiliate was named the Young Workers League, Young Workers League and Young Communist League in tandem with the parent organization.
As the Communist International entered the Third Period, the principle of a leftist united front was abandoned in favor of a single above-ground Communist Party. The above-ground Workers Party and underground party were thus gradually merged in a series of party conferences in the late 1920s into the Communist Party USA.

Publications

Before the party established its own publishing house for books and pamphlets, the Workers Party and Workers Party published a number of items under its own imprint, or in association with the Daily Worker.

Books