http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf1k40019v No online items Register of the Socialist Workers Party records Finding aid prepared by Hoover Institution Archives Staff Hoover Institution Archives 434 Galvez Mall Stanford University Stanford, CA, 94305-6010 (650) 723-3563 [email protected] © 1998, 2016 Register of the Socialist Workers 92036 1 Party records Title: Socialist Workers Party records Date (inclusive): 1928-1998 Collection Number: 92036 Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Archives Language of Material: English Physical Description: 135 manuscript boxes, 1 oversize box(57.8 linear feet) Abstract: Correspondence, minutes, resolutions, theses, and internal bulletins, relating to Trotskyist and other socialist activities in Latin America, Western Europe, Iran, and elsewhere, and to interactions of the Socialist Workers Party with the Fourth International; and trial transcripts, briefs, other legal documents, and background materials, relating to the lawsuit brought by Alan Gelfand against the Socialist Workers Party in 1979. Most of collection also available on microfilm (108 reels). Creator: Socialist Workers Party. Access Collection is open for research. The Hoover Institution Archives only allows access to copies of audiovisual items. To listen to sound recordings or to view videos or films during your visit, please contact the Archives at least two working days before your arrival. We will then advise you of the accessibility of the material you wish to see or hear. Please note that not all audiovisual material is immediately accessible. Publication Rights For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Archives. Preferred Citation [Identification of item], Socialist Workers Party Records, [Box no.], Hoover Institution Archives. Acquisition Information The Hoover Institution Archives acquired records of the Socialist Workers Party from the Anchor Foundation in 1992. A register to the collection, prepared in 1997 and updated in 2013, remains the principal overall description of and finding aid to the collection. Further records of the Socialist Workers Party were received from the Anchor Foundation in 2015, described in the Addendum. Accruals Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find the collection in Stanford University's online catalog at http://searchworks.stanford.edu/ . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in the online catalog is larger than the number of boxes listed in this finding aid. Alternative Form Available Most of collection also available on microfilm (108 reels). Historical Note The Socialist Workers Party had its origins in the Communist League of America, formed in 1928 by former members of the Workers (Communist) Party of America who had been expelled as followers of Leon Trotsky. The Communist League of America merged with the American Workers Party in 1934 to create the Workers Party of the United States. This organization dissolved in 1936 to allow its members to enter the Socialist Party, where they constituted a left wing. Members of the left wing, after expulsion from the Socialist Party, founded the Socialist Workers Party at the beginning of 1938. From its outset as the Communist League of America, the Socialist Workers Party viewed itself as the American section of an international left wing of the communist movement whose outstanding leader was Leon Trotsky. This current first found organizational expression as the International Left Opposition in 1930. A belief that the program and practices of the Communist International were in need of drastic reform gradually gave way to the conviction that that organization was incorrigible and should be supplanted. The course of this progression of thought is indicated by the transformation of the International Left Opposition into the International Communist League in 1933 and then into the Movement for the Fourth International in 1936. The Fourth International was established in 1938 with the proclaimed goal of serving as the world party of socialist revolution. World War II disrupted the workings of the Fourth International and many of its sections. A European Secretariat in exile functioned in the United States during the war. The passage in 1940 of the Voorhis Act, which required parties belonging to any international political organization to register with the United States government and provide lists of members and contributors, prompted the Socialist Workers Party to formally disaffiliate from the Fourth International. When the Register of the Socialist Workers 92036 2 Party records International resumed its operations after the war, the party maintained a close relationship with it and was recognized as a fraternal organization but never formally rejoined as its American section. Political differences within the Fourth International resulted in a rupture in 1954. Most of the continental European sections adhered to the orientation of the International Secretariat, the International's continuing directing body. The Socialist Workers Party aligned itself with some other sections in establishing a rival International Committee. For all practical purposes Fourth International (International Secretariat) and Fourth International (International Committee) operated as separate organizations. Unity of most forces on both sides was restored in 1963, with a newly created United Secretariat as continuing directing body. Rupture again threatened but was averted in the 1970s. The Socialist Workers Party aligned itself with a number of Latin American sections in creating a Leninist-Trotskyist Tendency (subsequently Leninist-Trotskyist Faction) within the International in 1973. This was opposed by an International Majority Tendency representing most of the European sections. The factions were dissolved in 1977. The Socialist Workers Party found itself increasingly in disagreement with the Fourth International in the 1980s as the party ceased to define itself as Trotskyist. The Fourth International meanwhile accorded recognition to two organizations originating in splits from the party, Socialist Action and the Fourth Internationalist Tendency, as sympathizing American sections in addition to the Socialist Workers Party. The 12th World Congress of the Fourth International in 1985 was the last in which representatives of the Socialist Workers Party participated. Since the party was not formally a member of the Fourth International the question of formal withdrawal did not arise. However by the end of the decade the Socialist Workers Party had broken off all connections with the Fourth International. Scope and Content of the Collection Records of the Socialist Workers Party are deposited at the Wisconsin State Historical Society as well as in the Hoover Institution Archives. Those at the Wisconsin State Historical Society are concerned with domestic activities of the party, while those in the Hoover Institution Archives are concerned with its international activities and especially with its relations with the Fourth International and its predecessors. Records in the Hoover Institution Archives are arranged in ten series, most of which call for some commentary. Fourth International Issuances, the first series, consists of official issuances, notably minutes, congress proceedings, and internal bulletins, of the Fourth International and its predecessors. Issuances of international bodies only, not national sections, are included. These are arranged by issuing bodies, which are listed in order of historical progression. Issuances lend themselves to serial arrangement and are listed in considerable detail. The next two series, Chronological File and Geographical File, are extremely rich but much more amorphous. Correspondence between Socialist Workers Party leaders and Fourth International leaders, reports and memoranda of all descriptions, and official and unofficial documents of all sorts emanating from practically every national section are included. Materials within the two files are similar in character and many documents might with equal validity have found their way into either. Individual folders as maintained by the Socialist Workers Party and the Library of Social History (where the records were held prior to their deposit in the Hoover Institution Archives) tended to be established and assigned headings according to criteria that were either chronological or geographical. These classificatory decisions were respected and the two series were constructed by grouping folders together according to which of the two criteria they met. Arrangement of the material within each was then regularized. It is important for researchers interested in a particular geographical area to keep in mind that the Chronological File as well as the Geographical File is likely to include relevant material. An attempt has been made to annotate the Chronological File listings with indications of concentrations of material relating to specific countries, but such annotations are by no means exhaustive. Official issuances of national sections lending themselves to serial listing are generally specified. Other materials are generally not itemized, not because their importance is less but because a rigorously itemized list would be of prohibitive length. The International Assignments File consists of correspondence and reports of Socialist Workers Party representatives abroad on international assignments, mainly during the