Socialist Worker.

[eric922]

Hey everyone. I live in rather conservative state, Tennessee and there is a branch of the Socialist Worker party trying to start a chapter here. I was just curious if I could get some opinions on it, before I volunteered to help organize? Normally, I'd say any party is better than nothing, but after see how reformist the CPUSA is, I'm kind of wary. Any help would be great.

[Geiseric]

The SWP really used to be something, it was a pretty big Trotskyist group based in (I think) New York, but it had like 4 splits since it was formed 60 years ago. Alot of the splits are really doctrinarre, sectarian, or straight up weird.

The group I'm in, Socialist Organiser, came from the split in the SWP.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

Also, the SWP has abandoned Trotskyism and has basically become the US branch of the Communist Party of Cuba. It is highly uncritical of Cuba and basically tows whatever line they have. There are also whispers that there is a lack of internal democracy, but people on the left say that about any group they aren't in, so who knows if it's true.

[eric922]

Really, the person I talked to said they were still a Trotskyist party, but maybe he was wrong or dishonest.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

Wrong.


The SWP, founded and shaped by men and women to whom I have attributed this glowing perspective, came to be led by a new leadership team from the post–World War II generation—cultivated by some of the old Trotskyists. The new team distinguished itself by some impressive initial contributions. But ultimately it distinguished itself by discarding the basic political perspectives of historic Trotskyism, largely through a process of dishonesty and manipulation that, for all practical purposes, destroyed the organization. How could something so good turn out so wrong?

http://www.laborstandard.org/Legacy/What_Happened_by_Paul.htm

That quote and the rest of his comments on what happened to the SWP can be found about half-way down.

[eyeheartlenin]

The Socialist Workers Party, SWP, is today a group that sells books, as its main (and nearly its only) activity. When I was in college, in the sixties, the SWP was a leading force in the movement against the war in Vietnam, and the size and scope of that movement was due, to some extent, to the efforts of the SWP to build it. That said, it was a pacifist movement, which meant that the SWP was already some distance from Trotsky's own outlook, namely, that the working class movement itself, with its strikes, sit-down strikes, factory occupations, etc., was the movement against imperialist war.

Now all that involvement by the SWP in ongoing struggles has been lost. Today's SWP merely sells books and runs candidates, so that it can recruit more people ... to sell books. There is a Yahoo group, where former members, those who left and those who were expelled, talk at length about the destruction of the SWP as a political party.

If I were you, I would definitely find another group. As other people have noted in other threads, the IWW is a fine, democratically-run group devoted to the self-emancipation of the working class. Whatever you decide, all the best!