American Workers Party

The American Workers Party (AWP) was a socialist organization established in December 1933 by activists in the Conference for Progressive Labor Action, a group headed by A.J. Muste.

The American Workers Party was established in December 1933 by activists in the Conference for Progressive Labor Action. The figurative leader of the AWP was A. J. Muste, although the organization had a structure and values that lent its radicalism a highly democratic and collaborative quality.

The AWP sought to find what it called "an American approach" for Marxism at the depth of the Great Depression. The group published a popularly written newspaper, Labor Action, and created Unemployed Leagues that attracted tens of thousands of members and ought not be confused with the Communist Party's Unemployed Councils.

The AWP is best known in labor history for its leadership of the successful 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite Strike, a forerunner that contributed to the creation of the United Auto Workers union. Exerting influence through its Unemployed League chapter, the AWP in Toledo kept the Auto-Lite strike from being broken by desperate job-seekers. Instead, the AWP brought the mass of unemployed to bear as a powerful vehicle for solidarity with the auto parts factory workers on the picket lines. The Auto-Lite strike—along with the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934 (led by the Trotskyist Communist League of America) and the 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike led by the Communist Party USA—was an important catalyst for the rise of industrial unionism in the 1930s, much of which was organized through the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

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