Communist Workers' Party (United States)
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Communist Workers' Party
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| Leader | Jerry Tung |
| Founded | 1973 |
| Dissolved | 1985 |
| Succeeded by | New Democratic Movement |
| Youth wing | Revolutionary Youth League |
| Ideology |
Anti-racism Communism Leninism Maoism |
| Political position | Far-left |
The Communist Workers' Party (CWP) was a Maoist group in the United States. It had its origin in 1973 as the Asian Study Group (renamed the Workers' Viewpoint Organization in 1976) established by Jerry Tung, a former member of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) who had grown disenchanted with the group and disagreed with changes taking place in the party line. The party is mainly remembered as the victim of the Greensboro Massacre of 1979.
The CWP followed the policies of Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin. The CWP also incorporated aspects of the CPUSA's anti-racist pre-Popular Front program. In particular the CWP emphasized unionization and self-determination for African Americans.
The CWP enjoyed some success in textile cities of North Carolina. The new party established branches in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Greensboro, West Virginia, Colorado and other locations. Before forming itself into a party in October 1979 (the founding congress was held in the backroom of a discothèque in New York City), the group was known as the Workers Viewpoint Organization. Under its umbrella, it directed groups as the Revolutionary Youth League, the African Liberation Support Committee, and the Trade Union Education League.
Confrontations with the Ku Klux Klan ("Klan", or "KKK") were particularly acute in Greensboro, North Carolina, where the Klan attempted to disrupt the work of the CWP and vice versa. In July 1979, the Klan held a rally and viewing of The Birth of a Nation in China Grove, near Charlotte, which was disrupted by CWP members who burned a Confederate flag and taunted members of the KKK. There were also challenges in the press. "The KKK is one of the most treacherous scum elements produced by the dying system of capitalism. "We challenge you," CWP leader Paul Bermanzohn taunted the Klan, "to attend our rally in Greensboro." These apparent provocations provided the KKK a pretext for a coming violent showdown.
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