New York Workers School
| Motto | for the purpose of advancing true proletarian education, and of training workers for effective leadership in the American Labor Movement |
|---|---|
| Successor | Jefferson School of Social Science |
| Formation | 1923 |
| Extinction | 1944 |
| Purpose | educational, propagandist, indoctrinal |
| Headquarters | 28 E Fourteenth Street, New York City |
|
Director
|
Bertram Wolfe (1923-1929) |
|
Assistant Director
|
Ben Davidson (1923-1929) |
|
Director
|
Abraham Markhoff (1929-1938) |
|
Director
|
Will Weinstone (1938-1944) |
| Advisory Board: David Saposs, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Floyd Dell, John Dos Passos | |
| Secessions | New Workers School |
| Affiliations | Communist Party USA |
The New York Workers School, colloquially known as "Workers School," was an ideological training center of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) established in New York City for adult education in October 1923. For more than two decades the facility played an important role in the teaching of party doctrine to the organization's functionaries, as well as offering a more general educational program to trade union activists.
The Workers School was a model for local CPUSA training centers in the area (e.g., the Jewish Workers University, founded in New York City in 1926.) and in other American cities (e.g., the Chicago Workers School.) It also provided the direct inspiration for the New Workers School, established by the breakaway Communist Party (Majority Group) headed by Jay Lovestone and Benjamin Gitlow (supported by Bertram D. Wolfe and Ben Davidson) after they left the Communist Party in 1929.
The Workers School was dissolved through merger in 1944, becoming part of the CPUSA's Jefferson School of Social Science.
Over the course of the spring and summer of 1919 the Socialist Party of America divided into competing Socialist and Communist wings. In the aftermath of this bitter split, the electorally-oriented Socialists retained control of a number of key public institutions of the party, including the Rand School of Social Science, a trade union and party training facility located in New York City. (Historian Marvin E. Gettleman makes clear that the Workers School was seen by the Communists as the "historic successor" of the Socialists' Rand School.)
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Wikipedia