Workers World Party (WWP) is a socialist party in the United States which was founded in 1959 by Sam Marcy. They claim to embrace the political philosophy of Marxism-Leninism but others characterize the group as being Neo-Stalinist. The WWP formed as a split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1958 over a series of long-standing differences (among them, the support of Sam Marcy for Henry Wallace's Progressive Party in 1948 and the positive view they held of the Chinese Revolution led by Mao Zedong).
Initially the WWP was confined to the Buffalo area, where it had constituted the Buffalo and two other smaller branchs of the SWP, but expanded in the 1960s. It had a well known youth movement called Youth Against War and Fascism which attracted much support with its campaigning against war in Vietnam.
Although in origin a Trotskyist group, the WWP describes itself as Marxist-Leninist, a phrase rarely used by Trotskyists. However WWP continues to sell some of the writings of Trotsky as well as those of Stalin and Mao. This combination of influences is otherwise almost unknown within the far left millieu.
At a theoretical level however, almost nothing remains of their origins within the Trotskyist movement and they repudiate almost all of his ideas. The WWP agrees with Trotsky's description of pre-1991 Russia as being a "degenerated workers state" and extend that description to countries such as Cuba, North Korea and China. But it should be noted that this term is rarely used and the term socialist is far more often chosen to describe such states. In practice, they politically support these states far more energetically than many of the remaining orthodox Communist parties. Similarly, they support countries which they see as victims of American Imperialism such as Iraq or Libya. However, they do not describe such states as being socialist.
For the last two presidential elections, their candidate has been activist Monica Moorehead. Workers World has opposed both Gulf Wars. It has also supported China's actions in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 [1].
According to the National Review, the group has defended dictators that the United States government has disapproved of, such as Slobodan Milosevic [1] and Saddam Hussein, and has been accused of anti-Semitism.
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