Regroupment

REGROUPMENT. Following the Khrushchev revelations of 1956, several leaders of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) concluded that former Communists and parts of the Communist Party periphery might be interested in exploring the ideas of Leon Trotsky and of the opposition to Stalinism that the SWP embodied. A reorganized and broader Left than any presently in existence, some disaffiliated radicals outside the SWP hoped, might take root. The result, “regroupment,” took place on three fronts.

Major effort went into an electoral campaign by the Independent Socialist Party (ISP) in New York State in 1958, which allowed an unprecedented cooperation of Trotskyists and former supporters of the Popular and United fronts. The state ticket included Jack McManus, editor of the National Guardian, as gubernatorial candidate; Annette T. Rubinstein, longtime Marxist educator and political aide of radical New York City congressman Vito Marcantonio, for lieutenant-governor; and civil rights fighter Captain Hugh Mulzac, First Amendment defendant, for senator. Successful in gaining ballot status and in bringing together former adversaries, the ISP gained neither the permanent ballot status nor the widespread support required to continue.

A second effort, the formation of a new, independent socialist youth organization, took shape in the character of the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA). Intended to foster discussion among young people of various tendencies on issues of civil rights, electoral action, and the buildup of war threats in Indochina, it soon narrowed into an SWP junior organization.

The final test of regroupment came with the Cuban Revolution. The SWP devoted great effort and much of its limited resources to help a united front form around the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC). At first rather successful, especially on selected campuses, the FPCC suffered from factionalism within and from U.S. government pressure (following the Bay of Pigs invasion) from without.

Ultimately, regroupment efforts failed, as the New Left took its own shape largely independent of older organizations. However, in collaboration with the Marxist Educational Collective, Arthur Felberbaum (1935–1979), who had been active in the YSA regroupment effort, established in 1973 the New York Marxist School. The most memorable result of regroupment perspectives, the school continues as an open forum in both special event and classroom format for a variety of political tendencies on the Left and fosters open discussion on issues of concern to the Left in general.