The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is an anti-revisionist Marxist–Leninist communist party in the United States. It was established in January 1962 as the Progressive Labor Movement following a split in the Communist Party USA, adopting its new name at a convention held in the spring of 1965. It was involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement of the 1960s and early 1970s through its Worker Student Alliance faction of Students for a Democratic Society.
The PLP publishes a fortnightly newspaper, Challenge.
History
Establishment
The PLP began as an organized faction called the Progressive Labor Movement in January 1962. It was formed in the aftermath of a fall 1961 split in the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) that saw the expulsion of left-wing labor activists Milt Rosen (1926–2011) and Mortimer Scheer. Before his expulsion, Rosen was a prominent CPUSA functionary, serving as District Organizer for upstate New York from 1957 and Industrial Organizer for all of New York state from 1959. An initial organizational meeting was held in December 1961, attended by 12 of the approximately 50 current and former CPUSA members identifying themselves as the "Call group". Rosen delivered a political report to the Cuban Revolution-inspired group urging the establishment of a new communist party in the United States to replace the CPUSA, which was characterized as irredeemably "revisionist".
The organization remained amorphous in its first months, publishing Progressive Labor—initially a monthly newsletter—and engaging in small-scale discussions. An organizational conference was called by the editors of Progressive Labor to be held in New York City in July 1962. This gathering, held at the Hotel Diplomat, was attended by 50 people from 11 different cities and served to launch a formal organization, the Progressive Labor Movement. Rosen again delivered the main political report to the gathering, calling for the writing of a program and development of a network of clubs and affiliated mass organizations in order to win supporters for a new revolutionary socialist movement. Given the small size of the fledgling organization, formation of a political party was deemed unpropitious. The name "Progressive Labor Movement" was selected to emphasize the organization's early and transitional nature. The Progressive Labor Movement was finally reconstituted as the Progressive Labor Party at a founding convention held in New York City on April 15–18, 1965. A 20-member National Committee was elected, and Rosen became the party's founding chair. Organizational headquarters were established in New York City.
1960s
Although it disdains parliamentarism as an end, the Progressive Labor Movement was quick to make use of the electoral process as a vehicle for propaganda, launching an effort to gain the signatures of 5,000 registered voters in New York City to put a PLP candidate on the ballot for the November 1963 election of the New York City Council. Although it did not manage to place its candidate on the ballot, the proto-PLP distributed more than 100,000 pieces of party literature in conjunction with the electoral campaign.
The PLP remained of modest size throughout the decade. It did not publicize its membership, but federal income tax returns filed in 1967 and 1968 provide a reasonable proxy. The PLP formally existed as a publishing partnership listing Milt Rosen and the party's 1965 candidate for New York State Senate, Bill Epton, as partners. These returns showed income and expenditures of about $66,000 in 1967 and about $88,600 in 1968, with the partners claiming no income from the ostensible business relationship.
During the 1960s, the PLP followed the international political line of the Chinese Communist Party and was described by commentators as "Maoist". The organization carved out a niche in the anti-Vietnam War movement, with its Worker Student Alliance faction acting as rivals to the Revolutionary Youth Movement faction within Students for a Democratic Society, a part of which (RYM 1) later evolved into the Weather Underground.
The PLP made extensive use of mass organizations (front groups) from its earliest years, through which it spread its ideas, raised funds and recruited new members. Among these were the Student Committee for Travel to Cuba (1963–64), which organized travel to post-revolutionary Cuba; the Harlem Defense Council (1964), organized in response to racially oriented rioting in Harlem; the May 2nd Movement (M2M, established 1964), organized in opposition to the Vietnam War; and other short-lived, issue-driven front groups.