page_title: Workers Alliance of America
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Workers Alliance of America / Organizational history / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: David Lasser c. 1931
context_page_description: The Workers Alliance of America was a Popular Front era political organization established in March 1935 in the United States which united several efforts to mobilize unemployed workers under a single banner. Founded by the Socialist Party of America, the Workers Alliance was later joined by the Unemployed Councils of the USA, a mass organization of the Communist Party USA, and by the National Unemployed Leagues originating with A.J. Muste's Conference for Progressive Labor Action and successor organizations.
  The WAA was initially headed by Socialist David Lasser, but the organization gradually came to be dominated by the CPUSA, which had superior size and organizational discipline compared to its partners. Originally resembling a trade union for relief workers employed by the Works Progress Administration, in its later incarnation it came to resemble a political pressure group focused upon winning additional funding of the WPA by a budget-conscious Congress.
  The organization rapidly atrophied after 1939, in the wake of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the eruption of World War II in Europe and was terminated in 1941.
context_section_description: The early 1930s were marked by extreme hostility between the various political parties of the American left wing, including most notably the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the Socialist Party of America (SPA). Under the so-called Third Period line of the Communist International, the Communists vigorously and aggressively attacked the Socialists at every turn as so-called "social fascists" — ideological fellow travelers who both enabled and advanced a fascist agenda as a de facto wing of the international fascist movement. The Socialists responded to hostility with hostility of their own, bitterly asserting that the American Communist Party was no more than a deceitful and manipulative appendage of Soviet foreign policy, advancing the agenda of a nation headed by an anti-democratic dictator in the person of Joseph Stalin.
  The rise to state power of the Nazi Party in Germany and the brutal repression of Socialists and Communists which followed shaped the attitudes of both the Communist and Socialist movements. A new turn to united front efforts on the part of the Communists began in 1934, culminating with the 7th World Congress of the Comintern in the summer of 1935, which explicitly endorsed cooperation with non-communists in an effort to undermine and roll back fascism. Cooperation in joint political ventures, including participation of non-communist leaders, became the order of the day.
  Late in 1933 and into 1934 the Communists had made overtures to rank-and-file activists in Socialist-led unemployed worker organizations to "build the united front in spite of your leaders" and to forge unity "over the heads of...splitting leaders." Now the so-called "united front from below" would be set aside and real efforts made to engage in joint work with Socialist-led organizations, beginning with the convocation of a National Congress for Unemployment and Social Insurance by the CPUSA in January 1935. While this initial activity drew only limited participation from the Socialists early in the planning process and was boycotted by the fledgling American Workers Party headed by A. J. Muste, the stage was set for future joint work on the unemployment issue.
  The Workers Alliance of America would ultimately prove to be the umbrella organization bringing these three political entities — the Communists, Socialists, and "Musteites" — together for joint work.
caption: David Lasser, first head of the Workers Alliance of America
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