“A fundamental turn must be made so as to enable all to realize that a principal task of the Party lies in educating, particularly the white comrades, on how to win the confidence of Black and Third World workers and how to hold their interest in the Party at a time when their number in the Party is still small .”
~~Sam Marcy ; Founder of Workers World Party; 1972
“The key to pulling off a long con is never letting your mark see the whole picture. Give them the illusion of control while you’re pulling the strings—let them think they’re in charge.”
-Laurent Thierry ; “The Great Pretender”
This document is the 4th part of a series investigation the relationships between the WWP/PSL/ANSWER and the CIA/FBI.
Series Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction and Key Terms—A Primer
Part 2: Ray McGovern: Expert Anti-Communist—Nonviolence as Counterinsurgency
Part 3: John Kiriakou: Butcher and Torturer — the Farce of Whistleblower Allies
Part 4: Worker’s World Party: a confidence scheme
Part 5: Unmasking the Hydra: relationships between the “anti-war left” and the WWPSLCIA
Part 6: Ramsey Clark and the afterlife of PHOENIX, COINTELPRO, and MH CHAOS
Introduction
This section contains an investigation into the practices and strategies of the Workers World Party (WWP) through the 1970’s. The Workers World Party is the progenitor to the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) and so we must begin there. This is not an investigation into their politics.1
Ramsey Clark and other government agents began to use the WWP (and eventually the PSL) as an arm of the occupation government during the 1980’s—a future chapter will cover that time period.
In 1974 the House Committee of Un-American Activities prepared a 228 page report about the activities of the WWP.2 The report itself is only 25 pages and the remaining 203 pages are internal documents from the WWP that were acquired by undercover Law Enforcement Officers (LEO’s) and/or their informants. It is the largest repository of internal WWP documents that is accessible to the public. The content of the report tells us a few things that will be explained throughout the chapter:
The WWP itself was infiltrated by federal operatives at least 5 years before Ramsey Clark (Architect of COINTELPRO and PHOENIX) took a leadership position within the WWP.3
A main strategy of the WWP involved the creation of many “front” organizations that consist primarily of members of the WWP. These front groups are used to:
Infiltrate communities that they would not otherwise be accepted in
Inflate the size of their support and actions to make it look like they are much bigger and well-supported than they actually are
Obfuscate the level of control that the leadership of the WWP has over various movements.
The strategies of the WWP and the PSL are over 50 years old and pre-date the CIA/FBI leadership in the organizations. They were already doing the work of counterinsurgency— government forces simply utilized the WWP methods because they were effective.
Exploitation of Black political prisoners: Hijacking the solidarity campaign for Martin Sostre was basically doing the state’s work for them for free. This strategy maps easily onto the current circumstances where PSLCIA is the core of the “Free Mumia Movement”. (A movement that has not freed Mumia Abu Jamal)
“Winning the confidence of Black and Third World workers” by repeating “radical politics” and then using that to organize useless nonviolent demonstrations.4 The WWP role in sabotaging the Attica uprising represents a pervasive strategy of rewriting historical memory to deny the People the truth about the roots of the defeat of the liberation struggle and uprisings.
Parasitism: attaching their name and branding, after the fact, onto resistance efforts that they took no part in.
Sending delegations of American (often all-white, often ‘ex-military’, always petite-bourgeois) “activists” into countries that are US enemy states under the premise of building internationalism.5
A strict policy of covering up abuse and eliminating dissent amongst “unruly members.” There are many documents and letters of resignation from WWP members who quit the organization due to these practices—these letters are strikingly similar to the same types of public letters being posted online 50 years later about the PSL and WWP.
Deception — Front Groups of the WWP
Youth Against War and Fascism
Youth Against War and Fascism (YAWF) was founded early in 1962 by the WWP. The August 10, 1962, issue of Workers World refers to “Youth Against War and Fascism ( formerly the Anti- Fascist Youth Committee ) .” Its primary function was to serve as “the youth arm and principal agitation force of the Workers World Party.”6 The YAWF could engage in “direct actions” that would otherwise bring too much heat to the WWP. It also enabled targeted recruitment of “energetic youth.” Members of the YAWF who didn’t fall in line with the WWP were expelled.7
The YAWF was a primary force through which the WWP could create new front groups discussed in subsequent sections of this chapter.
YAWF— Power structure and exploitation of youth
Brian Becker, a settler, was the founding member of Rochester YAWF branch in 1971 8 (Becker would eventually go on to create the PSL and ANSWER 30 years later.) The internal WWP newspaper proudly proclaims that Brian and the Rochester YAWF were “recruiting in local high schools” targeting “Black and Puerto Rican youth”9 He also led an “action” in 1971 with two YAWF members to get arrested on purpose.10
Note how similar the strategies of recruiting and exploiting vulnerable youth here match up to concerns raised by ex-WWP members in 2019 describing “the revolving door of oppressed youth in and out of the party.” An excerpt from their piece says:
Another multi-oppressed cadre submitting a proposal to gain redress through the Party’s internal structures was illicitly denied from even joining a conference call for the Interim Coordinating Committee… In a botched attempt to get them to recant, white members then also privately contacted the six other multi-oppressed youth signatories, insisting that the cadre who had been harmed are a “faction” attempting to “tear apart the Party.”
This accusation of creating a “faction” is the very same verbiage used against J. Zilg when he proposed the creation of a Black Caucus for WWP in 1971:
Discussions among comrades are basic to democratic centralism and its development and should never need " approval " by leadership first. That is true only in a wholly centralist organization where there is no room for open discussion, as I now understand to be the case in the WWP.
But open discussion [about racism] is never tantamount to building a " secret faction. "
Nevertheless, you and the rest of leadership have decided to use your favorite boogeyman: "secret faction".
The top down domination of politics and “culture of secrecy” described in the 2019 resignation11 was identified 47 years before by the entire Seattle branch of YAWF.12
We have the right to know when and why comrades are being expelled from the party, and when serious charges are being made against the party .
…
But when we wrote in, asking for more information on the matters concerning the Black Caucus, and stating that we felt Zilg's charges to be very serious, we got an accusing call from John Cat demanding to know “Who wrote that letter ?"
“Youth Against War And Fascism” as a front group for the WWP still exists they simply renamed “Youth Against War and Racism”. Their facebook page is here.
Prisoners Solidarity Committee
One of the most active fronts for the WWP was the Prisoners Solidarity Committee (PSC) created in 1970. The WWP projected nonblack Puerto Rican Tom Soto as the “founder” of the PSC which immediately began holding events and running campaigns for incarcerated Black revolutionaries.13 (PSC/YAWF members would later create Struggle la Lucha and repeat their earlier ‘achievements’ ).
The PSC began in support of the Auburn 6 and raised money for bail and a lawyer. (The Auburn 6 led a prison uprising at Auburn correction facility. Under guidance from the PSC lawyer, plead guilty.)14 However the PSC didn’t really take off until Tom Soto became an “observer” at the Attica uprising in 1971.
Collaboration with the feds and Historical Revisionism at Attica
The Attica prisoners uprising is one of the most well known events of the 1970's political landscape for Black struggle. What is less known is how outside collaborators, under the guise of support, sabotaged the uprising.
The day after the prisoners in Attica took control of the prison, “observers” were allowed to enter and “aid in the negotiations”. The lead observer was Arthur Eve, a member of the Black misleadership class (NY state representative); Soto was among the other leaders of the observer group. Almost immediately after the group arrived, they became “the only link between Oswald and the inmates”15
The “observers” eventually negotiated a 28 point plan of concessions with the New York Commissioner of Corrections Russell Oswald.
Many of the principles embodied in the 28 Points were major advances in penal reform. But the actual language of a number of the Points was deliberately vague, and, in some instances, conditioned on legislative action. Thus, if the 28 Points were to be accepted by the inmates, they would have to trust in the good faith of Oswald and the state to implement the reforms. More important, the inmates would have to accept the risk of criminal prosecution for crimes involving physical injuries and trust the word of a local district attorney that the prosecutions would not be indiscriminate.
The observers then returned to the inmates proposing this flimsy plan that they had negotiated “on behalf of” the prisoners. The 28 points excluded the one thing that the prisoners agreed was non-negotiable: amnesty for all actions taken during the uprising. Notably, Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party was denied the opportunity to speak to the uprising because he refused to endorse the 28 point plan.16 Tom Soto thus represented the “radical” Prisoner Solidarity Committee in attempting to convince the inmates to accept the plan. A plan that the prisoners did not negotiate for themselves and a plan that would not protect them. He even worked with other observers to pressure leaders of the uprising, away from the other prisoners, to accept the plan.17 The "observers" had effectively delayed the actual negotiations process long enough for divisions within the uprising to escalate and the state to prepare its own forces. This coupled with disagreements over the 28 point plan caused infighting that left them vulnerable. The police took advantage of this vulnerability and attacked the prisoners on September 13th, massacring 43 people and squashing the uprising.
This alliance with Black misleadership class and collaboration with the state did not stop Soto from using his role as an “observer” in the Attica movement to propel himself and consequently the PSC into popularity.18 After the massacre at Attica, the WWP, under the banner of the PSC organized marches, teaching workshops, and flyering around the country. Their useless demonstrations still continue under the same name, although they still hide their relationship to the WWP. The internal WWP documents always reflect on how many pamphlets were distributed and how well they were received amongst the Black and Puerto Rican communities.19
Rather than seeing Soto for what he truly was—a collaborator with the state against the uprising—the PSC rewrote history to portray themselves as heroes and leaders of the struggle. Of course, anyone who could testify against Soto was murdered or still trapped inside the Attica prison.
The abuse of Martin Sostre
Another example of the PSC and YAWF exploiting Black struggle was their exploitation of Black revolutionary Martin Sostre. Martin Sostre was a Black Puerto Rican who ran a radical Afro book store in Buffalo, NY. After the police identified him as a political threat during the 1967 Buffalo rebellion, he was arrested in 1967 on fake charges of selling heroin. The official defense group for Sostre, the Martin Sostre Defense Committee, was actually a front of the YAWF.20 In February 1972 a newspaper of the Black Panther Party published Sostre’s condemnation of the YAWF: “Letter to a Sellout Lawyer”21
I personally experienced this leftist anti-revolutionary opportunism and racism at the hands of YAWF, who purportedly was supporting me when I was framed. In eight months time, from the time I was framed till the time of sentence , they never were able to raise anywhere near the $ 12,500 bail money required to get me out on bail. Nor were they able to find anyone who would put up property to cover the $12,500 bail.
Yet I noticed that when the white college students were busted at University of Buffalo during the anti-war, ROTC and Themis Project campaigns, YAWF would hold huge money raising campaigns and rallies, and dozens of students would immediately get out on bail with the thousands of dollars raised . During the eight months I spent in Erie County Jail (where no newspapers were allowed and where there was no light inside the cages ) eating baloney sandwiches, YAWF limited its activities in my behalf to mimeographing leaflets in the Black ghetto , and stories in Workers World . No huge rallies or other effective fund-raising activities were ever mounted ; no money ever came from " Party Headquarters " to get me out on bail. I went to the concentration camp ( and to the solitary confinement dungeon ) for 40 years because they would not put up $ 12,500 bail for me.
Hell, they got many times that in propaganda value to say nothing of the money they made off the book , which is selling well and filling party coffers - off my case. Yet when I refused to allow them to censor my revolutionary writings to the Black community in the Black newspaper that I was publishing from this concentration camp ( the arrangements being that I would send the articles to my former defense committee and they would arrange them together in newspaper format, take it to the printer and pay newsboys to distribute it in the ghetto -colony ) because their ideology at “ Party Head quarters” deemed my writings " too revolutionary” , and because I refused to allow this white bourgeois leftist and arm-chair revolutionary to tell me what political line I should project to my people, they refused to publish the newspaper and warned me that I would have to give in to them because " we're the only ones you've got.”
The World Workers Party was not supporting prison breaks and they did not help the members of the Attica uprising. They did not free Martin Sostre from solitary confinement. Instead they used the plight of Black people as a rallying point to build their own organization’s credibility— all while sabotaging the agency of the very people they claimed to be supporting. Many decades later the PSL is doing the same thing swooping in to put their branding on protest fliers when Black people are murdered by police.
Sostre identified this strategy in 1972:22
Leftist anti-revolutionary opportunists are not as well known. These include white bourgeois leftists following the party line who view victims of racist-capitalist oppression as grist for their propaganda to further their party line, rather than human beings with lives to be fulfilled who are being snuffed. They rush onto the bandwagon of a cause celebre as the defender of the victim, while all the while they are shooting political angles and using the hapless victim of white racist capitalism as the vehicle for projecting their party line, for raising funds, for getting publicity as the defender of the poor black.
Since the motive for aiding the victim is political and not humanistic, the victim will be sold out, his suffering prolonged, or abandoned like a hot potato—if it serves the higher purpose of the party line. Indeed sometimes it is better for the party line to keep the Black victim in jail rather than get him out on bail. Never mind that he is locked in a cage 23 hours a day like an animal, suffering hunger every day, being brutalized, away from his family, etc. The important thing is that he is the rallying point around which the Black community can be mobilized and in the process fed the party line.
(excerpts below)
Sostre finishes the letter directly addressing the lawyer hired by the YAWF:23
So whether your firm or those working with your firm are agents of the oppressive establishment deliberately suppressing the revolutionary struggle, or whether the suppression was done as a result of petty party line politics, the affect was the same. We were sold out. So to us, its academic as to whether we were sold out by agents of the enemy, or sell-out leftist anti-revolution[aries].
Center for United Labor Action
The Center for United Labor Action (CULA) was the WWP front to infiltrate the growing labor movement. While we were unable to find much research about the CULA besides a few legal cases they ran, the WWP documents are particularly telling about this “front strategy”. In 1971 Sam Marcy in an internal WWP document directed the branches to create their own CULA fronts:
We projected the Labor Center in anticipation of a working class resurgence. Why is the Labor Center necessary? Because we can't function in the labor movement in the name of the Party or YAWF as openly as we would like to.
Not every branch has a Labor Center. But those that have, have already found how fruitful it is. Every branch must have the perspective of setting up a Labor Center even if it's only a Post Office Box. Any worker will be able to see, even with a Post Office Box, that there is a national center, with which the local centers are or should be in consultation
The nature of this Confidence Scheme was quite clear from the drop. Marcy continues:
Many young militants have an academic rather than an industrial background. They should conceal this background as much as they possibly can. It's a good idea for men to say they went to a vocational high school if they think they can get away with it.
The current name for this WWP labor front is the “Peoples Power Assembly”. Their website is here.
Women United for Action
Another front for the WWP in the 70’s was the Women United for Action (WUA). Deirdre Griswold, a leader of WWP writes in 1971:24
A new unit [of the WWP] had just been organized when I left New York. It is the Women United for Action, and we conceive of it as an organization that will direct the most militant and anti- imperialist of the women in the women's liberation movement into struggles on issues that particularly affect working and poor women .
This front was pretty much a bust but “women’s fronts” have continued such as the PSL “Breaking The Chains” organization (Nadia Marsh, Brian Becker’s wife, helps run this one).
American Serviceman’s Union
The American Serviceman’s Union began the WWP foray into the “anti-war veterans” movement which has been discussed in previous chapters. It also served to enable the WWP to easily plan trips to meet with leaders and officials in communist countries around the world. These two components sustain a significant portion of the modern NGO-CIA-PSL counterinsurgency psyop.
Andrew Stapp, a leader in the WWP and YAWF founded the ASU in 1967. Tom Soto was also a ‘leader’25 of ASU; it is interesting to note that Soto was an intelligence officer in the Army Security Agency before joining the WWP.
From 1967 until 1973 the ASU was very active in the “anti-war vet movement” although they often tried to represent themselves as the “radical wing” of it. However, it represents another pattern in the line of parasitism that defines the WWP.
One such example is the “Fort Hood 43”:26
In August 1968, elements of the 1st and 2nd Armored Divisions at Fort Hood, Texas went on alert for possible “riot control duty” (counterinsurgency) in Chicago. The White House was worried that anti-war protests at the Democratic Party Convention might also trigger mass rebellion in the ghetto. After several hundred New Afrikan GIs gathered at a spontaneous base protest rally that night, saying that they would not bear arms against their own people, forty-three were arrested and court martialed (the “Ft. Hood 43”).
After the protest, the ASU swooped in to “support the veterans”. This amounted to the same strategy of providing publicity for Black people while taking the credit for the action itself.27
It is important to emphasize the widespread resistance amongst Black GI’s against the war in Vietnam. 28 From fraggings (killing officers) to open conflict with the settler leadership, resistance was armed and dangerous. “ New Afrikans opposition to the War was not a separate struggle; it enriched their own liberation movement.”
Conversely, the ASU was running campaigns to make the imperialist military more amicable for the soldiers. As an “unofficial union” their demands were29:
1. An end to saluting and sir-ing of officers.
2. Election of officers by vote of the men
3. Racial equality.
4. Rank and filers control of court-martial boards.
5. Federal minimum wages.
6. The right of free political association.
7. The right to disobey illegal orders-- like orders to go and fight in an illegal war in Vietnam.
8. The right of collective bargaining.
Such a strategy, regardless of their intentions amounts to a defanging of Black liberation efforts. Reducing the actions down to a “common working class goal” served to mislead and misdirect militant Black people. This was not unique to the World Workers Party at the time and we cannot emphasize this enough. But they played their role and they played it well.
Foreign Delegations
The ASU began a long tradition of “anti-war veterans” delegations going to build “solidarity” with communist countries and anti-imperialist movements abroad.
For example, Stapp led a visit to North Korea in 1971 in which he was allowed to deliver a speech over Radio Pyongyang30.
There are a great number of other ASU (and other anti-war vet organizations) delegations that happened from 1970-1980’s and those will be added as time allows.
The point here though is that this strategy is a convenient way of getting literal intelligence agents inside the borders and government headquarters of countries that would otherwise have executed CIA agents on the spot.
Committee to Support Middle East Liberation
In a report sent to the Communist Party of Cuba in 1972, the WWP brags about the creation of this front so that they can gain more clout with Third World communists.
WWP supports all peoples struggling for national liberation. The party has made very important contributions in the United States to * * * building a movement of support for the Palestinian struggle and other Middle East liberation groups. Youth Against War & Fascism organized the only U.S. demonstrations at the time of the June 1967 war, and then set up the Committee to Support Middle East Liberation which has kept up a high level of action and propaganda.
The Long Con: recruiting and misdirecting the oppressed
Future sections will investigate the currently existing front groups for the WWPSLCIA (yes we have a flow chart). This document is designed to expose some of the history and nature of the WWP’s activities without descending into the anti-communist and imperialist/nazi propaganda that typically saturates investigations of the Worker’s World Party.
The problem is not what they say, in fact, often times what they say is the ‘correct’ analysis of material conditions. Undoubtedly, such analysis does a better job of conning their marks. The problem is, and has always been, what they do and what they have done.
Sam Marcy wrote an internal 1972 document 31 clearly laying out the strategy of the WWP Confidence Scheme. Note the language he uses here:
In order to make a transition from a mere political tendency to a political party of the working class , we must put , at the very top of our priorities , a persistent , determined and unrelenting campaign to attract to the Party the largest possible number of Black , Chicano , Puerto Rican , Native American and Asian workers , women ,men, and youth .
….
There are periods when the task of attracting Black and Third World people is easier than at other times . It was most difficult during the period of the Sixties .
This was characterized by a strong wave of nationalism. Also , our Party was numerically small . However we have grown considerably larger and should, by that alone , offer more possibilities for getting into our ranks Black and Third World workers. The more we perfect our program and the more we try to develop economic issues , the more we will gain the ear of the oppressed people in the community.
…
A fundamental turn must be made so as to enable all to realize that a principal task of the Party lies in educating, particularly the white comrades , on how to win the confidence of Black and Third World workers and how to hold their interest in the Party at a time when their number in the Party is still small .
The greatest amount of energy , thinking , and above all , sensitivity, in how to relate to Black and Third World comrades and prospective Party members must be given. Nothing, absolutely nothing , should stay in the way of executing this all- important task .
This is why the WWP and its offshoots/front organizations could be so effectively used by the government counterinsurgency offices.
How difficult could it have been to weaponize an organization that was already doing their work for them? An organization led by loyal settlers, that was shrouded in secrecy, and well-practiced in revisionist history, nonviolent counterinsurgency, and gaining the confidence of the oppressed most revolutionary classes?
In fact, the authors caution against criticisms of the WWP / PSL / ANSWER “political lines.” Such criticisms completely miss the point and often repeat anti-communist and imperialist propaganda. A future section will be devoted to this and unpacking how and why the CIA and FBI utilize “crude anti-imperialism” viewpoints paired with nonviolence.
The full report can be accessed here: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Workers_World_Party_and_Its_Front_Or/6vOzIPWKrwgC?hl=en&gbpv=1
A future chapter will be dedicated to the prolific schemes and involvement of Ramsey Clark in the PSLCIA operation.
See chapter 1 re: counter insurgent nature of non-violence
A future section will be devoted to Internationalism vs False Nationalism
The Worker’s World Party and its Front Organizations: page 10
The Worker’s World Party and its Front Organizations: Page 69 — Attachment 5
The Worker’s World Party and its Front Organizations: Page 140—Attachment 34
The Worker’s World Party and its Front Organizations: Page 167 — Attachment 49
The Worker’s World Party and its Front Organizations: Page 137 — Attachment 33
Page 59 — Attachment 4
The Worker’s World Party and its Front Organizations: Page 156 — Attachment 42
The Worker’s World Party and its Front Organizations: Page 164 — Attachment 48
Thompson, H. A. (2016). Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy. — Chapter 17
Ebook is freely available at https://usa1lib.org/
The Worker’s World Party and its Front Organizations: Page 127—Attachment 28
The Worker’s World Party and its Front Organizations: Page 133 — Attachment 32
The Worker’s World Party and its Front Organizations: Page 17
Right On! February 29th, 1972 publication page 18 Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/washington_area_spark/50133291207 ;; specific publication — https://washingtonspark.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/1972-02-29-right-on-vol-2-no-1.pdf
ibid
ibid
The Worker’s World Party and its Front Organizations: Page 58 — Attachment 1
The article originally listed Soto as a founder of ASU. This was incorrect, he was a ‘leader’ in it. Thank you to the reader for pointing this out.
http://www.readmarxeveryday.org/fnfi/ch6.html
Interview with Andy Stapp ASU (note the language): “The ASU played a major role with the Fort Hood 43, the 43 Afro-American GIs who refused to go to Chicago where they were going to be assigned in the role of pigs to suppress people in Chicago during the Democratic Convention. We pushed very hard on the case of the Fort Hood 43, even though they weren’t all union members.
They requested our support and we gave it to them to the extent that some of the white GIs in the union who were a little bit racist quit the union because they were upset that we took such a strong stand. We educated a lot of the guys about racism and a lot of black GIs were tremendously inspired.” —>
Flase Nationalism False Internationalism Chapter 6 is critical reading for this history
https://displacedfilms.com/sir-no-sir-archive/archives_and_resources/library/articles/bond_16.html
The Worker’s World Party and its Front Organizations: Page 181-184 — Attachment 54
The Worker’s World Party and its Front Organizations: Page 49 — Attachment 3