The Freedom Socialist Party is a socialist feminist political party based in the United States. It views the struggles of women and minorities as part of the struggle of the working class. It emerged from a split in the Socialist Workers Party in 1966.[2] The party's Seattle branch, with support from individuals in other cities, split off from the SWP over what it described as the SWP's entrenched opportunism and undemocratic methods. The party has branches and members in the United States, as well as Australia, England, Germany and New Zealand.[3] The current National Secretary of the FSP is Doug Barnes.
Freeway Hall in Seattle's Northlake neighborhood was for many years the FSP headquarters.
The immediate forerunner of the FSP was the Kirk-Kaye tendency within the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), led by Richard S. Fraser (Kirk) and Clara Fraser (Kaye) who were then married.[4] At the time, Richard Fraser was seen as the central leader of the tendency due to his development of the theory of revolutionary integrationism. In addition to their distinctive position on civil rights, derived from the theory of revolutionary integrationism, the tendency also took a position that was more sympathetic to China than was the norm in the SWP, in part this being due to the alliance between the Kirk-Kaye tendency and the looser tendency of Arne Swabeck and Frank Glass.
The FSP became a pole of attraction for Seattle leftists opposed to the SWP's internal politics and established a home at Freeway Hall.[5][6][7] The party formed Radical Women with the dual goal of building a revolutionary socialist feminist organization and teaching women the organizational and leadership skills that were often denied to them in male-dominated organizations.[8]
The FSP is politically Trotskyist.[9] FSP leaders Clara Fraser (1923–1998) and Gloria Martin (1916–1995) built on the socialist analysis of women's oppression to create a Leninist party that is "socialist-feminist" in ideology and practice.[10][11] The party views the liberation struggles of women, people of color and sexual minorities (such as gay people) as intrinsic to working classrevolt, and it looks to these specially-oppressed sectors of society to provide revolutionary leadership. Women comprise a predominant part of the party leadership. Overall, membership is very diverse and is composed of all genders and races. The party characterizes its National Comrades of Color Caucus as offering the party's diverse ranks of people of color an opportunity to work together as a team to grow as leaders and provide direction for the party's work in people of color movements.
The party has branches in a number of U.S. cities, as well as one in Melbourne, Australia. The Freedom Socialist newspaper is produced six times a year. Red Letter Press is the party's publishing arm. The FSP is affiliated with Radical Women, an autonomous socialist feminist organization.
In 2003, Red Letter Press and its managing editor, Helen Gilbert, were the target of a complaint to the Federal Election Commission by the campaign committee of perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. LaRouche alleged that Gilbert and the FSP publishing house, which had issued a pamphlet by Gilbert critical of LaRouche's ideology and political history,[19] were in violation of campaign finance laws. The FEC found LaRouche's complaint to be without merit and dismissed it.[20]
^Alexander, Robert. International Trotskyism, 1929–1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement. Duke University Press, 1991, p. 936.
^"Where We Are". Freedom Socialist Party. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
^Sheppard, Barry (2005). The Party: The Socialist Workers Party, 1960-1988, Volume 1. Resistance Books. p. 104.
^Crowley, Walt (2010). Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle. University of Washington Press. pp. 21–22.
^Winslow, Barbara (2007). "Primary and Secondary Contradictions in Seattle: 1967-1969". In Rachel Blau DuPlessis; Ann Barr Snitow (eds.). The Feminist Memoir Project: Voices from Women's Liberation. pp. 227, 230–231, 235–236.
^McKay, Ian (2005). Rebels, Reds, Radicals: Rethinking Canada's Left History. Between the Lines. p. 242.
^James, Edward T., Janet Wilson James, Paul S. Boyer. Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume 5. Harvard University Press. p. 414.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Ware, Susan; Stacy Braukman (2005). "Martin, Gloria". Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume 5: Completing the Twentieth Century. Harvard University Press. pp. 414–415.
Megan Cornish, Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, 2005.
Megan Cornish Interview with Nicole Grant and Alex Morrow, October 20, 2005, YouTube, uploaded by Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, September 9, 2016, Megan Cornish - YouTube
