Introductory Writings

Think socialism is an impossible pipe dream, especially in the U.S.?
Read what socialist feminists have to say on this question.

Socialist Feminism and the Revolutionary Party [PDF 5.14 MB]

What follows is an in-depth explanation of why Marxist feminism, embodied in a revolutionary party, is the contemporary answer to the crisis of capitalism. Drafted on behalf of the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) National Committee, this political resolution was adopted at the party’s July 2010 convention. It incorporates additions put forward by the FSP membership.

One Hemisphere Indivisible: Permanent Revolution and Neoliberalism in the Americas [PDF 389kB]

An investigation of anti-imperialist upsurge in Latin America and its effect on U.S. workers. The author, Guerry Hoddersen, pays tribute to the leadership of women in Central and South America, and to people of color and immigrants firing up labor in the United States today. Hoddersen is the International Secretary of the Freedom Socialist Party and has traveled and spoken often in Central America to develop relationships with feminists and revolutionaries. This book can be ordered from Red Letter Press.

Strong Medicine: Toxic Capitalism and the Socialist Cure

Journalist Megan Cornish writes that the devastation caused by the World Trade Organization and the World Bank, as well as deadly war zones in Iraq, Palestine and Colombia, prove that capitalism doesn't work for the majority of the world's people, including the majority of Americans. But would socialism in the U.S. look like Stalinism in the USSR? Find out how education, culture, technology, and democracy would be improved under a U.S. socialist system.

Socialism for Skeptics

FSP founder Clara Fraser answers basic questions and skewers
the myth of freedom under a system based on theft.

More Socialism for Skeptics

Fraser takes on those who say planning an economy is a ridiculous idea and that the chaos of the free market is best.

How Long, Oh Lords, How Long?

Will women and gays and people of color be forced to put their needs on the back burner after a socialist revolution? No way, says Fraser.

On the Dialectics of U.S. "Backwardness"

Fraser answers skeptical Latin American leftists who claimed the U.S. working class was too privileged and bought off by the crumbs of imperialism to make a revolution.

Where Matters Stand With Me

Gloria Martin, woman worker and pioneer feminist revolutionary, tells it like it is. A lifelong foe of racism and a political bridge between the Old and New Left, Martin was the mother of eight children, an early leader of the Freedom Socialist Party and the author of Socialist Feminism: The First Decade.

Origins of FSP's Theory on the Leadership of Women of Color

This brief transcript of remarks Fraser made at a Freedom Socialist newspaper retreat in 1977 demonstrates the party's early defense of women leaders in the civil rights movement, at a time when they were under attack, and outlines the party's assessment of the importance of women of color to the revolutionary movement.

Why We Left the Socialist Workers Party

The founders of the Freedom Socialist Party issued this statement in1966. Known as the Kirk-Kaye tendency, they had significant differences with the SWP leadership over party democracy, women’s liberation, the need for a revolutionary integrationist policy in the Black struggle, principled participation in the anti-Vietnam war movement, and solidarity with the Chinese revolution.

Struggle for a Proletarian Party: The Rise and Decline of the SWP, 1940 – 1965

Melba Windoffer (1910-1993) joined the Socialist Workers Party in 1936 and helped found both the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women. She was a leader in the two organizations until she resigned due to health problems in 1981. FSP founder Clara Fraser described Windoffer as someone who "unfailingly and unflinchingly lived her life as a totally dedicated and extremely principled exponent and practitioner of revolutionary socialism... Melba was a rock of reason and integrity greatly respected for her talents as organizer, lecturer, writer, consultant, labor historian and keeper of the ethical flames… She was a visionary with great practical skills and a leader who never left the ranks."

From Russia with Love: Trotsky’s Theory of Permanent Revolution

Freedom Socialist editor Andrea Bauer infuses Trotsky’s theory of radical social change with a class-based feminist understanding: “…no matter how rotten a social system is, it doesn’t change by itself. It has to be changed. People have to change it. And the people who suffer the most from the status quo are the people who can and must change it. In our historical era, this means the working class.”

The American Revolution and Trotskyism

Writer Robert Crisman outlines the importance of revolution on U.S. soil as the pre-condition for successful revolutions in the rest of the world.

If America Should go Communist

In 1934, Leon Trotsky, co-leader of the Russian Revolution, imagined how socialism might look in the U.S. "Soviet America will not have to imitate our bureaucratic methods. America is much wealthier and would have little difficulty in supplying its entire people with the necessities of life. Moreover, your needs, tastes and habits would never permit a bureaucracy…"