Capitalism has failed in the United States and the entire world. The Socialist Equality Party is organizing the working class in the fight for socialism: the reorganization of all of economic life to serve social needs, not private profit.
Socialism means the abolition of all forms of inequality and exploitation. The fight for socialism is at the same time a fight against war, authoritarianism, environmental degradation and all the consequences of capitalist society.
Socialism must be fought for and won by the working class itself. It will be achieved only through a revolutionary movement that has as its aim the establishment of workers' power.
Socialism, moreover, cannot be realized in one country. All the great problems confronting mankind are global problems that require global solutions.
The fight for socialism, therefore, requires the unity and collaboration of workers in every country on the basis of a common program and perspective. The Socialist Equality Party works in political solidarity with the International Committee of the Fourth International, the World Party of Socialist Revolution founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938.
This page contains some of the key documents and statements on the history and program of the SEP.
The program of the Socialist Equality Party is of a principled, not of a conjunctural and pragmatic character. It is based on an assimilation of the strategic revolutionary experiences of the working class and the international socialist movement.
The SEP traces its political ancestry to the fight for Trotskyism in the US that was initiated in 1928, when veteran revolutionary James P. Cannon, along with Canadian revolutionary Maurice Spector, declared their support for Trotsky's fight against the Stalinist degeneration of the Soviet Union.
The international Trotskyist movement has a long history of principled struggle against Stalinism, reformism and bourgeois nationalism. In the United States, the fight for Trotskyism was carried forward by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), founded in 1938 under the leadership of Cannon, and then the Workers League, which was founded in 1966 after opposing the national opportunist degeneration of the SWP.
The Workers League, in political solidarity with the International Committee of the Fourth International, based its perspective on the revolutionary role of the American working class in opposition to all forms of nationalism and revisionism, as well as the pro-capitalist politics of the trade union bureaucracy. The Workers League played a significant role in many of the major battles of the working class in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Workers League was transformed into the SEP in 1995, which was followed by a similar transformation of all the sections of the ICFI.
The following report was delivered by David North, national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party (US) and chairman of the World Socialist Web Site, to the opening session of the SEP summer school last week.
This lecture on the origins of the Fourth International was delivered by Clara Weiss and Johannes Stern at the 2023 SEP (US) international Summer School.
This lecture was delivered by Joseph Kishore, the national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (US), to the SEP (US) International Summer School, held between July 30 and August 4, 2023.
Last June marked 60 years since the infamous congress of reunification between the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), alongside its supporters in Latin America and Asia, and the Pabloite International Secretariat.
In June 1964, amid a massive crisis pregnant with revolutionary possibilities, the Pabloite LSSP entered into Madame Bandaranaike’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party government. This was the first time that a party claiming to be Trotskyist and historically associated with the Fourth International had entered into a bourgeois government.
The following lecture was delivered by Samuel Tissot, a member of the Parti de l’égalité socialiste (PES), the French section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), and Peter Schwarz, a leading member of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP), the German section of the ICFI. It was delivered to the Socialist Equality Party (US) International Summer School, held between July 30 and August 4, 2023.
This lecture was delivered by Max Boddy, assistant national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), to the SEP (US) International Summer School, held between July 30 and August 4, 2023.
The break with Wohlforth is among the most significant events in the history of the ICFI, involving fundamental issues of historical perspective, political principle, organizational security and the defense of dialectical materialism.
The following lecture was delivered by Eric London, a leading member of the Socialist Equality Party (US), to the SEP (US) International Summer School, held between July 30 and August 4, 2023.
This report was given by Eric London to the Seventh Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (US) in support of the resolution titled “Build the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees! For a global counteroffensive of the working class!”
This is one of four Congress resolutions adopted at the Seventh National Congress of the SEP, held from July 31 to August 5, 2022.
The following is a report given by Andre Damon to the Seventh Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (US) in support of the resolution titled “Mobilize the working class against imperialist war!”
This is one of four Congress resolutions adopted at the Seventh National Congress of the SEP, held from July 31 to August 5, 2022.
This is one of four Congress resolutions adopted at the Seventh National Congress of the SEP, held from July 31 to August 5, 2022.
The Congress of the SEP is the highest body of the party. The SEP held its Founding Congress in 2008 and meets every two years to discuss and adopt resolutions on party policy and elect the party leadership. This section includes reports and resolutions from the SEP Congresses.
This resolution was adopted unanimously by the Sixth National Congress of the Socialist Equality Party in the US, held July 19–24, 2020.
This resolution was unanimously adopted by the Socialist Equality Party Congress, held from July 22–27, 2018.
This report was delivered by David North, the national chairperson of the Socialist Equality Party (US), to open the Fifth National Congress of the SEP, held July 22-27, 2018.
This resolution was unanimously adopted by the Socialist Equality Party Congress, held July 22–27.
The Socialist Equality Party in the US held its Fourth National Congress from July 31 to August 5 in Detroit, Michigan.
This resolution was passed by the Fourth National Congress of t he Socialist Equality Party (US), held from July 31-August 5 in Detroit, Michigan .
This resolution was passed by the Fourth National Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (US), held from July 31-August 5 in Detroit, Michigan.
This is the main resolution of the Third National Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (US), adopted unanimously on August 5, 2014.
The Socialist Equality Party in the United States held a summer school from August 1 through August 6. It was devoted to an analysis of the major social and political events in the US and internationally since the previous SEP school, held in July of 2019.
Cliff Slaughter died on May 3, 2021, in Leeds, England, at the age of 92. His enduring contribution in the 1960s to the defense of Trotskyism stands in tragic contrast with his subsequent political opportunism and repudiation of revolutionary Marxism.
This lecture was delivered at the Socialist Equality Party (US) 2021 summer school, held August 1 through August 6, by Marcus Day, a writer for the World Socialist Web Site .
This lecture was delivered at the Socialist Equality Party (US) 2021 summer school, held August 1 through August 6, by Jerry White, labor editor of the World Socialist Web Site.
The International Committee of the Fourth International held on online rally to mobilize the working class against war, inequality, the pandemic and the capitalist system.
On October 24, the WSWS held an international online webinar with a panel of leading scientists and workers engaged in the fight to end the COVID-19 pandemic.
Was There an Alternative? is the first volume of the Russian Marxist historian’s monumental series on the history of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1940.
On Sunday, August 22, the World Socialist Web Site hosted an online event featuring leading scientists from around the world. It discussed the realistic and achievable measures that must be taken to eradicate the coronavirus, stop the wave of death and end the pandemic.
On Saturday, April 3, the WSWS hosted an international online meeting to mark the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871.
The meeting examined Luxemburg’s role as a Marxist theoretician and political leader, and discussed the significance of her legacy to the contemporary struggle to build a Marxist leadership.
David North and Eric London speak on the significance of the latest revelations, in the context of the decades-long Security and the Fourth International investigation by the ICFI into Trotsky’s assassination by Stalin’s GPU.
Membership in the Socialist Equality Party is based on agreement with its Statement of Principles. The principles of the SEP incorporate the essential experiences of the revolutionary upheavals of the 20th century and the corresponding struggle waged by Marxists for the program of world socialist revolution.
David North has played a leading role in the international socialist movement for fifty years. He is presently the chairperson of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site and the national chairperson of the Socialist Equality Party (United States).
His many published works include: The Heritage We Defend; The Crisis of American Democracy; In Defense of Leon Trotsky; The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century; The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo-Left and A Quarter Century of War.
Joseph Kishore has held the position of national secretary of the SEP (United States) since 2008. He joined the SEP in 1999 after becoming politically radicalized by the Clinton administration’s war against Serbia. Over the past two decades, he has written hundreds of articles for the World Socialist Web Site and as national secretary has directed the party’s intervention in the struggles of workers and youth.
Lawrence Porter joined the Workers League, the predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party, in 1972. He has played a leading role in the Trotskyist movement in the US for several decades. He was elected assistant national secretary of the SEP at its founding congress in August, 2008.
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) is the student and youth movement of the Socialist Equality Party. It fights to unite students and young people for peace, equality, the rights of the working class and socialism.
