Communist League of America

The Communist League of America was formed in 1928 by American communists who sympathized with the Left Opposition in the USSR. Some of them had left or had been thrown out of the CPUSA for this, including the CPUSA chairman, James Cannon. Many of them had been involved in the CPUSA-affiliated legal organization, International Labor Defense. They began publishing a newspaper called The Militant, which originally was aimed at influencing members of the CPUSA. Their youth organization was the Spartacus Youth League.

In 1934, the Communist League of America (CLA) was looking for subjectively revolutionary elements who were organizing outside the CPUSA that they could join forces with. One such organization was the American Workers Party (AWP). The AWP had just been active in the successful Toledo Auto-lite strike, whereas the CLA had recently been active in the successful Minneapolis Teamsters Strike. The AWP and CLA merged in December of 1934 and formed the Workers Party of the United States.