The FOR Organizing Committee in the United States or FOCUS was a small group of leftists in the United States. It was the US section of the
Revolutionary Workers Ferment
The Revolutionary Workers Ferment, often known by its Spanish name or initials Fomento Obrero Revolucionario or FOR, was a small Trotskyist international founded by Grandizo Munis, which arose as a split from the Fourth International at its Second ...
, known by its Spanish initials FOR (Fomento Obrero Revolutionario).
FOCUS was founded by
Stephen Schwartz
Stephen Lawrence Schwartz (born March 6, 1948) is an American musical theatre composer and lyricist. In a career spanning over five decades, Schwartz has written hit musicals such as ''Godspell'' (1971), ''Pippin (musical), Pippin'' (1972), and ...
, a writer in
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
, who entered into correspondence with the FOR group and began contributing to its French journal ''Alarme''. After visiting France in 1979 and having discussions with the leader of the FOR tendency,
G. Munis, Schwartz returned to the US and established FOCUS. The group began to publish a periodical, ''The Alarm'' based in San Francisco.
FOCUS was expelled from FOR in 1981, after it defended the Spanish section which had also been purged by Munis. Thereafter, FOCUS focused on the weakness of the original FOR analysis, agreeing that the mainstream trade unions were a brake on the proletarian revolution. by October 1983 they had come to the conclusion that the revolutionary workers should
enter
Enter or ENTER may refer to:
* Enter key, on computer keyboards
* Enter, Netherlands, a village
* ''Enter'' (magazine), an American technology magazine for children 1983–1985
* ''Enter'' (Finnish magazine), a Finnish computer magazine
* Enter ...
the small
Anarcho-syndicalist
Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade unions as both ...
unions such as the
CNT and
IWW. The FOCUS group entered the IWW in early 1984 and, according to them, were "received positively by the other
wobblies
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members are nicknamed "Wobblies", is an international labor union founded in Chicago, United States in 1905. The nickname's origin is uncertain. Its ideology combines general unionism with indu ...
.
By this time, Schwartz had dropped out of the organization, and ''The Alarm'' had been moved from San Francisco to
Portland, Oregon
Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...
where FOCUS had its largest following.
[Alexander p.944]
References
{{Reflist
External links
Comments On PolandFrom ''The Alarm'', Number 5, Nov.-Dec. 1980.
Political parties established in 1979
Defunct Trotskyist organizations in the United States
Industrial Workers of the World in the United States