Marlene dixon democratic workers party

For the Egyptian political party, see Workers Democratic Party.

Political party in United States

The Democratic Workers Party was a United States Marxist–Leninistparty based in California headed by former professor Marlene Dixon, lasting from 1974–1987.

One member, Janja Lalich, later became a widely cited researcher on cults. Lalich characterized the DWP as a political cult with Dixon serving as its charismatic leader.^[1] She estimated that the Democratic Workers Party at one point had 125-150 full-time members and 300-1,000 members with various degrees of affiliation.^[2]

Marlene Dixon

Marlene Dixon had earned a Ph.D at the University of California, Los Angeles in the mid-1960s.

She taught sociology at the University of Chicago and then McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She was an admirer of the works of Robert Jay Lifton, Immanuel Wallerstein and Andre Gunder Frank, but as the party began to unravel in 1984 s