The Democratic Workers Party (DWP) was a Marxist-Leninist political organization based in California that operated from 1974 until 1987, and that some cult experts consider to have been a political cult centered around founder Marlene Dixon, a sociologist and former professor. It is most well-known because cult expert Janja Lalich is a past member and has written extensively about her experiences within the group. At its peak, the group maintained a core of approximately 125 to 150 full-time members and a broader network of between 300 and 1,000 associates.
Dixon earned her Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the mid-1960s. In 1969, while teaching at the University of Chicago, the sociology department voted not to renew her contract. This decision prompted a two-week occupation of the university’s administration building by about 400 students, who viewed the dismissal as politically motivated. Following this episode, Dixon taught at McGill University in Montreal before relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area.
In the summer of 1974, Dixon organized a group of 13 women to form a radical collective based on Leninist principles. Initially named the Workers Party for Proletarian Socialism, the group established a Central Committee and adopted the Principles of Dialectical Leadership, a document authored by Dixon. By 1976, she assumed the title of General Secretary. In 1984, the organization adopted the name Democratic Workers Party.
The DWP operated as a clandestine paramilitary organization. Members used pseudonyms, pooled their income, and lived in communal housing. Daily schedules often involved 10 or more hours of assigned work. Internal discipline included “self-criticism” sessions in which members’ backgrounds and conduct were examined. Former members reported that these sessions sometimes involved psychological pressure and formal “trials” intended to eliminate what the group identified as “petite-bourgeois” tendencies.
The party generated income through a printing and publishing operation first known as Greenleaf Press and later as Synthex Press. This enterprise handled commercial printing for clients such as banks and catalog companies, while also producing party materials. The organization also published academic journals, including Contemporary Marxism and Crime and Social Justice, which featured work by international leftist scholars.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the DWP used several front organizations to participate in public political campaigns. During this same period, a personality-centered leadership structure developed around Dixon. Internal documents described her and the organization as inseparable, and her theoretical views were treated as authoritative. While members lived at or near the poverty line, Dixon resided in a separate household, where party members performed domestic work, including cleaning and personal service.
The party’s ideological orientation shifted over time. Initially aligned with Marxist feminism and Maoism, the DWP later moved away from Maoism and toward support for the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. Dixon traveled to Yugoslavia and Bulgaria in pursuit of formal recognition from Soviet leadership. By the early 1980s, she began to argue that Marxism-Leninism had failed in the United States and proposed reorganizing the group into a policy-oriented organization called the Alliance Against American Militarism.
By 1985, internal tensions had intensified, in part due to Dixon’s reported alcoholism and increasingly erratic behavior. In the fall of that year, she traveled to Eastern Europe. During her absence, senior party officials initiated a “Quality of Life” campaign, which permitted members to openly discuss grievances and the party’s internal structure for the first time.
In late 1985, on the evening before Dixon was scheduled to return to the United States, the membership met and voted unanimously to remove her as General Secretary and to dissolve the Democratic Workers Party. A confirmation vote by mail took place in April 1986. The liquidation and distribution of party assets among former members was completed in August 1987. She faded into obscurity and died sometime in the early 2000s.
Key Sources:
Angel, D. (2004, August 12). The power of cults. The Chico News and Review.
Boswell, R. (2024, September 28). “I told women to get abortions”: A cult survivor on brainwashing and regrets. 1News.
Dixon, M. (1976). Things Which Are Done in Secret. Black Rose Books.
Elbaum, M. (1987, August 3). On the DWP’s Demise: What Leninism Is and Is Not. Frontline.
Lalich, J. A. (2004). Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults. University of California Press.
Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religious Movements 