The 1970s and 1980s saw widespread deindustrialization and a worsening political and legal climate for organized labor in the United States. In response to these conditions, and to the perceived inadequacy of union leaders' responses to these challenges, rank and file caucuses arose in many unions and localities. A large role was played by former student activists of the New Left, many of whom had found their way into numerous small and often short-lived communist, socialist, Trotskyist and Maoist organizations.

The Prometheus Research Library assembled and donated this collection. The Prometheus Research Library is a research facility for Marxist studies and the central reference archive of the Spartacist League of the U.S. The Spartacist League of the U.S. is a Trotskyist organization and section of the International Communist League (Fourth International). The Prometheus Research Library's collection is centered upon the work and interests of the American Communist and Trotskyist movements.