 While a small and short-lived group, it nevertheless played an important role in the 1921 creation of the Workers Party of America, and included many individuals who would have prominent careers in radical and labor movements such as Moissaye Olgin, J. Louis Engdahl, Alexander Trachtenberg, William F. Kruse, and Melech Epstein.The group began as the Committee for the Third International in 1920, as an internal group within the Socialist Party advocating affiliation with the Communist International.Meanwhile, several ethnic federations were growing weary of the rightward shift of the party.