James and Dunayevskaya set up a study group within the Workers Party to work on the idea of state capitalism,[4] and were soon joined by Grace Lee Boggs.
While this new group rapidly cohered around politics which were very similar to those of the Socialist Workers Party, there were certain differences which eventually led to the formation of the Johnson–Forest Tendency.
The majority of the Workers Party members believed, as did Shachtman, that the class nature of the Soviet Union was such that it should be designated a bureaucratic collectivist society.
It was during this time that the Johnson–Forest Tendency reached the conclusion that, as there was no true socialist society existing anywhere in the world, a return to the fundamentals of Marxism was in order.
Their emphasis on Hegel's philosophy as being the foundation of Marxism was largely due to Dunayevskaya, who was deeply immersed in both Marx's and Lenin's writings.