Far-left Politics In The United States
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The American Left consists of individuals and groups that have sought
egalitarian Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hu ...
changes in the economic, political and cultural institutions of the United States. Various subgroups with a national scope are active. Liberals and
progressives Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techno ...
believe that equality can be accommodated into existing
capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
structures, but they differ in their
criticism of capitalism Criticism of capitalism ranges from expressing disagreement with the principles of capitalism in its entirety to expressing disagreement with particular outcomes of capitalism. Criticism of capitalism comes from various political and philoso ...
and on the extent of
reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement ...
and the
welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...
.
Anarchists Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...
,
communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
, and
socialists Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the eco ...
with international imperatives are also present within this macro-movement. Many
communes An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, relig ...
and
egalitarian communities Egalitarian communities are groups of people who have chosen to live together, with egalitarianism as one of their core values. A broad definition of egalitarianism is "equal access to resources and to decision-making power." For example, decisio ...
have existed in the United States as a sub-category of the broader intentional community movement, some of which were based on
utopian socialist Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often de ...
ideals. The left has been involved in both Democratic and
Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
parties at different times, having originated in the
Democratic-Republican Party The Democratic-Republican Party, known at the time as the Republican Party and also referred to as the Jeffersonian Republican Party among other names, was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the earl ...
as opposed to the
Federalist Party The Federalist Party was a Conservatism in the United States, conservative political party which was the first political party in the United States. As such, under Alexander Hamilton, it dominated the national government from 1789 to 1801. De ...
. Although
left-wing politics Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political%20ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically in ...
came to the United States in the 19th century, there are no major left-wing political parties in the United States. Despite existing left-wing factions within the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...
, as well as minor third parties such as the
Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation f ...
,
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
,
Party for Socialism and Liberation The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a communist party in the United States, established in 2004. Its members are active in a wide range of movements including the labor, anti-war, immigrants' rights, women's rights, and anti-police ...
,
Workers World Party The Workers World Party (WWP) is a revolutionary Marxist–Leninist communist party founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Marcy and his followers split from the SWP in 1958 over a series of long-sta ...
,
Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of t ...
, and
American Solidarity Party The American Solidarity Party (ASP) is a Christian-democratic political party in the United States. It was founded in 2011 and officially incorporated in 2016. The party has a Solidarity National Committee (SNC) and has numerous active state ...
(a Christian democratic party leaning left on economics), none of the parties have ever won a seat in congress. Academic scholars have long studied the reasons why no viable socialist parties have emerged in the United States. Some writers ascribe this to the failures of socialist organization and leadership, some to the incompatibility of socialism and
American values American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
and others to the limitations imposed by the
United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven ar ...
.
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
and
Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
were particularly concerned because it challenged
orthodox Marxist Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought that emerged after the death of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and which became the official philosophy of the majority of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until the Firs ...
beliefs that the most advanced industrial country would provide a model for the future of less developed nations. If socialism represented the future, then it should be strongest in the United States. While branches of the
Working Men's Party : ''For other organizations with a similar name, see Workingmen's Party (disambiguation).'' The Working Men's Party in New York was a political party founded in April 1829 in New York City. After a promising debut in the fall election of 1829, ...
were founded in the 1820s and 1830s in the United States, they advocated
land reform Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...
,
universal education Universal access to education is the ability of all people to have equal opportunity in education, regardless of their social class, race, gender, sexuality, ethnic background or physical and mental disabilities. The term is used both in col ...
and improved working conditions in the form of labor rights, not
collective ownership Collective ownership is the ownership of property by all members of a group. The breadth or narrowness of the group can range from a whole society to a set of coworkers in a particular enterprise (such as one collective farm). In the latter (narro ...
, disappearing after their goals were taken up by
Jacksonian democracy Jacksonian democracy was a 19th-century political philosophy in the United States that expanded suffrage to most white men over the age of 21, and restructured a number of federal institutions. Originating with the seventh U.S. president, And ...
.
Samuel Gompers Samuel Gompers (; January 27, 1850December 13, 1924) was a British-born American cigar maker, labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and served as the organization's ...
, the leader of the
American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutu ...
, thought that workers must rely on themselves because any rights provided by government could be revoked. Economic unrest in the 1890s was represented by
populism Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed ...
and the People's Party. Although using anti-capitalist rhetoric, it represented the views of small farmers who wanted to protect their own private property, not a call for
communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
,
collectivism Collectivism may refer to: * Bureaucratic collectivism, a theory of class society whichto describe the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin * Collectivist anarchism, a socialist doctrine in which the workers own and manage the production * Collectivis ...
, or
socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
. Progressives in the early 20th century criticized the way capitalism had developed but were essentially middle class and reformist; however, both populism and progressivism steered some people to left-wing politics and many popular writers of the progressive period were left-wing. Even the New Left relied on radical democratic traditions rather than left-wing ideology.
Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' American working class In the United States, the concept of a working class remains vaguely defined, and classifying people or jobs into this class can be contentious. Economists and pollsters in the United States generally define "working class" adults as those lacking ...
holding
middle-class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Comm ...
values. Writing at a time when American industry was developing quickly towards the mass-production system known as
Fordism Fordism is a manufacturing technology that serves as the basis of modern economic and social systems in industrialized, standardized mass production and mass consumption. The concept is named after Henry Ford. It is used in social, economic, and ...
,
Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...
and Antonio Gramsci saw
individualism Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-reli ...
and ''
laissez-faire ''Laissez-faire'' ( ; from french: laissez faire , ) is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies) deriving from special interest groups. ...
'' liberalism as core shared American beliefs. According to the historian David De Leon, American radicalism was rooted in libertarianism and
syndicalism Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the left-wing of the labor movement that seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of prod ...
rather than communism,
Fabianism The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fab ...
and
social democracy Social democracy is a Political philosophy, political, Social philosophy, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocati ...
, being opposed to centralized power and collectivism. The character of the American political system is hostile toward third parties and has also been presented as a reason for the absence of a strong socialist party in the United States.
Political repression Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereb ...
has also contributed to the weakness of the left in the United States. Many cities had
Red Squad In the United States, Red Squads were police intelligence units that specialized in infiltrating, conducting counter-measures and gathering intelligence on political and social groups during the 20th century. Dating as far back as the Haymarket R ...
s to monitor and disrupt leftist groups in response to labor unrest such as the
Haymarket Riot The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in ...
. During World War II, the
Smith Act The Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act, 76th United States Congress, 3d session, ch. 439, , is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 28, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of th ...
made membership in revolutionary groups illegal. After the war, Senator Joseph McCarthy used the Smith Act to launch a crusade (
McCarthyism McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origin ...
) to purge alleged communists from government and the media. In the 1960s, the
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
's
COINTELPRO COINTELPRO (syllabic abbreviation derived from Counterintelligence, Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of Covert operation, covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation ( ...
program monitored, infiltrated, disrupted and discredited radical groups in the United States. In 2008, Maryland police were revealed to have added the names and personal information of anti-war protesters and death penalty opponents to a database which was intended to be used for tracking terrorists. Terry Turchie, a former deputy assistant director of the FBI's Counter-terrorism Division, admitted that "one of the missions of the FBI in its counterintelligence efforts was to try to keep these people (progressives and self-described socialists) out of office."


History


Origins and developments (~1600s–1900s)

Many indigenous tribes in North America practiced what Marxists would later call primitive communism, meaning they practiced economic cooperation among the members of their tribes. The first European socialists to arrive in North America were a Christian sect known as
Labadists The Labadists were a 17th-century Protestant religious community movement founded by Jean de Labadie (1610–1674), a French pietist. The movement derived its name from that of its founder. Jean de Labadie's life Jean de Labadie (1610–1674) ...
, who founded the commune of Bohemia Manor in 1683, about west of
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
,
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
. Their communal way of life was based on the communal practices of the apostles and early Christians. The first secular American socialists were German
Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
immigrants who arrived following the
Revolutions of 1848 The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europea ...
, also known as
Forty-Eighters The Forty-Eighters were Europeans who participated in or supported the Revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe. In the German Confederation, the Forty-Eighters favoured unification of Germany, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human r ...
.Draper, pp. 11–12.
Joseph Weydemeyer Joseph Arnold Weydemeyer (February 2, 1818, Münster – August 26, 1866, St. Louis, Missouri) was a military officer in the Kingdom of Prussia and the United States as well as a journalist, politician and Marxist revolutionary. At first a supp ...
, a German colleague of
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
who sought refuge in New York in 1851 following the 1848 revolutions, established the first Marxist journal in the U.S., called ''Die Revolution'', but It folded after two issues. In 1852 he established the ''Proletarierbund'', which would become the American Workers' League, the first Marxist organization in the U.S., but it too was short-lived, having failed to attract a native English-speaking membership. In 1866,
William H. Sylvis William H. Sylvis (1828–1869) was a pioneer American trade union leader. Sylvis is best remembered as a founder of the Iron Molders' International Union. He also was a founder of the National Labor Union. It was one of the first American union ...
formed the
National Labor Union The National Labor Union (NLU) is the first national labor federation in the United States. Founded in 1866 and dissolved in 1873, it paved the way for other organizations, such as the Knights of Labor and the AFL ( American Federation of Labor ...
(NLU). Frederich Albert Sorge, a German who had found refuge in New York following the 1848 revolutions, took Local No. 5 of the NLU into the
First International The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), often called the First International (1864–1876), was an international organisation which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist groups and trad ...
as Section One in the U.S. By 1872, there were 22 sections, which were able to hold a convention in New York. The General Council of the International moved to New York with Sorge as General Secretary, but following internal conflict, it dissolved in 1876.Coleman, pp. 15–17 A larger wave of German immigrants followed in the 1870s and 1880s, which included social democratic followers of
Ferdinand Lassalle Ferdinand Lassalle (; 11 April 1825 – 31 August 1864) was a Prussian-German jurist, philosopher, socialist and political activist best remembered as the initiator of the social democratic movement in Germany. "Lassalle was the first man in Ger ...
. Lasalle believed that state aid through political action was the road to revolution and was opposed to trade unionism which he saw as futile, believing that according to the
iron law of wages The iron law of wages is a proposed law of economics that asserts that real wages always tend, in the long run, toward the minimum wage necessary to sustain the life of the worker. The theory was first named by Ferdinand Lassalle in the mid-nine ...
employers would only pay subsistence wages. The
Lassalleans The General German Workers' Association (german: Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiter-Verein, ADAV) was a German political party founded on 23 May 1863 in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony by Ferdinand Lassalle. It was the first organized mass working-class ...
formed the Social Democratic Party of North America in 1874 and both Marxists and Lassalleans formed the
Workingmen's Party of the United States The Workingmen's Party of the United States (WPUS), established in 1876, was one of the first Marxist-influenced political parties in the United States. It is remembered as the forerunner of the Socialist Labor Party of America. Organizational h ...
in 1876. When the Lassalleans gained control in 1877, they changed the name to the Socialist Labor Party of North America (SLP). However, many socialists abandoned political action altogether and moved to trade unionism. Two former socialists, Adolph Strasser and
Samuel Gompers Samuel Gompers (; January 27, 1850December 13, 1924) was a British-born American cigar maker, labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and served as the organization's ...
, formed the
American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutu ...
(AFL) in 1886. Anarchists split from the Socialist Labor Party to form the Revolutionary Socialist Party in 1881. By 1885 they had 7,000 members, double the membership of the SLP. They were inspired by the International Anarchist Congress of 1881 in London. There were two federations in the United States that pledged adherence to the International. A convention of immigrant anarchists in Chicago formed the International Working People's Association (Black International), while a group of Native Americans in San Francisco formed the International Workingmen's Association (Red International). Following a violent demonstration at Haymarket in Chicago in 1886, public opinion turned against anarchism. While very little violence could be attributed to anarchists, the attempted murder of a financier by an anarchist in 1892 and the 1901
assassination Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
of the American president,
William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in ...
, by a professed anarchist led to the ending of political asylum for anarchists in 1903. In 1919, following the Palmer Raids, anarchists were imprisoned and many, including
Emma Goldman Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...
and
Alexander Berkman Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870June 28, 1936) was a Russian-American anarchist and author. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century, famous for both his political activism and his writing. Be ...
, were deported. Yet anarchism again reached great public notice with the trial of the anarchists
Sacco and Vanzetti Nicola Sacco (; April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (; June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were Italian immigrant anarchists who were controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a ...
, who would be executed in 1927.
Daniel De Leon Daniel De Leon (; December 14, 1852 – May 11, 1914), alternatively spelt Daniel de León, was a Curaçaoan-American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather o ...
, who became leader of the SLP in 1890, took it in a Marxist direction.
Eugene V. Debs Eugene Victor "Gene" Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American socialist, political activist, trade unionist, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five times the candidate of the Soc ...
, who had been an organizer for the American Railway Union formed the rival Social Democratic Party of America in 1898. Members of the SLP, led by
Morris Hillquit Morris Hillquit (August 1, 1869 – October 8, 1933) was a founder and leader of the Socialist Party of America and prominent labor lawyer in New York City's Lower East Side. Together with Eugene V. Debs and Congressman Victor L. Berger, Hil ...
and opposed to the De Leon's domineering personal rule and his anti-AFL trade union policy joined with the Social Democrats to form the
Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...
(SPA). In 1905, a convention of socialists, anarchists and trade unionists disenchanted with the bureaucracy and
craft unionism Craft unionism refers to a model of trade unionism in which workers are organised based on the particular craft or trade in which they work. It contrasts with industrial unionism, in which all workers in the same industry are organized into the s ...
of the AFL, founded the rival
Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
(IWW), led by such figures as William D. "Big Bill" Haywood, Helen Keller, De Leon and Debs. The organizers of the IWW disagreed on whether electoral politics could be employed to liberate the working class. Debs left the IWW in 1906, and De Leon was expelled in 1908, forming a rival "Chicago IWW" that was closely linked to the SLP. The (Minneapolis) IWW's ideology evolved into anarcho-syndicalism, or "revolutionary industrial unionism", and avoided electoral political activity altogether. It was successful organizing unskilled migratory workers in the lumber, agriculture, and construction trades in the Western states and immigrant textile workers in the Eastern states and occasionally accepted violence as part of industrial action. The SPA was divided between reformers who believed that socialism could be achieved through gradual reform of capitalism and revolutionaries who thought that socialism could only develop after capitalism was overthrown, but the party steered a center path between the two. The SPA achieved the peak of its success by 1912 when its presidential candidate received 5.9% of the popular vote. The first Socialist congressman,
Victor L. Berger Victor Luitpold Berger (February 28, 1860August 7, 1929) was an Austrian–American socialist politician and journalist who was a founding member of the Social Democratic Party of America and its successor, the Socialist Party of America. Born in ...
, had been elected in 1910. By the beginning of 1912, there were 1,039 Socialist officeholders, including 56 mayors, 305 aldermen and councilmen, 22 police officials, and some state legislators. Milwaukee, Berkeley, Butte, Schenectady, and Flint were run by Socialists. A Socialist challenger to Gompers took one-third of the vote in a challenge for leadership of the AFL. The SPA had 5 English and 8 foreign-language daily newspapers, 262 English and 36 foreign-language weeklies, and 10 English and 2 foreign-language monthlies. American entry into the First World War in 1917 led to a patriotic hysteria aimed against Germans, immigrants, African Americans, class-conscious workers, and Socialists, and the ensuing
Espionage Act The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law enacted on June 15, 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code (War ...
and Sedition Act were used against them. The government harassed Socialist newspapers, the post office denied the SP use of the mails, and antiwar militants were arrested. Soon Debs and more than sixty IWW leaders were charged under the acts.


Communist–Socialist split, the New Deal and Red Scares (1910s–1940s)

In 1919, John Reed,
Benjamin Gitlow Benjamin Gitlow (December 22, 1891 – July 19, 1965) was a prominent American socialist politician of the early 20th century and a founding member of the Communist Party USA. During the end of the 1930s, Gitlow turned to conservatism and wrote t ...
and other Socialists formed the
Communist Labor Party of America The Communist Labor Party of America (CLPA) was one of the organizational predecessors of the Communist Party USA. The group was established at the end of August 1919 following a three-way split of the Socialist Party of America. Although a legal ...
, while Socialist foreign sections led by
C. E. Ruthenberg Charles Emil Ruthenberg (July 9, 1882 – March 1, 1927) was an American Marxist politician and a founder and head of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Biography Early years Charles Emil Ruthenberg was born July 9, 1882, in Cleveland, Ohio, ...
formed the Communist Party. These two groups would be combined as the
Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
(CPUSA). The Communists organized the
Trade Union Unity League The Trade Union Unity League (TUUL) was an industrial union umbrella organization under the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) between 1929 and 1935. The group was an American affiliate of the Red International of Labor Unions. The fo ...
to compete with the AFL and claimed to represent 50,000 workers. In 1928, following divisions inside the Soviet Union,
Jay Lovestone Jay Lovestone (15 December 1897 – 7 March 1990) was an American activist. He was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Centr ...
, who had replaced Ruthenberg as general secretary of the CPUSA following his death, joined with William Z. Foster to expel Foster's former allies, James P. Cannon and
Max Shachtman Max Shachtman (; September 10, 1904 – November 4, 1972) was an American Marxist theorist. He went from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL–CIO President George Meany. Beginnings S ...
, who were followers of
Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
. Following another Soviet factional dispute, Lovestone and Gitlow were expelled, and
Earl Browder Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891 – June 27, 1973) was an American politician, communist activist and leader of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Browder was the General Secretary of the CPUSA during the 1930s and first half of the 1940s. Duri ...
became party leader. Cannon, Shachtman, and
Martin Abern Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austr ...
then set up the
Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
Communist League of America, and recruited members from the CPUSA. The League then merged with
A. J. Muste Abraham Johannes Muste ( ; January 8, 1885 – February 11, 1967) was a Dutch-born American clergyman and political activist. He is best remembered for his work in the labor movement, pacifist movement, antiwar movement, and civil rights movemen ...
's American Workers Party in 1934, forming the Workers Party. New members included
James Burnham James Burnham (November 22, 1905 – July 28, 1987) was an American philosopher and political theorist. He chaired the New York University Department of Philosophy; his first book was ''An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis'' (1931). Burn ...
and Sidney Hook. By the 1930s the Socialist Party was deeply divided between an Old Guard, led by Hillquit, and younger Militants, who were more sympathetic to the Soviet Union, led by
Norman Thomas Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. Early years Thomas was the ...
. The Old Guard left the party to form the Social Democratic Federation. Following talks between the Workers Party and the Socialists, members of the Workers Party joined the Socialists in 1936. Once inside they operated as a separate faction. The Trotskyists were expelled from the Socialist Party the following year and set up the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the youth wing of the Socialists, the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL) joined them. Shachtman and others were expelled from the SWP in 1940 over their position on the Soviet Union and set up the Workers Party. Within months many members of the new party, including Burnham, had left. The Workers Party was renamed the Independent Socialist League (ISL) in 1949 and ceased being a political party. Some members of the Socialist Party's Old Guard formed the
American Labor Party The American Labor Party (ALP) was a political party in the United States established in 1936 that was active almost exclusively in the state of New York. The organization was founded by labor leaders and former members of the Socialist Party of A ...
(ALP) in New York State, with support from the
Congress of Industrial Organizations The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of ...
(CIO). The right-wing of this party broke away in 1944 to form the Liberal Party of New York. In the 1936, 1940 and 1944 elections the ALP received 274,000, 417,000, and 496,000 votes in New York State, while the Liberals received 329,000 votes in 1944.


Civil rights, War on Poverty and the New Left (1950s–1960s)

In 1958, the
Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of t ...
welcomed former members of the
Independent Socialist League The Workers Party (WP) was a Third Camp Trotskyist group in the United States. It was founded in April 1940 by members of the Socialist Workers Party who opposed the Soviet invasion of Finland and Leon Trotsky's belief that the USSR under Jos ...
, which before its 1956 dissolution had been led by
Max Shachtman Max Shachtman (; September 10, 1904 – November 4, 1972) was an American Marxist theorist. He went from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL–CIO President George Meany. Beginnings S ...
. Shachtman had developed a
neo-Marxist Neo-Marxism is a Marxist school of thought encompassing 20th-century approaches that amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, psychoanalysis, or exi ...
critique of
Soviet communism The ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was Bolshevist Marxism–Leninism, an ideology of a centralised command economy with a vanguardist one-party state to realise the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviet Un ...
as "
bureaucratic collectivism Bureaucratic collectivism is a theory of class society. It is used by some Trotskyists to describe the nature of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and other similar states in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere (such as North Korea). Th ...
", a new form of class society that was more oppressive than any form of capitalism. Shachtman's theory was similar to that of many dissidents and refugees from Communism, such as the theory of the "
new class New class is used as a polemic term by critics of countries that followed the Soviet-type Communism to describe the privileged ruling class of bureaucrats and Communist party functionaries which arose in these states. Generally, the group known ...
" proposed by Yugoslavian dissident Milovan Đilas (Djilas).Page 6: Shachtman's ISL had attracted youth like
Irving Howe Irving Howe (; June 11, 1920 – May 5, 1993) was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America. Early years Howe was born as Irving Horenstein in The Bronx, New York. He was the son of ...
,
Michael Harrington Edward Michael Harrington Jr. (February 24, 1928 – July 31, 1989) was an American democratic socialist. As a writer, he was perhaps best known as the author of '' The Other America''. Harrington was also a political activist, theorist, profess ...
,
Tom Kahn Tom David Kahn (September 15, 1938 – March 27, 1992) was an American social democrat known for his leadership in several organizations. He was an activist and influential strategist in the Civil Rights Movement. He was a senior adv ...
, and Rachelle Horowitz.: The YPSL was dissolved, but the party formed a new youth group under the same name. Kahn and Horowitz, along with
Norman Hill Norman Hill (born April 22, 1933 in Summit, New Jersey) is an American administrator, civil rights activist and labor leader. He attended Haverford College in Pennsylvania and received a bachelor's degree in 1956 in the field of sociology. He was ...
, helped
Bayard Rustin Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement, ...
with the
civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
. Rustin had helped to spread
pacificism Pacificism is the general term for ethical opposition to violence or war unless force is deemed necessary. Together with pacifism, it is born from the Western tradition or attitude that calls for peace. The former involves the unconditional refu ...
and nonviolence to leaders of the civil rights movement, like
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
Rustin's circle and A. Philip Randolph organized the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King delivered his I Have a Dream speech.Jervis Anderson, ''A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait'' (1973; University of California Press, 1986). * Anderson, Jervis. ''Bayard Rustin: Troubles I've Seen'' (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997). * Branch, Taylor. ''Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63'' (New York: Touchstone, 1989). * D'Emilio, John. ''Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin'' (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004).
Michael Harrington Edward Michael Harrington Jr. (February 24, 1928 – July 31, 1989) was an American democratic socialist. As a writer, he was perhaps best known as the author of '' The Other America''. Harrington was also a political activist, theorist, profess ...
soon became the most visible socialist in the United States when his ''
The Other America ''The Other America'' () is Michael Harrington's best known and likely most influential book. He was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, political theorist, professor of political science, radio commentator, and foundin ...
'' became a best seller, following a long and laudatory ''
New Yorker New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to: * A resident of the State of New York ** Demographics of New York (state) * A resident of New York City ** List of people from New York City * ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925 * '' The ...
'' review by Dwight Macdonald. Harrington and other socialists were called to Washington, D.C., to assist the
Kennedy Administration John F. Kennedy's tenure as the 35th president of the United States, began with his inauguration on January 20, 1961, and ended with his assassination on November 22, 1963. A Democrat from Massachusetts, he took office following the 1960 ...
and then the Johnson Administration's
war on poverty The war on poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national ...
and
Great Society The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. The term was first coined during a 1964 commencement address by President Lyndon B. Johnson at the Universit ...
. Shachtman, Harrington, Kahn, and Rustin argued advocated a political strategy called "realignment" that prioritized strengthening labor unions and other progressive organizations that were already active in the Democratic Party. Contributing to the day-to-day struggles of the civil rights movement and labor unions had gained socialists credibility and influence, and had helped to push politicians in the Democratic Party towards "
social-liberal Social liberalism (german: Sozialliberalismus, es, socioliberalismo, nl, Sociaalliberalisme), also known as new liberalism in the United Kingdom, modern liberalism, or simply liberalism in the contemporary United States, left-liberalism ...
" or social-democratic positions, at least on civil rights and the war on poverty. Harrington, Kahn, and Horowitz were officers and staff-persons of the
League for Industrial Democracy The League for Industrial Democracy (LID) was founded as a successor to the Intercollegiate Socialist Society in 1921. Members decided to change its name to reflect a more inclusive and more organizational perspective. Background Intercollegiate So ...
(LID), which helped to start the New Left
Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
(SDS). The three LID officers clashed with the less experienced activists of SDS, like
Tom Hayden Thomas Emmet Hayden (December 11, 1939October 23, 2016) was an American social and political activist, author, and politician. Hayden was best known for his role as an anti-war, civil rights, and intellectual activist in the 1960s, authoring t ...
, when the latter's
Port Huron Statement The Port Huron Statement is a 1962 political manifesto of the American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). It was written by SDS members, and completed on June 15, 1962, at a United Auto Workers (UAW) retreat outside ...
criticized socialist and liberal opposition to communism and criticized the labor movement while promoting students as agents of social change. LID and SDS split in 1965, when SDS voted to remove from its constitution the "''exclusion clause''" that prohibited membership by communists: The SDS exclusion clause had barred "advocates of or apologists for" "totalitarianism". The clause's removal effectively invited "disciplined cadre" to attempt to "take over or paralyze" SDS, as had occurred to mass organizations in the thirties. Afterwards,
Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various co ...
, particularly the Progressive Labor Party, helped to write "the death sentence" for SDS, which nonetheless had over 100 thousand members at its peak.


SDUSA–SPUSA split, foundation of DSOC–DSA and anti-WTO protests (1970s–1990s)

In 1972, the Socialist Party voted to rename itself as
Social Democrats, USA Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) is a small political association of social democrats founded in 1972. The Socialist Party of America (SPA) had stopped running independent presidential candidates and consequently the term "party" in the SPA's na ...
(SDUSA) by a vote of 73 to 34 at its December Convention; its National Chairmen were
Bayard Rustin Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement, ...
, a peace and civil-rights leader, and
Charles S. Zimmerman Charles S. "Sasha" Zimmerman (1896–1983) was an American socialist activist and trade union leader, who was an associate of Jay Lovestone. Zimmerman had a career spanning five decades as an official of the International Ladies Garment Workers U ...
, an officer of the
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), whose members were employed in the women's clothing industry, was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membe ...
(ILGWU). In 1973,
Michael Harrington Edward Michael Harrington Jr. (February 24, 1928 – July 31, 1989) was an American democratic socialist. As a writer, he was perhaps best known as the author of '' The Other America''. Harrington was also a political activist, theorist, profess ...
resigned from SDUSA and founded the
Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC; ) was a democratic socialist organization in the United States. The DSOC was founded in 1973 by Michael Harrington, who had led a minority caucus in the Socialist Party of America and disag ...
(DSOC), which attracted many of his followers from the former Socialist Party.Isserman, p. 311. The same year,
David McReynolds David Ernest McReynolds (October 25, 1929 – August 17, 2018) was an American politician and social activist who was a prominent democratic socialist and pacifist activist. He described himself as "a peace movement bureaucrat" during his 40-yea ...
and others from the pacifist and immediate-withdrawal wing of the former Socialist Party formed the
Socialist Party USA The Socialist Party USA, officially the Socialist Party of the United States of America,"The article of this organization shall be the Socialist Party of the United States of America, hereinafter called 'the Party'". Art. I of th"Constitution o ...
. When the SPA became SDUSA, the majority had 22 of 33 votes on the (January 1973) national committee of SDUSA. Two minority caucuses of SDUSA became associated with two other socialist organizations, each of which was founded later in 1973. Many members of Michael Harrington's ("Coalition") caucus, with 8 of 33 seats on the 1973 SDUSA national committee, joined Harrington's DSOC. Many members of the Debs caucus, with 2 of 33 seats on SDUSA's 1973 national committee, joined the Socialist Party of the United States (SPUSA). From 1979 to 1989, SDUSA members like
Tom Kahn Tom David Kahn (September 15, 1938 – March 27, 1992) was an American social democrat known for his leadership in several organizations. He was an activist and influential strategist in the Civil Rights Movement. He was a senior adv ...
organized the
AFL–CIO The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million ac ...
's fundraising of $300,000, which bought printing presses and other supplies requested by ''Solidarnosc'' (Solidarity), the independent labor-union of Poland.:
SDUSA members helped form a bipartisan coalition (of the Democratic and Republican parties) to support the founding of the
National Endowment for Democracy The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is an organization in the United States that was founded in 1983 for promoting democracy in other countries by promoting political and economic institutions such as political groups, trade unions, ...
(NED), whose first President was
Carl Gershman Carl Gershman (born July 20, 1943) is an American civil servant who served as the president of the National Endowment for Democracy since its founding in 1984 until 2021. Gershman previously served as the United States Ambassador to the United Nat ...
. The NED publicly allocated $4 million of public aid to Solidarity through 1989.:
In the 1990s, anarchists attempted to organize across North America around Love and Rage, which drew several hundred activists. By 1997 anarchist organizations began to proliferate. One successful anarchist movement was Food not Bombs, that distributed free vegetarian meals. Anarchists received significant media coverage for their disruption of the 1999
World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and e ...
conference, called the
Battle in Seattle ''Battle in Seattle'' is a 2007 political action-thriller film written and directed by Stuart Townsend, in his directorial debut. The story is loosely based on the protest activity at the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999. The film premiered ...
, where the Direct Action Network was organized. Most organizations were short-lived and anarchism went into decline following a reaction by the authorities that was increased after the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
in 2001.


Occupy, Bernie Sanders campaigns and DSA electoral victories (2000s–present)

In the 2000 presidential election,
Ralph Nader Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes. The son of Lebanese immigrants to the Un ...
and
Winona LaDuke Winona LaDuke (born August 18, 1959) is an American economist, environmentalist, writer and industrial hemp grower, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, as well as sustainable development. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for Vice ...
received 2,882,000 votes or 2.74% of the popular vote on the
Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation f ...
ticket. Filmmaker Michael Moore directed a series of popular movies examining the United States and its government policy from a left perspective, including ''
Bowling for Columbine ''Bowling for Columbine'' is a 2002 documentary film written, produced, directed, and narrated by Michael Moore. The film explores what Moore suggests are the primary causes for the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 and other acts of gun ...
'', ''
Sicko ''Sicko'' is a 2007 American political documentary film by filmmaker Michael Moore. Investigating health care in the United States, it focuses on the country's health insurance and the pharmaceutical industry. The film compares the for-profit no ...
'', '' Capitalism: A Love Story'' and '' Fahrenheit 9/11'', which was the top grossing documentary film of all time. In 2011,
Occupy Wall Street Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest movement against economic inequality and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district, in September 2011. It gave rise to t ...
protests demanding accountability for the
financial crisis of 2007–2008 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fi ...
and against inequality started in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, New York and soon spread to other cities around the country, becoming known more broadly as the
Occupy movement The Occupy movement was an international populist socio-political movement that expressed opposition to social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of "real democracy" around the world. It aimed primarily to advance social and econo ...
. Kshama Sawant was elected to the
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
City Council as an openly socialist candidate in 2013. She was re-elected in 2015.
Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007. He was the U.S. representative for the state's at-large congressional district from 1991 to 2007 ...
, a self-described
democratic socialist Democratic socialism is a left-wing political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within ...
who runs as an
independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...
, won his first election as mayor of
Burlington, Vermont Burlington is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Chittenden County. It is located south of the Canada–United States border and south of Montreal. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 44,743. It ...
in 1981 and was re-elected for three additional terms. He then represented
Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 until 2007, and was subsequently elected U.S. Senator for Vermont in 2007, a position which he still holds. Although he did not win the 2016 Democratic Party presidential nomination, Sanders won the fifth highest number of primary votes of any candidate in a nomination race, Democratic or Republican, and had caused an upset in Michigan and many other states.
Democratic Socialists of America The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a Left-wing politics, left-wing Democratic Socialists of America#Tendencies within the DSA, multi-tendency Socialism, socialist and Labour movement, labor-oriented political organization. Its roots ...
member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated ten-term incumbent Joe Crowley in the NY-14 U.S House primary and went on to win her general election. She is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress and ran on a progressive platform. Broadly, the modern American Left is characterized by organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the US with over 90,000 members. The DSA has seen a huge resurgence in growth with Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign and continues to grow despite having had a membership of around 5,000 members only a decade ago. Unlike other parts of the modern left like the Socialist Equality Party, the DSA is not a political party and its affiliated candidates usually run on a Democratic or independent ticket. The most widely circulated socialist publication in the US, the '' Jacobin'', along with other leftist publications like ''Dissent'' and ''Monthly Review'', have all become increasingly popular with the resurgence of democratic socialism post-Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez.


Political currents


Anarchism

Anarchism in the United States first emerged from
individualistic Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-relianc ...
,
free-thinking Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other metho ...
, and
utopian socialism Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often de ...
as typified by the work of thinkers such as
Josiah Warren Josiah Warren (; 1798–1874) was an American utopian socialist, American individualist anarchist, individualist philosopher, polymath, social reformer, inventor, musician, printer and author. He is regarded by anarchist historians like James ...
and Henry David Thoreau. This was overshadowed by a mass, cosmopolitan, and working-class movement between the 1880s and 1940s, whose members were mostly recent immigrants, including those of German, Italian, Jewish, Mexican, and Russian descent. Prominent figures of this period include
Albert Parsons Albert Richard Parsons (June 20, 1848 – November 11, 1887) was a pioneering American socialist and later anarchist newspaper editor, orator, and labor activist. As a teenager, he served in the military force of the Confederate States of Americ ...
and
Lucy Parsons Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons (born Lucia Carter; 1851 – March 7, 1942) was an American labor organizer, radical socialist and anarcho-communist. She is remembered as a powerful orator. Parsons entered the radical movement following her marriage ...
,
Emma Goldman Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...
,
Carlo Tresca Carlo Tresca (March 9, 1879 – January 11, 1943) was an Italian-American newspaper editor, orator, and labor organizer who was a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World during the 1910s. He is remembered as a leading public opponent of fas ...
, and
Ricardo Flores Magón Cipriano Ricardo Flores Magón (, known as Ricardo Flores Magón; September 16, 1874 – November 21, 1922) was a noted Mexican anarchist and social reform activist. His brothers Enrique and Jesús were also active in politics. Followers of ...
. The anarchist movement achieved notoriety due to violent clashes with police,
assassinations Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have a ...
, and sensational Red Scare propaganda, but most anarchist activity took place in the realm of agitation and labor organizing among largely immigrant workers. Anarchist organizations include: *
Anarchist Black Cross The Anarchist Black Cross (ABC), formerly the Anarchist Red Cross, is an anarchist support organization. The group is notable for its efforts at providing prisoners with political literature, but it also organizes material and legal support for c ...
* Anarchist People of Color * Black Rose Anarchist Federation/Federación Anarquista Rosa Negra * First of May Anarchist Alliance * Food Not BombsAmster, p. xii *
Green Mountain Anarchist Collective Anarchism in the United States began in the mid-19th century and started to grow in influence as it entered the American labor movements, growing an anarcho-communist current as well as gaining notoriety for violent propaganda of the deed and ...
*
Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
*
International Working People's Association The International Working People's Association (IWPA), sometimes known as the "Black International," was an international anarchist political organization established in 1881 at a convention held in London, England. In America the group is best r ...
* Local to Global Justice * Revolutionary Socialist League *
Union of Russian Workers The Union of Russian Workers in the United States and Canada, commonly known as the "Union of Russian Workers" (Союз Русских Рабочих, ''Soiuz Russkikh Rabochikh)'' was an anarchist political association of Russian emigrants in t ...
*
Workers Solidarity Alliance Workers' Solidarity Alliance (WSA) is an American anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian group designed to help establish member-managed organizations in the workplace and community. It was founded in 1984, created from an existing network of group ...
*
Youth International Party The Youth International Party (YIP), whose members were commonly called Yippies, was an American youth-oriented radical and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the late 1960s. It was founded o ...


De Leonism

De Leonism De Leonism, also known as Marxism-De Leonism, is a Marxist tendency developed by Curaçaoan-American trade union organizer and Marxist theoretician Daniel De Leon. De Leon was an early leader of the first American socialist political party, t ...
, occasionally known as Marxism–De Leonism, is a
libertarian Marxist Libertarian socialism, also known by various other names, is a left-wing,Diemer, Ulli (1997)"What Is Libertarian Socialism?" The Anarchist Library. Retrieved 4 August 2019. anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarianLong, Roderick T. (20 ...
ideological variant developed by the American activist
Daniel De Leon Daniel De Leon (; December 14, 1852 – May 11, 1914), alternatively spelt Daniel de León, was a Curaçaoan-American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather o ...
.


Socialist Labor Party

Founded in 1876, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) was a reformist party but adopted the theories of
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
and
Daniel De Leon Daniel De Leon (; December 14, 1852 – May 11, 1914), alternatively spelt Daniel de León, was a Curaçaoan-American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather o ...
in 1900, leading to the defection of reformers to the new
Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...
(SPA). It contested elections, including every election for President of the United States from 1892 to 1976. Some of its prominent members included
Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...
and
James Connolly James Connolly ( ga, Séamas Ó Conghaile; 5 June 1868 – 12 May 1916) was an Irish republican, socialist and trade union leader. Born to Irish parents in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland, Connolly left school for working life at the a ...
. By 2009 it had lost its premises and ceased publishing its newspaper, ''The People''. In 1970, a group of dissidents left the SLP to form Socialist Reconstruction. Socialist Reconstruction then expelled some of its dissidents, who formed the Socialist Forum Group.


Democratic socialism and social democracy

The
Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...
was founded in 1901.
Eugene Debs Eugene may refer to: People and fictional characters * Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Eugene (actress) (born 1981), Kim Yoo-jin, South Korean actress and former member of the sin ...
ran as the party's presidential candidate five times and received 6% of the popular vote in 1912. The party suffered political repression during
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
due to its
pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...
stance and broke into factions over whether or not to support the
Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
in Russia and whether or not to join the Comintern. The Socialist Party was re-formed in the mid-1920s but stopped running candidates after 1956, having been undercut by
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
's
New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
and the resulting leftward movement of the Democratic Party to its right, and by the
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
on its left. In the early 1970s, the party split into tiny factions. After 1960 the Socialist Party also functioned "as an educational organization". Members of the Debs–Thomas Socialist Party helped to develop leaders of social-movement organizations, including the civil-rights movement and the New Left. Similarly, contemporary social-democratic and democratic-socialist organizations are known because of their members' activities in other organizations.


Democratic Socialists of America

Michael Harrington Edward Michael Harrington Jr. (February 24, 1928 – July 31, 1989) was an American democratic socialist. As a writer, he was perhaps best known as the author of '' The Other America''. Harrington was also a political activist, theorist, profess ...
resigned from Social Democrats, USA early in 1973. He rejected the SDUSA (majority Socialist Party) position on the Vietnam War, which demanded an end to bombings and a negotiated peace settlement. Harrington called rather for an immediate cease fire and immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. Even before the December 1972 convention, Michael Harrington had resigned as an Honorary Chairperson of the Socialist Party. In the early spring of 1973, he resigned his membership in SDUSA. That same year, Harrington and his supporters formed the
Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC; ) was a democratic socialist organization in the United States. The DSOC was founded in 1973 by Michael Harrington, who had led a minority caucus in the Socialist Party of America and disag ...
(DSOC). At its start, DSOC had 840 members, of which 2 percent served on its national board; approximately 200 had been members of
Social Democrats, USA Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) is a small political association of social democrats founded in 1972. The Socialist Party of America (SPA) had stopped running independent presidential candidates and consequently the term "party" in the SPA's na ...
or its predecessors whose membership was then 1,800, according to a 1973 profile of Harrington. The DSOC became a member of the
Socialist International The Socialist International (SI) is a political international or worldwide organisation of political parties which seek to establish democratic socialism. It consists mostly of socialist and labour-oriented political parties and organisations. ...
. It supported progressive Democrats including DSOC member Congressman Ron Dellums and worked to help network activists in the Democratic Party and in labor unions. In 1982, the DSOC established the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) upon merging with the
New American Movement The New American Movement (NAM) was an American New Left multi-tendency socialist and feminist political organization established in 1971. The NAM continued an independent existence until 1983, when it merged with Michael Harrington's Democrati ...
, an organization of democratic socialists mostly from the New Left. Its high-profile members included Congressman
Major Owens Major Robert Odell Owens (June 28, 1936 – October 21, 2013) was an American politician and librarian who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1983 to 2007, representing the New York's 11th and then 12th Congressional distri ...
, Congresswoman
Rashida Tlaib Rashida Harbi Tlaib (, ; born July 24, 1976) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the U.S. representative for since 2019. The district includes the western half of Detroit, along with several of its western suburbs and much of the ...
, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Congressman Ron Dellums, multiple state legislators ( Sara Innamorato,
Lee J. Carter Lee Jin Carter (born June 2, 1987) is an American former politician who represented the 50th district in the Virginia House of Delegates from 2018 to 2022. A member of the Democratic Party, he defeated Jackson Miller, the Republican House Major ...
, Summer Lee,
Julia Salazar Julia Salazar (born December 30, 1990) is an American politician and activist. She is the New York State Senator for the 18th district, which covers much of northern Brooklyn, centered on Bushwick. She won the seat as a first-time candidate af ...
), and William Winpisinger, President of the
International Association of Machinists The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is an AFL–CIO/ CLC trade union representing approx. 646,933 workers as of 2006 in more than 200 industries with most of its membership in the United States and Canada. Or ...
. In 2019 at the Democratic Socialists of America convention in Atlanta, Georgia, DSA confirmed its support for Senator
Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007. He was the U.S. representative for the state's at-large congressional district from 1991 to 2007 ...
in the
2020 United States presidential election The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Ha ...
. Since the
2016 United States presidential election The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket ...
, the DSA has grown to more than 50,000 members, making it the largest socialist organization in the United States. In 2017, DSA left the Socialist International, citing its support of neoliberal economic policies.


Social Democrats, USA

The Socialist Party of America changed its name to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) in 1972. In electoral politics, SDUSA's National Co-chairman
Bayard Rustin Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement, ...
stated that its goal was to transform the Democratic Party into a social-democratic party. SDUSA sponsored a conferences that featured discussions and debates over proposed resolutions, some of which were adopted as organizational statements. For these conferences, SDUSA invited a range of academic, political, and labor-union leaders. These meetings also functioned as reunions for political activists and intellectuals, some of whom worked together for decades. Many SDUSA members served as organizational leaders, especially in labor unions. Rustin served as President of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, and was succeeded by
Norman Hill Norman Hill (born April 22, 1933 in Summit, New Jersey) is an American administrator, civil rights activist and labor leader. He attended Haverford College in Pennsylvania and received a bachelor's degree in 1956 in the field of sociology. He was ...
.
Tom Kahn Tom David Kahn (September 15, 1938 – March 27, 1992) was an American social democrat known for his leadership in several organizations. He was an activist and influential strategist in the Civil Rights Movement. He was a senior adv ...
served as Director of International Affairs for the AFL–CIO.
Sandra Feldman Sandra Feldman ( Abramowitz; October 13, 1939 – September 18, 2005) was an American educator and labor leader who served as president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) from 1997 to 2004. Early life Born Sandra Abramowitz in Coney ...
served as President of the
American Federation of Teachers The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is the second largest teacher's labor union in America (the largest being the National Education Association). The union was founded in Chicago. John Dewey and Margaret Haley were founders. About 60 per ...
(AFT). Rachelle Horowitz served as Political Director for the AFT and serves on the board for the
National Democratic Institute The National Democratic Institute (NDI), or National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, is a non-profit American NGO that works with partners in developing countries to increase the effectiveness of democratic institutions. The NDI's ...
. Other members of SDUSA specialized in international politics.
Penn Kemble Richard Penn Kemble (January 21, 1941 – October 15, 2005), commonly known as "Penn," was an American political activist and a founding member of Social Democrats, USA. He supported democracy and labor unions in the USA and internationally, and s ...
served as the acting director of the
U.S. Information Agency The United States Information Agency (USIA), which operated from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to " public diplomacy". In 1999, prior to the reorganization of intelligence agencies by President George W. Bush, President Bill ...
in the Presidency of Bill Clinton. After having served as the U.S. Representative to the U.N.'s Committee on human rights during the first
Reagan Administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over D ...
,
Carl Gershman Carl Gershman (born July 20, 1943) is an American civil servant who served as the president of the National Endowment for Democracy since its founding in 1984 until 2021. Gershman previously served as the United States Ambassador to the United Nat ...
has served as the President of the
National Endowment for Democracy The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is an organization in the United States that was founded in 1983 for promoting democracy in other countries by promoting political and economic institutions such as political groups, trade unions, ...
.


Socialist Party USA

In the Socialist Party before 1973, members of the Debs Caucus opposed endorsing or otherwise supporting Democratic Party candidates. They began working outside the Socialist Party with antiwar groups such as the
Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
. Some locals voted to disaffiliate with SDUSA and more members resigned; they re-organized as the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA) while continuing to operate the old Debs Caucus paper, the ''Socialist Tribune'', later renamed ''The Socialist''. The SPUSA continues to run local and national candidates, including
Dan La Botz Daniel H. La Botz (born August 9, 1945) is an American labor union activist, academic, journalist, and author. He was a co-founder of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) and has written extensively on worker rights in the United Stat ...
' 2010 campaign for US Senate in Ohio that won over 25,000 votes and Pat Noble's successful election onto the
Red Bank Regional High School Red Bank Regional High School (often abbreviated RBR) is a comprehensive regional four-year public high school and school district that serves students in ninth through twelfth grades from the boroughs of Little Silver, Red Bank and Shrewsbur ...
Board of Education in 2012 and subsequent re-election in 2015. The SPUSA has run or endorsed a presidential ticket in every election since its founding, most recently nominating Greens party co-founder and activist
Howie Hawkins } Howard Gresham Hawkins III (born December 8, 1952) is an American trade unionist, environmental activist, and perennial candidate from New York. A co-founder of the Green Party of the United States, Hawkins was the party's presidential nominee ...
in the 2020 presidential election.


Christian democracy


American Solidarity Party

The American Solidarity Party (ASP) is a fiscally progressive and
socially conservative Social conservatism is a political philosophy and variety of conservatism which places emphasis on traditional power structures over social pluralism. Social conservatives organize in favor of duty, traditional values and social institution ...
Christian-democratic Christian democracy (sometimes named Centrist democracy) is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinism. It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ...
political party with a social-democratic faction in the United States. It favors a
social market economy The social market economy (SOME; german: soziale Marktwirtschaft), also called Rhine capitalism, Rhine-Alpine capitalism, the Rhenish model, and social capitalism, is a socioeconomic model combining a free-market capitalist economic system alon ...
with a
distributist Distributism is an economic theory asserting that the world's productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated. Developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, distributism was based upon Catholic social teaching princ ...
flavor, and seeks "widespread economic participation and ownership" through supporting small business, as well as providing a
social safety net The social safety net (SSN) consists of non-contributory assistance existing to improve lives of vulnerable families and individuals experiencing poverty and destitution. Examples of SSNs are previously-contributory social pensions, in-kind and fo ...
programs. It also has a minor anti-capitalism faction. The party's name was inspired by Solidarity (''Solidarnosc''), the independent labor union of Poland.


Green politics


Green Party of the United States

The Green Party of the United States is a
eco-socialist Eco-socialism (also known as green socialism or socialist ecology) is an ideology merging aspects of socialism with that of green politics, ecology and alter-globalization or anti-globalization. Eco-socialists generally believe that the expansi ...
party whose platform emphasizes environmentalism, non-hierarchical participatory democracy, social justice, respect for diversity, peace, and nonviolence. At their 2016 party convention in Houston, the party changed its platform to support a decentralized form of
eco-socialism Eco-socialism (also known as green socialism or socialist ecology) is an ideology merging aspects of socialism with that of green politics, ecology and alter-globalization or anti-globalization. Eco-socialists generally believe that the expansi ...
based on
workplace democracy Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in various forms (examples include voting systems, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, systems of appeal) to the workplace. It can be implemented in a variety ...
. In the 2000 presidential election,
Ralph Nader Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes. The son of Lebanese immigrants to the Un ...
and
Winona LaDuke Winona LaDuke (born August 18, 1959) is an American economist, environmentalist, writer and industrial hemp grower, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, as well as sustainable development. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for Vice ...
received 2,882,955 votes or 2.74% of the popular vote. In the 2016 election, Green Party presidential candidate
Jill Stein Jill Ellen Stein (born May 14, 1950) is an American physician, activist, and former political candidate. She was the Green Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 and 2016 elections and the Green-Rainbow Party's candidat ...
and running mate Ajamu Baraka qualified to be on the ballot in 44 states and the District of Columbia, with 3 additional states allowing write-in votes. The
Greens/Green Party USA The Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA) was a political organization formed out of the Green Committees of Correspondence in 1991 and was recognized as a national political party by the FEC from 1991 to 2005. It was based in Chicago. '' Synthesis/ ...
is a much smaller group focusing on education and local, grassroots organizing.


Marxism–Leninism

Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various co ...
has been advocated and practiced by American communists of many kinds, including pro-Soviet,
Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
,
Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...
, or
independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...
.


American Party of Labor

The American Party of Labor was founded in 2008 and adheres to
Hoxhaism Hoxhaism () is a variant of anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism that developed in the late 1970s due to a split in the anti-revisionist movement, appearing after the ideological dispute between the Chinese Communist Party and the Party of Labo ...
. It has its origins in the activities of the American communist Jack Shulman, former secretary of
Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
leader William Z. Foster; and the British Marxist-Leninist Bill Bland. Members of the American Party of Labor had previously been active in Alliance Marxist-Leninist and International Struggle Marxist-Leninist, two organizations founded by Shulman and Bland. The present-day APL sees itself as upholding and continuing the work of Shulman and Bland. Although not a formal member of the
International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle) The International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations ( es, Conferencia Internacional de Partidos y Organizaciones Marxista-Leninistas; abbreviations: ICMLPO or CIPOML) is an international organization of anti-revision ...
, the APL is generally supportive of its line and maintains friendly relations with a number of foreign communist parties including the Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action), the Turkish Labour Party (EMEP), the
Labour Party of Iran The Labour Party of Iran (Toufan) ( fa, حزب کار ایران (توفان); translit.: ) is a Hoxhaist Communist party whose leadership is exiled in Germany. It is against the Iranian government and is a member of the International Confere ...
, and the
Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist) The Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist), abbreviated CPGB-ML, is an anti-revisionist, Marxist–Leninist communist party in the United Kingdom, active in England, Scotland, and Wales. The CPGB-ML was created after a split ...
. It has been involved in a number of events, such as a 2013 protest against the Golden Dawn in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
, a 2014 meeting on the Ukraine and a protest against
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
at the 2016 Republican National Convention. A significant program of the American Party of Labor is "Red Aid: Service to the People", which involves providing food, clothing and other assistance to the poor and homeless in impoverished communities, and has been established in multiple US cities. Its current organ, ''The Red Phoenix'', carries articles concerning contemporary political issues and theoretical and historical questions.


Communist Party USA

Established in 1919, the Communist Party USA (CP) claimed a membership of 100,000 in 1939 and maintained a membership over 50,000 until the 1950s. However, the 1956 invasion of Hungary,
McCarthyism McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origin ...
and investigations by the
House Unamerican Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
(HUAC) contributed to its steady decline despite a brief increase in membership from the mid-1960s. Its estimated membership in 1996 was between 4,000 and 5,000. From the 1940s, the FBI attempted to disrupt the CP, including through its Counter‐Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). Several
Communist front A communist front is a political organization identified as a front organization under the effective control of a communist party, the Communist International or other communist organizations. They attracted politicized individuals who were not p ...
organizations founded in the 1950s continued to operate at least into the 1990s, notably the Veterans of the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade The Abraham Lincoln Brigade ( es, Brigada Abraham Lincoln), officially the XV International Brigade (''XV Brigada Internacional''), was a mixed brigade that fought for the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War as a part of the Internation ...
, the
American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born was the successor group to the National Council for the Protection of the Foreign Born and its successor, seen by the US federal government as subversive for "protecting foreign Communists who c ...
, the Labor Research Association, the
National Council of American-Soviet Friendship National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...
, and the U.S. Peace Council. Other groups with less direct links to the CP include the
National Lawyers Guild The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is a progressive public interest association of lawyers, law students, paralegals, jailhouse lawyers, law collective members, and other activist legal workers, in the United States. The group was founded in 19 ...
, the
National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee The National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (NECLC), until 1968 known as the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, was an organization formed in the United States in October 1951 by 150 educators and clergymen to advocate for the civil liberties ...
, and the
Center for Constitutional Rights The Center for Constitutional RightsThe Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) is a New Left, including some members of the
Weather Underground The Weather Underground was a Far-left politics, far-left militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, the group was organiz ...
and the
May 19th Communist Organization The May 19th Communist Organization (also variously referred to as the May 19 Coalition, May 19 Communist Coalition or M19CO) was a US-based far-left armed terrorist group formed by members of the Weather Underground Organization. The group was ...
were members of the National Lawyers Guild. However, CP attempts to influence the New Left were mostly unsuccessful. The CP attracted media attention in the 1970s with the membership of the high-profile activist,
Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of ...
. The CP publishes the ''
People's World ''People's World'', official successor to the '' Daily Worker'', is a Marxist and American leftist national daily online news publication. Founded by activists, socialists, communists, and those active in the labor movement in the early 1900s, ...
'' and ''
Political Affairs ''Political Affairs Magazine'' was a monthly Marxist publication, originally published in print and later online only. It aimed to provide an analysis of events from a working class point of view. The magazine was a publication of the Communist P ...
''. Beginning in 1988, the CP stopped running candidates for President of the United States. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was found that the Soviet Union had provided funding to the CP throughout its history. The CP had always supported the positions of the Soviet Union. Because of the continued slip into an ideology of social democracy that began after the death of CPUSA National Chair Gus Hall, dissident groups began to form around the country that were opposed to the increased pro-capitalist policies of the CPUSA National Committee. There was a fear among members that the CP was on the road to liquidation as a political party. There were several telltale signs that this was happening. The new National Chairman of the CP, Sam Webb began exploring ways to fund the party which suffered a great loss of financial assistance when Mikail Gorbachev assumed leadership of the CP of the Soviet Union. The party began to invest in real estate around the country and used party funds to refurbish its headquarters in New York. The CP leased out several floors of their headquarters to local businesses such as Wix, a website design company. They also leased out the first floor to an art supply company, closing the bookshop of International Publishers, the CP publishing company. Currently, there are no CP bookstores around the country. The CP then made the decision not to print its weekly newspaper, the ''People's Weekly World''. The paper is only available online. The party's online theoretical journal, ''Political Affairs'', was also discontinued. Currently, the CP does not have an organizing department. Dues books have been continued. No attempt has been made to establish ties with the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) which is the largest socialist-communist trade union federation in the world.


Freedom Road Socialist Organization

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) was founded in 1985 through the mergers of
Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...
and
Marxist–Leninist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialect ...
organizations active near the end of the
New Communist Movement The New Communist movement (NCM) was a diverse left-wing political movement principally within the United States, during the 1970s and 1980s. The NCM were a movement of the New Left that represented a diverse grouping of Marxist–Leninists and M ...
. The FRSO grew out of an initial merger of the Proletarian Unity League and the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters. Some years later, the Organization for Revolutionary Unity and the Amilcar Cabral/Paul Robeson Collective merged into the FRSO. In 1999, the FRSO split into two organizations, both of which retain the FRSO name to this day. The split primarily concerned the organization's continued adherence to Marxism–Leninism, with one side of the FRSO upholding Marxism–Leninism and the other side preferring to pursue a strategy of regrouping and rebuilding the Left in the United States. These organizations are commonly identified through their publications, which are ''Fight Back! News'' and ''Freedom Road'', and their websites, (frso.org) and (freedomroad.org), respectively. In 2010, members of the FRSO (frso.org) and other anti-war and international solidarity activists were raided by the FBI. Secret documents left by the FBI revealed that agents planned to question activists about their involvement in the FRSO (frso.org) and their international solidarity work related to
Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
and Palestine. The FRSO (frso.org) works in the Committee to Stop FBI Repression. Both FRSO groups continue to uphold the right of national self-determination for
African-Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslav ...
and Chicanos. The FRSO (frso.org) works in the labor movement, the student movement, and the oppressed nationalities movement.


Party for Socialism and Liberation

The Party for Socialism and Liberation was formed in 2004 as a result of a split in the Workers World Party. The San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. branches left almost in their entirety and the party has grown significantly since then. The new party took control of the Worker's World Party front organization
Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), also known as International A.N.S.W.E.R. and the ANSWER Coalition, is a United States–based protest umbrella group consisting of many antiwar and civil rights organizations. Formed in the wake of th ...
(A.N.S.W.E.R.) at the time of the split. Following the 2010
Deepwater Horizon oil spill The ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill (also referred to as the "BP oil spill") was an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010 off of the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considere ...
in the Gulf of Mexico, A.N.S.W.E.R. organized the "Seize BP" campaign, which organized demonstrations calling for the U.S. federal government to seize BP's assets and place them in trust to pay for damages. The PSL has also been active in the antiracist movement, participating in protests across the country throughout 2020. Several organizers in their Denver branch were arrested for their involvement in protests against the
death of Elijah McClain Elijah Jovan McClain (February 25, 1996 – August 30, 2019) was a 23-year-old African-American massage therapist from Aurora, Colorado, who died six days after a violent police encounter, during which he was injected with ketamine by paramed ...
.


Progressive Labor Party

The Progressive Labor Party (PL) was formed as the Progressive Labor Movement in 1962 by a group of former members of the Communist Party USA, most of whom had quit or been expelled for supporting China in the Sino-Soviet split. To them, the Soviet Union was imperialist. They competed with the CP and SWP for influence in the anti-war movement and the
Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
(SDS), forming the ''May 2 Movement'' as its anti-war front organization. Its major publications are ''Progressive Labor'' and the ''Marxist–Leninist Quarterly''. They later abandoned Maoism, refusing to follow the line of any foreign country and formed the front group, the
International Committee Against Racism The International Committee Against Racism was the "mass organization" of the Progressive Labor Party in the United States. It was founded in 1973Klehr, Harvey (1990) ''Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left''. New York: Transaction Publis ...
(InCAR), in 1973. Much of their activity included violent confrontations against far-right groups, such as Nazis and Klansmen. While membership in 1978 was about 1,500, by 1996 it had fallen below 500.


Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

Formed in 1969 as the Bay Area Revolutionary Union (BARU), the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) had almost one thousand members in twenty-five states by 1975. Its main founder and long-time leader,
Bob Avakian Robert "Bob" Bruce Avakian (born March 7, 1943) is the founder and chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP). Avakian developed the organization's official ideology, a theoretical framework rooted in Maoism, called "the New Synth ...
, a
Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
(SDS) organizer had fought off attempts for control of the SDS by the Progressive Labor Party. The party has been unwaveringly
Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...
. Working through the U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association, the party arranged for visits by Americans to China. Their newspaper, ''Revolutionary Worker'' has featured articles supportive of Albania and North Korea, while the party, unusually for the Left, has been hostile to
school busing Race-integration busing in the United States (also known simply as busing, Integrated busing or by its critics as forced busing) was the practice of assigning and transporting students to schools within or outside their local school districts in ...
, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and gay rights. The party fell out of favour with the Chinese government after the death of
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
, partly because of the personality cult of the RCP leader. By the mid-1990s the party numbered fewer than 500 members.


Workers World Party

The Workers World Party (WWP) was formed in 1958 by fewer than one hundred people who left the Socialist Workers Party after the SWP supported socialists in New York State elections. Their publication is ''
Workers World The Workers World Party (WWP) is a revolutionary Marxist–Leninist communist party founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Marcy and his followers split from the SWP in 1958 over a series of long-stan ...
''. The party's position has developed from Trotskyism to independent Marxism–Leninism, supporting all Marxist states. They have been active in organizing protests against far-right groups. They were also notable for being the main US supporter of the former Ethiopian communist government. In the 1990s their membership was estimated at 200. Their front group,
Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), also known as International A.N.S.W.E.R. and the ANSWER Coalition, is a United States–based protest umbrella group consisting of many antiwar and civil rights organizations. Formed in the wake of th ...
(A.N.S.W.E.R.) organized the early protests against the war in Iraq, which brought hundreds of thousands of protesters to Washington, D.C. before the war had even begun. However, following a split in the party in 2004, some members left to form the
Party for Socialism and Liberation The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a communist party in the United States, established in 2004. Its members are active in a wide range of movements including the labor, anti-war, immigrants' rights, women's rights, and anti-police ...
, taking leadership of A.N.S.W.E.R. with them. The Workers World Party then formed the Troops Out Now Coalition.Reuters


Trotskyism

Many
Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
parties and organizations exist that advocate communism. These groups are distinct from Marxist–Leninist groups in that they generally adhere to the theory and writings of
Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
. Many owe their organizational heritage to the Socialist Workers Party, which emerged as a split-off from the CP.


Freedom Socialist Party

The Freedom Socialist Party began in 1966 as the Seattle branch of the Socialist Workers Party that had split from the party and joined with others who had not belonged to the SWP. They differed with the SWP on the role of African Americans, whom they saw as being the future vanguard of the revolution, and of women, emphasizing their rights, which they called "
socialist feminism Socialist feminism rose in the 1960s and 1970s as an offshoot of the feminist movement and New Left that focuses upon the interconnectivity of the patriarchy and capitalism. However, the ways in which women's private, domestic, and public roles ...
".
Clara Fraser Clara Fraser (March 12, 1923 – February 24, 1998) was a socialist feminist political organizer, who co-founded and led the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women. Biography Early life and activism Clara Fraser was born in 1923 to Jewis ...
came to lead the party and was to form the group
Radical Women Radical Women (RW) is a socialist feminist grassroots activist organization affiliated with the Freedom Socialist Party. It has branches in Seattle, Washington, and Melbourne, Australia. History Radical Women emerged in Seattle from a "Free Uni ...
.


International Marxist Tendency

The US Section of the International Marxist Tendency is an American
Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
organization formed in 2002. The IMT is inspired by the theories of
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
,
Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
, and
Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
, as well as British Trotskyist
Ted Grant Edward Grant (born Isaac Blank; 9 July 1913 – 20 July 2006) was a South African Trotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain. He was a founding member of the group Militant and later Socialist Appeal. Early life Grant's father had s ...
, and publishes a regular newspaper called
Socialist Revolution
' (formerly ''Socialist Appeal''). It also supports a publishing house calle
Marxist Books
The organization argues for a break with the Democrats and Republicans, and the formation of a mass working-class party with a socialist program.


International Socialist Organization

The International Socialist Organization (ISO) was a group founded in 1977 as a section of the
International Socialist Tendency The International Socialist Tendency (IST) is an international grouping of unorthodox Trotskyist organisations espousing the ideas of Tony Cliff (1917–2000), founder of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Britain (not to be confused with ...
(IST). The organization held
Leninist Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishm ...
positions on
imperialism Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...
and considered itself a
vanguard party Vanguardism in the context of Leninist revolutionary struggle, relates to a strategy whereby the most class-conscious and politically "advanced" sections of the proletariat or working class, described as the revolutionary vanguard, form organ ...
, preparing the ground for a revolutionary party to hypothetically succeed it. The organization held a
Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
critique of nominally socialist states, which it considered class societies. In contrast to this, the ISO advocated the tradition of "socialism from below". It was strongly influenced by the perspectives of
Hal Draper Hal Draper (born Harold Dubinsky; September 19, 1914 – January 26, 1990) was an American socialist activist and author who played a significant role in the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement. He is known for his extensive scholarship on t ...
and
Tony Cliff Tony Cliff (born Yigael Glückstein, he, יגאל גליקשטיין; 20 May 1917 – 9 April 2000) was a Trotskyist activist. Born to a Jewish family in Palestine, he moved to Britain in 1947 and by the end of the 1950s had assumed the pen na ...
. It broke from the IST in 2001 but continued to exist as an independent organization for the next eighteen years. The ISO emphasized educational work on the socialist tradition. Branches also took part in activism against the Iraq War, against police brutality, against the death penalty, and in labor strikes, among other social movements. At its peak in 2013, the group had as many as 1500 members. The organization argued that it was the largest
revolutionary socialist Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revoluti ...
group in the United States at that time. The ISO found itself in crisis early 2019, largely stemming from a scandal over the leadership's response to a 2013 sexual misconduct case. The ISO voted to dissolve itself in March 2019.


Socialist Action

Socialist Action was formed in 1983 by members, almost all of whom had been expelled from the Socialist Workers Party. Its members remained loyal to Trotskyist principles, including " permanent revolution", that they claimed the SWP had abandoned. Strongly critical of authoritarian regimes, including the Soviet Union and Iran, it championed socialist revolution in third world countries. It was an active participant in the Cleveland Emergency National Conference in September 1984, set up to challenge American policy in Central America, and played a major role in organizing demonstrations against American action against the
Sandanista The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto Cé ...
rebels in Nicaragua.


Socialist Alternative

Although Socialist Alternative has sometimes pursued a democratic socialist strategy, most notably in Seattle where Kshama Sawant was elected to the
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
City Council as an openly socialist candidate in 2013., it identifies as a Trotskyist political organization. Socialist Alternative is the U.S. affiliate of the
International Socialist Alternative International Socialist Alternative is an international association of Trotskyist political parties. The group was founded in 1974 as the Committee for a Workers' International, by supporters of Militant from 12 countries. In August 2019, a f ...
, which is a Brussels-based international of Trotskyist political parties.


Socialist Equality Party

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) is a political party that formed after a 1964 ideological rupture with Socialist Workers Party over the issue of their support of the
Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...
government in Cuba, The SEP are composed of Trotskyists and are affiliated with the
World Socialist Web Site The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) is the website of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). It describes itself as an "online newspaper of the international Trotskyist movement". The WSWS publishes articles and analys ...
.


Socialist Workers Party

With fewer than one thousand members in 1996, the Socialist Worker's Party (SWP) was the second-largest Marxist–Leninist party in the United States. Formed by supporters of
Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
, they believed that the Soviet Union and other Communist states remained "worker's states" and should be defended against reactionary forces, although their leadership had sold out the workers. They became members of the
Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
Fourth International The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of ...
. Their publications include
The Militant ''The Militant'' is an international socialist newsweekly connected to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Pathfinder Press. It is published in the United States and distributed in other countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Aus ...
and a theoretical journal, the International Socialist Review. Two groups that broke with the SWP in the 1960s were the Spartacist League and the Workers League (which would later evolve into the Socialist Equality Party). The SWP has been involved in numerous violent scuffles.George & Wilcox, p. 110 In 1970 the party successfully sued the FBI for COINTELPRO, where the FBI opened and copied mail, planted informants, wiretapped members' homes, bugged conventions, and broke into party offices. The party fields candidates for President of the United States.


Solidarity

Solidarity is a socialist organization associated with the journal ''Against the Current''. Solidarity is an organizational descendant of International Socialists, a
Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
organization based on the proposition that the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
was not a "degenerate workers' state" (as in
orthodox Trotskyism Orthodox Trotskyism is a branch of Trotskyism which aims to adhere more closely to the philosophy, methods and positions of Leon Trotsky and the early Fourth International, Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx than other avowed Trotskyists. The first Tro ...
) but rather "
bureaucratic collectivism Bureaucratic collectivism is a theory of class society. It is used by some Trotskyists to describe the nature of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and other similar states in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere (such as North Korea). Th ...
", a new and especially repressive class society.


Spartacist League

The Spartacist League was formed in 1966 by members of the Socialist Workers Party who had been expelled two years earlier after accusing the SWP of adopting "petty bourgeois ideology". Beginning with a membership of around 75, their numbers dropped to 40 by 1969 although they grew to several hundred in the early 1970s, with Maoists disillusioned with China's new foreign policy joining the group.Klehr, pp. 70–73 The League saw the Soviet Union as a "
deformed workers' state In Trotskyist political theory, deformed workers' states are states where the capitalist class has been overthrown, the economy is largely state owned and planned, but there is no internal democracy or workers' control of industry. In a deformed ...
", and supported it over some policies. It is committed to Trotskyist " permanent revolution", rejecting Mao's peasant guerilla warfare model. The group's publication is ''
Workers Vanguard ''Workers Vanguard'' was a Marxist bi-weekly newspaper published by the Spartacist League, a Trotskyist political organization in the United States. It was affiliated also with the International Communist League, a confederation of similar groups. ...
''. Much of the group's activity has involved stopping Ku Klux Klan and Nazi rallies.


Notable figures and current publications


People

*
Bob Avakian Robert "Bob" Bruce Avakian (born March 7, 1943) is the founder and chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP). Avakian developed the organization's official ideology, a theoretical framework rooted in Maoism, called "the New Synth ...
– chairman of the
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (also known as RCP and The Revcoms) is a communist party in the United States founded in 1975 and led by its chairman, Bob Avakian. The party organizes for a revolution to overthrow the system of capitali ...
* Bill Ayers – co-founder and co-leader of the
Weather Underground The Weather Underground was a Far-left politics, far-left militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, the group was organiz ...
* John Bachtell – chairman of the
Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
* General Baker – leader of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers *
Roger Nash Baldwin Roger Nash Baldwin (January 21, 1884 – August 26, 1981) was one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He served as executive director of the ACLU until 1950. Many of the ACLU's original landmark cases took place under ...
– founding member of the ACLU *
Jack Barnes Jack Barnes (born 1940) is an American Communist and the National Secretary of the Socialist Workers Party. Barnes was elected the party's national secretary in 1972, replacing the retiring Farrell Dobbs. He joined the SWP in the early 1960s ...
Socialist Workers Party leader *
Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
– singer, civil rights and social activist *
Edward Bellamy Edward Bellamy (March 26, 1850 – May 22, 1898) was an American author, journalist, and political activist most famous for his utopian novel ''Looking Backward''. Bellamy's vision of a harmonious future world inspired the formation of numerou ...
utopian socialist Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often de ...
author *
Victor L. Berger Victor Luitpold Berger (February 28, 1860August 7, 1929) was an Austrian–American socialist politician and journalist who was a founding member of the Social Democratic Party of America and its successor, the Socialist Party of America. Born in ...
Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...
congressman *
Grace Lee Boggs Grace Lee Boggs (June 27, 1915 – October 5, 2015) was an American author, social activist, philosopher, and feminist. She is known for her years of political collaboration with C. L. R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya in the 1940s and 1950s. In th ...
– Chinese-American Marxist * James Boggs - African-American Marxist * Murray Bookchin – anarchist and libertarian socialist theorist *
Earl Browder Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891 – June 27, 1973) was an American politician, communist activist and leader of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Browder was the General Secretary of the CPUSA during the 1930s and first half of the 1940s. Duri ...
– Communist Party leader * James P. Cannon – leader of the Socialist Workers Party * Cesar Chavez
United Farm Workers The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing ...
leader *
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
– linguistics academic and anarchist activist *
Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of ...
– Communist Party leader *
Dorothy Day Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...
– founding member of the
Catholic Worker Movement The Catholic Worker Movement is a collection of autonomous communities of Catholics and their associates founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in the United States in 1933. Its aim is to "live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus ...
*
Daniel De Leon Daniel De Leon (; December 14, 1852 – May 11, 1914), alternatively spelt Daniel de León, was a Curaçaoan-American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather o ...
Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
theoretician and newspaper editor *
Eugene V. Debs Eugene Victor "Gene" Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American socialist, political activist, trade unionist, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five times the candidate of the Soc ...
– Socialist Party of America leader and presidential candidate *
David Dellinger David T. Dellinger (August 22, 1915 – May 25, 2004) was an American pacifist and an activist for nonviolent social change. He achieved peak prominence as one of the Chicago Seven, who were put on trial in 1969. Early life and schooling Delli ...
– Socialist Party of America leader and pacifist * Ron Dellums – Socialist congressman from California *
Farrell Dobbs Farrell Dobbs (July 25, 1907 – October 31, 1983) was an American Trotskyist, trade unionist, politician, and historian. Early years Dobbs was born in Queen City, Missouri, where his father was a worker in a coal company garage. The family ...
– leader of the Socialist Workers Party *
Hal Draper Hal Draper (born Harold Dubinsky; September 19, 1914 – January 26, 1990) was an American socialist activist and author who played a significant role in the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement. He is known for his extensive scholarship on t ...
– Young Peoples Socialist League leader and socialist intellectual * W. E. B. Du Bois – Sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist *
Barbara Ehrenreich Barbara Ehrenreich (, ; ; August 26, 1941 – September 1, 2022) was an American author and political activist. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America. She was a widely read and awar ...
– co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America *
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
– physicist * Jane Fonda - New Left antiwar activist, actor, CED Founder, climate activist * William Z. Foster – Communist Party leader * Gil Green – Young Communist and Communist Party USA leader *
Emma Goldman Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...
– anarchist activist *
Laurence Gronlund Laurence Gronlund (, Available 1844–1899) was a Danish-born American lawyer, writer, lecturer, and political activist. Gronlund is best remembered for his pioneering work in adapting the International Socialism of Karl Marx and Ferdinand La ...
– utopian socialist author *
Gus Hall Gus Hall (born Arvo Kustaa Halberg; October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and a perennial candidate for president of the United States. He was the Communist Party nominee in the ...
– Communist Party leader and presidential candidate *
Dashiell Hammett Samuel Dashiell Hammett (; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade ('' ...
– author *
Fred Hampton Fredrick Allen Hampton Sr. (August 30, 1948 – December 4, 1969) was an American activist. He came to prominence in Chicago as deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party and chair of the Illinois chapter. As a progressive African Ame ...
- Black Panther *
Michael Harrington Edward Michael Harrington Jr. (February 24, 1928 – July 31, 1989) was an American democratic socialist. As a writer, he was perhaps best known as the author of '' The Other America''. Harrington was also a political activist, theorist, profess ...
– democratic socialist activist *
Tom Hayden Thomas Emmet Hayden (December 11, 1939October 23, 2016) was an American social and political activist, author, and politician. Hayden was best known for his role as an anti-war, civil rights, and intellectual activist in the 1960s, authoring t ...
New Left activist and California assemblyman *
Bill Haywood William Dudley "Big Bill" Haywood (February 4, 1869 – May 18, 1928) was an American labor organizer and founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and a member of the executive committee of the Socialist Party of A ...
IWW The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
labor activist * Chris Hedges – dissident academic and Presbyterian Minister *
Alger Hiss Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...
State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
official, accused
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
spy * Abbie Hoffman
Yippie The Youth International Party (YIP), whose members were commonly called Yippies, was an American youth-oriented radical and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the late 1960s. It was founded on ...
activist *
Irving Howe Irving Howe (; June 11, 1920 – May 5, 1993) was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America. Early years Howe was born as Irving Horenstein in The Bronx, New York. He was the son of ...
– democratic socialist activist * Mary Harris "Mother" Jones – IWW labor activist *
Tom Kahn Tom David Kahn (September 15, 1938 – March 27, 1992) was an American social democrat known for his leadership in several organizations. He was an activist and influential strategist in the Civil Rights Movement. He was a senior adv ...
– social democratic, civil rights and labor activist * Helen Keller – author and activist *
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
– civil rights activist *
Gloria La Riva Gloria Estela La Riva (born August 13, 1954) is an American perennial political candidate, and communist activist with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) and the Peace and Freedom Party. She was the PSL's nominee and the Peace and Freed ...
– ten-time
perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...
presidential candidate for the
Workers World Party The Workers World Party (WWP) is a revolutionary Marxist–Leninist communist party founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Marcy and his followers split from the SWP in 1958 over a series of long-sta ...
and the
Party for Socialism and Liberation The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a communist party in the United States, established in 2004. Its members are active in a wide range of movements including the labor, anti-war, immigrants' rights, women's rights, and anti-police ...
*
Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...
– author *
Meyer London Meyer London (December 29, 1871 – June 6, 1926) was an American politician from New York City. He represented the Lower East Side of Manhattan and was one of only two members of the Socialist Party of America elected to the United States Congre ...
– Socialist Party of America congressman *
Vito Marcantonio Vito is an Italian name that is derived from the Latin word "''vita''", meaning "life". It is a modern form of the Latin name Vitus, meaning "life-giver," as in San Vito or Saint Vitus, the patron saint of dogs and a heroic figure in southern I ...
– Socialist congressman from New York *
Sam Marcy Sam Ballan (1911 – February 1, 1998), known by his pen name Sam Marcy, was an American lawyer, writer, and Marxist-Leninist activist of the post-World War II era. He co-founded the Workers World Party in 1959 and served as its chairperson un ...
– chairman of the Workers World Party *
A. J. Muste Abraham Johannes Muste ( ; January 8, 1885 – February 11, 1967) was a Dutch-born American clergyman and political activist. He is best remembered for his work in the labor movement, pacifist movement, antiwar movement, and civil rights movemen ...
– pacifist, labor and civil rights activist *
Immanuel Ness Immanuel Ness is a scholar of worker's organisation, migration, mobilisation and politics and labour activist teaching at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. His contribution is on worker's movements and party formation in th ...
– labor activist *
Huey P. Newton Huey Percy Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989) was an African-American revolutionary, notable as founder of the Black Panther Party. Newton crafted the Party's ten-point manifesto with Bobby Seale in 1966. Under Newton's leadershi ...
– leader of the Black Panther Party * David North - World Socialist Web Site * Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Representative Representative may refer to: Politics * Representative democracy, type of democracy in which elected officials represent a group of people * House of Representatives, legislative body in various countries or sub-national entities * Legislator, som ...
for New York's 14th congressional district and democratic socialist * Michael Parenti - academic * A. Philip Randolph – civil rights and labor leader * Adolph Reed – Political Scientist, academic, and Marxist * John Reed – journalist * Paul Robeson – actor, civil rights and labor activist * Jerry Rubin – Yippie activist *
Bayard Rustin Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement, ...
– pacifist and civil rights activist *
C. E. Ruthenberg Charles Emil Ruthenberg (July 9, 1882 – March 1, 1927) was an American Marxist politician and a founder and head of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Biography Early years Charles Emil Ruthenberg was born July 9, 1882, in Cleveland, Ohio, ...
– Communist Party leader *
Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007. He was the U.S. representative for the state's at-large congressional district from 1991 to 2007 ...
– Independent democratic socialist Senator and Democratic presidential candidate in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections * Margaret Sanger – reproductive rights and labor activist * Kshama Sawant
Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
activist and member of the Seattle City Council *
Max Shachtman Max Shachtman (; September 10, 1904 – November 4, 1972) was an American Marxist theorist. He went from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL–CIO President George Meany. Beginnings S ...
– Marxist theorist and activist * Irwin Silber – Marxist journalist * Upton Sinclair – author and socialist politician *
Jill Stein Jill Ellen Stein (born May 14, 1950) is an American physician, activist, and former political candidate. She was the Green Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 and 2016 elections and the Green-Rainbow Party's candidat ...
– Green Party presidential candidate * I. F. Stone – journalist * Paul Sweezy – Marxist economist and journalist *
Norman Thomas Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. Early years Thomas was the ...
– Socialist Party of America leader and presidential candidate * Benjamin Tucker – anarchist and libertarian socialist thinker * Mark Twain – author * Henry A. Wallace – Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Progressive Party (United States, 1948), Progressive Party in 1948. * Cornel West – dissident academic * Tim Wohlforth – Trotskyist leader * Richard D. Wolff – academic * Malcolm X – civil rights activist * Howard Zinn – academic * Hasan Piker – political commentator and Twitch (service), Twitch streamer


Publications

* ''The New Hampshire Gazette'', fortnightly, press run 5,500, founded 1756. * ''The Nation'', weekly, established 1865. Circulation 190,000. * ''The Progressive'', monthly, established 1909. * ''Monthly Review'', monthly, established 1949. Circulation 7,000. * ''Dissent (American magazine), Dissent'', quarterly, established 1954. * ''Texas Observer'', established 1954. * ''Fifth Estate (periodical), Fifth Estate'', quarterly, established 1965. * ''Review of Radical Political Economics'', quarterly, established 1968. * ''Dollars & Sense'', bimonthly, established 1974. * ''Mother Jones (magazine), Mother Jones'', bimonthly, established 1974. * ''In These Times'', monthly, established 1976. Circulation 17,000. * ''Z Communications#Z Magazine, Z Magazine'', monthly established 1977. Circulation 10,000 print and 6,000 online subscribers. * ''Labor Notes'', monthly, established 1979. * ''Utne Reader'', bimonthly, established 1984. Circulation 150,000. * ''Left Business Observer'', established 1986. * ''The American Prospect'', monthly, established 1990. Circulation 55,000.* ''The Baffler'', established 1988. * ''CounterPunch'', semi-monthly, established 1994. * CrimethInc., anarchist publishing collective established 1996. * ''Working USA'', quarterly, established 1997. * ''The Indypendent'', published 17 times per year, established 2000. * ''Truthout'', website, established 2001. * ''Left Turn'', website, established 2001. *
Socialist Revolution
' (formerly ''Socialist Appeal''), established 2001. * ''Black Commentator'', web-only weekly, established 2002. * '' Jacobin'', established 2010. * ''It's Going Down (collective), It's Going Down'', established 2016.


Public officeholders


Communist Party USA


Wisconsin

# Wahsayah Whitebird – Member of the Ashland, Wisconsin city-council.


Green Party of the United States

There have been at least 65 officeholders for the Green Party of the United States.


Arkansas

# Alvin Clay – Justice of the Peace Mississippi County, District 6 Elected: 2012 # Kade Holliday – County Clerk Craighead County, Arkansas Elected: 2012 # Roger Watkins – Constable Craighead County, District 5 Elected: 2012


California

# Daniel Hamburg, Dan Hamburg – Board of Supervisors, District 5, Mendocino County # Bruce Delgado – Mayor, Marina (Monterey County) # Larry Bragman – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County) # Renée Goddard – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County) # John Reed – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County) # Gayle Mclaughlin – City Council, Richmond (Contra Costa) # Deborah Heathersone – Town Council, Point Arena (Mendocino County) # Paul Pitino – Town Council, Arcata (Humboldt County) # John Keener (politician), John Keener – City Council, Pacifica (San Mateo County) # Vahe Peroomian – Board of Trustees, Glendale Community College District, Glendale (Los Angeles County) # Amy Martenson – Board of Trustees, District 2, Napa Valley College, Napa (Napa County) # April Clary – Board of Trustees, Student Representative, Napa Valley College, Napa (Napa County) # Heather Bass – Board of Directors, Gilroy Unified School District, Gilroy, Santa Clara County # Dave Clark – Board of Directors, Cardiff School District (San Diego County) # Phyllis Greenleaf – Board of Trustees, Live Oak Elementary School District (Santa Cruz County) # Adriana Griffin – Red Bluff Union School District, Red Bluff (Tehama County) # Jim C. Keller – Board of Trustees, Bonny Doon Union Elementary School District, Santa Cruz County # Brigitte Kubacki – Governing Boardmember, Green Point School, Blue Lake (Humboldt County) # Jose Lara – Vice President and Governing Board Member, El Rancho Unified School District, Pico Rivera (Los Angeles) # Kimberly Ann Peterson – Board of Trustees, Geyserville Unified School District (Sonoma County) # Karen Pickett (politician), Karen Pickett – Board Member, Canyon Canyon Elementary School District (Contra Costa County) # Kathy Rallings – Board of Trustees, Carlsbad Unified School District, Carlsbad, San Diego County # Sean Reagan – Governing Boardmember, Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District, Norwalk (Los Angeles County) # Curtis Robinson – Board of Trustees, Area 6, Marin County Board of Education (Marin County) # Christopher Sabec (politician), Christopher Sabec – Governing Boardmember, Lagunitas School District (Marin County) # Katherine Salinas – Governing Boardmember, Arcata School District, Arcata (Humboldt County) # Jeffrey Dean Schwartz – Governing Boardmember, Arcata School District, Arcata (Humboldt County) # Alex Shantz – Board of Trustees, St. Helena Unified School District, Napa County # Dana Silvernale – Governing Boardmember, North Humboldt Union High School (Humboldt County) # Jim Smith (politician), Jim Smith – President, Canyon School Board, Canyon Township (Contra Costa County) # Logan Blair Smith – Little Shasta Elementary School District, Montague (Shasta County) # Rama Zarcufsky – Governing Boardmember, Maple Creek School District (Humboldt County) # John Selawsky – Rent Stabilization Board, Berkeley (Alameda County) # Jesse Townley – Rent Stabilization Board, Berkeley (Alameda County) # Jeff Davis (politician), Jeff Davis – Board of Directors, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (Alameda and Contra Costa Counties) # Karen Anderson (politician), Karen Anderson – Board of Directors, Coastside Fire Protection District (San Mateo County) # Robert L. Campbell – Scotts Valley Fire District (Santa Cruz County) # William Lemos – Fire Protection District, Mendocino (Mendocino County) # Russell Pace – Board of Directors, Willow Creek Fire District (Humboldt County) # John Abraham Powell – Board of Directors, Montecito Fire District, Montecito (Santa Barbara County) # Larry Bragman – Board of Directors, Division 3, Marin Municipal Water District Board (Marin County) # James Harvey (politician), James Harvey – Board of Directors, Montara Water and Sanitary District (San Mateo County) # Randy Marx – Board of Directors, Fair Oaks Water District, Division 4 (Sacramento County) # Jan Shriner – Board of Directors, Marina Coast Water District (Monterey County) # Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap – Board of Directors, Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, Division 1 (Humboldt County) # James Barone – Boardmember, Rollingwood-Wilart Recreation and Parks District (Contra Costa County) # William Hayes (California politician), William Hayes – Board of Directors, Mendocino Coast Park and Recreation District (Mendocino County) # Illijana Asara – Board of Directors, Community Service District, Big Lagoon (Humboldt County) # Gerald Epperson – Board of Directors, Crocket Community Services District, Contra Costa County # Joseph Gauder – Boardmember, Covelo Community Services District, Covelo (Mendocino County) # Crispin Littlehales – Boardmember, Covelo Community Services District, Covelo (Mendocino County) # George A. Wheeler – Board of Directors, Community Service District, McKinleyville (Humboldt County) # Mathew Clark – Board of Directors, Granada Sanitary District (San Mateo County) # Nanette Corley – Director, Resort Improvement District, Whitehorn (Humboldt County) # Sylvia Aroth – Outreach Officer, Venice Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County) # Robin Doyno – At-Large Community Officer, Mar Vista Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County) # Janine Jordan – District 4 Business Representative, Mid-Town North Hollywood Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County) # Jack Lindblad – At Large Community Stakeholder, North Hollywood Northeast Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County) # Johanna A. Sanchez – Secretary, Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County) # Johanna A. Sanchez – At-Large Director, Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County) # Marisol Sanchez (politician), Marisol Sanchez – Area 1 Seat, Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County) # William Bretz – Crest/Dehesa/Harrison Canyon/Granite Hill Planning Group (San Diego County) # Claudia White – Member, Descanso Community Planning Group (San Diego County) # Annette Keenberg – Town Council, Lake Los Angeles (Los Angeles County) # Rama Zarcufsky – Governing Boardmember, Maple Creek School District (Humboldt County)


Socialist Alternative


Washington

# Kshama Sawant – Seattle City Council, Position 2


Socialist Party USA


New Jersey

# Pat Noble – Member of the
Red Bank Regional High School Red Bank Regional High School (often abbreviated RBR) is a comprehensive regional four-year public high school and school district that serves students in ninth through twelfth grades from the boroughs of Little Silver, Red Bank and Shrewsbur ...
Board of Education for Red Bank, New Jersey, Red Bank


Vermont Progressive Party

# David Zuckerman (politician), David Zuckerman – Lieutenant Governor # Doug Hoffer – State Auditor # Tim Ashe – Pro Tem of the Vermont Senate # Christopher Pearson (Vermont politician), Chris Pearson – Member of the Vermont Senate # Anthony Pollina – Member of the Vermont Senate # Mollie S. Burke – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives # Robin Chesnut-Tangerman – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives # Diana Gonzalez – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives # Sandy Haas – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives # Selene Colburn – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives # Brian Cina – Member of the Vermont House of Representatives # Jane Knodell – Burlington City Council President (Central District) # Max Tracy – Burlington City Council (Ward 2) # Sara Giannoni – Burlington City Council (Ward 3) # Wendy Coe – Ward Clerk (Ward 2) # Carmen Solari – Inspector of Elections (Ward 2) # Kit Andrews – Inspector of Elections (Ward 3) # Jeremy Hansen – Berlin Select Board # Steve May Richmond Select Board # Susan Hatch Davis – Former Member of the Vermont House of Representatives # Dexter Randel Former Member of the Vermont House of Representatives & Former Troy Select Board # Bob Kiss – Former Mayor of Burlington # Peter Clevelle – Former Mayor of Burlington # David Van Deusen – Former Moretown Select Board & Former First Constable


Working Families Party


Connecticut

# Ed Gomes – Member of the Connecticut Senate from the 23rd district


New York

# Diana Richardson – Member of the New York State Assembly from the 43rd district


See also

* African-American leftism * Espionage Act of 1917 * Handschu agreement * History of the socialist movement in the United States * House Un-American Activities Committee * Liberalism in the United States * Millennial socialism * Modern liberalism in the United States * Progressivism in the United States * Red Scare


References


Bibliography

* ALB (2009–10) "The SLP of America: a premature obituary?" ''Socialist Standard''. Retrieved 2010-05-1

* Alexander, Robert J. ''International Trotskyism, 1929–1985: a documented analysis of the movement''. United States of America: Duke University Press, 1991. * Amster, Randall. ''Contemporary anarchist studies: an introductory anthology of anarchy in the academy''. Oxford, UK: Taylor & Francis, 2009 * Archer, Robin. ''Why Is There No Labor Party in the United States?''. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. * Bérubé, Michael. ''The Left at war''. New York: New York University Press, 2009 * Mari Jo Buhle, Buhle, Mari Jo; Paul Buhle, Buhle, Paul and Dan Georgakas, Georgakas, Dan. ''Encyclopedia of the American left'' (Second edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. * Busky, Donald F. ''Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey''. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2000. * Coleman, Stephen. ''Daniel De Leon''. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1990 * Draper, Theodore. ''The roots of American Communism''. New York: Viking Press, 1957. * * George, John and Wilcox, Laird. ''American Extremists: Militias, Supremacists, Klansmen, Communists & Others''. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1996. * Graeber, David. "The rebirth of anarchism in North America, 1957–2007" in ''Contemporary history online'', No. 21, (Winter, 2010) * * Isserman, Maurice. ''The other American: the life of Michael Harrington''. New York: Public Affairs, 2000. * Klehr, Harvey. ''Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today''. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1988. * Liebman, Arthur. ''Jews and the Left''. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1979. * Lingeman, Richard. ''The Nation Guide to the Nation''. New York: Vintage Books, 2009. * Lipset, Seymour Martin and Marks, Gary. ''It didn't happen here: why socialism failed in the United States''. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2001. * Reuters. "U.S. protests shrink while antiwar sentiment grows". Oct 3, 2007 12:30:17 GMT Retrieved September 20, 201
Humanitarian , Thomson Reuters Foundation News
* Ryan, James G. ''Earl Browder: the failure of American Communism''. Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1997. * Sherman, Amy. "Demonstrators to gather in Fort Lauderdale to rail against oil giant BP", the ''Miami Herald''. May 12, 2010 Retrieved from SunSentinel.com September 22, 201
Demonstrators to gather in Fort Lauderdale to rail against oil giant BP
* Stedman, Susan W. and Stedman Jr. Murray Salisbury. ''Discontent at the polls: a study of farmer and labor parties, 1827–1948''. New York: Columbia University Press. 1950. * Woodcock, George, ''Anarchism: a history of libertarian ideas and movements''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.


External links


"The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance versus the 'pure and simple trade union'"
1900 debate,
Daniel De Leon Daniel De Leon (; December 14, 1852 – May 11, 1914), alternatively spelt Daniel de León, was a Curaçaoan-American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather o ...
and Job Harriman
"Is Russia a socialist Community?"
1950 debate,
Earl Browder Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891 – June 27, 1973) was an American politician, communist activist and leader of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Browder was the General Secretary of the CPUSA during the 1930s and first half of the 1940s. Duri ...
, C. Wright Mills and
Max Shachtman Max Shachtman (; September 10, 1904 – November 4, 1972) was an American Marxist theorist. He went from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL–CIO President George Meany. Beginnings S ...
* "Why No Revolution? A Short History of American Left Movements"
Part 1: early 1800s to 1945Part 2: 1945–2012
2012, featuring Joe Uris *"Second Thought" https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJm2TgUqtK1_NLBrjNQ1P-w {{Portal bar, Socialism, Liberalism Left-wing politics in the United States, Political movements in the United States Progressivism in the United States Reform movements