American Left
Encyclopedia
The American Left consists of individuals and groups, including socialists, communists and anarchists, that have sought fundamental change in the economic, political and cultural institutions of the United States. Although left-wing ideologies came to the United States in the 19th century, there are no major left-wing political parties in the US. As a result, Americans frequently use the term "left-wing" to refer to radicalism or even liberalism.
. Joseph Weydemeyer
, a German colleague of Karl Marx
who sought refuge in New York in 1851, following the 1848 revolutions, established the first Marxist journal in the U.S., called Die Revolution. 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
, formed the National Labor Union
(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 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.
A larger wave of German immigrants followed in the 1870s and 1880s, which included social democratic followers of Ferdinand Lasalle. 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 employers would only pay subsistence wages. The Lasalleans formed the Social Democratic Party of North America in 1874 and both Marxists and Lasalleans formed the Workingmen's Party of the United States
in 1876. When the Lasalleans 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
, formed the American Federation of Labor
(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 of the American president, William McKinley
, 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
and Alexander Berkman
, were deported. Yet anarchism again reached great public notice with the trial of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti
, who would be executed in 1927.
Daniel De Leon
, who became leader of the SLP in 1890, took it in a Marxist direction. Eugene Debs, who had been an organizer for the American Railway Union
formed the rival Social Democratic Party
in 1898. Members of the SLP, led by Morris Hillquit
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
(SPA). A group of socialists and trade unionists, upset with the craft unionism of the AFL set up the rival Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW), led by William D. (Big Bill) Haywood
and including De Leon and Debs.
The organizers of the IWW disagreed on the road to socialism, whether it would be achieved through political or industrial action. Debs left the IWW in 1906 while De Leon was expelled in 1908. The IWW became committed to anarcho-syndicalism
and avoided 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 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 Berger, 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
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.
and other Socialists formed the Communist Labor Party
, while Socialist foreign sections led by Charles Ruthenberg
formed the Communist Party. These two groups would be combined as the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA). The Communists organized the Trade Union Unity League
to compete with the AFL and claimed to represent 50,000 workers.
In 1928, following divisions inside the Soviet Union, Jay Lovestone
, 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
, who were followers of Leon Trotsky
. Following another Soviet factional dispute, Lovestone and Gitlow were expelled, and Earl Browder
became party leader.
Cannon, Shachtman, and Martin Abern
then set up the Trotskyist Communist League of America
, and recruited members from the CPUSA. The League then merged with A. J. Muste
's American Workers Party
in 1934, forming the Workers Party
. New members included James Burnham
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
. 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 Old Guard formed the American Labor Party
(ALP) in New York State, with support from the Congress of Industrial Organizations
(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.
welcomed former members of the Independent Socialist League
, which before its 1956 dissolution had been led by Max Shachtman
. Shachtman had developed a Marxist
critique of Soviet communism as "bureaucratic collectivism
", 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
" proposed by Yugoslavian dissident Milovan Đilas (Djilas). Shachtman's ISL had attracted youth like Irving Howe
, Michael Harrington
, Tom Kahn
, 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
, helped Bayard Rustin
with the civil-rights movement. Rustin had helped to spread pacificism
and non-violence to leaders of the civil rights movement, like Martin Luther King. Rustin's circle and A. Philip Randolph
organized the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King delivered his I Have A Dream
speech.
Michael Harrington soon became the most visible socialist in the United States when his The Other America
became a best seller, following a long and laudatory New Yorker
review by Dwight Macdonald
. Harrington and other socialists were called to Washington, D.C., to assist the Kennedy Administration and then the Johnson Administration's War on Poverty
and Great Society
.
Shachtman, Michael 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
" 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
(LID), which helped to start the New Left
Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS). The three LID officers clashed with the less experienced activists of SDS, like Tom Hayden
, when the latter's Port Huron Statement
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. Afterwords, Marxism Leninism, particularly the Progressive Labor Party, helped to write "the death sentence" for SDS, which nonetheless had over 100 thousand members at its peak.
In the 1960s there was a renewed interest in anarchism, and some anarchist and other left-wing groups developed out of the New Left
. Anarchists began using direct action
, organizing through affinity group
s during anti-nuclear campaigns
in the 1970s.
, a peace and civil-rights leader, and Charles S. Zimmerman, an officer of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). In 1973, Michael Harrington
resigned from SDUSA and founded the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee
(DSOC), which attracted many of his followers from the former Socialist Party. The same year, David McReynolds
and others from the pacifist and immediate-withdrawal wing of the former Socialist Party formed the Socialist Party, USA.
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).
organized the AFL–CIO's fundraising of 300 thousand dollars, 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
(NED), whose first President was Carl Gershman
. The NED publicly allocated 4 million USD 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. One successful anarchist movement was Food not Bombs
, that distributed free vegetarian meals. Anarchists received significant media coverage for their disruption of the 1999 WTO conference, called the Battle in Seattle, 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 911 attacks in 2001. However by 1997 anarchist organizations had again begun to proliferate.
Although Working Men's Parties
were founded in the 1820s and 1830s in the United States, they advocated equality of opportunity, universal education and improved working conditions, not socialism, collective ownership or equality of outcome
, and disappeared after their goals were taken up by Jacksonian democracy
. Gompers, the leader of the AFL 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. Although it used anti-capitalist rhetoric, it represented the views of small farmers who wanted to protect their own private property, not a call for collectivism, socialism, or communism. 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. Many popular writers of the progressive period were in fact left-wing. But even the New Left
relied on radical democratic traditions rather than left-wing ideology.
Engels thought that the lack of a feudal past was the reason for the American working class holding middle class values. Writing at the time when American industry was developing quickly towards the mass-production system known as Fordism
, Max Weber
and Antonio Gramsci
saw individualism and laissez-faire liberalism as core shared American beliefs. According to the historian David DeLeon, American radicalism, unlike social democracy, Fabianism and communism was rooted in libertarianism and syndicalism and opposed to centralized power and collectivism.
The character of the American political system, which is hostile toward third parties has also been presented as a reason for the absence of a strong socialist party in the United States.
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
. Tom Kahn
served as Director of International Affairs for the AFL–CIO. Sandra Feldman
served as President of the American Federation of Teachers
(AFT). Rachelle Horowitz served as Political Director for the AFT and serves on the board for the National Democratic Institute
. Other members of SDUSA specialized in international politics. Penn Kemble
served as the Acting Director of the U.S. Information Agency 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
, Carl Gershman
has served as the President of the National Endowment for Democracy
.
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
(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 or its predecessors whose membership was then 1,800, according to a 1973 profile of Harrington.
DSOC became a member of the Socialist International
. DSOC supported progressive Democrats, including DSOC member Congressman Ron Dellums
, and worked to help network activists in the Democratic Party and in labor unions. With roughly six thousand members, it is the largest contemporary democratic-socialist or social-democratic organization in the United States.
In 1982 DSOC established the Democratic Socialists of America
(DSA) upon merging with the New American Movement
, an organization of democratic socialists mostly from the New Left. Its high-profile members included Congressman Major Owens
and William Winpisinger, President of the International Association of Machinists.
. 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 re-named The Socialist. The SPUSA continued to run local and national candidates. In 1972 they supported the presidential campaign of Benjamin Spock
of the People's Party
. Their 2000 candidate for president was David McReynolds
.
In 2000 SPUSA stated that it had 1,000 members.
groups have differed according to their visions of communism
and their strategies for achieving socialism. Marxist–Leninism has been advocated and practiced by communists of many kinds, including pro-Soviet
, Trotskyist, Maoist, or independent
. The following Marxist organizations are ordered by their year of founding, from earliest to latest.
and Daniel De Leon
in 1900, leading to the defection of reformers to the new Socialist Party of America
(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
and James Connolly
. 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.
(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
and investigations by the House Unamerican Activities Committee (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
organizations founded in the 1950s continued to operate at least into the 1990s, notably the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
, the American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born, the Labor Research Association, the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship
, and the U.S. Peace Council. Other groups with less direct links to the CP include the National Lawyers Guild
, the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee
, and the Center for Constitutional Rights
. Many leading members of the New Left
, including some members of the Weather Underground and the May 19th Communist Organization 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
.
The CP publishes the People's World and Political Affairs. Beginning 1988, the CP stopped running candidates for President of the United States. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, 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.
(SWP) was the second largest Marxist-Leninist party in the United States. Formed by supporters of Leon Trotsky
, 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 Fourth International
. Their publications include The Militant
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. The SWP has been involved in numerous violent scuffles. 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.
(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
(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.
(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 party has transformed from Trotskyism to Maoism 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 about 200.
Their front group, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (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
, taking leadership of A.N.S.W.E.R. with them. The Workers World Party then formed the Troops Out Now Coalition
.
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.
The League saw the Soviet Union as a "deformed workers state", 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
. Much of the group's activity has involved stopping Ku Klux Klan and Nazi rallies.
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
". Clara Fraser
came to lead the party and was to form the group Radical Women
.
(RCP) had almost one thousand members in twenty-five states by 1975. Its main founder and long time leader, Bob Avakian
, a Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS) organizer had fought off attempts for control of the SDS by the Progressive Labor Party. The party has been unwaveringly Maoist. Working through the U.S.-Chinese People's 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, the Equal Rights Amendment
(ERA), and gay rights. The party fell out of favour with the Chinese government after the death of Mao Zedong
, partly because of the personality cult of the RCP leader. By the mid-1990s the party numbered fewer than 500 members.
", 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 rebels in Nicaragua .
was not a "degenerate workers' state" (as in orthodox Trotskyism
) but rather "bureaucratic collectivism
", a new and especially repressive class society.
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 (A.N.S.W.E.R.) at the time of the split.
Following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill
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.
Origins: 1848-1919
The first American socialists were German Marxist immigrants who arrived following the 1848 revolutionsRevolutions of 1848
The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...
. Joseph Weydemeyer
Joseph Weydemeyer
Joseph Arnold Weydemeyer was a military officer in the Kingdom of Prussia and the United States, as well as a journalist, politician and Marxist revolutionary....
, a German colleague of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
who sought refuge in New York in 1851, following the 1848 revolutions, established the first Marxist journal in the U.S., called Die Revolution. 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
William H. Sylvis was a pioneer American trade union leader. Sylvis is best remembered as a founder of the Iron Molders' International Union and the National Labor Union, the latter being one of the first American union federations attempting to unite workers of various crafts into a single...
, formed the National Labor Union
National Labor Union
The National Labor Union was 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 AF of L . It was led by William H...
(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 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.
A larger wave of German immigrants followed in the 1870s and 1880s, which included social democratic followers of Ferdinand Lasalle. 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 employers would only pay subsistence wages. The Lasalleans formed the Social Democratic Party of North America in 1874 and both Marxists and Lasalleans formed the Workingmen's Party of the United States
Workingmen's Party of the United States
The Workingmen's Party of the United States , established in 1876, was one of the first Marxist-influenced political parties in the United States...
in 1876. When the Lasalleans gained control in 1877, they changed the name to the Socialist Labor Party of North America
Socialist Labor Party of America
The Socialist Labor Party of America , established in 1876 as the Workingmen's Party, is the oldest socialist political party in the United States and the second oldest socialist party in the world. Originally known as the Workingmen's Party of America, the party changed its name in 1877 and has...
(SLP). However many socialists abandoned political action altogether and moved to trade unionism. Two former socialists, Adolph Strasser and Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers was an English-born American cigar maker who became a labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor , and served as that organization's president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924...
, formed the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
(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
Haymarket affair
The Haymarket affair was a demonstration and unrest that took place on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at the Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a rally in support of striking workers. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they dispersed the public meeting...
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 of the American president, William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
, by a professed anarchist led to the ending of political asylum for anarchists in 1903. In 1919, following the Palmer raids
Palmer Raids
The Palmer Raids were attempts by the United States Department of Justice to arrest and deport radical leftists, especially anarchists, from the United States. The raids and arrests occurred in November 1919 and January 1920 under the leadership of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer...
, anarchists were imprisoned and many, including Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
and Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman was an anarchist known for his political activism and writing. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century....
, were deported. Yet anarchism again reached great public notice with the trial of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States...
, who would be executed in 1927.
Daniel De Leon
Daniel De Leon
Daniel DeLeon was an American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather of the idea of revolutionary industrial unionism and was the leading figure in the Socialist Labor Party of America from 1890 until the time of...
, who became leader of the SLP in 1890, took it in a Marxist direction. Eugene Debs, who had been an organizer for the American Railway Union
American Railway Union
The American Railway Union , was the largest labor union of its time, and one of the first industrial unions in the United States. It was founded on June 20, 1893, by railway workers gathered in Chicago, Illinois, and under the leadership of Eugene V...
formed the rival Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (United States)
The Social Democratic Party of America was a short-lived political party in the United States, established in 1898. The group was formed out of elements of the Social Democracy of America , and was a predecessor to the Socialist Party of America, established in 1901.-Forerunners:Following the...
in 1898. Members of the SLP, led by Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit
Morris Hillquit was a founder and leader of the Socialist Party of America and prominent labor lawyer in New York City's Lower East Side during the early 20th century.-Early years:...
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
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-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 which had split from the main organization...
(SPA). A group of socialists and trade unionists, upset with the craft unionism of the AFL set up the rival Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
(IWW), led by William D. (Big Bill) Haywood
Bill Haywood
William Dudley Haywood , better known as "Big Bill" Haywood, was a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World , and a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America...
and including De Leon and Debs.
The organizers of the IWW disagreed on the road to socialism, whether it would be achieved through political or industrial action. Debs left the IWW in 1906 while De Leon was expelled in 1908. The IWW became committed to anarcho-syndicalism
Anarcho-syndicalism
Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. The word syndicalism comes from the French word syndicat which means trade union , from the Latin word syndicus which in turn comes from the Greek word σύνδικος which means caretaker of an issue...
and avoided 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 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 Berger, 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
Espionage Act of 1917
The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code but is now found under Title 18, Crime...
and Sedition Act
Sedition Act of 1918
The Sedition Act of 1918 was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds...
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.
1919-1945
In 1919, John Reed, Benjamin GitlowBenjamin Gitlow
Benjamin "Ben" Gitlow was a prominent American socialist politician of the early twentieth century and a founding member of the Communist Party USA. From the end of the 1930s, Gitlow turned to conservatism and wrote two sensational exposés of American Communism, books which were very influential...
and other Socialists formed the Communist Labor Party
Communist Labor Party
The Communist Labor Party of America 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...
, while Socialist foreign sections led by Charles Ruthenberg
Charles Ruthenberg
Charles Emil Ruthenberg was an American Marxist politician and a founder and long-time head of the Communist Party USA .-Biography: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 of the United States of America (CPUSA). The Communists organized the Trade Union Unity League
Trade Union Unity League
The Trade Union Unity League was an industrial union umbrella organization of the Communist Party of the United States between 1929 and 1935...
to compete with the AFL and claimed to represent 50,000 workers.
In 1928, following divisions inside the Soviet Union, Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone 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 Central Intelligence Agency helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions...
, who had replaced Ruthenberg as general secretary of the CPUSA following his death, joined with William Z. Foster
William Z. Foster
William Foster was a radical American labor organizer and Marxist politician, whose career included a lengthy stint as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA...
to expel Foster's former allies, James P. Cannon
James P. Cannon
James Patrick "Jim" Cannon was an American Trotskyist and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.Born on February 11, 1890 in Rosedale, Kansas, he joined the Socialist Party of America in 1908 and the Industrial Workers of the World in 1911...
and Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman was an American Marxist theorist. He evolved from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL-CIO President George Meany.-Beginnings:...
, who were followers of Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
. Following another Soviet factional dispute, Lovestone and Gitlow were expelled, and Earl Browder
Earl Browder
Earl Russell Browder was an American communist and General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1934 to 1945. He was expelled from the party in 1946.- Early years :...
became party leader.
Cannon, Shachtman, and Martin Abern
Martin Abern
Martin Abern was a Marxist politician who was an important leader of the Communist youth movement of the 1920s as well as a founder of the American Trotskyist movement.-Early years:...
then set up the Trotskyist Communist League of America
Communist League of America
The Communist League of America was founded by James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman and Martin Abern late in 1928 after their expulsion from the Communist Party USA for Trotskyism. The CLA was the United States section of Leon Trotsky's International Left Opposition and initially positioned itself as...
, and recruited members from the CPUSA. The League then merged with A. J. Muste
A. J. Muste
The Reverend Abraham Johannes "A.J." Muste was a Dutch-born American clergyman and political activist. Muste is best remembered for his work in the labor movement, pacifist movement, and the US civil rights movement.-Early years:...
's American Workers Party
American Workers Party
The American Workers Party was a socialist organization established in December 1933 by activists in the Conference for Progressive Labor Action, a group headed by A.J. Muste.-Formation:...
in 1934, forming the Workers Party
Workers Party of the United States
The Workers Party of the United States was established in December 1934 by a merger of the American Workers Party led by A.J. Muste and the Trotskyist Communist League of America led by James P. Cannon. The party was dissolved in 1936 when its members entered the Socialist Party of America en...
. New members included James Burnham
James Burnham
James Burnham was an American popular political theorist, best known for his influential work The Managerial Revolution, published in 1941. Burnham was a radical activist in the 1930s and an important factional leader of the American Trotskyist movement. In later years he left Marxism and produced...
and Sidney Hook
Sidney Hook
Sidney Hook was an American pragmatic philosopher known for his contributions to public debates.A student of John Dewey, Hook continued to examine the philosophy of history, of education, politics, and of ethics. After embracing Marxism in his youth, Hook was known for his criticisms of...
.
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 Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...
. 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
Socialist Workers Party (United States)
The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba...
(SWP) and the youth wing of the Socialists, the Young People's Socialist League
Young People's Socialist League
The Young People's Socialist League , founded in 1989, is the official youth arm of the Socialist Party USA. The group's membership consists of those democratic socialists under the age of 30, and its political activities tend to concentrate on increasing the voter turnout of young democratic...
(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 Old Guard formed the American Labor Party
American Labor Party
The American Labor Party was a political party in the United States established in 1936 which was active almost exclusively in the state of New York. The organization was founded by labor leaders and former members of the Socialist Party who had established themselves as the Social Democratic...
(ALP) in New York State, with support from the Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
(CIO). The right wing of this party broke away in 1944 to form the Liberal Party of New York
Liberal Party of New York
The Liberal Party of New York is a minor American political party that has been active only in the state of New York. Its platform supports a standard set of social liberal policies: it supports right to abortion, increased spending on education, and universal health care.As of 2007, the Liberal...
. 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.
1950s and 1960s: Civil Rights, the War on Poverty, and the New Left
In 1958 the Socialist PartySocialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-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 which had split from the main organization...
welcomed former members of the Independent Socialist League
Workers Party (US)
Not to be confused with the modern Marxist-Leninist party, Workers Party, USA.The Workers Party 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. They included Max Shachtman,...
, which before its 1956 dissolution had been led by Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman was an American Marxist theorist. He evolved from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL-CIO President George Meany.-Beginnings:...
. Shachtman had developed a Marxist
Neo-Marxism
Neo-Marxism is a loose term for various twentieth-century approaches that amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, usually by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions, such as: critical theory, psychoanalysis or Existentialism .Erik Olin Wright's theory of contradictory class...
critique of Soviet communism as "bureaucratic collectivism
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 .- Theory :...
", 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
The "New Class" model, as a theory of new social groups in post-industrial societies, gained ascendency during the 1970s as social and political scientists noted how "New Class" groups were shaped by post-material orientations in their pursuit of political and social goals...
" proposed by Yugoslavian dissident Milovan Đilas (Djilas). Shachtman's ISL had attracted youth like Irving Howe
Irving Howe
Irving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Life and career:...
, Michael Harrington
Michael Harrington
Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Personal life:...
, Tom Kahn
Tom Kahn
Tom David Kahn was an American social democrat known for his leadership in other organizations. He was an activist and influential strategist in the African-American civil-rights movement. He was a senior adviser and leader in the U.S. labor movement.Kahn was raised in New York City. At...
, and Rachelle Horowitz. The YPSL was dissolved, but the party formed a new youth group under the same name.
Norman Hill
Norman Hill is an influential African-American administrator, 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 one of the first African-Americans to graduate from Haverford. After college, Hill...
, helped Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights.In the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation , Rustin practiced nonviolence...
with the civil-rights movement. Rustin had helped to spread pacificism
Pacificism
Pacificism is the general ethical opposition to war or violence, except in cases where force is deemed absolutely necessary to advance the cause of peace....
and non-violence to leaders of the civil rights movement, like Martin Luther King. Rustin's circle and A. Philip Randolph
A. Philip Randolph
Asa Philip Randolph was a leader in the African American civil-rights movement and the American labor movement. He organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly Negro labor union. In the early civil-rights movement, Randolph led the March on Washington...
organized the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King delivered his I Have A Dream
I Have a Dream
"I Have a Dream" is a 17-minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on August 28, 1963, in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination...
speech.
Michael Harrington soon became the most visible socialist in the United States when his The Other America
The Other America
Michael Harrington’s book The Other America was an influential study of poverty in the United States, published in 1962 by Macmillan. A widely read review, "Our Invisible Poor," in The New Yorker by Dwight Macdonald brought the book to the attention of President John F. Kennedy.The Other America...
became a best seller, following a long and laudatory New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
review by Dwight Macdonald
Dwight Macdonald
Dwight Macdonald was an American writer, editor, film critic, social critic, philosopher, and political radical.-Early life and career:...
. Harrington and other socialists were called to Washington, D.C., to assist the Kennedy Administration and then the Johnson Administration's War on Poverty
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 poverty rate of around nineteen percent...
and Great Society
Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States promoted by President Lyndon B. Johnson and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice...
.
Shachtman, Michael Harrington
Michael Harrington
Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Personal life:...
, 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
Social liberalism is the belief that liberalism should include social justice. It differs from classical liberalism in that it believes the legitimate role of the state includes addressing economic and social issues such as unemployment, health care, and education while simultaneously expanding...
" or social-democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
positions, at least on civil rights and the War on Poverty
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 poverty rate of around nineteen percent...
.
Harrington, Kahn, and Horowitz were officers and staff-persons of the League for Industrial Democracy
League for Industrial Democracy
The League for Industrial Democracy , from 1960-1965 known as the Students for a Democratic Society , was founded in 1905 by a group of notable socialists including Harry W. Laidler, Jack London, Norman Thomas, Upton Sinclair, and J.G. Phelps Stokes...
(LID), which helped to start the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
(SDS). The three LID officers clashed with the less experienced activists of SDS, like Tom Hayden
Tom Hayden
Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden is an American social and political activist and politician, known for his involvement in the animal rights, and the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. He is the former husband of actress Jane Fonda and the father of actor Troy Garity.-Life and...
, when the latter's Port Huron Statement
Port Huron Statement
The Port Huron Statement is the manifesto of the American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society , written primarily by Tom Hayden, then the Field Secretary of SDS, and completed on June 15, 1962 at an SDS convention at what is now a state park in Lakeport, Michigan, a...
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. Afterwords, Marxism Leninism, particularly the Progressive Labor Party, helped to write "the death sentence" for SDS, which nonetheless had over 100 thousand members at its peak.
In the 1960s there was a renewed interest in anarchism, and some anarchist and other left-wing groups developed out of the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
. Anarchists began using direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
, organizing through affinity group
Affinity group
An Affinity group is usually a small group of activists who work together on direct action.Affinity groups are organized in a non-hierarchical manner, usually using consensus decision making, and are often made up of trusted friends...
s during anti-nuclear campaigns
Anti-nuclear movement in the United States
The anti-nuclear movement in the United States consists of more than 80 anti-nuclear groups which have acted to oppose nuclear power or nuclear weapons, or both, in the United States. These groups include the Abalone Alliance, Clamshell Alliance, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research,...
in the 1970s.
1970s
In 1972, the Socialist Party voted to rename itself as Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) by a vote of 73 to 34 at its December Convention; its National Chairmen were Bayard RustinBayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights.In the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation , Rustin practiced nonviolence...
, a peace and civil-rights leader, and Charles S. Zimmerman, an officer of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). In 1973, Michael Harrington
Michael Harrington
Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Personal life:...
resigned from SDUSA and founded the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee
Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee
The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee was founded in 1973 by Michael Harrington, who led a minority caucus in the Socialist Party. Harrington's caucus supported George McGovern's his call for a cease-fire and immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam...
(DSOC), which attracted many of his followers from the former Socialist Party. The same year, David McReynolds
David McReynolds
David McReynolds is an American democratic socialist and pacifist activist who described himself as "a peace movement bureaucrat" during his 40-year career with Liberation magazine and the War Resisters League...
and others from the pacifist and immediate-withdrawal wing of the former Socialist Party formed the Socialist Party, USA.
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).
1980s and 1990s
From 1979–1989, SDUSA members like Tom KahnTom Kahn
Tom David Kahn was an American social democrat known for his leadership in other organizations. He was an activist and influential strategist in the African-American civil-rights movement. He was a senior adviser and leader in the U.S. labor movement.Kahn was raised in New York City. At...
organized the AFL–CIO's fundraising of 300 thousand dollars, 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
Bipartisanship
Bipartisanship is a political situation, usually in the context of a two-party system such as the United States, in which opposing political parties find common ground through compromise. The adjective bipartisan can refer to any bill, act, resolution, or other political act in which both of the...
) to support the founding of the National Endowment for Democracy
National Endowment for Democracy
The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...
(NED), whose first President was Carl Gershman
Carl Gershman
Carl Gershman has been the President of the National Endowment for Democracy since its 1984 founding. He had served as the U.S...
. The NED publicly allocated 4 million USD of public aid to Solidarity through 1989.
In the 1990s, anarchists attempted to organize across North America around Love and Rage
Love and Rage
The Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation was formed in the United States in 1993 out of the remaining groups in the Love and Rage Network.-Background:...
, which drew several hundred activists. One successful anarchist movement was Food not Bombs
Food Not Bombs
Food Not Bombs is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, serving free vegan and vegetarian food to others. Food Not Bombs' ideology is that myriad corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance...
, that distributed free vegetarian meals. Anarchists received significant media coverage for their disruption of the 1999 WTO conference, called the Battle in Seattle, where the Direct Action Network
Direct Action Network
Direct Action Network was a confederation of anarchist and anti-authoritarian affinity groups, collectives, and organizations that was formed to coordinate the direct action portion of anti-WTO mobilization in Seattle in 1999....
was organized. Most organizations were short-lived and anarchism went into decline following a reaction by the authorities that was increased after the 911 attacks in 2001. However by 1997 anarchist organizations had again begun to proliferate.
Explanations for weakness
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, and others to the limitations imposed by the American constitution. Lenin and Trotsky were particularly concerned because it challenged core Marxist 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.Although Working Men's Parties
Working Men's Party
The Working Men's Party, nicknamed the "Workies", founded in 1828, was the first labor union in the United States, located in Philadelphia. They promoted free public education as a way out of poverty. They also demanded a 10–11-hour work period and universal male suffrage. The Working Men's Party...
were founded in the 1820s and 1830s in the United States, they advocated equality of opportunity, universal education and improved working conditions, not socialism, collective ownership or equality of outcome
Equality of outcome
Equality of outcome, equality of condition, or equality of results is a controversial political concept. Although it is not always clearly defined, it is usually taken to describe a state in which people have approximately the same material wealth or, more generally, in which the general conditions...
, and disappeared after their goals were taken up by Jacksonian democracy
Jacksonian democracy
Jacksonian democracy is the political movement toward greater democracy for the common man typified by American politician Andrew Jackson and his supporters. Jackson's policies followed the era of Jeffersonian democracy which dominated the previous political era. The Democratic-Republican Party of...
. Gompers, the leader of the AFL 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. Although it used anti-capitalist rhetoric, it represented the views of small farmers who wanted to protect their own private property, not a call for collectivism, socialism, or communism. 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. Many popular writers of the progressive period were in fact left-wing. But even the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
relied on radical democratic traditions rather than left-wing ideology.
Engels thought that the lack of a feudal past was the reason for the American working class holding middle class values. Writing at the time when American industry was developing quickly towards the mass-production system known as Fordism
Fordism
Fordism, named after Henry Ford, is a modern economic and social system based on industrial mass production. The concept is used in various social theories about production and related socio-economic phenomena. It has varying but related meanings in different fields, as well as for Marxist and...
, Max Weber
Max Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...
and Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian writer, politician, political philosopher, and linguist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime...
saw individualism and laissez-faire liberalism as core shared American beliefs. According to the historian David DeLeon, American radicalism, unlike social democracy, Fabianism and communism was rooted in libertarianism and syndicalism and opposed to centralized power and collectivism.
The character of the American political system, which is hostile toward third parties has also been presented as a reason for the absence of a strong socialist party in the United States.
Social democratic and socialist groups
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.Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA)
The Socialist Party of America changed its name to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) in 1972. In electoral politics, SDUSA's National Co-Chairman Bayard RustinBayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights.In the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation , Rustin practiced nonviolence...
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
Norman Hill is an influential African-American administrator, 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 one of the first African-Americans to graduate from Haverford. After college, Hill...
. Tom Kahn
Tom Kahn
Tom David Kahn was an American social democrat known for his leadership in other organizations. He was an activist and influential strategist in the African-American civil-rights movement. He was a senior adviser and leader in the U.S. labor movement.Kahn was raised in New York City. At...
served as Director of International Affairs for the AFL–CIO. Sandra Feldman
Sandra Feldman
Sandra Feldman was an American civil rights activist, educator and labor leader who served as president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1997 to 2004.-Early life:...
served as President of the American Federation of Teachers
American Federation of Teachers
The American Federation of Teachers is an American labor union founded in 1916 that represents teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; local, state and federal employees; higher education faculty and staff, and nurses and other healthcare professionals...
(AFT). Rachelle Horowitz served as Political Director for the AFT and serves on the board for the National Democratic Institute
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs is an organization created by the United States government by way of the National Endowment for Democracy to channel grants for furthering democracy in developing nations. It was founded in 1983, shortly after the U.S. Congress created...
. Other members of SDUSA specialized in international politics. Penn Kemble
Penn Kemble
Richard Penn Kemble , 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 so was active in the civil rights movement, the labor movement, and the social-democratic...
served as the Acting Director of the U.S. Information Agency in the Presidency of Bill Clinton
Presidency of Bill Clinton
The United States Presidency of Bill Clinton, also known as the Clinton Administration, was the executive branch of the federal government of the United States from January 20, 1993 to January 20, 2001. Clinton was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full term...
. After having served as the U.S. Representative to the U.N.'s Committee on human rights during the first Reagan Administration
Reagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....
, Carl Gershman
Carl Gershman
Carl Gershman has been the President of the National Endowment for Democracy since its 1984 founding. He had served as the U.S...
has served as the President of the National Endowment for Democracy
National Endowment for Democracy
The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...
.
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)
Michael HarringtonMichael Harrington
Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Personal life:...
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
Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee
The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee was founded in 1973 by Michael Harrington, who led a minority caucus in the Socialist Party. Harrington's caucus supported George McGovern's his call for a cease-fire and immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam...
(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 or its predecessors whose membership was then 1,800, according to a 1973 profile of Harrington.
DSOC became a member of the Socialist International
Socialist International
The Socialist International is a worldwide organization of democratic socialist, social democratic and labour political parties. It was formed in 1951.- History :...
. DSOC supported progressive Democrats, including DSOC member Congressman Ron Dellums
Ron Dellums
Ronald Vernie "Ron" Dellums served as Oakland's forty-fifth mayor. From 1971 to 1998, he was elected to thirteen terms as a Member of the U.S...
, and worked to help network activists in the Democratic Party and in labor unions. With roughly six thousand members, it is the largest contemporary democratic-socialist or social-democratic organization in the United States.
In 1982 DSOC established the Democratic Socialists of America
Democratic Socialists of America
Democratic Socialists of America is a social-democratic organization in the United States and the U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, an international federation of social-democratic,democratic socialist and labor political parties and organizations.DSA was formed in 1982 by a merger of...
(DSA) upon merging with the New American Movement
New American Movement
The New American Movement was founded in 1971 by a group of leaders of opposition to the Vietnam War to serve as a forum for discussing where and how to redirect their activities. The call to convene was issued by Michael Lerner...
, an organization of democratic socialists mostly from the New Left. Its high-profile members included Congressman Major Owens
Major Owens
Major Robert Odell Owens is a New York politician and a prominent member of the Democratic Party. He is also a former Congressman, having represented the state's 11th Congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. He retired at the end of his term in January 2007 and was...
and William Winpisinger, President of the International Association of Machinists.
Socialist Party USA (SPUSA)
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 SocietyStudents for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
. Some locals voted to disaffiliate with SDUSA and more members resigned; they re-organized as the Socialist Party USA
Socialist Party USA
The Socialist Party USA is a multi-tendency democratic-socialist party in the United States. The party states that it is the rightful continuation and successor to the tradition of the Socialist Party of America, which had lasted from 1901 to 1972.The party is officially committed to left-wing...
(SPUSA), while continuing to operate the old Debs Caucus paper, the Socialist Tribune, later re-named The Socialist. The SPUSA continued to run local and national candidates. In 1972 they supported the presidential campaign of Benjamin Spock
Benjamin Spock
Benjamin McLane Spock was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, is one of the biggest best-sellers of all time. Its message to mothers is that "you know more than you think you do."Spock was the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis to try to understand...
of the People's Party
People's Party (United States, 1970s)
The People's Party was a political party in the United States, founded in 1971 by various individuals and State and local political parties, including the Peace and Freedom Party, Commongood People's Party, Country People's Caucus, Human Rights Party, Liberty Union, New American Party, New Party...
. Their 2000 candidate for president was David McReynolds
David McReynolds
David McReynolds is an American democratic socialist and pacifist activist who described himself as "a peace movement bureaucrat" during his 40-year career with Liberation magazine and the War Resisters League...
.
In 2000 SPUSA stated that it had 1,000 members.
Marxist advocates of communism
MarxistMarxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
groups have differed according to their visions of communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
and their strategies for achieving socialism. Marxist–Leninism has been advocated and practiced by communists of many kinds, including pro-Soviet
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
, Trotskyist, Maoist, or independent
Independent (voter)
An independent voter, those who register as an unaffiliated voter in the United States, is a voter of a democratic country who does not align him- or herself with a political party...
. The following Marxist organizations are ordered by their year of founding, from earliest to latest.
Socialist Labor Party
Founded in 1876, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) was a reformist party but adopted the theories of Karl MarxKarl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and Daniel De Leon
Daniel De Leon
Daniel DeLeon was an American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather of the idea of revolutionary industrial unionism and was the leading figure in the Socialist Labor Party of America from 1890 until the time of...
in 1900, leading to the defection of reformers to the new Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-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 which had split from the main organization...
(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
Jack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...
and James Connolly
James Connolly
James Connolly was an Irish republican and socialist leader. He was born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland, to Irish immigrant parents and spoke with a Scottish accent throughout his life. He left school for working life at the age of 11, but became one of the leading Marxist theorists of...
. 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.
Communist Party USA
The largest and best-financed of all Marxist-Leninist groups, the Communist Party USACommunist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
(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
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
and investigations by the House Unamerican Activities Committee (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
COINTELPRO was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.COINTELPRO tactics included discrediting targets through psychological...
(COINTELPRO).
Several Communist front
Communist front
A Communist front organization is an organization identified to be a front organization under the effective control of a Communist party, the Communist International or other Communist organizations. Lenin originated the idea in his manifesto of 1902, "What Is to Be Done?"...
organizations founded in the 1950s continued to operate at least into the 1990s, notably the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Abraham Lincoln Brigade
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade refers to volunteers from the United States who served in the Spanish Civil War in the International Brigades. They fought for Spanish Republican forces against Franco and the Spanish Nationalists....
, the American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born, the Labor Research Association, the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship
National Council of American Soviet Friendship
The National Council of American-Soviet Friendship was the successor organisation to the National Council on Soviet Relations .- Foundation :...
, and the U.S. Peace Council. Other groups with less direct links to the CP include the National Lawyers Guild
National Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild is an advocacy group in the United States "dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system . ....
, the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee
National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee
The National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee was an organization formed in 1951 to "to reestablish the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and The Bill of Rights", and was called the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee until 1968...
, and the Center for Constitutional Rights
Center for Constitutional Rights
Al Odah v. United States:Al Odah is the latest in a series of habeas corpus petitions on behalf of people imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. The case challenges the Military Commissions system’s suitability as a habeas corpus substitute and the legality, in general, of detention at...
. Many leading members of the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
, including some members of the Weather Underground and the May 19th Communist Organization 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 Davis
Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party...
.
The CP publishes the People's World and Political Affairs. Beginning 1988, the CP stopped running candidates for President of the United States. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, 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.
Socialist Workers Party
With fewer than one thousand members in 1996, the Socialist Worker's PartySocialist Workers Party (United States)
The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba...
(SWP) was the second largest Marxist-Leninist party in the United States. Formed by supporters of Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, 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 Fourth International
Fourth International
The Fourth International is the communist international organisation consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky , with the declared dedicated goal of helping the working class bring about socialism...
. Their publications include The Militant
The Militant
The Militant is an international Socialist newsweekly connected to the Socialist Workers Party and the Pathfinder Tendency. It is published in the United States and distributed in other countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Sweden, Iceland, and New...
and a theoretical journal, the International Socialist Review
International Socialist Review
International Socialist Review may refer to:*International Socialist Review *International Socialist Review *International Socialist Review...
. Two groups that broke with the SWP in the 1960s were the Spartacist League
Spartacist League (US)
The Spartacist League/ US is a Trotskyist organization in the United States. It was the original Spartacist group that helped to inspire and organize similarly oriented groups around the world...
and the Workers League. The SWP has been involved in numerous violent scuffles. 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.
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 SocietyStudents for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
(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
International Committee Against Racism
The International Committee Against Racism was the "mass organization" of the Progressive Labor Party in the United States...
(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.
Workers World Party
The Workers World PartyWorkers World Party
Workers World Party is a far-left political party in the United States, founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy. Marcy and his followers split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1958 over a series of long-standing differences, among them Marcy's group's support for Henry A...
(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 party has transformed from Trotskyism to Maoism 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
Derg
The Derg or Dergue was a Communist military junta that came to power in Ethiopia following the ousting of Haile Selassie I. Derg, which means "committee" or "council" in Ge'ez, is the short name of the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army, a committee of...
. In the 1990s their membership was estimated at about 200.
Their front group, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (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
Party for Socialism and Liberation
The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States. It was originally created as the result of a split within the ranks of Workers World Party , although their political line is nearly identical. The San Francisco branch as well as several other...
, taking leadership of A.N.S.W.E.R. with them. The Workers World Party then formed the Troops Out Now Coalition
Troops Out Now Coalition
The Troops Out Now Coalition is a United States anti-war organization, which describes itself as "a national grassroots coalition of antiwar activists, trade unionists, solidarity activists and community organizers." Closely associated with the revolutionary communist Workers World Party, TONC...
.
Spartacist League
The Spartacist LeagueInternational Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)
The International Communist League , earlier known as the international Spartacist tendency is a Trotskyist international. Its largest constituent party is 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.
The League saw the Soviet Union as a "deformed workers state", and supported it over some policies. It is committed to Trotskyist "permanent revolution
Permanent Revolution
Permanent revolution is a term within Marxist theory, established in usage by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by at least 1850 but which has since become most closely associated with Leon Trotsky. The use of the term by different theorists is not identical...
", rejecting Mao's peasant guerilla warfare model. The group's publication is Workers Vanguard
Workers Vanguard
Workers Vanguard is a Marxist bi-weekly newspaper published by the Spartacist League, a Trotskyist political organization in the United States. It is now 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.
Freedom Socialist Party
The Freedom Socialist PartyFreedom Socialist Party
The Freedom Socialist Party is a socialist political party with a unique program of revolutionary feminism that emerged from a split in the United States Socialist Workers Party in 1966. It is currently a working class organization that works towards creating social justice and order for all...
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
Socialist feminism is a branch of feminism that focuses upon both the public and private spheres of a woman's life and argues that liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and cultural sources of women's oppression...
". Clara Fraser
Clara Fraser
Clara Fraser was a feminist and socialist political organizer, who co-founded and led the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women.-Early life:...
came to lead the party and was to form the group Radical Women
Radical Women
Radical Women is a socialist feminist, grassroots activist organization that provides a radical voice within the feminist movement, a feminist voice within the Left, and trains women to be leaders in the movements for social and economic justice...
.
Revolutionary Communist Party
Formed in 1969 as the Bay Area Revolutionary Union (BARU), the Revolutionary Communist PartyRevolutionary Communist Party, USA
The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA , known originally as the Revolutionary Union, is a Maoist Communist party formed in 1975 in the United States. The RCP states that U.S...
(RCP) had almost one thousand members in twenty-five states by 1975. Its main founder and long time leader, Bob Avakian
Bob Avakian
Bob Avakian is Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA , which he has led since its formation in 1975. He is a veteran of the Free Speech Movement and the Left of the 1960s and early 1970s, and was closely associated with the Black Panther Party. He has published writings on Marxism and...
, a Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
(SDS) organizer had fought off attempts for control of the SDS by the Progressive Labor Party. The party has been unwaveringly Maoist. Working through the U.S.-Chinese People's 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, the Equal Rights Amendment
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and, in 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time...
(ERA), and gay rights. The party fell out of favour with the Chinese government after the death of Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
, partly because of the personality cult of the RCP leader. By the mid-1990s the party numbered fewer than 500 members.
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 revolutionPermanent Revolution
Permanent revolution is a term within Marxist theory, established in usage by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by at least 1850 but which has since become most closely associated with Leon Trotsky. The use of the term by different theorists is not identical...
", 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 rebels in Nicaragua .
Solidarity
Solidarity is a socialist organization associated with the journal Against the Current. Solidarity is an organizational descendant of International Socialists, a Trotskyist organization based on the proposition that the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
was not a "degenerate workers' state" (as in orthodox Trotskyism
Orthodox Trotskyism
Orthodox Trotskyism is a branch of Trotskyism which aims to adhere more closely to the philosophy, methods and positions of Trotsky and the early Fourth International, Lenin, and Marx than other Trotskyists....
) but rather "bureaucratic collectivism
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 .- Theory :...
", a new and especially repressive class society.
Party for Socialism and Liberation
The Party for Socialism and LiberationParty for Socialism and Liberation
The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States. It was originally created as the result of a split within the ranks of Workers World Party , although their political line is nearly identical. The San Francisco branch as well as several other...
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 (A.N.S.W.E.R.) at the time of the split.
Following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Deepwater Horizon oil spill
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which flowed unabated for three months in 2010, and continues to leak fresh oil. It is the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry...
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.
Anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist groups and organizations
- Industrial Workers of the WorldIndustrial Workers of the WorldThe Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
(IWW) - Food Not BombsFood Not BombsFood Not Bombs is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, serving free vegan and vegetarian food to others. Food Not Bombs' ideology is that myriad corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance...
- Northeastern Federation of Anarchist Communists (NEFAC)
- Bring the Ruckus
- Phoenix Anarchist Coalition
- Local to Global JusticeLocal to Global JusticeLocal to Global Justice is a nonprofit volunteer organization based in Tempe, Arizona, USA. It sponsors events dealing with social justice issues, mostly held on and around the Arizona State University Tempe campus...
- IndyMedia
- Workers Solidarity AllianceWorkers Solidarity AllianceWorkers Solidarity Alliance is a United States political activist group whose politics are rooted in anarcho-syndicalism and class struggle. WSA is not a trade union or proto-union....
- Area Radical Reading Group of Hartford (ARRGH!)
- Anarchist Black CrossAnarchist Black CrossThe Anarchist Black Cross is an anarchist politics support organization. The group is notable for its efforts at providing prisoners with political literature, but it also organises material and legal support for class struggle prisoners worldwide...
- Federation of Revolutionary Anarchist Collectives (FRAC)
- Anarchist Communitarian Network
- Anarchist People of ColorAnarchist People of ColorAnarchist People of Color is an American anarchist/anti-authoritarian group created to address issues of race, anti-authoritarianism and people of color struggle politics within the context of anarchism, and to increase/create political space for people of color.Initially started as an e-mail list...
- Atlantic Anarchist Circle
- Great Plains Anarchist Network
- Revolutionary Anti-authoritarians of Color (RACE)
- South East Anarchist Network
Publications
- The NationThe NationThe Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, weekly, established 1865. Circulation 190,000. - In These TimesIn These TimesIn These Times is a politically progressive monthly magazine of news and opinion published by the Institute for Public Affairs in Chicago...
, monthly, established 1976. Circulation 17,000. - Mother JonesMother Jones (magazine)Mother Jones is an American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,...
, bimonthly, established 1974. - The ProgressiveThe ProgressiveThe Progressive is an American monthly magazine of politics, culture and progressivism with a pronounced liberal perspective on some issues. Known for its pacifism, it has strongly opposed military interventions, such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The magazine also devotes much coverage...
, monthly, established 1909. - The American ProspectThe American ProspectThe American Prospect is a monthly American political magazine dedicated to American liberalism. Based in Washington, DC, The American Prospect is a journal "of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics" which focuses on United States politics...
, monthly, established 1990. Circulation 55,000. - Z Magazine, monthly established 1977. Circulation 10,000 print and 6,000 online subscribers.
- DissentDissent (magazine)Dissent is a quarterly magazine focusing on politics and culture edited by Michael Walzer and Michael Kazin. The magazine is published for the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, Inc by the University of Pennsylvania Press....
, quarterly, established 1954. - Monthly ReviewMonthly ReviewMonthly Review is an independent Marxist journal published 11 times per year in New York City.-History:The publication was founded by Harvard University economics instructor Paul Sweezy, who became the first editor...
, monthly, established 1949. Circulation 7,000. - Review of Radical Political EconomicsReview of Radical Political EconomicsThe Review of Radical Political Economics is the quarterly journal of the Union for Radical Political Economics www.URPE.org. Launched in 1968, it is a leading venue for scholarly articles on radical political economics, including Marxist, feminist, lnstitutional, ecological, and post-Keynesian...
, quarterly, established 1968. - Fifth Estate, quarterly, established 1965.
- Labor NotesLabor NotesLabor Notes is a non-profit organization and network for rank-and-file union members and grassroots labor activists. Though officially titled the Labor Education and Research Project, the project is best known by the title of its monthly magazine. The magazine reports news and analysis about labor...
, monthly, established 1979. - Left Business Observer, established 1986.
- The Indypendent, published 17 times per year, established 2000.
- Left Turn, quarterly.
- The BafflerThe BafflerThe Baffler is a left-wing magazine of cultural, political, and business criticism that was founded in 1988 and published until the spring of 2007. It was revived in 2009, with the first issue of Volume 2 published in January 2010...
, established 1988. - Black Commentator, web-only weekly, established 2002.
- Utne ReaderUtne ReaderUtne Reader is an American bimonthly magazine. The magazine collects and reprints articles on politics, culture, and the environment from generally alternative media sources, including journals, newsletters, weeklies, zines, music and DVDs...
, bimonthly, established 1984. Circulation 150,000. - Dollars & SenseDollars & SenseDollars & Sense is a magazine dedicated to providing left-wing perspectives on economics.Published six times a year since 1974, it is edited by a collective of economists, journalists, and activists committed to the ideals of social justice and economic democracy.It was initially sponsored by the...
, bimonthly, established 1974. - The New Hampshire GazetteThe New Hampshire GazetteThe New Hampshire Gazette is a non-profit, alternative, bi-weekly newspaper published in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Its editors claim that the paper, published on-and-off in one form or another since 1756, is America's oldest newspaper and has trademarked the phrase "The Nation's Oldest...
, fortnightly, press run 5,500. - Texas Observer, established 1954.
External links
- "The Socialist Trade and Labor AllianceSocialist Trade and Labor AllianceThe Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance - commonly abbreviated STLA or ST&LA - was a revolutionary socialist labor union in the United States closely linked to the Socialist Labor Party , which existed from 1895 until becoming a part of the Industrial Workers of the World at its founding in 1905.The...
versus the 'pure and simple trade union'",http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/ddl_harriman.pdf 1900 debate, Daniel De LeonDaniel De LeonDaniel DeLeon was an American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather of the idea of revolutionary industrial unionism and was the leading figure in the Socialist Labor Party of America from 1890 until the time of...
& Job HarrimanJob HarrimanJob Harriman was an ordained minister who later became an agnostic and a socialist. In 1900 he ran for Vice President of the United States along with Eugene Debs on the ticket of the Socialist Party of America. He later twice ran for mayor of Los Angeles, drawing considerable attention and support... - " Is Russia a socialist Community?", 1950 debate, Earl BrowderEarl BrowderEarl Russell Browder was an American communist and General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1934 to 1945. He was expelled from the party in 1946.- Early years :...
, C. Wright MillsC. Wright MillsCharles Wright Mills was an American sociologist. Mills is best remembered for his 1959 book The Sociological Imagination in which he lays out a view of the proper relationship between biography and history, theory and method in sociological scholarship...
& Max ShachtmanMax ShachtmanMax Shachtman was an American Marxist theorist. He evolved from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL-CIO President George Meany.-Beginnings:... - Socialism vs. capitalism, 1961 debate, Norman ThomasNorman ThomasNorman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...
& Barry GoldwaterBarry GoldwaterBarry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...