Old page wikitext, before the edit (old_wikitext) | '{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2012}}
{{Politics of the United States}}
The '''American Left''' has consisted of a broad range of individuals and groups that have sought fundamental changes to America that are slowly destorying the values of freedom,
personal liberty, and justice.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_egalitarianism.html| author=Luke Mastin| title=Egalitarianism| publisher=The Basics of Philosophy| date=2008}}</ref><ref name=Oest>{{cite web| url=http://digital.library.pitt.edu/a/americanleft/about.html| author=Richard J. Oestreicher| title=Overview of the American Left| publisher=American Left Ephermera Collection, Univ. of Pittsburgh| accessdate=February 26, 2015}}</ref> in the economic, political, and cultural institutions of the [[United States]].
Leftist activists in the United States have been credited with advancing social change on issues such as [[labour movement|labor]] and [[civil rights]], [[civil liberties]],<ref>{{cite web| url=http://people.howstuffworks.com/aclu1.htm| author=Ed Grabianowski| title=How the ACLU Works: ACLU History| publisher=How Stuff Works| accessdate=March 1, 2015}}</ref> [[Peace movement|peace]], [[feminism]], [[LGBT rights]], [[minimum wage]] and [[environmentalism]], as well as providing critiques of [[capitalism]].<ref name="Oest"/>
==History==
{{main|History of left-wing politics in the United States|History of the socialist movement in the United States}}
===Origins===
Many [[Native Americans in the United States|indigenous tribes in North America]] practiced what Marxists would later call [[primitive communism]], meaning they practiced economic cooperation among the members of their tribes.<ref>{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g5WTgR3mN2oC&pg=PA40| author=Carl Ratner| title=Cooperation, Community, and Co-Ops in a Global Era| publisher=Springer Science & Business Media| date=2012| page=40}}</ref>
The first European socialists to arrive in North America were a Christian sect known as [[Labadists]], who founded the commune of Bohemia Manor in 1683, about 60 miles west of [[Philadelphia]], [[Pennsylvania]]. Their communal way of life was based on the communal practices of the apostles and early Christians.<ref>{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FPiM8oMA9xgC&pg=PA20| author=Iaácov Oved| title=Two Hundred Years of American Communes| publisher=Transaction Publishers| date=1987| page=20}}</ref>
The first secular American socialists were German [[Marxism|Marxist]] immigrants who arrived following the [[Revolutions of 1848|1848 revolutions]], also known as [[Forty-Eighters]].<ref name="Draper, pp. 11-12">Draper, pp. 11–12.</ref> [[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'', but It folded after two issues. In 1852 he established the ''Proletarierbund'', which would become the American Workers' League, the first Marxist organization in the U.S., but it too was short-lived, having failed to attract a native English-speaking membership.<ref>Coleman, pp. 15–16</ref>
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.<ref name="Coleman, pp. 15–17">Coleman, pp. 15–17</ref>
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 America|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.<ref name="Draper, pp. 11-12"/>
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.<ref>Draper, p. 13.</ref> 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).<ref>Woodcock, p. 395</ref> Following a [[Haymarket affair|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.<ref>Woodcock, p. 397-398</ref> 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.<ref>Woodcock, p. 399-400</ref>
[[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 (United States)|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).
In 1905 a convention of socialists, anarchists and trade unionists disenchanted with the bureaucracy and [[craft unionism]] of the AFL, founded the rival [[Industrial Workers of the World]] (IWW), led by such figures as [[Bill Haywood|William D. "Big Bill" Haywood]], [[Helen Keller]], De Leon and Debs.<ref>Draper, pp. 14–16.</ref>
The organizers of the IWW disagreed on whether electoral politics could be employed to liberate the working class. Debs left the IWW in 1906, and De Leon was expelled in 1908, forming a rival "Chicago IWW" that was closely linked to the SLP. The (Minneapolis) IWW's ideology evolved into [[anarcho-syndicalism]], or "revolutionary industrial unionism", and avoided electoral political activity altogether.<ref>Draper, pp. 16–17.</ref> It was successful organizing unskilled migratory workers in the lumber, agriculture, and construction trades in the Western states and immigrant textile workers in the Eastern states and occasionally accepted violence as part of industrial action.<ref>Draper, pp. 21–22.</ref>
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.<ref>Draper, pp. 22–24.</ref> 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.<ref>Draper, pp. 41–42.</ref>
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 of 1917|Espionage Act]] and [[Sedition Act of 1918|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.<ref>Ryan, p. 13.</ref>
===1919–45===
In 1919, [[John Reed (journalist)|John Reed]], [[Benjamin Gitlow]] and other Socialists formed the [[Communist Labor Party of America]], 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).<ref>Ryan, p. 16.</ref> The Communists organized the [[Trade Union Unity League]] to compete with the AFL and claimed to represent 50,000 workers.<ref>Ryan, p. 35.</ref>
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.<ref>Ryan, p. 36.</ref>
Cannon, Shachtman, and [[Martin Abern]] then set up the [[Trotskyist]] [[Communist League of America]], and recruited members from the CPUSA.<ref>Alexander, pp. 765–767.</ref> The League then merged with [[A. J. Muste]]'s [[American Workers Party]] in 1934, forming the [[Workers Party of the United States|Workers Party]]. New members included [[James Burnham]] and [[Sidney Hook]].<ref>Alexander, p. 777.</ref>
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 (U.S.)|Social Democratic Federation]].<ref>Alexander, p. 784.</ref> Following talks between the Workers Party and the Socialists, members of the Workers Party joined the Socialists in 1936.<ref>Alexander, p. 786.</ref> Once inside they operated as a separate faction.<ref>Alexander, p. 787.</ref> The Trotskyists were expelled from the Socialist Party the following year, and set up the [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]] (SWP) and the youth wing of the Socialists, the [[Young People's Socialist League]] (YPSL) joined them.<ref>Alexander, p. 792-793.</ref> Shachtman and others were expelled from the SWP in 1940 over their position on the Soviet Union and set up the [[Workers Party (U.S.)|Workers Party]]. Within months many members of the new party, including Burnham, had left.<ref>Alexander, pp. 803–805.</ref> The Workers Party was renamed the Independent Socialist League (ISL) in 1949 and ceased being a political party.<ref>Alexander, p. 810.</ref>
Some members of the Socialist Party's 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]].<ref>Stedman and Stedman, p. 9</ref> 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.<ref>Stedman and Stedman, p. 33</ref>
===1950s and 1960s: Civil Rights, the War on Poverty, and the New Left===
{{Further|Civil Rights Movement|New Left|War on Poverty}}
In 1958 the [[Socialist Party of America|Socialist Party]] welcomed former members of the [[Workers Party (US)|Independent Socialist League]], which before its 1956 dissolution had been led by [[Max Shachtman]]. Shachtman had developed a [[neo-Marxism|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).<ref name="Chenoweth">Page 6: {{cite journal|title=The gallant warrior: In memoriam Tom Kahn |first=Eric |last=Chenoweth |journal=Uncaptive Minds: A journal of information and opinion on Eastern Europe |publisher=Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe (IDEE) |location=1718 M Street, NW, No. 147, Washington DC 20036, USA |issn=0897-9669 |volume=5 |issue=20 |date=Summer 1992 |pages=5–16 |url=http://www.democracyforcuba.org/images/stories/media/UM2/vol.5no.2a.pdf |ref=harv |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20151019124831/http://www.democracyforcuba.org/images/stories/media/UM2/vol.5no.2a.pdf |archivedate=October 19, 2015 }}</ref> Shachtman's ISL had attracted youth like [[Irving Howe]], [[Michael Harrington]],<ref>Isserman, ''The other American'', p. 116.</ref> [[Tom Kahn]], and Rachelle Horowitz.<ref>{{harvtxt|Drucker|1994|p=269}}:<br />{{cite book|title=Max Shachtman and his left: A socialist's odyssey through the "American Century"|first=Peter|last=Drucker|publisher=Humanities Press|year=1994|isbn=0-391-03816-8|ref=harv}}</ref><ref>{{harvtxt|Horowitz|2007|p=210}}</ref><ref name="KahnMS">{{harvtxt|Kahn|2007|pp=254–255}}: {{citation
|title=Max Shachtman: His ideas and his movement
|last=Kahn
|first=Tom
|journal=[[Democratiya]] ''(merged with'' [[Dissent]] ''in 2009)''
|volume=11
|issue=[http://dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/docs/d11Whole.pdf Winter]
|year=2007
|origyear=1973
|pages=252–259
|url=http://www.dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/docs/d11Khan.pdf
|format=pdf
<!-- ref=harv -->
}}{{dead link|date=July 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The YPSL was dissolved, but the party formed a new youth group under the same name.<ref>Alexander, p. 812-813.</ref>
[[File:A. Philip Randolph 1963 NYWTS.jpg|thumb|alt=Picture of A. Philip Randolph.|Socialist [[A. Philip Randolph]] led the [[1963 March on Washington]] at which [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]] delivered his speech "[[I have a dream]]".]]
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.<ref name="Randolph">Jervis Anderson, ''A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait'' (1973; University of California Press, 1986). {{ISBN|978-0-520-05505-6}}</ref><ref name="Rustin">
* Anderson, Jervis. ''Bayard Rustin: Troubles I've Seen'' (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997).
* Branch, Taylor. ''Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63'' (New York: Touchstone, 1989).
<!--*D’Emilio, John. ''Lost Prophet: Bayard Rustin and the Quest for Peace and Justice in America'' (New York: The Free Press, 2003).-->
* D'Emilio, John. ''Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin'' (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004). {{ISBN|0-226-14269-8}}</ref><ref name="RHKahn" >{{harvtxt|Horowitz|2007|pp=220–222}}:<br />{{cite journal|title=Tom Kahn and the fight for democracy: A political portrait and personal recollection|first=Rachelle|last=Horowitz|authorlink=Rachelle Horowitz|url=http://www.dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/article_pdfs/d11Horowitz.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091012183407/http://dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/article_pdfs/d11Horowitz.pdf|archivedate=2009-10-12|journal=[[Democratiya]] ''(merged with'' [[Dissent]] ''in 2009)''|volume=11|issue=Summer|year=2007|pages=204–251}}
</ref><ref name="NYTKahn" >{{cite news|title=Tom Kahn, leader in labor and rights movements, was 53|newspaper=The New York Times|date=April 1, 1992|first=Wolfgang|last=Saxon|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/01/nyregion/tom-kahn-leader-in-labor-and-rights-movements-was-53.html}}</ref>
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 ''[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]'' review by [[Dwight Macdonald]].<ref>
* {{cite journal|title=Our invisible poor|first=Dwight|last=MacDonald|authorlink=Dwight Macdonald|date=January 19, 1963|journal=[[The New Yorker]]|ref=harv
|url=http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1963/01/19/1963_01_19_082_TNY_CARDS_000075671#ixzz1SNI25qvI}}
*: Reprinted in collection: {{cite book|first=Dwight|last=Macdonald|authorlink=Dwight Macdonald|title=Discriminations: Essays and afterthoughts 1938–1974|origyear=1974|year=1985|edition=reprint|publisher=Da Capo Press|isbn=978-0-306-80252-2|ref=harv|chapter=Our invisible poor
|url=http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1963/01/19/1963_01_19_082_TNY_CARDS_000075671#ixzz1SNI25qvI}}
* Whitfield, Stephen J. (1984) ''A critical American: The politics of Dwight Macdonald''
* Wreszin, Michael (1994) ''A rebel in defense of tradition: The life and politics of Dwight MacDonald''
</ref> Harrington and other socialists were called to Washington, D.C., to assist the [[Kennedy Administration]] and then the [[Lyndon B. Johnson#Presidency 1963–1969|Johnson Administration]]'s [[War on Poverty]] and [[Great Society]].<ref name="WoPMH">
{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/books/review/Isserman-t.html?_r=1|work=The New York Times|first=Maurice|last=Isserman|authorlink=Maurice Isserman|title=Michael Harrington: Warrior on poverty|date=June 19, 2009}}
</ref>
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 liberalism|social-liberal]]" or [[social democracy|social-democratic]] positions, at least on civil rights and the [[War on Poverty]].<ref>Isserman, ''The other American'', pp. 169–336.</ref><ref>{{harvtxt|Drucker|1994|pp=187–308}}<!--{{cite book|title=Max Shachtman and his left: A socialist's odyssey through the "American Century"|first=Peter|last=Drucker|publisher=Humanities Press|year=1994|isbn=0-391-03816-8}}--></ref>
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).<ref>Miller, pp. 24–25, 37, 74–75: c.f., pp. 55, 66–70 : Miller, James. ''Democracy is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago''. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994 {{ISBN|978-0-674-19725-1}}.</ref> 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.<ref>Kirkpatrick Sale, ''SDS'', pp. 22–25.</ref><ref>Miller, pp. 75–76, 112–116, 127–132; c.f. p. 107.</ref><!--Gitlin, I think, notes that such public strong criticisms did not help and might have hindered their efforts at realignment.-->LID and SDS split in 1965, when SDS voted to remove from its constitution the "''exclusion clause''" that prohibited membership by communists:<ref>Kirkpatrick Sale, ''SDS'', p. 105.</ref> The SDS exclusion clause had barred "advocates of or apologists for" "totalitarianism".<ref>Kirkpatrick Sale, ''SDS'', pp. 25–26</ref> 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.<ref>Gitlin, p. 191.<br />[[Todd Gitlin]]. ''[https://www.amazon.com/Sixties-Years-Hope-Days-Rage/dp/0553372122#reader_0553372122 The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage''] (1987) {{ISBN|0-553-37212-2}}.</ref> Afterwards, [[Marxism Leninism]], particularly the [[Progressive Labor Party (United States)|Progressive Labor Party]], helped to write "the death sentence" for SDS,<ref>Sale, p. 287.<br />Sale described an "all‑out invasion of SDS by the Progressive Labor Party. PLers—concentrated chiefly in Boston, New York, and California, with some strength in Chicago and Michigan—were positively cyclotronic in their ability to split and splinter chapter organizations: if it wasn't their self‑righteous positiveness it was their caucus‑controlled rigidity, if not their deliberate disruptiveness it was their overt bids for control, if not their repetitious appeals for base‑building it was their unrelenting Marxism". Kirkpatrick Sale, ''SDS'', pp. 253.</ref><ref>"The student radicals had gamely resisted the resurrected Marxist–Leninist sects ..." (p. 258); "for more than a year, SDS had been the target of a takeover attempt by the Progressive Labor Party, a Marxist–Leninist cadre of Maoists", Miller, p. 284. Miller describes Marxist Leninists also on pages 228, 231, 240, and 254: c.f., p. 268.</ref><ref>Gitlin, p. 191.<br />[[Todd Gitlin]]. ''[https://www.amazon.com/Sixties-Years-Hope-Days-Rage/dp/0553372122#reader_0553372122 The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage'' (1987) p. 387] {{ISBN|0-553-37212-2}}.</ref><ref>Sale wrote, "SDS papers and pamphlets talked of 'armed struggle,' 'disciplined cadre,' 'white fighting force,' and the need for "a communist party that can guide this movement to victory"; SDS leaders and publications quoted Mao and Lenin and Ho Chi Minh more regularly than Jenminh Jih Pao. and a few of them even sought to say a few good words for Stalin". p. 269.</ref> which nonetheless had over 100 thousand members at its peak.
===1970s===
{{Further|Black Power movement|Hippie movement}}
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 Rustin]], a peace and civil-rights leader, and [[Charles S. Zimmerman]], an officer of the [[International Ladies Garment Workers Union]] (ILGWU).<ref name="NYTimes">{{cite news|title=Socialist Party now the Social Democrats, U.S.A.|newspaper=New York Times|date=December 31, 1972|page=36|author=Anonymous|url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00B16FC3E5A137A93C3AA1789D95F468785F9|accessdate=February 8, 2010|ref=harv}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Iss311">Isserman, p. 311.</ref> The same year, [[David McReynolds]] and others from the pacifist and immediate-withdrawal wing of the former Socialist Party formed the [[Socialist Party, USA]].<ref>Isserman, p. 422.</ref>
When the SPA became SDUSA,<ref name="NYTimes" /> 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,<ref name="NYT73" >{{cite news|title='Firmness' urged on <!-- CAPITALIZED! -->Communists: Social Democrats reach end of U.S. Convention here|newspaper=New York Times|date=January 1, 1973|page=11|author=Anonymous|url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50C15F73F551A7493C3A9178AD85F478785F9|ref=harv}}</ref> joined Harrington's DSOC. Many members of the Debs caucus, with 2 of 33 seats on SDUSA's 1973 national committee,<ref name="NYT73" /> joined the Socialist Party of the United States (SPUSA).
===1980s and 1990s===
{{Further|New Communist movement}}
From 1979–1989, SDUSA members like [[Tom Kahn]] organized the [[AFL–CIO]]'s fundraising of 300 thousand dollars, which bought printing presses and other supplies requested by [[Solidarity (Polish trade union)|''Solidarnosc'' (Solidarity), the independent labor-union of Poland]].<ref name=Horowitz>{{cite journal|title=Tom Kahn and the fight for democracy: A political portrait and personal recollection|first=Rachelle|last=Horowitz|url=http://www.dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/article_pdfs/d11Horowitz.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091012183407/http://dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/article_pdfs/d11Horowitz.pdf|archivedate=2009-10-12|ref=harv|journal=Democratiya ''(merged with'' Dissent ''in 2009)''|volume=11|year=2007|pages=204–251}}</ref><ref name="Shevis31">{{harvtxt|Shevis|1981|p=31}}:<br />{{cite journal|title=The AFL-CIO and Poland's Solidarity|first=James M.|last=Shevis|journal=World Affairs| volume=144|issue=Summer|year=1981|pages=31–35|publisher=World Affairs Institute|jstor=20671880|ref=harv}}</ref><ref>Opening statement by Tom Kahn in {{harvtxt|Kahn|Podhoretz|2008|p=235}}:<br />{{cite journal|title=How to support ''Solidarnosc'': A debate |others=Sponsored by the [[Committee for the Free World]] and the [[League for Industrial Democracy]], with introduction by [[Midge Decter]] and moderation by [[Carl Gershman]], and held at the Polish Institute for Arts and Sciences, New York City in March 1981 |last1=Kahn |first1=Tom |authorlink1=Tom Kahn |last2=Podhoretz |first2=Norman |authorlink2=Norman Podhoretz |journal=Democratiya ''(merged with'' Dissent ''in 2009)'' |volume=13 |issue=Summer |year=2008 |pages=230–261 |url=http://www.dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/docs/d13Whole.pdf |ref=harv |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111117203844/http://dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/docs/d13Whole.pdf |archivedate=November 17, 2011 }}</ref> SDUSA members helped form a [[bipartisanship|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 US$4 million of public aid to Solidarity <!--via the AFL-CIO --> through 1989.<ref>"The AFL–CIO had channeled more than $4 million to it, including computers, printing presses, and supplies" according to {{harvtxt|Horowitz|2009|p=237}}.</ref><ref name="Puddington" >{{harvtxt|Puddington|2005}}:<br />{{cite journal|title=Surviving the underground: How American unions helped solidarity win|first=Arch|last=Puddington|journal=American Educator|issue=Summer|year=2005|publisher=American Federation of Teachers|url=http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/summer2005/puddington.cfm|accessdate=June 4, 2011}}
</ref>
In the 1990s, anarchists attempted to organize across North America around [[Love and Rage]], which drew several hundred activists. By 1997 anarchist organizations began to proliferate.<ref>Graeber</ref> One successful anarchist movement was [[Food not Bombs]], that distributed free vegetarian meals. Anarchists received significant media coverage for their disruption of the 1999 [[World Trade Organization]] conference, called the [[World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity|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 [[September 11 attacks]] in 2001.
===2000 to present===
{{Further|Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, 2016|Black Lives Matter|Occupy movement in the United States|Protests against Donald Trump}}
{{Update|section|date=July 2017}}
Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who runs as an [[Independent politician|independent]],<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/candidates/2015/01/12/bernie-sanders-iowa-caucus-candidate-profile/20457543/| title=Bernie Sanders| publisher=The Des Moines Register| date=January 16, 2015}}</ref> won his first election as mayor of [[Burlington, Vermont]] in 1981 and was re-elected for three additional terms. He then represented Vermont in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 until 2007, and was subsequently elected U.S. Senator for Vermont in 2007, a position which he still holds.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2014/11/19/365024592/sen-bernie-sanders-on-how-democrats-lost-white-voters| author=Steve Inskeep| title=Sen. Bernie Sanders On How Democrats Lost White Voters| publisher=NPR| date=November 19, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.vice.com/read/bernie-sanders-is-building-a-revolution-to-challenge-hillary-clinton-in-2016| author=Grace Wyler| title=Bernie Sanders Is Building a 'Revolution' to Challenge Hillary Clinton in 2016| publisher=Vice| date=October 6, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/21/bernie-sanders-socialist-vermont-interview| author=Paul Harris| title=Bernie Sanders: America's No. 1 socialist makes his move into the mainstream| publisher=The Guardian| date=October 21, 2011}}</ref> He lost the [[Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2016|2016 Democratic Party presidential nomination]] to [[Hillary Clinton]] but won the fifth highest number of primary votes of any candidate in a nomination race, Democratic or Republican.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/was-the-democratic-primary-a-close-call-or-a-landslide/| author=Nate Silver| title=Was The Democratic Primary A Close Call Or A Landslide?|publisher=FiveThirtyEight| date=July 27, 2016}}</ref>
In the [[Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2000|2000 presidential election]], [[Ralph Nader]] and [[Winona LaDuke]] received 2,882,000 votes or 2.74% of the popular vote on the [[Green Party of the United States|Green Party]] ticket.<ref name="Federal Elections Commission">{{cite web| url=http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/prespop.htm| title=2000 PRESIDENTIAL POPULAR VOTE SUMMARY FOR ALL CANDIDATES LISTED ON AT LEAST ONE STATE BALLOT| publisher=Federal Elections Commission| date=December 2001}}</ref><ref name="Monthly Review">{{cite web| url=http://monthlyreview.org/2001/02/01/the-nader-campaign-and-the-future-of-u-s-left-electoral-politics/| title=The Nader Campaign and the Future of U.S. Left Electoral Politics| publisher=Monthly Review| date=February 2001}}</ref>
Filmmaker [[Michael Moore]] directed a series of popular movies examining the United States and its government policy from a left perspective, including [[Bowling for Columbine]], [[Sicko]], [[Capitalism: A Love Story]] and [[Fahrenheit 9/11]], which was the top grossing documentary film of all time.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=documentary.htm| title=Documentary| publisher=Box Office Mojo| accessdate=February 25, 2015}}</ref>
In 2011, [[Occupy Wall Street]] protests demanding accountability for the [[financial crisis of 2007]] and against inequality started in [[Manhattan, New York]] and soon spread to other cities around the country, becoming known more broadly as the [[Occupy Movement]].<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/08/occupy-america-protests-financial-crisis| author=Joanna Walters| title=Occupy America: protests against Wall Street and inequality hit 70 cities| publisher=The Guardian| date=October 8, 2011}}</ref>
[[Kshama Sawant]] was elected to the [[Seattle]] City Council as an openly socialist candidate in 2013.<ref name="Kevin Roose">{{cite web| url=http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/05/kshama-sawant-seattle-socialist.html| author= Kevin Roose| title=Meet the Seattle Socialist Leading the Fight for a $15 Minimum Wage| publisher=nymag.com| date=May 26, 2014}}</ref><ref name="Joseph Kishore">{{cite web| url=http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/11/20/sawa-n20.html| author=Joseph Kishore| title=Socialist Alternative candidate wins in Seattle City Council election| publisher=World Socialist Web Site| date=November 20, 2013}}</ref><ref name="Kirk Johnson">{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/us/a-rare-elected-voice-for-socialism-pledges-to-be-heard-in-seattle.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0| author=Kirk Johnson| title=A Rare Elected Voice for Socialism Pledges to Be Heard in Seattle| publisher=''The New York Times''| date=December 28, 2013}}</ref>
==Explanations for weakness==
Academic scholars have long studied the reasons why no viable socialist parties have emerged in the United States.<ref>Lipset & Marks, p. 9</ref> 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 [[United States Constitution|American Constitution]].<ref>Lipset & Marks, p. 11</ref> [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] and [[Leon Trotsky|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.<ref>Lipset & Marks, p. 16</ref>
Although [[Working Men's Party|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.<ref>Lipset & Marks, pp. 19–23</ref> 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.<ref>Draper, pp. 36–37</ref> 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.<ref>Draper, p. 41</ref> But even the [[New Left]] relied on radical democratic traditions rather than left-wing ideology.<ref>Lipset & Marks, p. 23</ref>
Engels thought that the lack of a feudal past was the reason for the American working class holding middle-class values. Writing at a 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]]'' [[Classical liberalism|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]].<ref>Lipset & Marks, pp. 21–22</ref>
The character of the American political system, which is hostile toward [[Third party (United States)|third parties]] has also been presented as a reason for the absence of a strong socialist party in the United States.<ref>Lipset & Marks, p. 83</ref>
[[Political repression]] has also contributed to the weakness of the left in the United States. Many cities had [[red squads]] to monitor and disrupt leftist groups in response to labor unrest such as the [[Haymarket Riot]].<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.nyclu.org/content/testimony-police-surveillance-of-political-activity-history-and-current-state-of-handschu-de| author=Arthur N. Eisenberg| title=Testimony: Police Surveillance of Political Activity – The History and Current State of the Handschu Decree| publisher=New York Civil Liberties Union| accessdate=January 14, 2015}}</ref> During World War II, the [[Smith Act]] made membership in revolutionary groups illegal. After the war, [[Senator Joseph McCarthy]] used the Smith Act to launch a [[McCarthyism|crusade to purge communists]] from government and the media. In the 1960s the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]'s [[COINTELPRO]] program monitored, infiltrated, disrupted and discredited radical groups in the U.S.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5161811| author=Ed Gordon| title=COINTELPRO and the History of Domestic Spying| publisher=NPR| date=January 19, 2006}}</ref> In 2008, Maryland police were revealed to have added the names and personal information of death penalty opponents and anti-war protesters to a database which was intended to be used for tracking terrorists.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/07/AR2008100703245.html| author=Lisa Rein| title=Md. Police Put Activists' Names On Terror Lists| publisher=''The Washington Post''| date=October 8, 2008}}</ref>
==Marxist==
American [[Marxism|Marxist]] groups have differed according to their visions of communism and their strategies for achieving socialism.
===Communist Party USA===
{{main|Communist Party USA}}
Established in 1919, the Communist Party USA (CP) claimed a membership of 100,000 in 1939 and maintained a membership over 50,000 until the 1950s. However, the 1956 invasion of Hungary, [[McCarthyism]] 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.<ref>George & Wilcox, pp. 97–98</ref> From the 1940s the FBI attempted to disrupt the CP, including through its [[COINTELPRO|Counter‐Intelligence Program]] (COINTELPRO).<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 103</ref>
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|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]].<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 98</ref> 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.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 99</ref> However, CP attempts to influence the New Left were mostly unsuccessful.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 101</ref> The CP attracted media attention in the 1970s with the membership of the high-profile activist, [[Angela Davis]].<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 103-104</ref>
The CP publishes the [[People's World]] and [[Political Affairs]]. Beginning 1988, the CP stopped running candidates for President of the United States.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 102</ref> 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.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 105</ref>
Because of the continued slip into an ideology of social democracy that began after the death of CPUSA National Chair Gus Hall, dissident groups began to form around the country that were opposed to the increased pro-capitalist policies of the CPUSA National Committee. There was a fear among members that the CP was on the road to liquidation as a political party. There were several telltale signs that this was happening. The new National Chairman of the CP, Sam Webb began exploring ways to fund the party which suffered a great loss of financial assistance when Mikail Gorbachev assumed leadership of the CP of the Soviet Union. The party began to invest in real estate around the country and used party funds to refurbish its headquarters in New York. The CP leased out several floors of their headquarters to local businesses such as Wix, a website design company. They also leased out the first floor to an art supply company, closing the bookshop of International Publishers, the CP publishing company. Currently, there are no CP bookstores around the country. The CP then made the decision not to print its weekly newspaper, the People's Weekly World. The paper is only available on line as of this date. The party's online theoretical journal, Political Affairs, was also discontinued. Currently the CP does not have an organizing department. Dues books have been continued. Everything "Leninist" has been dropped from the policy and program of the party. No attempt has been made to establish ties with the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) which is the largest socialist-communist trade union federation in the world.
At its 30th Convention in June 2014, the CPUSA dropped Marxism–Leninism from its revised Constitution.<ref>{{cite web|last1=CPUSA|title=New CPUSA Constitution|url=http://www.cpusa.org/draft-new-constitution/|accessdate=2014-06-27}}</ref> While the group continues to uphold Marx, Engels and Lenin in its constitution, its official ideology is now [[scientific socialism]].
===Socialist Labor Party===
{{main|Socialist Labor Party of America}}
Founded in 1876, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) was a reformist party but adopted the theories of [[Karl Marx]] 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''.<ref>ALB</ref>
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.<ref>Alexander, p. 932</ref>
==Marxist–Leninist==
[[Marxism–Leninism]] has been advocated and practiced by American communists of many kinds, including [[Comintern|pro-Soviet]], [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]], [[Maoism|Maoist]], or [[Independent (voter)|independent]].<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 95</ref>
===American Party of Labor===
{{Main|American Party of Labor}}
The American Party of Labor was founded in 2008 and adheres to [[Hoxhaism]].<ref>[http://www.loeser.us/flags/hate.html Political Flags of Extremism - Part 1]</ref> It has its origins in the activities of the American communist [[Jack Shulman]], former secretary of [[Communist Party USA]] leader [[William Z. Foster]]; and the British Marxist-Leninist [[Bill Bland]]. Members of the American Party of Labor had previously been active in Alliance Marxist-Leninist and International Struggle Marxist-Leninist, two organizations founded by Shulman and Bland. The present day APL sees itself as upholding and continuing the work of Shulman and Bland. Although not a formal member of the [[International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle)]], the APL is generally supportive of its line and maintains friendly relations with a number of foreign communist parties including the [[Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action)]], the Turkish [[Labour Party (Turkey)|Labour Party]] (EMEP), the [[Labour Party of Iran]], and the [[Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist)]].
It has been involved in a number of events, such as a 2013 protest against the [[Golden Dawn (political party)|Golden Dawn]] in [[Chicago]],<ref>[http://www.workers.org/2013/01/24/chicago-protesters-say-no-to-greek-fascists Chicago protesters say ‘No’ to Greek fascists]</ref> a 2014 meeting on the [[Ukraine]]<ref>[http://www.fightbacknews.org/2014/4/15/chicago-forum-us-role-ukraine-fascists-attempt-disruption Chicago forum on U.S. role in Ukraine: fascists attempt disruption]</ref> and a protest against [[Donald Trump]] at the [[2016 Republican National Convention]].<ref>[http://www.fightbacknews.org/2016/6/20/support-grows-dump-trump-protest-planned-day-one-republican-national-convention Support grows for “Dump Trump” protest planned for day one of Republican National Convention]</ref> Its current organ, ''The Red Phoenix'', carries articles concerning contemporary political issues and theoretical and historical questions.
===Freedom Road Socialist Organization===
{{main|Freedom Road Socialist Organization}}
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) was founded in 1985 through the mergers of [[Maoism|Maoist]] and [[Marxism-Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] organizations active near the end of the [[New Communist Movement]]. The FRSO grew out of an initial merger of the Proletarian Unity League and the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters. Some years later, the Organization for Revolutionary Unity and the Amilcar Cabral/Paul Robeson Collective merged into the FRSO.
In 1999, the FRSO split into two organizations, both of which retain the FRSO name to this day. The split primarily concerned the organization's continued adherence to Marxism–Leninism, with one side of the FRSO upholding Marxism–Leninism and the other side preferring to pursue a strategy of regrouping and rebuilding the Left in the United States. These organizations are commonly identified through their publications, which are ''Fight Back! News'' and ''Freedom Road'', and their websites, (frso.org) and (freedomroad.org), respectively.
In 2010, members of the FRSO (frso.org) and other anti-war and international solidarity activists were raided by the FBI. Secret documents left by the FBI revealed that agents planned to question activists about their involvement in the FRSO (frso.org) and their international solidarity work related to [[Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia|Colombia]] and [[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine|Palestine]].<ref>{{cite web|title=FBI Interview Questions for FRSO|url=http://www.stopfbi.net/sites/default/files/3-Interrogation%20Questions.pdf|publisher=Committee to Stop FBI Repression|accessdate=2013-04-25}}</ref> The FRSO (frso.org) works in the Committee to Stop FBI Repression.
Both FRSO groups continue to uphold the right of national self-determination for [[African-Americans]] and [[Chicanos]]. The FRSO (frso.org) works in the labor movement, the student movement, and the oppressed nationalities movement.
===Party for Socialism and Liberation===
{{main|Party for Socialism and Liberation}}
The Party for Socialism and Liberation was formed in 2004 as a result of a split in the Workers World Party. The San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. branches left almost in their entirety and the party has grown significantly since then.{{Citation needed|date=October 2010}} 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.<ref name="Reuters"/>
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.<ref>Sherman</ref>
===Progressive Labor Party===
{{main|Progressive Labor Party (United States)}}
The Progressive Labor Party (PL) was formed as the Progressive Labor Movement in 1962 by a group of former members of the Communist Party USA, most of whom had quit or been expelled for supporting China in the Sino-Soviet split. To them, the Soviet Union was imperialist. They competed with the CP and SWP for influence in the anti-war movement and the [[Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)|Students for a Democratic Society]] (SDS), forming the ''May 2 Movement'' as its anti-war front organization.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 147</ref> Its major publications are ''Progressive Labor'' and the ''Marxist–Leninist Quarterly''.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 148</ref> 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.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 150</ref> While membership in 1978 was about 1,500, by 1996 it had fallen below 500.<ref>George &
Wilcox, p. 151</ref>
===Revolutionary Communist Party, USA===
{{main|Revolutionary Communist Party, USA}}
Formed in 1969 as the Bay Area Revolutionary Union (BARU), the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) had almost one thousand members in twenty-five states by 1975. Its main founder and long time leader, [[Bob Avakian]], a [[Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)|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]].<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 159</ref> Working through the [[U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association|U.S.-Chinese People's Friendship Association]], the party arranged for visits by Americans to China.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 160</ref> Their newspaper, ''Revolutionary Worker'' has featured articles supportive of Albania and North Korea, while the party, unusually for the Left, has been hostile to [[Desegregation busing in the United States|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.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 161</ref>
===Workers World Party===
{{main|Workers World Party}}
The Workers World Party (WWP) was formed in 1958 by fewer than one hundred people who left the Socialist Workers Party after the SWP supported socialists in New York State elections. Their publication is ''[[Workers World newspaper|Workers World]]''. The party's position has developed from Trotskyism to independent Marxism–Leninism, supporting all Marxist states. They have been active in organizing protests against far right groups. They were also notable for being the main US supporter of the former [[Derg|Ethiopian communist government]]. In the 1990s their membership was estimated at about 200.<ref>George & Wilcox, pp. 153–154</ref>
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.<ref>Bérubé, pp. 130–131</ref> 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]].<ref name="Reuters">Reuters</ref>
==Trotskyist==
Many US [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] parties and organizations exist that advocate communism. These groups are distinct from Marxist–Leninist groups in that they generally adhere to the theory and writings of [[Leon Trotsky]]. Many owe their organizational heritage to the Socialist Workers Party, which emerged as a split-off from the CP.
===Freedom Socialist Party===
{{main|Freedom Socialist Party}}
The Freedom Socialist Party began in 1966 as the Seattle branch of the Socialist Workers Party that had split from the party and joined with others who had not belonged to the SWP. They differed with the SWP on the role of African Americans, whom they saw as being the future vanguard of the revolution, and of women, emphasizing their rights, which they called "[[socialist feminism]]". [[Clara Fraser]] came to lead the party and was to form the group [[Radical Women]].<ref>Alexander, p. 936</ref>
===International Socialist Organization===
{{Main|International Socialist Organization}}
{{Empty section|date=November 2016}}
===Socialist Action===
{{main|Socialist Action (United States)}}
Socialist Action was formed in 1983 by members, almost all of whom had been expelled from the Socialist Workers Party. Its members remained loyal to Trotskyist principles, including "[[permanent revolution]]", that they claimed the SWP had abandoned. Strongly critical of authoritarian regimes, including the Soviet Union and Iran, it championed socialist revolution in third world countries. It was an active participant in the Cleveland Emergency National Conference in September 1984, set up to challenge American policy in Central America, and played a major role in organizing demonstrations against American action against the [[Sandanista]] rebels in Nicaragua.<ref>Kleher, pp. 68–69</ref>
===Socialist Alternative===
{{Main|Socialist Alternative (United States)}}
Although Socialist Alternative has sometimes pursued a democratic socialist strategy, most notably in Seattle where [[Kshama Sawant]] was elected to the [[Seattle]] City Council as an openly socialist candidate in 2013.,<ref name="Kevin Roose"/><ref name="Joseph Kishore"/><ref name="Kirk Johnson"/> it identifies as a Trotskyist political organization. Socialist Alternative is the U.S. affiliate of the [[Committee for a Workers' International]], which is a London-based international of Trotskyist political parties.
===Socialist Equality Party===
{{Main|Socialist Equality Party (United States)}}
{{Empty section|date=November 2016}}
===Socialist Workers Party===
{{main|Socialist Workers Party (United States)}}
With fewer than one thousand members in 1996, the Socialist Worker's Party (SWP) was the second largest Marxist–Leninist party in the United States.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 113</ref> 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]].<ref>George & Wilciox, p. 108-109</ref> Their publications include [[The Militant]] and a theoretical journal, the [[International Socialist Review (1956)|International Socialist Review]].<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 108</ref> Two groups that broke with the SWP in the 1960s were the [[Spartacist League (US)|Spartacist League]] and the Workers League (which would later evolve into the [[Socialist Equality Party (United States)|Socialist Equality Party]]).<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 109</ref> The SWP has been involved in numerous violent scuffles.<ref name="George & Wilcox, p. 110">George & Wilcox, p. 110</ref> 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.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 112</ref> The party fields candidates for President of the United States.<ref name="George & Wilcox, p. 110"/>
===Solidarity===
{{main|Solidarity (U.S.)}}<!--1986-->
Solidarity is a socialist organization associated with the journal ''Against the Current''. Solidarity is an organizational descendant of [[International Socialists (U.S.)|International Socialists]], a [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] organization based on the proposition that the [[Soviet Union]] was not a "degenerate workers' state" (as in [[orthodox Trotskyism]]) but rather "[[bureaucratic collectivism]]", a new and especially repressive class society.<ref>
{{cite book|title=Labor's war at home: The CIO in World War II
|first=Nelson|last=Lichtenstein|authorlink=Nelson Lichtenstein|chapter=Introduction to the new edition|year=2003|edition=second|isbn=1-59213-197-2
|publisher=Temple University Press|page=xxiii (footnote 2)|url=http://www.temple.edu/tempress/chapters_1400/1693_ch1.pdf|format=pdf|location=Philadelphia PA|ref=harv}}</ref>
===Spartacist League===
{{main|Spartacist League (US)|International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)}}
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.<ref name="Klehr, pp. 70-73">Klehr, pp. 70–73</ref>
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.<ref name="Klehr, pp. 70-73"/>
===Workers International League===
The Workers International League is an American [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] organization formed in 2001. The WIL is inspired by the theories of [[Karl Marx]], [[Friedrich Engels]], [[Vladimir Lenin]], [[Leon Trotsky]] as well as British Trotskyist [[Ted Grant]] and publishes a regular newspaper called ''Socialist Appeal''. The organization argues that trade unions in the United States must break from the Democratic Party and shift their resources towards establishing a mass party of labor.<ref>url=http://www.socialistappeal.org/wil/about-us</ref>
==Social democratic and democratic socialist==
The [[Socialist Party of America]] was founded in 1901. [[Eugene Debs]] ran as the party's presidential candidate five times and received 6% of the popular vote in 1912. The party suffered political repression during [[World War I]] due to its [[pacifism|pacifist]] stance and broke into factions over whether or not to support the [[October Revolution|Bolshevik Revolution]] in Russia and whether or not to join the [[Comintern]]. The Socialist Party was re-formed in the mid-1920s but stopped running candidates after 1956, having been undercut by [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]'s [[New Deal]] and the resulting leftward movement of the Democratic Party to its right, and by the [[Communist Party USA|Communist Party]] on its left. In the early 1970s the party split into tiny factions.
After 1960 the Socialist Party also functioned "as an educational organization".<ref>{{harvtxt|Hamby|2003|loc=p. 25, footnote 5}}:
{{cite journal|first=Alonzo L.|last=Hamby|authorlink=Alonzo Hamby|year=2003|title=Is there no democratic left in America? Reflections on the transformation of an ideology|journal=Journal of Policy History|volume=15|issue=The future of the democratic left in industrial democracies|pages=3–25|doi=10.1353/jph.2003.0003|ref=harv}}</ref> Members of the Debs–Thomas Socialist Party helped to develop leaders of social-movement organizations, including the civil-rights movement and the New Left.<ref>[[Aldon Morris]], ''The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change'' (New York: The Free Press, 1994)</ref><ref>
* [[Maurice Isserman]]. ''If I Had a Hammer...The Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left'' (Basic Books, 1987). {{ISBN|0-465-03197-8}}.</ref> Similarly, contemporary social-democratic and democratic-socialist organizations are known because of their members' activities in other organizations.
===Green Party of the United States===
{{Main|Green Party of the United States}}
The Green Party of the United States is a left of center party whose platform emphasizes environmentalism, non-hierarchical participatory democracy, social justice, respect for diversity, peace, and nonviolence.<ref>{{cite book| author=Larry J. Sabato and Howard R. Ernst| title=Encyclopedia of American Political Parties and Elections| publisher=Infobase Publishing| date=2009| page=167}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://indypendent.org/2014/10/28/meet-howie-hawkins-anti-cuomo| author=John Tarleton| title=Meet Howie Hawkins, the Anti-Cuomo| publisher=The Indypendent| date=October 28, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.greens.org/s-r/24/24-15b.html| author=Howie Hawkins| title=The Green Party and the Future of the US Left| publisher=Greens.org| date=November 2001}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/57704| title=United States: Greens become NY's third party after strong left campaign| publisher=Green Left Weekly| date=November 6, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.npr.org/blogs/politicaljunkie/2012/07/09/156167263/the-green-party-makes-its-case-as-a-left-leaning-alternative-to-obama| author=Ken Rudin| title=The Green Party Makes Its Case As A Left-Leaning Alternative To Obama| publisher=NPR| date=July 9, 2012}}</ref> At their 2016 party convention in Houston, the party changed its platform to support a decentralized form of [[eco-socialism]] based on workplace democracy.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://londongreenleft.blogspot.jp/2016/08/us-green-party-convention-adopts.html| title=US Green Party Convention Adopts an Ecosocialist Position| publisher=London Green Left Blog| date=August 8, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://gp.org/cgi-bin/vote/propdetail?pid=835| title=2016 Platform Amendment Proposal Ecological Economics| publisher=Green Party of the United States| accessdate=October 1, 2016}}</ref>
In the [[Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2000|2000 presidential election]], [[Ralph Nader]] and [[Winona LaDuke]] received 2,882,955 votes or 2.74% of the popular vote.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm| title= 2000 OFFICIAL PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION RESULTS| publisher=Federal Election Commission| date=December 2001}}</ref>
In the [[United States presidential election, 2016|2016 election]], Green Party presidential candidate [[Jill Stein]] and running mate [[Ajamu Baraka]] qualified to be on the ballot in 44 states and the District of Columbia, with 3 additional states allowing write-in votes.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.jill2016.com/ballot_access| title=Americans in 48 States Can Cast a Vote for Stein/Baraka| publisher=Jill2016| accessdate=October 1, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://ivn.us/2016/09/02/green-party-ballot-access-highest-levels-2016/| author=Kathryn Bullington| title=Green Party Ballot Access at Highest Levels in 2016| publisher=Independent Voter Project| date=September 2, 2016}}</ref>
The [[Greens/Green Party USA]] is a much smaller group focusing on education and local, grassroots organizing.
===Democratic Socialists of America===
{{main|Democratic Socialists of America}}
[[Michael Harrington]] 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.<ref>{{harvtxt|Drucker|1994|pp=303–307}}:<br />{{cite book|title=Max Shachtman and his left: A socialist's odyssey through the "American Century"|first=Peter|last=Drucker|publisher=Humanities Press|year=1994|isbn=0-391-03816-8|ref=harv}}</ref> Even before the December 1972 convention, Michael Harrington had resigned as an Honorary Chairperson of the Socialist Party.<ref name="NYTimes"/> 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 <!--(the [[Socialist Party of America#Max_Shachtman.2C_Civil_Rights.2C_and_the_War_on_Poverty|Socialist Party Social Democratic Federation]], "formerly the Socialist Party, USA"),-->whose membership was then 1,800, according to a 1973 profile of Harrington.<ref>{{harvtxt|O'Rourke|1993|pp=195–196}}:<br />{{cite book|last=O'Rourke|first=William|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5iUJfPxlTCcC&pg=PA195|chapter=L: Michael Harrington|title=Signs of the literary times: Essays, reviews, profiles, 1970–1992'|pages=192–196|publisher=SUNY Press|series=The Margins of Literature (SUNY Series)|year=1993|isbn=978-0-7914-1681-5|ref=harv}}
Originally: {{cite journal|last=O'Rourke|first=William|title=Michael Harrington: Beyond Watergate, Sixties, and reform|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5iUJfPxlTCcC&pg=PA197&dq=%22Socialist+Party%22+OR+%22Social+Democrats%22,+%22Michael+Harrington%22,+%22New+York+Times%22&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q=Michael%20Harrington&f=false|pages=6–7|journal=SoHo Weekly News|volume=3|number=2|date=November 13, 1973|ref=harv}}</ref>
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.<ref>Isserman, pp. 312–331: Isserman, Maurice (2001) ''The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington.'' New York: Perseus Books.</ref> With roughly twenty four 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.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?ei=e3MtTr68Hc7NswbvtLH3Dw&ct=result&id=O4h5AAAAIAAJ&dq=Isserman%2C+DSOC%2C+NAM+%22Michael+Harrington%22%2C+%22New+York+Times%22&q=DSOC%2C+NAM#search_anchor Isserman, p. 349]: Isserman, Maurice (2001) ''The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington.'' New York: Perseus Books.</ref> Its high-profile members included Congressman [[Major Owens]] and [[William Winpisinger]], President of the [[International Association of Machinists]].
===Social Democrats, USA===
{{main|Social Democrats, USA}}
The Socialist Party of America changed its name to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) in 1972.<ref name="NYTimes"/> In electoral politics, SDUSA's National Co-Chairman [[Bayard Rustin]] stated that its goal was to transform the Democratic Party into a social-democratic party.<ref name="NYT74">{{cite news|title=Socialists seek to transform the Democratic Party|first=C. Gerald|last= Fraser|newspaper=The New York Times |date=September 7, 1974 |page=11
|url=https://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10A14FA3F59137B93C5A91782D85F408785F9 |ref=harv}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite journal|first=Harold |last=Meyerson |authorlink=Harold Meyerson |date=Fall 2002 |volume=49 |number=4 |title=Solidarity, Whatever |url=http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=552 |journal=Dissent |page=16 |ref=harv |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100620144233/http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=552 |archivedate=June 20, 2010 |df=mdy }}{{clarify|date=September 2011|reason= Params "issue=" and "number=" are synonyms – cannot have both}}</ref>
Many SDUSA members served as organizational leaders, especially in labor unions. Rustin served as President of the [[A. Philip Randolph Institute]],<ref>*{{cite book|last=Anderson|first=Jervis|title=Bayard Rustin: Troubles I've seen|location=New York|publisher=HarperCollins Publishers|year=1997|url=https://books.google.com/books?ei=cEXqTZO2MYXOsgahk8TnCg&ct=result&id=9ix2AAAAMAAJ&dq=Bayard+Rustin%2C+Tom+Kahn&q=Tom+Kahn#search_anchor }}*{{cite book|authorlink=John D'Emilio|last=D’Emilio|first=John|title=Lost prophet: Bayard Rustin and the quest for peace and justice in America|location=New York|publisher=The Free Press|year=2003 |isbn=978-0-684-82780-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6uhqxlhZ888C&pg=PT235&lpg=PT235&dq=Kahn&source=bl&ots=3tJw3vbR22&sig=RUjTBxdvMBh-NWVsDYafCKcUu4Y&hl=en&ei=kew2TuvOIMXIsgax5NW5Ag&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Kahn&f=false}}
*: Republished as {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6uhqxlhZ888C&pg=PT235&lpg=PT235&dq=Kahn&source=bl&ots=3tJw3vbR22&sig=RUjTBxdvMBh-NWVsDYafCKcUu4Y&hl=en&ei=kew2TuvOIMXIsgax5NW5Ag&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Kahn&f=false |title=Lost prophet: The life and times of Bayard Rustin |location=Chicago |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |year=2004 |isbn=0-226-14269-8 }}</ref> and was succeeded by [[Norman Hill]]. [[Tom Kahn]] served as Director of International Affairs for the AFL–CIO.<ref name="NYTKahn"/> [[Sandra Feldman]] served as President of the [[American Federation of Teachers]] (AFT).<ref name="FeldmanNYT">{{cite news|title=Sandra Feldman, scrappy and outspoken labor leader for teachers, dies at 65|newspaper=The New York Times|first=Joseph|last=Berger |date=September 20, 2005|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/nyregion/20feldman.html?sq=Sandra%20Feldman&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=all|ref=harv}}</ref> Rachelle Horowitz served as Political Director for the AFT and serves on the board for the [[National Democratic Institute for International Affairs|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]].<ref name="Holley" >{{cite news|title=Political activist Penn Kemble dies at 64|first=Joe|last=Holley|newspaper=The Washington Post |date=October 19, 2005 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/18/AR2005101801743_pf.html|ref=harv}}</ref><ref name="times">{{cite news|newspaper=[[The Times]] |location=London |title=Penn Kemble: Dapper Democratic Party activist whose influence extended across the spectrum of US politics (21 January 1941 –15 October 2005) |date=October 31, 2005 |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article584709.ece|ref=harv}}</ref> After having served as the U.S. Representative to the U.N.'s Committee on human rights during the first [[Reagan Administration]],<ref name="Nossiter">{{cite news|title=New team at U.N.: Common roots and philosophies|first=Bernard D.|last=Nossiter|newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 3, 1981 |edition=Late City final |at=section A, p. 2, col. 3 |ref=harv}}</ref> [[Carl Gershman]] has served as the President of the [[National Endowment for Democracy]].<ref name="NED">{{cite web|url=http://www.ned.org/about/president.html |title=Meet Our President |accessdate=August 5, 2008 |publisher=[[National Endowment for Democracy]] |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080426072715/http://www.ned.org/about/president.html |archivedate=April 26, 2008 |deadurl=yes |df=mdy }}</ref>
===Socialist Party USA===
{{main|Socialist Party USA}}
In the Socialist Party before 1973, members of the Debs Caucus opposed endorsing or otherwise supporting Democratic Party candidates. They began working outside the Socialist Party with antiwar groups such as the [[Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)|Students for a Democratic Society]]. Some locals voted to disaffiliate with SDUSA and more members resigned; they re-organized as the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA), while continuing to operate the old Debs Caucus paper, the ''Socialist Tribune'', later renamed ''The Socialist''. The SPUSA continues to run local and national candidates, recently including [[Dan La Botz]]' 2010 campaign for US Senate in Ohio that won over 25,000 votes and [[Pat Noble]]'s successful election onto the [[Red Bank Regional High School]] Board of Education in 2012 and subsequent re-election in 2015. The SPUSA has run or endorsed a presidential ticket in every election since its founding, most recently nominating former SPUSA co-chair [[Mimi Soltysik]] and labor activist [[Angela Walker]] in the 2016 presidential election.
==Anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist==
{{See also|Anarchism in the United States}}
Anarchism in the United States was originally [[Individualist anarchism in the United States|individualistic]] and [[free-thinking]], as typified by the work of [[Henry David Thoreau]], but was overshadowed by a mass, cosmopolitan, anti-hierarchical, working class movement between the 1880s and 1940s, whose members were mostly recent immigrants.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/7910/| author=Kenyon Zimmer| title="The Whole World is Our Country": Immigration and Anarchism in the United States, 1885–1940| publisher=University of Pittsburgh| date=2010}}</ref> The anarchist movement achieved notoriety due to [[Haymarket affair|violent clashes with police]] and [[Assassination of William McKinley|assassinations]], but most anarchist activity took place in the realm of agitation and labor organizing among immigrant workers, with the exception of the [[Industrial Workers of the World]], whose members were mostly native-born Americans.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/d_h/haywood.htm| title=William "Big Bill" Haywood| publisher=PBS| date=2001}}</ref>
* Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)<ref>Amster, p. 3</ref>
* [[Food Not Bombs]]<ref name="Amster, p. xii">Amster, p. xii</ref>
* [[Green Mountain Anarchist Collective]]
* [[Northeastern Federation of Anarchist Communists]] (NEFAC)<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* Bring the Ruckus<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* Phoenix Anarchist Coalition<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* [[Local to Global Justice]]<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* [[Indymedia|IndyMedia]]<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* [[Workers Solidarity Alliance]]<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* Area Radical Reading Group of Hartford (ARRGH!)<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* [[Anarchist Black Cross]]<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* Federation of Revolutionary Anarchist Collectives (FRAC)
* Anarchist Communitarian Network
* [[Anarchist People of Color]]
* Atlantic Anarchist Circle
* Great Plains Anarchist Network
* Revolutionary Anti-authoritarians of Color (RACE)
* South East Anarchist Network
* [[Youth International Party]]
==Communes and other intentional communities==
Many [[communes]] and [[egalitarian community|egalitarian communities]] have existed in the United States as a sub-category of the broader [[intentional community]] movement, some of which were based on [[utopian socialist]] ideals.<ref>{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FPiM8oMA9xgC&pg=PA9| author=Iaácov Oved| title=Two Hundred Years of American Communes| publisher=Transaction Publishers| date=1987| pages=9–15}}</ref>
==Notable figures==
*[[Roger Nash Baldwin]] – founding member of the [[American Civil Liberties Union|ACLU]]
*[[Harry Belafonte]] – singer, civil rights and social activist
*[[Edward Bellamy]] – [[utopian socialism|utoptian socialist]] author
*[[Victor L. Berger]] – [[Socialist Party of America]] congressman
*[[Earl Browder]] – [[Communist Party USA|Communist Party]] leader
*[[Cesar Chavez]] – [[United Farm Workers]] leader
*[[Noam Chomsky]] – dissident academic
*[[Angela Davis]] – Communist Party leader
*[[Dorothy Day]] – founding member of the [[Catholic Worker Movement]]
*[[Daniel De Leon]] – [[Marxism|Marxist]] [[Theoretician (Marxism)|theoretician]] and newspaper editor
*[[Eugene V. Debs]] – Socialist Party of America leader and presidential candidate
*[[David Dellinger]] – Socialist Party of America leader and pacifist
*[[W. E. B. Du Bois]] – civil rights activist
*[[Albert Einstein]] – physicist
*[[William Z. Foster]] – Communist Party leader
*[[Emma Goldman]] – anarchist activist
*[[Laurence Gronlund]] – utopian socialist author
*[[Gus Hall]] – Communist Party leader and presidential candidate
*[[Dashiell Hammett]] – author
*[[Michael Harrington]] – democratic socialist activist
*[[Tom Hayden]] – [[New Left]] activist
*[[Bill Haywood]] – [[Industrial Workers of the World|IWW]] labor activist
*[[Abbie Hoffman]] – [[Youth International Party|Yippie]] activist
*[[Mary Harris Jones|Mary Harris "Mother" Jones]] – IWW labor activist
*[[Irving Howe]] – democratic socialist activist
*[[Tom Kahn]] – social democratic, civil rights and labor activist
*[[Helen Keller]] – author and activist
*[[Martin Luther King Jr.]] – democratic socialist and civil rights activist
*[[Jack London]] – author
*[[Meyer London]] – Socialist Party of America congressman
*[[A. J. Muste]] – pacifist, labor and civil rights activist
*[[Immanuel Ness]] – labor activist
*[[A. Philip Randolph]] – civil rights and labor leader
*[[John Reed (journalist)|John Reed]] – journalist
*[[Paul Robeson]] – actor, civil rights and labor activist
*[[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] – U.S. President who implemented [[New Deal]] social programs
*[[Jerry Rubin]] – Yippie activist
*[[Bayard Rustin]] – pacifist and civil rights activist
*[[C. E. Ruthenberg]] – Communist Party leader
*[[Bernie Sanders]] – Independent democratic socialist Senator and Democratic presidential candidate of 2016 election
*[[Margaret Sanger]] – reproductive rights and labor activist
*[[Max Shachtman]] – Marxist theorist and activist
*[[Upton Sinclair]] – investigative author and socialist politician
*[[Jill Stein]] - Green Party presidential candidate
*[[I. F. Stone]] – journalist
*[[Norman Thomas]] – Socialist Party of America leader and presidential candidate
*[[Henry A. Wallace]] – Franklin Roosevelt's Vice President and [[Progressive Party (United States, 1948)|Progressive Party]] presidential candidate
*[[Richard D. Wolff]] – dissident academic
*[[Cornel West]] – dissident academic
*[[Howard Zinn]] – dissident academic
==Current Publications==
{{Main|List of alternative media (U.S. political left)}}
* ''[[The New Hampshire Gazette]]'', fortnightly, press run 5,500, founded 1756.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[The Nation]]'', weekly, established 1865. Circulation 190,000.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144">{{cite book| author=Richard Lingeman and the editors of The Nation| title=The Nation Guide to the Nation| publisher=Vintage| date=2009}}</ref>
* ''[[The Progressive]]'', monthly, established 1909.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Monthly Review]]'', monthly, established 1949. Circulation 7,000.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Dissent (American magazine)|Dissent]]'', quarterly, established 1954.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Texas Observer]]'', established 1954.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Fifth Estate (periodical)|Fifth Estate]]'', quarterly, established 1965.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Review of Radical Political Economics]]'', quarterly, established 1968.
* ''[[Dollars & Sense]]'', bimonthly, established 1974.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Mother Jones (magazine)|Mother Jones]]'', bimonthly, established 1974.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[In These Times]]'', monthly, established 1976. Circulation 17,000.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Z Communications#Z Magazine|Z Magazine]]'', monthly established 1977. Circulation 10,000 print and 6,000 online subscribers.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Labor Notes]]'', monthly, established 1979.
* ''[[Utne Reader]]'', bimonthly, established 1984. Circulation 150,000.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Left Business Observer]]'', established 1986.
* ''[[The American Prospect]]'', monthly, established 1990. Circulation 55,000.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>* ''[[The Baffler]]'', established 1988.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Working USA]]'', quarterly, established 1997.<ref>{{cite web|title=Post-Capitalist Project|url=http://postcapitalistproject.org/|publisher=Consortia Website|accessdate=19 November 2012}}</ref>
* ''[[The Indypendent]]'', published 17 times per year, established 2000.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Left Turn]]'', website, established 2001.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''Socialist Appeal'', established 2001.
* ''Black Commentator'', web-only weekly, established 2002.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]]'', established 2010.
==Public office-holders==
===Green Party of the United States===
<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.gp.org/officeholders| title=Officeholders| publisher=Green Party of the United State| accessdate=May 15, 2016}}</ref>
====Arkansas====
# [[Alvin Clay]] – Justice of the Peace Mississippi County, District 6 Elected: 2012
# [[Kade Holliday]] – County Clerk Craighead County, Arkansas Elected: 2012
# [[Roger Watkins (politician)|Roger Watkins]] – Constable Craighead County, District 5 Elected: 2012
====California====
{{colbegin|colwidth=30em}}
# [[Dan Hamburg]] – Board of Supervisors, District 5, Mendocino County
# [[Bruce Delgado]] – Mayor, Marina (Monterey County)
# [[Larry Bragman]] – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County)
# [[Renée Goddard]] – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County)
# [[John Reed (politician)|John Reed]] – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County)
# [[Gayle Mclaughlin]] – City Council, Richmond (Contra Costa)
# [[Deborah Heathersone]] – Town Council, Point Arena (Mendocino County)
# [[Paul Pitino]] – Town Council, Arcata (Humboldt County)
# [[John Keener (politician)|John Keener]] – City Council, Pacifica (San Mateo County)
# [[Vahe Peroomian]] – Board of Trustees, Glendale Community College District, Glendale (Los Angeles County)
# [[Amy Martenson]] – Board of Trustees, District 2, Napa Valley College, Napa (Napa County)
# [[April Clary]] – Board of Trustees, Student Representative, Napa Valley College, Napa (Napa County)
# [[Heather Bass]] – Board of Directors, Gilroy Unified School District, Gilroy, Santa Clara County
# Dave Clark – Board of Directors, Cardiff School District (San Diego County)
# [[Phyllis Greenleaf]] – Board of Trustees, Live Oak Elementary School District (Santa Cruz County)
# [[Adriana Griffin]] – Red Bluff Union School District, Red Bluff (Tehama County)
# [[Jim C. Keller]] – Board of Trustees, Bonny Doon Union Elementary School District, Santa Cruz County
# [[Brigitte Kubacki]] – Governing Boardmember, Green Point School, Blue Lake (Humboldt County)
# [[Jose Lara]] – Vice President and Governing Board Member, El Rancho Unified School District, Pico Rivera (Los Angeles)
# [[Kimberly Ann Peterson]] – Board of Trustees, Geyserville Unified School District (Sonoma County)
# [[Karen Pickett (politician)|Karen Pickett]] – Board Member, Canyon Canyon Elementary School District (Contra Costa County)
# [[Kathy Rallings]] – Board of Trustees, Carlsbad Unified School District, Carlsbad, San Diego County
# [[Sean Reagan]] – Governing Boardmember, Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District, Norwalk (Los Angeles County)
# [[Curtis Robinson]] – Board of Trustees, Area 6, Marin County Board of Education (Marin County)
# [[Christopher Sabec (politician)|Christopher Sabec]] – Governing Boardmember, [[Lagunitas School District]] (Marin County)
# [[Katherine Salinas]] – Governing Boardmember, Arcata School District, Arcata (Humboldt County)
# [[Jeffrey Dean Schwartz]] – Governing Boardmember, Arcata School District, Arcata (Humboldt County)
# [[Alex Shantz]] – Board of Trustees, St. Helena Unified School District, Napa County
# [[Dana Silvernale]] – Governing Boardmember, North Humboldt Union High School (Humboldt County)
# [[Jim Smith (politician)|Jim Smith]] – President, Canyon School Board, Canyon Township (Contra Costa County)
# [[Logan Blair Smith]] – Little Shasta Elementary School District, Montague (Shasta County)
# [[Rama Zarcufsky]] – Governing Boardmember, Maple Creek School District (Humboldt County)
# [[John Selawsky]] – Rent Stabilization Board, Berkeley (Alameda County)
# [[Jesse Townley]] – Rent Stabilization Board, Berkeley (Alameda County)
# [[Jeff Davis (politician)|Jeff Davis]] – Board of Directors, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (Alameda and Contra Costa Counties)
# [[Karen Anderson (politician)|Karen Anderson]] – Board of Directors, Coastside Fire Protection District (San Mateo County)
# [[Robert L. Campbell]] – Scotts Valley Fire District (Santa Cruz County)
# [[William Lemos]] – Fire Protection District, Mendocino (Mendocino County)
# [[Russell Pace]] – Board of Directors, Willow Creek Fire District (Humboldt County)
# [[John Abraham Powell]] – Board of Directors, Montecito Fire District, Montecito (Santa Barbara County)
# [[Larry Bragman]] – Board of Directors, Division 3, Marin Municipal Water District Board (Marin County)
# [[James Harvey (politician)|James Harvey]] – Board of Directors, Montara Water and Sanitary District (San Mateo County)
# [[Randy Marx]] – Board of Directors, Fair Oaks Water District, Division 4 (Sacramento County)
# [[Jan Shriner]] – Board of Directors, Marina Coast Water District (Monterey County)
# [[Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap]] – Board of Directors, Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, Division 1 (Humboldt County)
# [[James Barone]] – Boardmember, Rollingwood-Wilart Recreation and Parks District (Contra Costa County)
# [[William Hayes (California politician)|William Hayes]] – Board of Directors, Mendocino Coast Park and Recreation District (Mendocino County)
# [[Illijana Asara]] – Board of Directors, Community Service District, Big Lagoon (Humboldt County)
# [[Gerald Epperson]] – Board of Directors, Crocket Community Services District, Contra Costa County
# [[Joseph Gauder]] – Boardmember, Covelo Community Services District, Covelo (Mendocino County)
# [[Crispin Littlehales]] – Boardmember, Covelo Community Services District, Covelo (Mendocino County)
# [[George A. Wheeler]] – Board of Directors, Community Service District, McKinleyville (Humboldt County)
# [[Mathew Clark]] – Board of Directors, Granada Sanitary District (San Mateo County)
# [[Nanette Corley]] – Director, Resort Improvement District, Whitehorn (Humboldt County)
# [[Sylvia Aroth]] – Outreach Officer, Venice Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Robin Doyno]] – At-Large Community Officer, Mar Vista Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Janine Jordan]] – District 4 Business Representative, Mid-Town North Hollywood Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Jack Lindblad]] – At Large Community Stakeholder, North Hollywood Northeast Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Johanna A. Sanchez]] – Secretary, Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Johanna A. Sanchez]] – At-Large Director, Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Marisol Sanchez (politician)|Marisol Sanchez]] – Area 1 Seat, Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[William Bretz]] – Crest/Dehesa/Harrison Canyon/Granite Hill Planning Group (San Diego County)
# [[Claudia White]] – Member, Descanso Community Planning Group (San Diego County)
# [[Annette Keenberg]] – Town Council, Lake Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Rama Zarcufsky]] – Governing Boardmember, Maple Creek School District (Humboldt County)
{{colend}}
===Socialist Alternative===
====Washington====
{| class=wikitable
|-
! Election year
! # of [[Seattle City Council]] members
! % of Seattle City Council members
! +/-
|-
! 2013
| {{composition bar|0|9|hex=Red}}
| 0
| +1
|-
! 2015
| {{composition bar|1|9|hex=Red}}
| 11.11
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|-
|}
# [[Kshama Sawant]] – [[Seattle City Council]], Position 2
===Socialist Party USA===
====New Jersey====
{| class=wikitable
|-
! Election year
! # of [[Red Bank Regional High School]] Board of Education members
! % of Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education members
! +/-
|-
! 2012
| {{composition bar|0|9|hex=Red}}
| 0
| +1
|-
! 2015
| {{composition bar|1|9|hex=Red}}
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|-
|}
# [[Pat Noble]] – Member of the [[Red Bank Regional High School]] Board of Education for [[Red Bank, New Jersey|Red Bank]]
===Vermont Progressive Party===
# [[David Zuckerman (politician)|David Zuckerman]] – Lieutenant Governor
# [[Doug Hoffer]] - State Auditor
# [[Tim Ashe]] – Pro Tem of the [[Vermont Senate]]
# [[Christopher Pearson (Vermont politician)|Chris Pearson]] – Member of the [[Vermont Senate]]
# [[Anthony Pollina]] – Member of the [[Vermont Senate]]
# [[Mollie S. Burke]] – Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# [[Robin Chesnut-Tangerman]] – Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# [[Diana Gonzalez]] – Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# [[Sandy Haas]] – Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# [[Selene Colburn]] – Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# Brian Cina – Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# [[Jane Knodell]] – Burlington City Council President (Central District)
# [[Max Tracy]] – Burlington City Council (Ward 2)
# [[Sara Giannoni]] – Burlington City Council (Ward 3)
# [[Wendy Coe (politician)|Wendy Coe]] – Ward Clerk (Ward 2)
# [[Carmen Solari]] – Inspector of Elections (Ward 2)
# [[Kit Andrews]] – Inspector of Elections (Ward 3)
# Jeremy Hansen - Berlin Select Board
# Steve May - Richmond Select Board
# [[Susan Hatch Davis]] – Former Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# Dexter Randel - Former Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]] & Former Troy Select Board
# Bob Kiss - Former Mayor of Burlington
# Peter Clevelle - Former Mayor of Burlington
# David Van Deusen - Former Moretown Select Board & Former First Constable
===Working Families Party===
====Connecticut====
# [[Edwin Gomes]] – Member of the [[Connecticut Senate]] from the 23rd district
====New York====
# [[Diana Richardson]] – Member of the [[New York State Assembly]] from the 43rd district
==See also==
*[[Anarchism in the United States]]
*[[African-American leftism]]
*[[Communism in the United States]]
*[[Espionage Act of 1917]]
*[[Handschu decree]]
*[[History of the socialist movement in the United States]]
*[[House Un-American Activities Committee]]
*[[Liberalism in the United States]]
*[[McCarthyism]]
*[[Progressivism in the United States]]
*[[Red Scare]]
*[[Sedition Act of 1918]]
*[[Socialism in the United States]]
==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}
==References==
{{refbegin|2}}
* ALB (2009–10) "The SLP of America: a premature obituary?" ''Socialist Standard''. Retrieved 2010-05-11.[http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/oct09/page18.html]
* Alexander, Robert J. ''International Trotskyism, 1929–1985: a documented analysis of the movement''. United States of America: Duke University Press, 1991. {{ISBN|0-8223-0975-0}}
* Amster, Randall. ''Contemporary anarchist studies: an introductory anthology of anarchy in the academy''. Oxford, UK: Taylor & Francis, 2009 {{ISBN|0-415-47402-7}}
* Archer, Robin. ''Why Is There No Labor Party in the United States?''. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-691-12701-9}}
* Bérubé, Michael. ''The Left at war''. New York: New York University Press, 2009 {{ISBN|0-8147-9984-1}}
* [[Mari Jo Buhle|Buhle, Mari Jo]]; [[Paul Buhle|Buhle, Paul]] and [[Dan Georgakas|Georgakas, Dan]]. ''Encyclopedia of the American left'' (Second edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. {{ISBN|0-19-512088-4}}
* Busky, Donald F. ''Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey''. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2000. {{ISBN|0-275-96886-3}}
* Coleman, Stephen. ''Daniel De Leon''. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1990 {{ISBN|0-7190-2190-1}}
* Draper, Theodore. ''The roots of American Communism''. New York: Viking Press, 1957. {{ISBN|0-7658-0513-8}}
* George, John and Wilcox, Laird. ''American Extremists: Militias, Supremacists, Klansmen, Communists & Others''. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1996. {{ISBN|1-57392-058-4}}
* Graeber, David. "The rebirth of anarchism in North America, 1957–2007" in ''Contemporary history online'', No. 21, (Winter, 2010)
* Isserman, Maurice. ''The other American: the life of Michael Harrington''. New York: Public Affairs, 2000. {{ISBN|1-58648-036-7}}
* Klehr, Harvey. ''Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today''. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1988. {{ISBN|0-88738-875-2}}
* Liebman, Arthur. ''Jews and the Left''. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1979. {{ISBN|978-0-471-53433-4}}
* Lingeman, Richard. ''The Nation Guide to the Nation''. New York: Vintage Books, 2009. {{ISBN|0-307-38728-3}}
* Lipset, Seymour Martin and Marks, Gary. ''It didn't happen here: why socialism failed in the United States''. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2001. {{ISBN|0-393-04098-4}}
* Reuters. "U.S. protests shrink while antiwar sentiment grows". Oct 3, 2007 12:30:17 GMT Retrieved September 20, 2010.[http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N02410338.htm]
* Ryan, James G. ''Earl Browder: the failure of American Communism''. Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1997. {{ISBN|0-8173-0843-1}}
* Sherman, Amy. "Demonstrators to gather in Fort Lauderdale to rail against oil giant BP", the ''Miami Herald''. May 12, 2010 Retrieved from SunSentinel.com September 22, 2010.[http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-05-12/features/fl-bp-fort-lauderdale-protest-20100511_1_oil-giant-bp-gulf-of-mexico-disaster-end-racism]
* Stedman, Susan W. and Stedman Jr. Murray Salisbury. ''Discontent at the polls: a study of farmer and labor parties, 1827–1948''. New York: Columbia University Press. 1950.
* Woodcock, George, ''Anarchism: a history of libertarian ideas and movements''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. {{ISBN|1-55111-629-4}}
{{refend}}
==External links==
*"The [[Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance]] versus the 'pure and simple trade union'",[http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/ddl_harriman.pdf] 1900 debate, [[Daniel De Leon]] & [[Job Harriman]]
*"[http://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1950/03/russia.htm Is Russia a socialist Community?"], 1950 debate, [[Earl Browder]], [[C. Wright Mills]] & [[Max Shachtman]]
*[http://wn.com/Norman_Thomas_-_Barry_Goldwater_Debate_Part_1 Socialism vs. capitalism], 1961 debate, [[Norman Thomas]] & [[Barry Goldwater]]
*"Why No Revolution? A Short History of American Left Movements",[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QSuK5gvb0g Part 1: early 1800s to 1945], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P85MmQ0Xhto Part 2: 1945–2012] 2012, featuring Joe Uris
{{Leftism in the United States}}
{{United States topics}}
[[Category:Anarchism in the United States]]
[[Category:Communism in the United States]]
[[Category:Left-wing politics in the United States| ]]
[[Category:Political movements in the United States]]
[[Category:Progressivism in the United States]]
[[Category:Reform movements]]
[[Category:Socialism in the United States]]' |
New page wikitext, after the edit (new_wikitext) | '{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2012}}
{{Politics of the United States}}
The '''American Left''' has consisted of a broad range of individuals and groups that have sought fundamental changes to America that are slowly destorying the values of freedom,
personal liberty, and justice.
Leftist activists in the United States have been credited with advancing social change on issues such as [[labour movement|labor]] and [[civil rights]], [[civil liberties]],<ref>{{cite web| url=http://people.howstuffworks.com/aclu1.htm| author=Ed Grabianowski| title=How the ACLU Works: ACLU History| publisher=How Stuff Works| accessdate=March 1, 2015}}</ref> [[Peace movement|peace]], [[feminism]], [[LGBT rights]], [[minimum wage]] and [[environmentalism]], as well as providing critiques of [[capitalism]].<ref name="Oest"/>
==History==
{{main|History of left-wing politics in the United States|History of the socialist movement in the United States}}
===Origins===
Many [[Native Americans in the United States|indigenous tribes in North America]] practiced what Marxists would later call [[primitive communism]], meaning they practiced economic cooperation among the members of their tribes.<ref>{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g5WTgR3mN2oC&pg=PA40| author=Carl Ratner| title=Cooperation, Community, and Co-Ops in a Global Era| publisher=Springer Science & Business Media| date=2012| page=40}}</ref>
The first European socialists to arrive in North America were a Christian sect known as [[Labadists]], who founded the commune of Bohemia Manor in 1683, about 60 miles west of [[Philadelphia]], [[Pennsylvania]]. Their communal way of life was based on the communal practices of the apostles and early Christians.<ref>{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FPiM8oMA9xgC&pg=PA20| author=Iaácov Oved| title=Two Hundred Years of American Communes| publisher=Transaction Publishers| date=1987| page=20}}</ref>
The first secular American socialists were German [[Marxism|Marxist]] immigrants who arrived following the [[Revolutions of 1848|1848 revolutions]], also known as [[Forty-Eighters]].<ref name="Draper, pp. 11-12">Draper, pp. 11–12.</ref> [[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'', but It folded after two issues. In 1852 he established the ''Proletarierbund'', which would become the American Workers' League, the first Marxist organization in the U.S., but it too was short-lived, having failed to attract a native English-speaking membership.<ref>Coleman, pp. 15–16</ref>
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.<ref name="Coleman, pp. 15–17">Coleman, pp. 15–17</ref>
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 America|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.<ref name="Draper, pp. 11-12"/>
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.<ref>Draper, p. 13.</ref> 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).<ref>Woodcock, p. 395</ref> Following a [[Haymarket affair|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.<ref>Woodcock, p. 397-398</ref> 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.<ref>Woodcock, p. 399-400</ref>
[[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 (United States)|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).
In 1905 a convention of socialists, anarchists and trade unionists disenchanted with the bureaucracy and [[craft unionism]] of the AFL, founded the rival [[Industrial Workers of the World]] (IWW), led by such figures as [[Bill Haywood|William D. "Big Bill" Haywood]], [[Helen Keller]], De Leon and Debs.<ref>Draper, pp. 14–16.</ref>
The organizers of the IWW disagreed on whether electoral politics could be employed to liberate the working class. Debs left the IWW in 1906, and De Leon was expelled in 1908, forming a rival "Chicago IWW" that was closely linked to the SLP. The (Minneapolis) IWW's ideology evolved into [[anarcho-syndicalism]], or "revolutionary industrial unionism", and avoided electoral political activity altogether.<ref>Draper, pp. 16–17.</ref> It was successful organizing unskilled migratory workers in the lumber, agriculture, and construction trades in the Western states and immigrant textile workers in the Eastern states and occasionally accepted violence as part of industrial action.<ref>Draper, pp. 21–22.</ref>
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.<ref>Draper, pp. 22–24.</ref> 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.<ref>Draper, pp. 41–42.</ref>
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 of 1917|Espionage Act]] and [[Sedition Act of 1918|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.<ref>Ryan, p. 13.</ref>
===1919–45===
In 1919, [[John Reed (journalist)|John Reed]], [[Benjamin Gitlow]] and other Socialists formed the [[Communist Labor Party of America]], 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).<ref>Ryan, p. 16.</ref> The Communists organized the [[Trade Union Unity League]] to compete with the AFL and claimed to represent 50,000 workers.<ref>Ryan, p. 35.</ref>
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.<ref>Ryan, p. 36.</ref>
Cannon, Shachtman, and [[Martin Abern]] then set up the [[Trotskyist]] [[Communist League of America]], and recruited members from the CPUSA.<ref>Alexander, pp. 765–767.</ref> The League then merged with [[A. J. Muste]]'s [[American Workers Party]] in 1934, forming the [[Workers Party of the United States|Workers Party]]. New members included [[James Burnham]] and [[Sidney Hook]].<ref>Alexander, p. 777.</ref>
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 (U.S.)|Social Democratic Federation]].<ref>Alexander, p. 784.</ref> Following talks between the Workers Party and the Socialists, members of the Workers Party joined the Socialists in 1936.<ref>Alexander, p. 786.</ref> Once inside they operated as a separate faction.<ref>Alexander, p. 787.</ref> The Trotskyists were expelled from the Socialist Party the following year, and set up the [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]] (SWP) and the youth wing of the Socialists, the [[Young People's Socialist League]] (YPSL) joined them.<ref>Alexander, p. 792-793.</ref> Shachtman and others were expelled from the SWP in 1940 over their position on the Soviet Union and set up the [[Workers Party (U.S.)|Workers Party]]. Within months many members of the new party, including Burnham, had left.<ref>Alexander, pp. 803–805.</ref> The Workers Party was renamed the Independent Socialist League (ISL) in 1949 and ceased being a political party.<ref>Alexander, p. 810.</ref>
Some members of the Socialist Party's 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]].<ref>Stedman and Stedman, p. 9</ref> 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.<ref>Stedman and Stedman, p. 33</ref>
===1950s and 1960s: Civil Rights, the War on Poverty, and the New Left===
{{Further|Civil Rights Movement|New Left|War on Poverty}}
In 1958 the [[Socialist Party of America|Socialist Party]] welcomed former members of the [[Workers Party (US)|Independent Socialist League]], which before its 1956 dissolution had been led by [[Max Shachtman]]. Shachtman had developed a [[neo-Marxism|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).<ref name="Chenoweth">Page 6: {{cite journal|title=The gallant warrior: In memoriam Tom Kahn |first=Eric |last=Chenoweth |journal=Uncaptive Minds: A journal of information and opinion on Eastern Europe |publisher=Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe (IDEE) |location=1718 M Street, NW, No. 147, Washington DC 20036, USA |issn=0897-9669 |volume=5 |issue=20 |date=Summer 1992 |pages=5–16 |url=http://www.democracyforcuba.org/images/stories/media/UM2/vol.5no.2a.pdf |ref=harv |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20151019124831/http://www.democracyforcuba.org/images/stories/media/UM2/vol.5no.2a.pdf |archivedate=October 19, 2015 }}</ref> Shachtman's ISL had attracted youth like [[Irving Howe]], [[Michael Harrington]],<ref>Isserman, ''The other American'', p. 116.</ref> [[Tom Kahn]], and Rachelle Horowitz.<ref>{{harvtxt|Drucker|1994|p=269}}:<br />{{cite book|title=Max Shachtman and his left: A socialist's odyssey through the "American Century"|first=Peter|last=Drucker|publisher=Humanities Press|year=1994|isbn=0-391-03816-8|ref=harv}}</ref><ref>{{harvtxt|Horowitz|2007|p=210}}</ref><ref name="KahnMS">{{harvtxt|Kahn|2007|pp=254–255}}: {{citation
|title=Max Shachtman: His ideas and his movement
|last=Kahn
|first=Tom
|journal=[[Democratiya]] ''(merged with'' [[Dissent]] ''in 2009)''
|volume=11
|issue=[http://dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/docs/d11Whole.pdf Winter]
|year=2007
|origyear=1973
|pages=252–259
|url=http://www.dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/docs/d11Khan.pdf
|format=pdf
<!-- ref=harv -->
}}{{dead link|date=July 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The YPSL was dissolved, but the party formed a new youth group under the same name.<ref>Alexander, p. 812-813.</ref>
[[File:A. Philip Randolph 1963 NYWTS.jpg|thumb|alt=Picture of A. Philip Randolph.|Socialist [[A. Philip Randolph]] led the [[1963 March on Washington]] at which [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]] delivered his speech "[[I have a dream]]".]]
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.<ref name="Randolph">Jervis Anderson, ''A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait'' (1973; University of California Press, 1986). {{ISBN|978-0-520-05505-6}}</ref><ref name="Rustin">
* Anderson, Jervis. ''Bayard Rustin: Troubles I've Seen'' (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997).
* Branch, Taylor. ''Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63'' (New York: Touchstone, 1989).
<!--*D’Emilio, John. ''Lost Prophet: Bayard Rustin and the Quest for Peace and Justice in America'' (New York: The Free Press, 2003).-->
* D'Emilio, John. ''Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin'' (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004). {{ISBN|0-226-14269-8}}</ref><ref name="RHKahn" >{{harvtxt|Horowitz|2007|pp=220–222}}:<br />{{cite journal|title=Tom Kahn and the fight for democracy: A political portrait and personal recollection|first=Rachelle|last=Horowitz|authorlink=Rachelle Horowitz|url=http://www.dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/article_pdfs/d11Horowitz.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091012183407/http://dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/article_pdfs/d11Horowitz.pdf|archivedate=2009-10-12|journal=[[Democratiya]] ''(merged with'' [[Dissent]] ''in 2009)''|volume=11|issue=Summer|year=2007|pages=204–251}}
</ref><ref name="NYTKahn" >{{cite news|title=Tom Kahn, leader in labor and rights movements, was 53|newspaper=The New York Times|date=April 1, 1992|first=Wolfgang|last=Saxon|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/01/nyregion/tom-kahn-leader-in-labor-and-rights-movements-was-53.html}}</ref>
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 ''[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]'' review by [[Dwight Macdonald]].<ref>
* {{cite journal|title=Our invisible poor|first=Dwight|last=MacDonald|authorlink=Dwight Macdonald|date=January 19, 1963|journal=[[The New Yorker]]|ref=harv
|url=http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1963/01/19/1963_01_19_082_TNY_CARDS_000075671#ixzz1SNI25qvI}}
*: Reprinted in collection: {{cite book|first=Dwight|last=Macdonald|authorlink=Dwight Macdonald|title=Discriminations: Essays and afterthoughts 1938–1974|origyear=1974|year=1985|edition=reprint|publisher=Da Capo Press|isbn=978-0-306-80252-2|ref=harv|chapter=Our invisible poor
|url=http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1963/01/19/1963_01_19_082_TNY_CARDS_000075671#ixzz1SNI25qvI}}
* Whitfield, Stephen J. (1984) ''A critical American: The politics of Dwight Macdonald''
* Wreszin, Michael (1994) ''A rebel in defense of tradition: The life and politics of Dwight MacDonald''
</ref> Harrington and other socialists were called to Washington, D.C., to assist the [[Kennedy Administration]] and then the [[Lyndon B. Johnson#Presidency 1963–1969|Johnson Administration]]'s [[War on Poverty]] and [[Great Society]].<ref name="WoPMH">
{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/books/review/Isserman-t.html?_r=1|work=The New York Times|first=Maurice|last=Isserman|authorlink=Maurice Isserman|title=Michael Harrington: Warrior on poverty|date=June 19, 2009}}
</ref>
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 liberalism|social-liberal]]" or [[social democracy|social-democratic]] positions, at least on civil rights and the [[War on Poverty]].<ref>Isserman, ''The other American'', pp. 169–336.</ref><ref>{{harvtxt|Drucker|1994|pp=187–308}}<!--{{cite book|title=Max Shachtman and his left: A socialist's odyssey through the "American Century"|first=Peter|last=Drucker|publisher=Humanities Press|year=1994|isbn=0-391-03816-8}}--></ref>
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).<ref>Miller, pp. 24–25, 37, 74–75: c.f., pp. 55, 66–70 : Miller, James. ''Democracy is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago''. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994 {{ISBN|978-0-674-19725-1}}.</ref> 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.<ref>Kirkpatrick Sale, ''SDS'', pp. 22–25.</ref><ref>Miller, pp. 75–76, 112–116, 127–132; c.f. p. 107.</ref><!--Gitlin, I think, notes that such public strong criticisms did not help and might have hindered their efforts at realignment.-->LID and SDS split in 1965, when SDS voted to remove from its constitution the "''exclusion clause''" that prohibited membership by communists:<ref>Kirkpatrick Sale, ''SDS'', p. 105.</ref> The SDS exclusion clause had barred "advocates of or apologists for" "totalitarianism".<ref>Kirkpatrick Sale, ''SDS'', pp. 25–26</ref> 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.<ref>Gitlin, p. 191.<br />[[Todd Gitlin]]. ''[https://www.amazon.com/Sixties-Years-Hope-Days-Rage/dp/0553372122#reader_0553372122 The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage''] (1987) {{ISBN|0-553-37212-2}}.</ref> Afterwards, [[Marxism Leninism]], particularly the [[Progressive Labor Party (United States)|Progressive Labor Party]], helped to write "the death sentence" for SDS,<ref>Sale, p. 287.<br />Sale described an "all‑out invasion of SDS by the Progressive Labor Party. PLers—concentrated chiefly in Boston, New York, and California, with some strength in Chicago and Michigan—were positively cyclotronic in their ability to split and splinter chapter organizations: if it wasn't their self‑righteous positiveness it was their caucus‑controlled rigidity, if not their deliberate disruptiveness it was their overt bids for control, if not their repetitious appeals for base‑building it was their unrelenting Marxism". Kirkpatrick Sale, ''SDS'', pp. 253.</ref><ref>"The student radicals had gamely resisted the resurrected Marxist–Leninist sects ..." (p. 258); "for more than a year, SDS had been the target of a takeover attempt by the Progressive Labor Party, a Marxist–Leninist cadre of Maoists", Miller, p. 284. Miller describes Marxist Leninists also on pages 228, 231, 240, and 254: c.f., p. 268.</ref><ref>Gitlin, p. 191.<br />[[Todd Gitlin]]. ''[https://www.amazon.com/Sixties-Years-Hope-Days-Rage/dp/0553372122#reader_0553372122 The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage'' (1987) p. 387] {{ISBN|0-553-37212-2}}.</ref><ref>Sale wrote, "SDS papers and pamphlets talked of 'armed struggle,' 'disciplined cadre,' 'white fighting force,' and the need for "a communist party that can guide this movement to victory"; SDS leaders and publications quoted Mao and Lenin and Ho Chi Minh more regularly than Jenminh Jih Pao. and a few of them even sought to say a few good words for Stalin". p. 269.</ref> which nonetheless had over 100 thousand members at its peak.
===1970s===
{{Further|Black Power movement|Hippie movement}}
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 Rustin]], a peace and civil-rights leader, and [[Charles S. Zimmerman]], an officer of the [[International Ladies Garment Workers Union]] (ILGWU).<ref name="NYTimes">{{cite news|title=Socialist Party now the Social Democrats, U.S.A.|newspaper=New York Times|date=December 31, 1972|page=36|author=Anonymous|url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00B16FC3E5A137A93C3AA1789D95F468785F9|accessdate=February 8, 2010|ref=harv}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Iss311">Isserman, p. 311.</ref> The same year, [[David McReynolds]] and others from the pacifist and immediate-withdrawal wing of the former Socialist Party formed the [[Socialist Party, USA]].<ref>Isserman, p. 422.</ref>
When the SPA became SDUSA,<ref name="NYTimes" /> 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,<ref name="NYT73" >{{cite news|title='Firmness' urged on <!-- CAPITALIZED! -->Communists: Social Democrats reach end of U.S. Convention here|newspaper=New York Times|date=January 1, 1973|page=11|author=Anonymous|url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50C15F73F551A7493C3A9178AD85F478785F9|ref=harv}}</ref> joined Harrington's DSOC. Many members of the Debs caucus, with 2 of 33 seats on SDUSA's 1973 national committee,<ref name="NYT73" /> joined the Socialist Party of the United States (SPUSA).
===1980s and 1990s===
{{Further|New Communist movement}}
From 1979–1989, SDUSA members like [[Tom Kahn]] organized the [[AFL–CIO]]'s fundraising of 300 thousand dollars, which bought printing presses and other supplies requested by [[Solidarity (Polish trade union)|''Solidarnosc'' (Solidarity), the independent labor-union of Poland]].<ref name=Horowitz>{{cite journal|title=Tom Kahn and the fight for democracy: A political portrait and personal recollection|first=Rachelle|last=Horowitz|url=http://www.dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/article_pdfs/d11Horowitz.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091012183407/http://dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/article_pdfs/d11Horowitz.pdf|archivedate=2009-10-12|ref=harv|journal=Democratiya ''(merged with'' Dissent ''in 2009)''|volume=11|year=2007|pages=204–251}}</ref><ref name="Shevis31">{{harvtxt|Shevis|1981|p=31}}:<br />{{cite journal|title=The AFL-CIO and Poland's Solidarity|first=James M.|last=Shevis|journal=World Affairs| volume=144|issue=Summer|year=1981|pages=31–35|publisher=World Affairs Institute|jstor=20671880|ref=harv}}</ref><ref>Opening statement by Tom Kahn in {{harvtxt|Kahn|Podhoretz|2008|p=235}}:<br />{{cite journal|title=How to support ''Solidarnosc'': A debate |others=Sponsored by the [[Committee for the Free World]] and the [[League for Industrial Democracy]], with introduction by [[Midge Decter]] and moderation by [[Carl Gershman]], and held at the Polish Institute for Arts and Sciences, New York City in March 1981 |last1=Kahn |first1=Tom |authorlink1=Tom Kahn |last2=Podhoretz |first2=Norman |authorlink2=Norman Podhoretz |journal=Democratiya ''(merged with'' Dissent ''in 2009)'' |volume=13 |issue=Summer |year=2008 |pages=230–261 |url=http://www.dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/docs/d13Whole.pdf |ref=harv |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111117203844/http://dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/docs/d13Whole.pdf |archivedate=November 17, 2011 }}</ref> SDUSA members helped form a [[bipartisanship|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 US$4 million of public aid to Solidarity <!--via the AFL-CIO --> through 1989.<ref>"The AFL–CIO had channeled more than $4 million to it, including computers, printing presses, and supplies" according to {{harvtxt|Horowitz|2009|p=237}}.</ref><ref name="Puddington" >{{harvtxt|Puddington|2005}}:<br />{{cite journal|title=Surviving the underground: How American unions helped solidarity win|first=Arch|last=Puddington|journal=American Educator|issue=Summer|year=2005|publisher=American Federation of Teachers|url=http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/summer2005/puddington.cfm|accessdate=June 4, 2011}}
</ref>
In the 1990s, anarchists attempted to organize across North America around [[Love and Rage]], which drew several hundred activists. By 1997 anarchist organizations began to proliferate.<ref>Graeber</ref> One successful anarchist movement was [[Food not Bombs]], that distributed free vegetarian meals. Anarchists received significant media coverage for their disruption of the 1999 [[World Trade Organization]] conference, called the [[World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity|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 [[September 11 attacks]] in 2001.
===2000 to present===
{{Further|Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, 2016|Black Lives Matter|Occupy movement in the United States|Protests against Donald Trump}}
{{Update|section|date=July 2017}}
Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who runs as an [[Independent politician|independent]],<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/candidates/2015/01/12/bernie-sanders-iowa-caucus-candidate-profile/20457543/| title=Bernie Sanders| publisher=The Des Moines Register| date=January 16, 2015}}</ref> won his first election as mayor of [[Burlington, Vermont]] in 1981 and was re-elected for three additional terms. He then represented Vermont in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 until 2007, and was subsequently elected U.S. Senator for Vermont in 2007, a position which he still holds.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2014/11/19/365024592/sen-bernie-sanders-on-how-democrats-lost-white-voters| author=Steve Inskeep| title=Sen. Bernie Sanders On How Democrats Lost White Voters| publisher=NPR| date=November 19, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.vice.com/read/bernie-sanders-is-building-a-revolution-to-challenge-hillary-clinton-in-2016| author=Grace Wyler| title=Bernie Sanders Is Building a 'Revolution' to Challenge Hillary Clinton in 2016| publisher=Vice| date=October 6, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/21/bernie-sanders-socialist-vermont-interview| author=Paul Harris| title=Bernie Sanders: America's No. 1 socialist makes his move into the mainstream| publisher=The Guardian| date=October 21, 2011}}</ref> He lost the [[Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2016|2016 Democratic Party presidential nomination]] to [[Hillary Clinton]] but won the fifth highest number of primary votes of any candidate in a nomination race, Democratic or Republican.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/was-the-democratic-primary-a-close-call-or-a-landslide/| author=Nate Silver| title=Was The Democratic Primary A Close Call Or A Landslide?|publisher=FiveThirtyEight| date=July 27, 2016}}</ref>
In the [[Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2000|2000 presidential election]], [[Ralph Nader]] and [[Winona LaDuke]] received 2,882,000 votes or 2.74% of the popular vote on the [[Green Party of the United States|Green Party]] ticket.<ref name="Federal Elections Commission">{{cite web| url=http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/prespop.htm| title=2000 PRESIDENTIAL POPULAR VOTE SUMMARY FOR ALL CANDIDATES LISTED ON AT LEAST ONE STATE BALLOT| publisher=Federal Elections Commission| date=December 2001}}</ref><ref name="Monthly Review">{{cite web| url=http://monthlyreview.org/2001/02/01/the-nader-campaign-and-the-future-of-u-s-left-electoral-politics/| title=The Nader Campaign and the Future of U.S. Left Electoral Politics| publisher=Monthly Review| date=February 2001}}</ref>
Filmmaker [[Michael Moore]] directed a series of popular movies examining the United States and its government policy from a left perspective, including [[Bowling for Columbine]], [[Sicko]], [[Capitalism: A Love Story]] and [[Fahrenheit 9/11]], which was the top grossing documentary film of all time.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=documentary.htm| title=Documentary| publisher=Box Office Mojo| accessdate=February 25, 2015}}</ref>
In 2011, [[Occupy Wall Street]] protests demanding accountability for the [[financial crisis of 2007]] and against inequality started in [[Manhattan, New York]] and soon spread to other cities around the country, becoming known more broadly as the [[Occupy Movement]].<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/08/occupy-america-protests-financial-crisis| author=Joanna Walters| title=Occupy America: protests against Wall Street and inequality hit 70 cities| publisher=The Guardian| date=October 8, 2011}}</ref>
[[Kshama Sawant]] was elected to the [[Seattle]] City Council as an openly socialist candidate in 2013.<ref name="Kevin Roose">{{cite web| url=http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/05/kshama-sawant-seattle-socialist.html| author= Kevin Roose| title=Meet the Seattle Socialist Leading the Fight for a $15 Minimum Wage| publisher=nymag.com| date=May 26, 2014}}</ref><ref name="Joseph Kishore">{{cite web| url=http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/11/20/sawa-n20.html| author=Joseph Kishore| title=Socialist Alternative candidate wins in Seattle City Council election| publisher=World Socialist Web Site| date=November 20, 2013}}</ref><ref name="Kirk Johnson">{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/us/a-rare-elected-voice-for-socialism-pledges-to-be-heard-in-seattle.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0| author=Kirk Johnson| title=A Rare Elected Voice for Socialism Pledges to Be Heard in Seattle| publisher=''The New York Times''| date=December 28, 2013}}</ref>
==Explanations for weakness==
Academic scholars have long studied the reasons why no viable socialist parties have emerged in the United States.<ref>Lipset & Marks, p. 9</ref> 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 [[United States Constitution|American Constitution]].<ref>Lipset & Marks, p. 11</ref> [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] and [[Leon Trotsky|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.<ref>Lipset & Marks, p. 16</ref>
Although [[Working Men's Party|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.<ref>Lipset & Marks, pp. 19–23</ref> 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.<ref>Draper, pp. 36–37</ref> 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.<ref>Draper, p. 41</ref> But even the [[New Left]] relied on radical democratic traditions rather than left-wing ideology.<ref>Lipset & Marks, p. 23</ref>
Engels thought that the lack of a feudal past was the reason for the American working class holding middle-class values. Writing at a 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]]'' [[Classical liberalism|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]].<ref>Lipset & Marks, pp. 21–22</ref>
The character of the American political system, which is hostile toward [[Third party (United States)|third parties]] has also been presented as a reason for the absence of a strong socialist party in the United States.<ref>Lipset & Marks, p. 83</ref>
[[Political repression]] has also contributed to the weakness of the left in the United States. Many cities had [[red squads]] to monitor and disrupt leftist groups in response to labor unrest such as the [[Haymarket Riot]].<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.nyclu.org/content/testimony-police-surveillance-of-political-activity-history-and-current-state-of-handschu-de| author=Arthur N. Eisenberg| title=Testimony: Police Surveillance of Political Activity – The History and Current State of the Handschu Decree| publisher=New York Civil Liberties Union| accessdate=January 14, 2015}}</ref> During World War II, the [[Smith Act]] made membership in revolutionary groups illegal. After the war, [[Senator Joseph McCarthy]] used the Smith Act to launch a [[McCarthyism|crusade to purge communists]] from government and the media. In the 1960s the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]'s [[COINTELPRO]] program monitored, infiltrated, disrupted and discredited radical groups in the U.S.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5161811| author=Ed Gordon| title=COINTELPRO and the History of Domestic Spying| publisher=NPR| date=January 19, 2006}}</ref> In 2008, Maryland police were revealed to have added the names and personal information of death penalty opponents and anti-war protesters to a database which was intended to be used for tracking terrorists.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/07/AR2008100703245.html| author=Lisa Rein| title=Md. Police Put Activists' Names On Terror Lists| publisher=''The Washington Post''| date=October 8, 2008}}</ref>
==Marxist==
American [[Marxism|Marxist]] groups have differed according to their visions of communism and their strategies for achieving socialism.
===Communist Party USA===
{{main|Communist Party USA}}
Established in 1919, the Communist Party USA (CP) claimed a membership of 100,000 in 1939 and maintained a membership over 50,000 until the 1950s. However, the 1956 invasion of Hungary, [[McCarthyism]] 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.<ref>George & Wilcox, pp. 97–98</ref> From the 1940s the FBI attempted to disrupt the CP, including through its [[COINTELPRO|Counter‐Intelligence Program]] (COINTELPRO).<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 103</ref>
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|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]].<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 98</ref> 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.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 99</ref> However, CP attempts to influence the New Left were mostly unsuccessful.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 101</ref> The CP attracted media attention in the 1970s with the membership of the high-profile activist, [[Angela Davis]].<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 103-104</ref>
The CP publishes the [[People's World]] and [[Political Affairs]]. Beginning 1988, the CP stopped running candidates for President of the United States.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 102</ref> 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.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 105</ref>
Because of the continued slip into an ideology of social democracy that began after the death of CPUSA National Chair Gus Hall, dissident groups began to form around the country that were opposed to the increased pro-capitalist policies of the CPUSA National Committee. There was a fear among members that the CP was on the road to liquidation as a political party. There were several telltale signs that this was happening. The new National Chairman of the CP, Sam Webb began exploring ways to fund the party which suffered a great loss of financial assistance when Mikail Gorbachev assumed leadership of the CP of the Soviet Union. The party began to invest in real estate around the country and used party funds to refurbish its headquarters in New York. The CP leased out several floors of their headquarters to local businesses such as Wix, a website design company. They also leased out the first floor to an art supply company, closing the bookshop of International Publishers, the CP publishing company. Currently, there are no CP bookstores around the country. The CP then made the decision not to print its weekly newspaper, the People's Weekly World. The paper is only available on line as of this date. The party's online theoretical journal, Political Affairs, was also discontinued. Currently the CP does not have an organizing department. Dues books have been continued. Everything "Leninist" has been dropped from the policy and program of the party. No attempt has been made to establish ties with the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) which is the largest socialist-communist trade union federation in the world.
At its 30th Convention in June 2014, the CPUSA dropped Marxism–Leninism from its revised Constitution.<ref>{{cite web|last1=CPUSA|title=New CPUSA Constitution|url=http://www.cpusa.org/draft-new-constitution/|accessdate=2014-06-27}}</ref> While the group continues to uphold Marx, Engels and Lenin in its constitution, its official ideology is now [[scientific socialism]].
===Socialist Labor Party===
{{main|Socialist Labor Party of America}}
Founded in 1876, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) was a reformist party but adopted the theories of [[Karl Marx]] 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''.<ref>ALB</ref>
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.<ref>Alexander, p. 932</ref>
==Marxist–Leninist==
[[Marxism–Leninism]] has been advocated and practiced by American communists of many kinds, including [[Comintern|pro-Soviet]], [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]], [[Maoism|Maoist]], or [[Independent (voter)|independent]].<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 95</ref>
===American Party of Labor===
{{Main|American Party of Labor}}
The American Party of Labor was founded in 2008 and adheres to [[Hoxhaism]].<ref>[http://www.loeser.us/flags/hate.html Political Flags of Extremism - Part 1]</ref> It has its origins in the activities of the American communist [[Jack Shulman]], former secretary of [[Communist Party USA]] leader [[William Z. Foster]]; and the British Marxist-Leninist [[Bill Bland]]. Members of the American Party of Labor had previously been active in Alliance Marxist-Leninist and International Struggle Marxist-Leninist, two organizations founded by Shulman and Bland. The present day APL sees itself as upholding and continuing the work of Shulman and Bland. Although not a formal member of the [[International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle)]], the APL is generally supportive of its line and maintains friendly relations with a number of foreign communist parties including the [[Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action)]], the Turkish [[Labour Party (Turkey)|Labour Party]] (EMEP), the [[Labour Party of Iran]], and the [[Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist)]].
It has been involved in a number of events, such as a 2013 protest against the [[Golden Dawn (political party)|Golden Dawn]] in [[Chicago]],<ref>[http://www.workers.org/2013/01/24/chicago-protesters-say-no-to-greek-fascists Chicago protesters say ‘No’ to Greek fascists]</ref> a 2014 meeting on the [[Ukraine]]<ref>[http://www.fightbacknews.org/2014/4/15/chicago-forum-us-role-ukraine-fascists-attempt-disruption Chicago forum on U.S. role in Ukraine: fascists attempt disruption]</ref> and a protest against [[Donald Trump]] at the [[2016 Republican National Convention]].<ref>[http://www.fightbacknews.org/2016/6/20/support-grows-dump-trump-protest-planned-day-one-republican-national-convention Support grows for “Dump Trump” protest planned for day one of Republican National Convention]</ref> Its current organ, ''The Red Phoenix'', carries articles concerning contemporary political issues and theoretical and historical questions.
===Freedom Road Socialist Organization===
{{main|Freedom Road Socialist Organization}}
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) was founded in 1985 through the mergers of [[Maoism|Maoist]] and [[Marxism-Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] organizations active near the end of the [[New Communist Movement]]. The FRSO grew out of an initial merger of the Proletarian Unity League and the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters. Some years later, the Organization for Revolutionary Unity and the Amilcar Cabral/Paul Robeson Collective merged into the FRSO.
In 1999, the FRSO split into two organizations, both of which retain the FRSO name to this day. The split primarily concerned the organization's continued adherence to Marxism–Leninism, with one side of the FRSO upholding Marxism–Leninism and the other side preferring to pursue a strategy of regrouping and rebuilding the Left in the United States. These organizations are commonly identified through their publications, which are ''Fight Back! News'' and ''Freedom Road'', and their websites, (frso.org) and (freedomroad.org), respectively.
In 2010, members of the FRSO (frso.org) and other anti-war and international solidarity activists were raided by the FBI. Secret documents left by the FBI revealed that agents planned to question activists about their involvement in the FRSO (frso.org) and their international solidarity work related to [[Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia|Colombia]] and [[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine|Palestine]].<ref>{{cite web|title=FBI Interview Questions for FRSO|url=http://www.stopfbi.net/sites/default/files/3-Interrogation%20Questions.pdf|publisher=Committee to Stop FBI Repression|accessdate=2013-04-25}}</ref> The FRSO (frso.org) works in the Committee to Stop FBI Repression.
Both FRSO groups continue to uphold the right of national self-determination for [[African-Americans]] and [[Chicanos]]. The FRSO (frso.org) works in the labor movement, the student movement, and the oppressed nationalities movement.
===Party for Socialism and Liberation===
{{main|Party for Socialism and Liberation}}
The Party for Socialism and Liberation was formed in 2004 as a result of a split in the Workers World Party. The San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. branches left almost in their entirety and the party has grown significantly since then.{{Citation needed|date=October 2010}} 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.<ref name="Reuters"/>
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.<ref>Sherman</ref>
===Progressive Labor Party===
{{main|Progressive Labor Party (United States)}}
The Progressive Labor Party (PL) was formed as the Progressive Labor Movement in 1962 by a group of former members of the Communist Party USA, most of whom had quit or been expelled for supporting China in the Sino-Soviet split. To them, the Soviet Union was imperialist. They competed with the CP and SWP for influence in the anti-war movement and the [[Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)|Students for a Democratic Society]] (SDS), forming the ''May 2 Movement'' as its anti-war front organization.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 147</ref> Its major publications are ''Progressive Labor'' and the ''Marxist–Leninist Quarterly''.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 148</ref> 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.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 150</ref> While membership in 1978 was about 1,500, by 1996 it had fallen below 500.<ref>George &
Wilcox, p. 151</ref>
===Revolutionary Communist Party, USA===
{{main|Revolutionary Communist Party, USA}}
Formed in 1969 as the Bay Area Revolutionary Union (BARU), the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) had almost one thousand members in twenty-five states by 1975. Its main founder and long time leader, [[Bob Avakian]], a [[Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)|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]].<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 159</ref> Working through the [[U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association|U.S.-Chinese People's Friendship Association]], the party arranged for visits by Americans to China.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 160</ref> Their newspaper, ''Revolutionary Worker'' has featured articles supportive of Albania and North Korea, while the party, unusually for the Left, has been hostile to [[Desegregation busing in the United States|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.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 161</ref>
===Workers World Party===
{{main|Workers World Party}}
The Workers World Party (WWP) was formed in 1958 by fewer than one hundred people who left the Socialist Workers Party after the SWP supported socialists in New York State elections. Their publication is ''[[Workers World newspaper|Workers World]]''. The party's position has developed from Trotskyism to independent Marxism–Leninism, supporting all Marxist states. They have been active in organizing protests against far right groups. They were also notable for being the main US supporter of the former [[Derg|Ethiopian communist government]]. In the 1990s their membership was estimated at about 200.<ref>George & Wilcox, pp. 153–154</ref>
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.<ref>Bérubé, pp. 130–131</ref> 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]].<ref name="Reuters">Reuters</ref>
==Trotskyist==
Many US [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] parties and organizations exist that advocate communism. These groups are distinct from Marxist–Leninist groups in that they generally adhere to the theory and writings of [[Leon Trotsky]]. Many owe their organizational heritage to the Socialist Workers Party, which emerged as a split-off from the CP.
===Freedom Socialist Party===
{{main|Freedom Socialist Party}}
The Freedom Socialist Party began in 1966 as the Seattle branch of the Socialist Workers Party that had split from the party and joined with others who had not belonged to the SWP. They differed with the SWP on the role of African Americans, whom they saw as being the future vanguard of the revolution, and of women, emphasizing their rights, which they called "[[socialist feminism]]". [[Clara Fraser]] came to lead the party and was to form the group [[Radical Women]].<ref>Alexander, p. 936</ref>
===International Socialist Organization===
{{Main|International Socialist Organization}}
{{Empty section|date=November 2016}}
===Socialist Action===
{{main|Socialist Action (United States)}}
Socialist Action was formed in 1983 by members, almost all of whom had been expelled from the Socialist Workers Party. Its members remained loyal to Trotskyist principles, including "[[permanent revolution]]", that they claimed the SWP had abandoned. Strongly critical of authoritarian regimes, including the Soviet Union and Iran, it championed socialist revolution in third world countries. It was an active participant in the Cleveland Emergency National Conference in September 1984, set up to challenge American policy in Central America, and played a major role in organizing demonstrations against American action against the [[Sandanista]] rebels in Nicaragua.<ref>Kleher, pp. 68–69</ref>
===Socialist Alternative===
{{Main|Socialist Alternative (United States)}}
Although Socialist Alternative has sometimes pursued a democratic socialist strategy, most notably in Seattle where [[Kshama Sawant]] was elected to the [[Seattle]] City Council as an openly socialist candidate in 2013.,<ref name="Kevin Roose"/><ref name="Joseph Kishore"/><ref name="Kirk Johnson"/> it identifies as a Trotskyist political organization. Socialist Alternative is the U.S. affiliate of the [[Committee for a Workers' International]], which is a London-based international of Trotskyist political parties.
===Socialist Equality Party===
{{Main|Socialist Equality Party (United States)}}
{{Empty section|date=November 2016}}
===Socialist Workers Party===
{{main|Socialist Workers Party (United States)}}
With fewer than one thousand members in 1996, the Socialist Worker's Party (SWP) was the second largest Marxist–Leninist party in the United States.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 113</ref> 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]].<ref>George & Wilciox, p. 108-109</ref> Their publications include [[The Militant]] and a theoretical journal, the [[International Socialist Review (1956)|International Socialist Review]].<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 108</ref> Two groups that broke with the SWP in the 1960s were the [[Spartacist League (US)|Spartacist League]] and the Workers League (which would later evolve into the [[Socialist Equality Party (United States)|Socialist Equality Party]]).<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 109</ref> The SWP has been involved in numerous violent scuffles.<ref name="George & Wilcox, p. 110">George & Wilcox, p. 110</ref> 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.<ref>George & Wilcox, p. 112</ref> The party fields candidates for President of the United States.<ref name="George & Wilcox, p. 110"/>
===Solidarity===
{{main|Solidarity (U.S.)}}<!--1986-->
Solidarity is a socialist organization associated with the journal ''Against the Current''. Solidarity is an organizational descendant of [[International Socialists (U.S.)|International Socialists]], a [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] organization based on the proposition that the [[Soviet Union]] was not a "degenerate workers' state" (as in [[orthodox Trotskyism]]) but rather "[[bureaucratic collectivism]]", a new and especially repressive class society.<ref>
{{cite book|title=Labor's war at home: The CIO in World War II
|first=Nelson|last=Lichtenstein|authorlink=Nelson Lichtenstein|chapter=Introduction to the new edition|year=2003|edition=second|isbn=1-59213-197-2
|publisher=Temple University Press|page=xxiii (footnote 2)|url=http://www.temple.edu/tempress/chapters_1400/1693_ch1.pdf|format=pdf|location=Philadelphia PA|ref=harv}}</ref>
===Spartacist League===
{{main|Spartacist League (US)|International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)}}
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.<ref name="Klehr, pp. 70-73">Klehr, pp. 70–73</ref>
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.<ref name="Klehr, pp. 70-73"/>
===Workers International League===
The Workers International League is an American [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] organization formed in 2001. The WIL is inspired by the theories of [[Karl Marx]], [[Friedrich Engels]], [[Vladimir Lenin]], [[Leon Trotsky]] as well as British Trotskyist [[Ted Grant]] and publishes a regular newspaper called ''Socialist Appeal''. The organization argues that trade unions in the United States must break from the Democratic Party and shift their resources towards establishing a mass party of labor.<ref>url=http://www.socialistappeal.org/wil/about-us</ref>
==Social democratic and democratic socialist==
The [[Socialist Party of America]] was founded in 1901. [[Eugene Debs]] ran as the party's presidential candidate five times and received 6% of the popular vote in 1912. The party suffered political repression during [[World War I]] due to its [[pacifism|pacifist]] stance and broke into factions over whether or not to support the [[October Revolution|Bolshevik Revolution]] in Russia and whether or not to join the [[Comintern]]. The Socialist Party was re-formed in the mid-1920s but stopped running candidates after 1956, having been undercut by [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]'s [[New Deal]] and the resulting leftward movement of the Democratic Party to its right, and by the [[Communist Party USA|Communist Party]] on its left. In the early 1970s the party split into tiny factions.
After 1960 the Socialist Party also functioned "as an educational organization".<ref>{{harvtxt|Hamby|2003|loc=p. 25, footnote 5}}:
{{cite journal|first=Alonzo L.|last=Hamby|authorlink=Alonzo Hamby|year=2003|title=Is there no democratic left in America? Reflections on the transformation of an ideology|journal=Journal of Policy History|volume=15|issue=The future of the democratic left in industrial democracies|pages=3–25|doi=10.1353/jph.2003.0003|ref=harv}}</ref> Members of the Debs–Thomas Socialist Party helped to develop leaders of social-movement organizations, including the civil-rights movement and the New Left.<ref>[[Aldon Morris]], ''The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change'' (New York: The Free Press, 1994)</ref><ref>
* [[Maurice Isserman]]. ''If I Had a Hammer...The Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left'' (Basic Books, 1987). {{ISBN|0-465-03197-8}}.</ref> Similarly, contemporary social-democratic and democratic-socialist organizations are known because of their members' activities in other organizations.
===Green Party of the United States===
{{Main|Green Party of the United States}}
The Green Party of the United States is a left of center party whose platform emphasizes environmentalism, non-hierarchical participatory democracy, social justice, respect for diversity, peace, and nonviolence.<ref>{{cite book| author=Larry J. Sabato and Howard R. Ernst| title=Encyclopedia of American Political Parties and Elections| publisher=Infobase Publishing| date=2009| page=167}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://indypendent.org/2014/10/28/meet-howie-hawkins-anti-cuomo| author=John Tarleton| title=Meet Howie Hawkins, the Anti-Cuomo| publisher=The Indypendent| date=October 28, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.greens.org/s-r/24/24-15b.html| author=Howie Hawkins| title=The Green Party and the Future of the US Left| publisher=Greens.org| date=November 2001}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/57704| title=United States: Greens become NY's third party after strong left campaign| publisher=Green Left Weekly| date=November 6, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.npr.org/blogs/politicaljunkie/2012/07/09/156167263/the-green-party-makes-its-case-as-a-left-leaning-alternative-to-obama| author=Ken Rudin| title=The Green Party Makes Its Case As A Left-Leaning Alternative To Obama| publisher=NPR| date=July 9, 2012}}</ref> At their 2016 party convention in Houston, the party changed its platform to support a decentralized form of [[eco-socialism]] based on workplace democracy.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://londongreenleft.blogspot.jp/2016/08/us-green-party-convention-adopts.html| title=US Green Party Convention Adopts an Ecosocialist Position| publisher=London Green Left Blog| date=August 8, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://gp.org/cgi-bin/vote/propdetail?pid=835| title=2016 Platform Amendment Proposal Ecological Economics| publisher=Green Party of the United States| accessdate=October 1, 2016}}</ref>
In the [[Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2000|2000 presidential election]], [[Ralph Nader]] and [[Winona LaDuke]] received 2,882,955 votes or 2.74% of the popular vote.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm| title= 2000 OFFICIAL PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION RESULTS| publisher=Federal Election Commission| date=December 2001}}</ref>
In the [[United States presidential election, 2016|2016 election]], Green Party presidential candidate [[Jill Stein]] and running mate [[Ajamu Baraka]] qualified to be on the ballot in 44 states and the District of Columbia, with 3 additional states allowing write-in votes.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.jill2016.com/ballot_access| title=Americans in 48 States Can Cast a Vote for Stein/Baraka| publisher=Jill2016| accessdate=October 1, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://ivn.us/2016/09/02/green-party-ballot-access-highest-levels-2016/| author=Kathryn Bullington| title=Green Party Ballot Access at Highest Levels in 2016| publisher=Independent Voter Project| date=September 2, 2016}}</ref>
The [[Greens/Green Party USA]] is a much smaller group focusing on education and local, grassroots organizing.
===Democratic Socialists of America===
{{main|Democratic Socialists of America}}
[[Michael Harrington]] 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.<ref>{{harvtxt|Drucker|1994|pp=303–307}}:<br />{{cite book|title=Max Shachtman and his left: A socialist's odyssey through the "American Century"|first=Peter|last=Drucker|publisher=Humanities Press|year=1994|isbn=0-391-03816-8|ref=harv}}</ref> Even before the December 1972 convention, Michael Harrington had resigned as an Honorary Chairperson of the Socialist Party.<ref name="NYTimes"/> 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 <!--(the [[Socialist Party of America#Max_Shachtman.2C_Civil_Rights.2C_and_the_War_on_Poverty|Socialist Party Social Democratic Federation]], "formerly the Socialist Party, USA"),-->whose membership was then 1,800, according to a 1973 profile of Harrington.<ref>{{harvtxt|O'Rourke|1993|pp=195–196}}:<br />{{cite book|last=O'Rourke|first=William|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5iUJfPxlTCcC&pg=PA195|chapter=L: Michael Harrington|title=Signs of the literary times: Essays, reviews, profiles, 1970–1992'|pages=192–196|publisher=SUNY Press|series=The Margins of Literature (SUNY Series)|year=1993|isbn=978-0-7914-1681-5|ref=harv}}
Originally: {{cite journal|last=O'Rourke|first=William|title=Michael Harrington: Beyond Watergate, Sixties, and reform|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5iUJfPxlTCcC&pg=PA197&dq=%22Socialist+Party%22+OR+%22Social+Democrats%22,+%22Michael+Harrington%22,+%22New+York+Times%22&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q=Michael%20Harrington&f=false|pages=6–7|journal=SoHo Weekly News|volume=3|number=2|date=November 13, 1973|ref=harv}}</ref>
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.<ref>Isserman, pp. 312–331: Isserman, Maurice (2001) ''The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington.'' New York: Perseus Books.</ref> With roughly twenty four 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.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?ei=e3MtTr68Hc7NswbvtLH3Dw&ct=result&id=O4h5AAAAIAAJ&dq=Isserman%2C+DSOC%2C+NAM+%22Michael+Harrington%22%2C+%22New+York+Times%22&q=DSOC%2C+NAM#search_anchor Isserman, p. 349]: Isserman, Maurice (2001) ''The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington.'' New York: Perseus Books.</ref> Its high-profile members included Congressman [[Major Owens]] and [[William Winpisinger]], President of the [[International Association of Machinists]].
===Social Democrats, USA===
{{main|Social Democrats, USA}}
The Socialist Party of America changed its name to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) in 1972.<ref name="NYTimes"/> In electoral politics, SDUSA's National Co-Chairman [[Bayard Rustin]] stated that its goal was to transform the Democratic Party into a social-democratic party.<ref name="NYT74">{{cite news|title=Socialists seek to transform the Democratic Party|first=C. Gerald|last= Fraser|newspaper=The New York Times |date=September 7, 1974 |page=11
|url=https://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10A14FA3F59137B93C5A91782D85F408785F9 |ref=harv}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite journal|first=Harold |last=Meyerson |authorlink=Harold Meyerson |date=Fall 2002 |volume=49 |number=4 |title=Solidarity, Whatever |url=http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=552 |journal=Dissent |page=16 |ref=harv |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100620144233/http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=552 |archivedate=June 20, 2010 |df=mdy }}{{clarify|date=September 2011|reason= Params "issue=" and "number=" are synonyms – cannot have both}}</ref>
Many SDUSA members served as organizational leaders, especially in labor unions. Rustin served as President of the [[A. Philip Randolph Institute]],<ref>*{{cite book|last=Anderson|first=Jervis|title=Bayard Rustin: Troubles I've seen|location=New York|publisher=HarperCollins Publishers|year=1997|url=https://books.google.com/books?ei=cEXqTZO2MYXOsgahk8TnCg&ct=result&id=9ix2AAAAMAAJ&dq=Bayard+Rustin%2C+Tom+Kahn&q=Tom+Kahn#search_anchor }}*{{cite book|authorlink=John D'Emilio|last=D’Emilio|first=John|title=Lost prophet: Bayard Rustin and the quest for peace and justice in America|location=New York|publisher=The Free Press|year=2003 |isbn=978-0-684-82780-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6uhqxlhZ888C&pg=PT235&lpg=PT235&dq=Kahn&source=bl&ots=3tJw3vbR22&sig=RUjTBxdvMBh-NWVsDYafCKcUu4Y&hl=en&ei=kew2TuvOIMXIsgax5NW5Ag&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Kahn&f=false}}
*: Republished as {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6uhqxlhZ888C&pg=PT235&lpg=PT235&dq=Kahn&source=bl&ots=3tJw3vbR22&sig=RUjTBxdvMBh-NWVsDYafCKcUu4Y&hl=en&ei=kew2TuvOIMXIsgax5NW5Ag&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Kahn&f=false |title=Lost prophet: The life and times of Bayard Rustin |location=Chicago |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |year=2004 |isbn=0-226-14269-8 }}</ref> and was succeeded by [[Norman Hill]]. [[Tom Kahn]] served as Director of International Affairs for the AFL–CIO.<ref name="NYTKahn"/> [[Sandra Feldman]] served as President of the [[American Federation of Teachers]] (AFT).<ref name="FeldmanNYT">{{cite news|title=Sandra Feldman, scrappy and outspoken labor leader for teachers, dies at 65|newspaper=The New York Times|first=Joseph|last=Berger |date=September 20, 2005|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/nyregion/20feldman.html?sq=Sandra%20Feldman&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=all|ref=harv}}</ref> Rachelle Horowitz served as Political Director for the AFT and serves on the board for the [[National Democratic Institute for International Affairs|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]].<ref name="Holley" >{{cite news|title=Political activist Penn Kemble dies at 64|first=Joe|last=Holley|newspaper=The Washington Post |date=October 19, 2005 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/18/AR2005101801743_pf.html|ref=harv}}</ref><ref name="times">{{cite news|newspaper=[[The Times]] |location=London |title=Penn Kemble: Dapper Democratic Party activist whose influence extended across the spectrum of US politics (21 January 1941 –15 October 2005) |date=October 31, 2005 |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article584709.ece|ref=harv}}</ref> After having served as the U.S. Representative to the U.N.'s Committee on human rights during the first [[Reagan Administration]],<ref name="Nossiter">{{cite news|title=New team at U.N.: Common roots and philosophies|first=Bernard D.|last=Nossiter|newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 3, 1981 |edition=Late City final |at=section A, p. 2, col. 3 |ref=harv}}</ref> [[Carl Gershman]] has served as the President of the [[National Endowment for Democracy]].<ref name="NED">{{cite web|url=http://www.ned.org/about/president.html |title=Meet Our President |accessdate=August 5, 2008 |publisher=[[National Endowment for Democracy]] |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080426072715/http://www.ned.org/about/president.html |archivedate=April 26, 2008 |deadurl=yes |df=mdy }}</ref>
===Socialist Party USA===
{{main|Socialist Party USA}}
In the Socialist Party before 1973, members of the Debs Caucus opposed endorsing or otherwise supporting Democratic Party candidates. They began working outside the Socialist Party with antiwar groups such as the [[Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)|Students for a Democratic Society]]. Some locals voted to disaffiliate with SDUSA and more members resigned; they re-organized as the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA), while continuing to operate the old Debs Caucus paper, the ''Socialist Tribune'', later renamed ''The Socialist''. The SPUSA continues to run local and national candidates, recently including [[Dan La Botz]]' 2010 campaign for US Senate in Ohio that won over 25,000 votes and [[Pat Noble]]'s successful election onto the [[Red Bank Regional High School]] Board of Education in 2012 and subsequent re-election in 2015. The SPUSA has run or endorsed a presidential ticket in every election since its founding, most recently nominating former SPUSA co-chair [[Mimi Soltysik]] and labor activist [[Angela Walker]] in the 2016 presidential election.
==Anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist==
{{See also|Anarchism in the United States}}
Anarchism in the United States was originally [[Individualist anarchism in the United States|individualistic]] and [[free-thinking]], as typified by the work of [[Henry David Thoreau]], but was overshadowed by a mass, cosmopolitan, anti-hierarchical, working class movement between the 1880s and 1940s, whose members were mostly recent immigrants.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/7910/| author=Kenyon Zimmer| title="The Whole World is Our Country": Immigration and Anarchism in the United States, 1885–1940| publisher=University of Pittsburgh| date=2010}}</ref> The anarchist movement achieved notoriety due to [[Haymarket affair|violent clashes with police]] and [[Assassination of William McKinley|assassinations]], but most anarchist activity took place in the realm of agitation and labor organizing among immigrant workers, with the exception of the [[Industrial Workers of the World]], whose members were mostly native-born Americans.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/d_h/haywood.htm| title=William "Big Bill" Haywood| publisher=PBS| date=2001}}</ref>
* Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)<ref>Amster, p. 3</ref>
* [[Food Not Bombs]]<ref name="Amster, p. xii">Amster, p. xii</ref>
* [[Green Mountain Anarchist Collective]]
* [[Northeastern Federation of Anarchist Communists]] (NEFAC)<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* Bring the Ruckus<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* Phoenix Anarchist Coalition<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* [[Local to Global Justice]]<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* [[Indymedia|IndyMedia]]<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* [[Workers Solidarity Alliance]]<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* Area Radical Reading Group of Hartford (ARRGH!)<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* [[Anarchist Black Cross]]<ref name="Amster, p. xii"/>
* Federation of Revolutionary Anarchist Collectives (FRAC)
* Anarchist Communitarian Network
* [[Anarchist People of Color]]
* Atlantic Anarchist Circle
* Great Plains Anarchist Network
* Revolutionary Anti-authoritarians of Color (RACE)
* South East Anarchist Network
* [[Youth International Party]]
==Communes and other intentional communities==
Many [[communes]] and [[egalitarian community|egalitarian communities]] have existed in the United States as a sub-category of the broader [[intentional community]] movement, some of which were based on [[utopian socialist]] ideals.<ref>{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FPiM8oMA9xgC&pg=PA9| author=Iaácov Oved| title=Two Hundred Years of American Communes| publisher=Transaction Publishers| date=1987| pages=9–15}}</ref>
==Notable figures==
*[[Roger Nash Baldwin]] – founding member of the [[American Civil Liberties Union|ACLU]]
*[[Harry Belafonte]] – singer, civil rights and social activist
*[[Edward Bellamy]] – [[utopian socialism|utoptian socialist]] author
*[[Victor L. Berger]] – [[Socialist Party of America]] congressman
*[[Earl Browder]] – [[Communist Party USA|Communist Party]] leader
*[[Cesar Chavez]] – [[United Farm Workers]] leader
*[[Noam Chomsky]] – dissident academic
*[[Angela Davis]] – Communist Party leader
*[[Dorothy Day]] – founding member of the [[Catholic Worker Movement]]
*[[Daniel De Leon]] – [[Marxism|Marxist]] [[Theoretician (Marxism)|theoretician]] and newspaper editor
*[[Eugene V. Debs]] – Socialist Party of America leader and presidential candidate
*[[David Dellinger]] – Socialist Party of America leader and pacifist
*[[W. E. B. Du Bois]] – civil rights activist
*[[Albert Einstein]] – physicist
*[[William Z. Foster]] – Communist Party leader
*[[Emma Goldman]] – anarchist activist
*[[Laurence Gronlund]] – utopian socialist author
*[[Gus Hall]] – Communist Party leader and presidential candidate
*[[Dashiell Hammett]] – author
*[[Michael Harrington]] – democratic socialist activist
*[[Tom Hayden]] – [[New Left]] activist
*[[Bill Haywood]] – [[Industrial Workers of the World|IWW]] labor activist
*[[Abbie Hoffman]] – [[Youth International Party|Yippie]] activist
*[[Mary Harris Jones|Mary Harris "Mother" Jones]] – IWW labor activist
*[[Irving Howe]] – democratic socialist activist
*[[Tom Kahn]] – social democratic, civil rights and labor activist
*[[Helen Keller]] – author and activist
*[[Martin Luther King Jr.]] – democratic socialist and civil rights activist
*[[Jack London]] – author
*[[Meyer London]] – Socialist Party of America congressman
*[[A. J. Muste]] – pacifist, labor and civil rights activist
*[[Immanuel Ness]] – labor activist
*[[A. Philip Randolph]] – civil rights and labor leader
*[[John Reed (journalist)|John Reed]] – journalist
*[[Paul Robeson]] – actor, civil rights and labor activist
*[[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] – U.S. President who implemented [[New Deal]] social programs
*[[Jerry Rubin]] – Yippie activist
*[[Bayard Rustin]] – pacifist and civil rights activist
*[[C. E. Ruthenberg]] – Communist Party leader
*[[Bernie Sanders]] – Independent democratic socialist Senator and Democratic presidential candidate of 2016 election
*[[Margaret Sanger]] – reproductive rights and labor activist
*[[Max Shachtman]] – Marxist theorist and activist
*[[Upton Sinclair]] – investigative author and socialist politician
*[[Jill Stein]] - Green Party presidential candidate
*[[I. F. Stone]] – journalist
*[[Norman Thomas]] – Socialist Party of America leader and presidential candidate
*[[Henry A. Wallace]] – Franklin Roosevelt's Vice President and [[Progressive Party (United States, 1948)|Progressive Party]] presidential candidate
*[[Richard D. Wolff]] – dissident academic
*[[Cornel West]] – dissident academic
*[[Howard Zinn]] – dissident academic
==Current Publications==
{{Main|List of alternative media (U.S. political left)}}
* ''[[The New Hampshire Gazette]]'', fortnightly, press run 5,500, founded 1756.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[The Nation]]'', weekly, established 1865. Circulation 190,000.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144">{{cite book| author=Richard Lingeman and the editors of The Nation| title=The Nation Guide to the Nation| publisher=Vintage| date=2009}}</ref>
* ''[[The Progressive]]'', monthly, established 1909.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Monthly Review]]'', monthly, established 1949. Circulation 7,000.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Dissent (American magazine)|Dissent]]'', quarterly, established 1954.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Texas Observer]]'', established 1954.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Fifth Estate (periodical)|Fifth Estate]]'', quarterly, established 1965.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Review of Radical Political Economics]]'', quarterly, established 1968.
* ''[[Dollars & Sense]]'', bimonthly, established 1974.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Mother Jones (magazine)|Mother Jones]]'', bimonthly, established 1974.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[In These Times]]'', monthly, established 1976. Circulation 17,000.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Z Communications#Z Magazine|Z Magazine]]'', monthly established 1977. Circulation 10,000 print and 6,000 online subscribers.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Labor Notes]]'', monthly, established 1979.
* ''[[Utne Reader]]'', bimonthly, established 1984. Circulation 150,000.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Left Business Observer]]'', established 1986.
* ''[[The American Prospect]]'', monthly, established 1990. Circulation 55,000.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>* ''[[The Baffler]]'', established 1988.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Working USA]]'', quarterly, established 1997.<ref>{{cite web|title=Post-Capitalist Project|url=http://postcapitalistproject.org/|publisher=Consortia Website|accessdate=19 November 2012}}</ref>
* ''[[The Indypendent]]'', published 17 times per year, established 2000.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Left Turn]]'', website, established 2001.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''Socialist Appeal'', established 2001.
* ''Black Commentator'', web-only weekly, established 2002.<ref name="Lingeman, pp. 117-144"/>
* ''[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]]'', established 2010.
==Public office-holders==
===Green Party of the United States===
<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.gp.org/officeholders| title=Officeholders| publisher=Green Party of the United State| accessdate=May 15, 2016}}</ref>
====Arkansas====
# [[Alvin Clay]] – Justice of the Peace Mississippi County, District 6 Elected: 2012
# [[Kade Holliday]] – County Clerk Craighead County, Arkansas Elected: 2012
# [[Roger Watkins (politician)|Roger Watkins]] – Constable Craighead County, District 5 Elected: 2012
====California====
{{colbegin|colwidth=30em}}
# [[Dan Hamburg]] – Board of Supervisors, District 5, Mendocino County
# [[Bruce Delgado]] – Mayor, Marina (Monterey County)
# [[Larry Bragman]] – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County)
# [[Renée Goddard]] – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County)
# [[John Reed (politician)|John Reed]] – Town Council, Fairfax (Marin County)
# [[Gayle Mclaughlin]] – City Council, Richmond (Contra Costa)
# [[Deborah Heathersone]] – Town Council, Point Arena (Mendocino County)
# [[Paul Pitino]] – Town Council, Arcata (Humboldt County)
# [[John Keener (politician)|John Keener]] – City Council, Pacifica (San Mateo County)
# [[Vahe Peroomian]] – Board of Trustees, Glendale Community College District, Glendale (Los Angeles County)
# [[Amy Martenson]] – Board of Trustees, District 2, Napa Valley College, Napa (Napa County)
# [[April Clary]] – Board of Trustees, Student Representative, Napa Valley College, Napa (Napa County)
# [[Heather Bass]] – Board of Directors, Gilroy Unified School District, Gilroy, Santa Clara County
# Dave Clark – Board of Directors, Cardiff School District (San Diego County)
# [[Phyllis Greenleaf]] – Board of Trustees, Live Oak Elementary School District (Santa Cruz County)
# [[Adriana Griffin]] – Red Bluff Union School District, Red Bluff (Tehama County)
# [[Jim C. Keller]] – Board of Trustees, Bonny Doon Union Elementary School District, Santa Cruz County
# [[Brigitte Kubacki]] – Governing Boardmember, Green Point School, Blue Lake (Humboldt County)
# [[Jose Lara]] – Vice President and Governing Board Member, El Rancho Unified School District, Pico Rivera (Los Angeles)
# [[Kimberly Ann Peterson]] – Board of Trustees, Geyserville Unified School District (Sonoma County)
# [[Karen Pickett (politician)|Karen Pickett]] – Board Member, Canyon Canyon Elementary School District (Contra Costa County)
# [[Kathy Rallings]] – Board of Trustees, Carlsbad Unified School District, Carlsbad, San Diego County
# [[Sean Reagan]] – Governing Boardmember, Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District, Norwalk (Los Angeles County)
# [[Curtis Robinson]] – Board of Trustees, Area 6, Marin County Board of Education (Marin County)
# [[Christopher Sabec (politician)|Christopher Sabec]] – Governing Boardmember, [[Lagunitas School District]] (Marin County)
# [[Katherine Salinas]] – Governing Boardmember, Arcata School District, Arcata (Humboldt County)
# [[Jeffrey Dean Schwartz]] – Governing Boardmember, Arcata School District, Arcata (Humboldt County)
# [[Alex Shantz]] – Board of Trustees, St. Helena Unified School District, Napa County
# [[Dana Silvernale]] – Governing Boardmember, North Humboldt Union High School (Humboldt County)
# [[Jim Smith (politician)|Jim Smith]] – President, Canyon School Board, Canyon Township (Contra Costa County)
# [[Logan Blair Smith]] – Little Shasta Elementary School District, Montague (Shasta County)
# [[Rama Zarcufsky]] – Governing Boardmember, Maple Creek School District (Humboldt County)
# [[John Selawsky]] – Rent Stabilization Board, Berkeley (Alameda County)
# [[Jesse Townley]] – Rent Stabilization Board, Berkeley (Alameda County)
# [[Jeff Davis (politician)|Jeff Davis]] – Board of Directors, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (Alameda and Contra Costa Counties)
# [[Karen Anderson (politician)|Karen Anderson]] – Board of Directors, Coastside Fire Protection District (San Mateo County)
# [[Robert L. Campbell]] – Scotts Valley Fire District (Santa Cruz County)
# [[William Lemos]] – Fire Protection District, Mendocino (Mendocino County)
# [[Russell Pace]] – Board of Directors, Willow Creek Fire District (Humboldt County)
# [[John Abraham Powell]] – Board of Directors, Montecito Fire District, Montecito (Santa Barbara County)
# [[Larry Bragman]] – Board of Directors, Division 3, Marin Municipal Water District Board (Marin County)
# [[James Harvey (politician)|James Harvey]] – Board of Directors, Montara Water and Sanitary District (San Mateo County)
# [[Randy Marx]] – Board of Directors, Fair Oaks Water District, Division 4 (Sacramento County)
# [[Jan Shriner]] – Board of Directors, Marina Coast Water District (Monterey County)
# [[Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap]] – Board of Directors, Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, Division 1 (Humboldt County)
# [[James Barone]] – Boardmember, Rollingwood-Wilart Recreation and Parks District (Contra Costa County)
# [[William Hayes (California politician)|William Hayes]] – Board of Directors, Mendocino Coast Park and Recreation District (Mendocino County)
# [[Illijana Asara]] – Board of Directors, Community Service District, Big Lagoon (Humboldt County)
# [[Gerald Epperson]] – Board of Directors, Crocket Community Services District, Contra Costa County
# [[Joseph Gauder]] – Boardmember, Covelo Community Services District, Covelo (Mendocino County)
# [[Crispin Littlehales]] – Boardmember, Covelo Community Services District, Covelo (Mendocino County)
# [[George A. Wheeler]] – Board of Directors, Community Service District, McKinleyville (Humboldt County)
# [[Mathew Clark]] – Board of Directors, Granada Sanitary District (San Mateo County)
# [[Nanette Corley]] – Director, Resort Improvement District, Whitehorn (Humboldt County)
# [[Sylvia Aroth]] – Outreach Officer, Venice Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Robin Doyno]] – At-Large Community Officer, Mar Vista Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Janine Jordan]] – District 4 Business Representative, Mid-Town North Hollywood Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Jack Lindblad]] – At Large Community Stakeholder, North Hollywood Northeast Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Johanna A. Sanchez]] – Secretary, Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Johanna A. Sanchez]] – At-Large Director, Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Marisol Sanchez (politician)|Marisol Sanchez]] – Area 1 Seat, Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[William Bretz]] – Crest/Dehesa/Harrison Canyon/Granite Hill Planning Group (San Diego County)
# [[Claudia White]] – Member, Descanso Community Planning Group (San Diego County)
# [[Annette Keenberg]] – Town Council, Lake Los Angeles (Los Angeles County)
# [[Rama Zarcufsky]] – Governing Boardmember, Maple Creek School District (Humboldt County)
{{colend}}
===Socialist Alternative===
====Washington====
{| class=wikitable
|-
! Election year
! # of [[Seattle City Council]] members
! % of Seattle City Council members
! +/-
|-
! 2013
| {{composition bar|0|9|hex=Red}}
| 0
| +1
|-
! 2015
| {{composition bar|1|9|hex=Red}}
| 11.11
|
|-
|}
# [[Kshama Sawant]] – [[Seattle City Council]], Position 2
===Socialist Party USA===
====New Jersey====
{| class=wikitable
|-
! Election year
! # of [[Red Bank Regional High School]] Board of Education members
! % of Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education members
! +/-
|-
! 2012
| {{composition bar|0|9|hex=Red}}
| 0
| +1
|-
! 2015
| {{composition bar|1|9|hex=Red}}
| 11.11
|
|-
|}
# [[Pat Noble]] – Member of the [[Red Bank Regional High School]] Board of Education for [[Red Bank, New Jersey|Red Bank]]
===Vermont Progressive Party===
# [[David Zuckerman (politician)|David Zuckerman]] – Lieutenant Governor
# [[Doug Hoffer]] - State Auditor
# [[Tim Ashe]] – Pro Tem of the [[Vermont Senate]]
# [[Christopher Pearson (Vermont politician)|Chris Pearson]] – Member of the [[Vermont Senate]]
# [[Anthony Pollina]] – Member of the [[Vermont Senate]]
# [[Mollie S. Burke]] – Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# [[Robin Chesnut-Tangerman]] – Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# [[Diana Gonzalez]] – Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# [[Sandy Haas]] – Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# [[Selene Colburn]] – Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# Brian Cina – Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# [[Jane Knodell]] – Burlington City Council President (Central District)
# [[Max Tracy]] – Burlington City Council (Ward 2)
# [[Sara Giannoni]] – Burlington City Council (Ward 3)
# [[Wendy Coe (politician)|Wendy Coe]] – Ward Clerk (Ward 2)
# [[Carmen Solari]] – Inspector of Elections (Ward 2)
# [[Kit Andrews]] – Inspector of Elections (Ward 3)
# Jeremy Hansen - Berlin Select Board
# Steve May - Richmond Select Board
# [[Susan Hatch Davis]] – Former Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]]
# Dexter Randel - Former Member of the [[Vermont House of Representatives]] & Former Troy Select Board
# Bob Kiss - Former Mayor of Burlington
# Peter Clevelle - Former Mayor of Burlington
# David Van Deusen - Former Moretown Select Board & Former First Constable
===Working Families Party===
====Connecticut====
# [[Edwin Gomes]] – Member of the [[Connecticut Senate]] from the 23rd district
====New York====
# [[Diana Richardson]] – Member of the [[New York State Assembly]] from the 43rd district
==See also==
*[[Anarchism in the United States]]
*[[African-American leftism]]
*[[Communism in the United States]]
*[[Espionage Act of 1917]]
*[[Handschu decree]]
*[[History of the socialist movement in the United States]]
*[[House Un-American Activities Committee]]
*[[Liberalism in the United States]]
*[[McCarthyism]]
*[[Progressivism in the United States]]
*[[Red Scare]]
*[[Sedition Act of 1918]]
*[[Socialism in the United States]]
==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}
==References==
{{refbegin|2}}
* ALB (2009–10) "The SLP of America: a premature obituary?" ''Socialist Standard''. Retrieved 2010-05-11.[http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/oct09/page18.html]
* Alexander, Robert J. ''International Trotskyism, 1929–1985: a documented analysis of the movement''. United States of America: Duke University Press, 1991. {{ISBN|0-8223-0975-0}}
* Amster, Randall. ''Contemporary anarchist studies: an introductory anthology of anarchy in the academy''. Oxford, UK: Taylor & Francis, 2009 {{ISBN|0-415-47402-7}}
* Archer, Robin. ''Why Is There No Labor Party in the United States?''. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-691-12701-9}}
* Bérubé, Michael. ''The Left at war''. New York: New York University Press, 2009 {{ISBN|0-8147-9984-1}}
* [[Mari Jo Buhle|Buhle, Mari Jo]]; [[Paul Buhle|Buhle, Paul]] and [[Dan Georgakas|Georgakas, Dan]]. ''Encyclopedia of the American left'' (Second edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. {{ISBN|0-19-512088-4}}
* Busky, Donald F. ''Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey''. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2000. {{ISBN|0-275-96886-3}}
* Coleman, Stephen. ''Daniel De Leon''. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1990 {{ISBN|0-7190-2190-1}}
* Draper, Theodore. ''The roots of American Communism''. New York: Viking Press, 1957. {{ISBN|0-7658-0513-8}}
* George, John and Wilcox, Laird. ''American Extremists: Militias, Supremacists, Klansmen, Communists & Others''. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1996. {{ISBN|1-57392-058-4}}
* Graeber, David. "The rebirth of anarchism in North America, 1957–2007" in ''Contemporary history online'', No. 21, (Winter, 2010)
* Isserman, Maurice. ''The other American: the life of Michael Harrington''. New York: Public Affairs, 2000. {{ISBN|1-58648-036-7}}
* Klehr, Harvey. ''Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today''. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1988. {{ISBN|0-88738-875-2}}
* Liebman, Arthur. ''Jews and the Left''. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1979. {{ISBN|978-0-471-53433-4}}
* Lingeman, Richard. ''The Nation Guide to the Nation''. New York: Vintage Books, 2009. {{ISBN|0-307-38728-3}}
* Lipset, Seymour Martin and Marks, Gary. ''It didn't happen here: why socialism failed in the United States''. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2001. {{ISBN|0-393-04098-4}}
* Reuters. "U.S. protests shrink while antiwar sentiment grows". Oct 3, 2007 12:30:17 GMT Retrieved September 20, 2010.[http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N02410338.htm]
* Ryan, James G. ''Earl Browder: the failure of American Communism''. Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1997. {{ISBN|0-8173-0843-1}}
* Sherman, Amy. "Demonstrators to gather in Fort Lauderdale to rail against oil giant BP", the ''Miami Herald''. May 12, 2010 Retrieved from SunSentinel.com September 22, 2010.[http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-05-12/features/fl-bp-fort-lauderdale-protest-20100511_1_oil-giant-bp-gulf-of-mexico-disaster-end-racism]
* Stedman, Susan W. and Stedman Jr. Murray Salisbury. ''Discontent at the polls: a study of farmer and labor parties, 1827–1948''. New York: Columbia University Press. 1950.
* Woodcock, George, ''Anarchism: a history of libertarian ideas and movements''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. {{ISBN|1-55111-629-4}}
{{refend}}
==External links==
*"The [[Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance]] versus the 'pure and simple trade union'",[http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/ddl_harriman.pdf] 1900 debate, [[Daniel De Leon]] & [[Job Harriman]]
*"[http://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1950/03/russia.htm Is Russia a socialist Community?"], 1950 debate, [[Earl Browder]], [[C. Wright Mills]] & [[Max Shachtman]]
*[http://wn.com/Norman_Thomas_-_Barry_Goldwater_Debate_Part_1 Socialism vs. capitalism], 1961 debate, [[Norman Thomas]] & [[Barry Goldwater]]
*"Why No Revolution? A Short History of American Left Movements",[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QSuK5gvb0g Part 1: early 1800s to 1945], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P85MmQ0Xhto Part 2: 1945–2012] 2012, featuring Joe Uris
{{Leftism in the United States}}
{{United States topics}}
[[Category:Anarchism in the United States]]
[[Category:Communism in the United States]]
[[Category:Left-wing politics in the United States| ]]
[[Category:Political movements in the United States]]
[[Category:Progressivism in the United States]]
[[Category:Reform movements]]
[[Category:Socialism in the United States]]' |