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The American Left consists of socialists, communists, anarchists and related organizations, political movements and trade unions. Although left-wing ideologies came to the United States in the 19th century, there are no major left-wing political parties in the US. As a result, Americans frequently use the term "left-wing" to refer to radicalism or even liberalism.

History

Origins: 1848-1919

The first American socialists were German Marxist immigrants who arrived following the 1848 revolutions. They achieved some success when five years after the establishment of the First International in 1864 they obtained an American section. 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 Working Men's Party of the United States in 1876. When the Lasalleans gained control in 1877, they changed the name to the Socialist Labor Party of North America (SLP). However many socialists abandoned political action altogether and moved to trade unionism. Two former socialists, Adolph Strasser and Samuel Gompers, formed the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886.

Anarchists, who believed in conspiratorial organization and violence and hated all authority, split from the Socialist Labor Party to form the Revolutionary Socialist Party in 1881. By 1885 they had 7,000 members, double the membership of the SLP. They were inspired by the International Anarchist Congress of 1881 in London. There were two federations in the United States that pledged adherence to the International. A convention of immigrant anarchists in Chicago formed the International Working People's Association (Black International), while a group of native Americans in San Francisco formed the International Workingmen's Association (Red International). Following a violent demonstration at Haymarket in Chicago in 1886, public opinion turned against anarchism. While very little violence could be attributed to anarchists, the attempted murder of a financier by an anarchist in 1892 and the 1901 assassination of the American president, William McKinley, by a professed anarchist led to the ending of political asylum for anarchists in 1903. In 1919, following the Palmer raids, anarchists were imprisoned and many, including Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, were deported. Yet anarchism again reached great public notice with the trial of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, who would be executed in 1927.

Daniel De Leon, who became leader of the SLP in 1890, took it in a Marxist direction. Eugene Debs, who had been an organizer for the American Railway Union formed the rival Social Democratic Party in 1898. Members of the SLP, led by Morris Hillquit and opposed to the De Leon's domineering personal rule and his anti-AFL trade union policy joined with the Social Democrats to form the Socialist Party of America (SPA). A group of socialists and trade unionists, upset with the craft unionism of the AFL set up the rival Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), led by William D. (Big Bill) Haywood and including De Leon and Debs.

The organizers of the IWW disageed on the road to socialism, whether it would be achieved through political or industrial action. Debs left the IWW in 1906 while De Leon was expelled in 1908. The IWW became committed to anarcho-syndicalism and avoided political activity altogether. It was successful organizing unskilled migratory workers in the lumber, agriculture, and construction trades in the Western states and immigrant textile workers in the Eastern states and accepted violence as part of industrial action.

The SPA was divided between reformers who believed that socialism could be achieved through gradual reform of capitalism and revolutionaries who thought that socialism could only develop after capitalism was overthrown, but the party steered a center path between the two. The SPA achieved the peak of its success by 1912, when its presidential candidate received 5.9% of the popular vote. The first Socialist congressman, Victor Berger, had been elected in 1910. By the beginning of 1912, there were 1,039 Socialist officeholders, including 56 mayors, 305 aldermen and councilmen, 22 police officials, and some state legislators. Milwaukee, Berkeley, Butte, Schenectady, and Flint were run by Socialists. A Socialist challenger to Gompers took one third of the vote in a challenge for leadership of the AFL. The SPA had 5 English and 8 foreign-language daily newspapers, 262 English and 36 foreign-language weeklies, and 10 English and 2 foreign-language monthlies.

American entry into the First World War in 1917 led to a patriotic hysteria aimed against Germans, immigrants, African Americans, class-conscious workers, and Socialists, and the ensuing Espionage Act and Sedition Act were used against them. The government harassed Socialist newspapers, the post office denied the SP use of the mails, and antiwar militants were arrested. Soon Debs and more than sixty IWW leaders were charged under the acts.

Later years: 1919-present

In 1919, John Reed and Benjamin Gitlow and other Socialists formed the Communist Labor Party, while Socialist foreign sections led by Charles Ruthenberg formed the Communist Party. These two groups would be combined as the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA). The Communists organized the Trade Union Unity League to compete with the AFL and claimed to represent 50,000 workers.

In 1928, Following divisions inside the Soviet Union, Jay Lovestone, who had replaced Ruthenberg as general secretary of the CPUSA following his death, joined with William Z. Foster to expel Foster's former allies, James P. Cannon and Max Shachtman, who were followers of Leon Trotsky. Following another Soviet factional dispute, Lovestone and Gitlow were expelled, and Earl Browder became party leader.

Cannon, Shachtman, and Martin Abern then set up the Trotskyist Communist League of America, and recruited members from the CPUSA. The League then merged with A. J. Muste's American Workers Party in 1934, forming the Workers Party. New members included James Burnham and Sidney Hook.

By the 1930s the Socialist Party was deeply divided between an Old Guard, led by Hillquit and younger Militants, who were more sympathetic to the Soviet Union, led by Norman Thomas. The Old Guard left the party to form the Social Democratic Federation. Following talks between the Workers Party and the Socialists, members of the Workers Party joined the Socialists in 1936. Once inside they operated as a separate faction. The Trotskyists were expelled from the Socialist Party the following year, and set up the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the youth wing of the Socialists, the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL) joined them. Shachtman and others were expelled from the SWP in 1940 over their position on the Soviet Union and set up the Workers Party. Within months many members of the new party, including Burnham, had left. The Workers Party was renamed the Independent Socialist League (ISL) in 1949 and ceased being a political party.

Some members of the Old Guard formed the American Labor Party (ALP) in New York State, with support from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The right wing of this party broke away in 1944 to form the Liberal Party of New York. In the 1936, 1940 and 1944 elections the ALP received 274,000, 417,000, and 496,000 votes in New York State, while the Liberals received 329,000 votes in 1944.

In 1957 the ISL voted to disband and for its members to join the now re-united Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation, and they joined the following year. The YPSL was dissolved, but the party formed a new youth group under the same name.

In 1972, the Socialist Party was renamed Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) and now had only 1,600 members. Dissidents left to form the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) in 1973, led by Michael Harrington. The same year another faction of the SPA, including David McReynolds, formed the Socialist Party, USA which continues to run presidential candidates.

Explanations for the weakness of the American Left

Academic scholars have long studied the reasons why no viable socialist parties have emerged in the United States. Some writers ascribe this to the failures of socialist organization and leadership, some to the incompatibility of socialism and American values, and others to the limitations imposed by the American constitution. Lenin and Trotsky were particularly concerned because it challenged core Marxist beliefs, that the most advanced industrial country would provide a model for the future of less developed nations. If socialism represented the future, then it should be strongest in the United States.

Although Working Men's Parties were founded in the 1820s and 1830s in the United States, they advocated equality of opportunity, universal education and improved working conditions, not socialism, collective ownership or equality of outcome, and disappeared after their goals were taken up by Jacksonian democracy. Gompers, the leader of the AFL thought that workers must rely on themselves because any rights provided by government could be revoked. Economic unrest in the 1890s was represented by populism. Although it used anti-capitalist rhetoric, it represented the views of small farmers who wanted to protect their own private property, not a call for collectivism, socialism, or communism. Progressives in the early 20th century criticized the way capitalism had developed but were essentially middle class and reformist. However both populism and progressivism steered some people to left-wing politics. Many popular writers of the progressive period were in fact left-wing. But even the New Left relied on radical democratic traditions rather than left-wing ideology.

Engels thought that the lack of a feudal past was the reason for the American working class holding middle class values. Max Weber and Antonio Gramsci saw individualism and laissez-faire liberalism as core shared American beliefs. According to the historian David DeLeon, American radicalism, unlike social democracy, fabianism and communism was rooted in libertarianism and syndicalism and opposed to centralized power and collectivism.

The character of the American political system, which is hostile toward third parties has also been presented as a reason for the absence of a strong socialist party in the United States.

Social democratic and socialist groups

The main social democratic and socialist groups that emerged from the Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation (SP-SDF) after 1972.

Social Democrats USA (SDUSA)

The Shachtmanites, called the Realignment Caucus, in the SP-SDF argued that since organized labor supported the Democratic Party, they should join the Democratic Party and transform it into a left-wing party, with the Republicans becoming a right-wing party. Further, they argued that they should support the War in Vietnam to stop Communist expansion. In 1972, they supported Senator Henry Jackson for the Democratic presidential nomination, and re-named the party Social Democrats USA (SDUSA), dropping the term "socialist". While they retained membership in the Socialist International, they supported Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election and had moved sufficiently right by 1980, that many of their members served in the Reagan administration.

Socialist Party USA (SPUSA)

Members of the Debs Caucus opposed supporting the Democrats and began working outside the Socialist Party with antiwar groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society. Many locals of the SD-SDF voted to disaffiliate. They re-organized as the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA) and kept control of the old Debs Caucus paper, the Socialist Tribune, later re-named The Socialist. The SPUSA continued to run local and national candidates, although by 2000 they had only about 1,000 members. In 1972 they supported the presidential campaign of Benjamin Spock of the People's Party. Their 2000 candidate for president was David McReynolds.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

Although Michael Harrington, who came to lead the Coalition Caucus, agreed to work within the Democratic Party, he broke with the Shachtmanites over support of the War in Vietnam, urging peace negotiations, although not an immediate withdrawal. He led his caucus out of the SD-SDF to form the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), which became a member of the Socialist International. Although this group never ran candidates for public office, it became the largest of the three groups emerging from the SD-SDF, attaining a peak membership of as many as 10,000. In 1982, it joined with the New American Movement (NAM), an antiwar group that emerged from the New Left of the 1960s, to form the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Marxist-Leninist groups

Marxist-Leninist, or communist, groups can be divided into pro-Soviet, Trotskyist, Maoist/Kimist/Hoxhaist, or independent.

Socialist Labor Party

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.

Communist Party USA

The largest and best-financed of all Marxist-Leninist groups, 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. From the 1940s the FBI attempted to disrupt the CP, including through its Counter‐Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO).

Several Communist front organizations founded in the 1950s continued to operate at least into the 1990s, notably the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born, the Labor Research Association, the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, and the U.S. Peace Council. Other groups with less direct links to the CP include the National Lawyers Guild, the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, and the Center for Constitutional Rights. Many leading members of the New Left, including some members of the Weather Underground and the May 19th Communist Organization were members of the National Lawyers Guild. However, CP attempts to influence the New Left were mostly unsuccessful. The CP attracted media attention in the 1970s with the membership of the high profile activist, Angela Davis.

The CP publishes the People's World and Political Affairs. Beginning 1988, the CP stopped running candidates for President of the United States. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, it was found that the Soviet Union had provided funding to the CP throughout its history. The CP had always supported the positions of the Soviet Union.

Socialist Worker's Party

With fewer than one thousand members in 1996, the Socialist Worker's Party (SWP) was the second largest Marxist-Leninist party in the United States. Formed by supporters of Leon Trotsky, they believed that the Soviet Union and other Communist states remained "worker's states" and should be defended against reactionary forces, although their leadership had sold out the workers. They became members of the Trotskyist Fourth International. Their publications include The Militant and a theoretical journal, the International Socialist Review. Two groups that broke with the SWP in the 1960s were the Spartacist League and the Workers League. The SWP has been involved in numerous violent scuffles. In 1970 the party successfully sued the FBI for is COINTELPRO, where the FBI opened and copied mail, planted informants, wiretapped members' homes, bugged conventions, and broke into party offices. The party fields candidates for President of the United States.

Progressive Labor Party

The Progressive Labor Party (PL) was formed as the Progressive Labor Movement in 1962 by a group of former members of the Communist Party USA, most of whom had quit or been expelled for supporting China in the Sino-Soviet split. To them, the Soviet Union was imperialist. They competed with the CP and SWP for influence in the anti-war movement and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), forming the May 2 Movement as its anti-war front organization. Its major publications are Progressive Labor and the Marxist-Leninist Quarterly. They later abandoned Maoism, refusing to follow the line of any foreign country and formed the front group, the International Committee Against Racism (InCAR), in 1973. Much of their activity included violent confrontations against far right groups, such as Nazis and Klansmen. While membership in 1978 was about 1,500, by 1996 it had fallen below 500.

Workers World Party

The Workers World Party (WWP) was formed in 1958 by fewer than one hundred people who left the Socialist Workers Party after the SWP supported socialists in New York State elections. Their publication is Workers World. The party has transformed from Trotskyism to Maoism to independent Marxism-Leninism, supporting all Marxist states. They have been active in organizing protests against far right groups. They were also notable for being the main US supporter of the former Ethiopian communist government. In the 1990s their membership was estimated at about 200.

Revolutionary Communist Party

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 (SDS) organizer had fought off attempts for control of the SDS by the Progressive Labor Party. The party has been unwaveringly Maoist. Working through the U.S.-Chinese People's Friendship Association, the party arranged for visits by Americans to China. Their newspaper, Revolutionary Worker has featured articles supportive of Albania and North Korea, while the party, unusually for the Left, has been hostile to school busing, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and gay rights. The party fell out of favour with the Chinese government after the death of Mao Zedong, partly because of the personality cult of the RCP leader. By the mid-1990s the party numbered fewer than 500 members.

Anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist groups

• Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
• Workers Solidarity Alliance
• Northeastern Federation of Anarchist Communists (NEFAC)
• Bring the Ruckus
• Federation of Revolutionary Anarchist Collectives (FRAC)
• Red and Anarchist Action Network
• Anarchist Communitarian Network
• Anarchist People of Color
• Atlantic Anarchist Circle
• Great Plains Anarchist Network
• Revolutionary Anti-authoritarians of Color (RACE)
• South East Anarchist Network

Left-wing publications

• The Nation, weekly, established 1865. Circulation 190,000.
• In These Times, weekly, established 1976. Circulation 17,000.
• Mother Jones, bimonthly, established 1974.
• The Progressive, monthly, established 1909.
• Fifth Estate, quarterly, established 1965.
• The Indypendent, published 17 times per year, established 2000.
• Left Turn, quarterly, official website. Retrieved May, 2010.

Notes

1. Draper, pp. 11-12.
2. Draper, p. 13.
3. Woodcock, p. 395
4. Woodcock, p. 397-398
5. Woodcock, p. 399-400
6. Draper, pp. 14-16.
7. Draper, pp. 16-17.
8. Draper, pp. 21-22.
9. Draper, pp. 22-24.
10. Draper, pp. 41-42.
11. Ryan, p. 13.
12. Ryan, p. 16.
13. Ryan, p. 35.
14. Ryan, p. 36.
15. Alexander, pp. 765-767.
16. Alexander, p. 777.
17. Alexander, p. 784.
18. Alexander, p. 786.
19. Alexander, p. 787.
20. Alexander, p. 792-793.
21. Alexander, pp. 803-805.
22. Alexander, p. 810.
23. Stedman and Stedman, p. 9
24. Stedman and Stedman, p. 33
25. Alexander, p. 812-813.
26. Isserman, p. 300-301.
27. Isserman, p. 311.
28. Isserman, p. 422.
29. Lipset, p. 9
30. Lipset, p. 11
31. Lipset, p. 16
32. Lipset, pp. 19-23
33. Draper, pp. 36-37
34. Draper, p. 41
35. Lipset, p. 23
36. Lipset, pp. 21-22
37. Lipset, p. 83
38. Busky, pp. 163-165
39. Busky, pp. 164-165
40. Busky, pp. 164-165
41. George, p. 95
42. ALB
43. George, pp. 97-98
44. George, p. 103
45. George, p. 98
46. George, p. 99
47. George, p. 101
48. George, p. 103-104
49. George, p. 102
50. George, p. 105
51. George, p. 113
52. George, p. 108-109
53. George, p. 108
54. George, p. 109
55. George, p. 110
56. George, p. 112
57. George, p. 110
58. George, p. 147
59. George, p. 148
60. George, p. 150
61. George, p. 151
62. George, pp. 153-154
63. George, p. 159
64. George, p. 160
65. George, p. 161
66. Lingeman, pp. 117-126
67. Lingeman, pp. 117-126
68. Lingeman, pp. 117-126
69. Lingeman, pp. 117-126
70. Lingeman, pp. 117-126
71. Lingeman, pp. 117-126
72. Lingeman, pp. 117-126

References

• ALB (2009–10) "The SLP of America: a premature obituary?" Socialist Standard. Retrieved 2010-05-11.
• 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
• Draper, Theodore. The roots of American Communism. New York: Viking Press, 1957. ISBN 0-7658—0513-8
• Busky, Donald F. Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2000. ISBN 02759688
• George, John and Wilcox, Laird. American Extremists: Militias, Supremacists, Klansmen, Communists & Others. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1996. ISBN 1573920584
• Isserman, Maurice. The other American: the life of Michael Harrington. New York: Public Affairs, 2000. ISBN 1-58648-036-7
• Lingeman, Richard. The Nation Guide to the Nation. New York: Vintage Books, 2009. ISBN 0307387283
• 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
• Ryan, James G. Earl Browder: the failure of American Communism. Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8173-0843-1
• 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 1551116294

External links

• Socialist Labor Party of America, official party website. Retrieved April 8, 2010.
• Social Democrats, USA, official party website. Retrieved April 8, 2010.
• Industrial Workers of the World, official website. Retrieved April 8, 2010.
• Communist Party of the United States of America, official party website. Retrieved April 8, 2010.
• Democratic Socialists of America, official website. Retrieved April 8, 2010.
• Socialist Party USA, official party website. Retrieved April 8, 2010.
• Progressive Labor Party, official party website. Retrieved May 11, 2010.
• Revolutionary Communist Party, official website for Revolution, voice of the RCP. Retrieved May 11, 2010.

See also

• Socialist movement in the United States

• Orphaned articles from April 2010
• Liberalism in the United States