Gus Hall was an American activist who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) from 1959 to 2000. As a labor leader, Hall was closely associated with the so-called "Little Steel" Strike of 1937, an effort to unionize the nation's smaller, regional steel manufacturers. During the Second Red Scare, he was indicted under the Smith Act and was sentenced to eight years in prison. After his release, Hall led the CPUSA for over 40 years, generally taking an orthodox Marxist–Leninist stance and becoming a perennial candidate for president of the United States.
The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of America who had split from the main organization in 1899.
Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) is a social democratic organization established in 1972 as the successor of the Socialist Party of America (SPA). The SPA had stopped running independent presidential candidates though retains the term "party" in their name.
The Young Communist League USA (YCLUSA) is a communist youth organization in the United States. The stated aim of the League is the development of its members into Communists, through studying socialism and through active participation in the struggles of the American working class. The YCL recognizes the Communist Party USA as the party for socialism in the United States and operates as the Party's youth wing. Although the name of the group changed a number of times during its existence, its origins trace back to 1920, shortly after the establishment of the first communist parties in the United States.
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revolution.
Earl Russell Browder was an American politician, spy for the Soviet Union, communist activist and leader of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Browder was the General Secretary of the CPUSA during the 1930s and first half of the 1940s. During World War I, Browder served time in federal prison as a conscientious objector to conscription and the war. Upon his release, Browder became an active member of the American Communist movement, soon working as an organizer on behalf of the Communist International and its Red International of Labor Unions in China and the Pacific region.
Samuel Webb is an American activist and political leader, who served as the Chairman of the Communist Party USA from 2000 to 2014, succeeding the party's longest running leader Gus Hall. Webb did not accept nomination to be reelected as chairman at the 30th National Convention of the Communist Party USA in 2014, at which John Bachtell was elected the party's new chairman. Webb continued to serve on the party's National Committee until 2016.
Language federations were formed in the late 19th and early 20th century by immigrants to the United States, primarily from Eastern and Southern Europe, who shared a commitment to some form of socialist politics. Some of these groups joined the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLP); later, many joined the Socialist Party of America (SPA) and then later joined one of the precursors of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA); a number of federations also remained in the Socialist Party. The Russian and Finnish federations were particularly important in the early years of the Communist Party.
The history of the socialist movement in the United States spans a variety of tendencies, including anarchists, communists, democratic socialists, social democrats, Marxists, Marxist–Leninists, Trotskyists and utopian socialists. It began with utopian communities in the early 19th century such as the Shakers, the activist visionary Josiah Warren and intentional communities inspired by Charles Fourier. Labor activists, usually Jewish, German, or Finnish immigrants, founded the Socialist Labor Party of America in 1877. The Socialist Party of America was established in 1901. By that time, anarchism also rose to prominence around the country. Socialists of different tendencies were involved in early American labor organizations and struggles. These reached a high point in the Haymarket massacre in Chicago, which founded the International Workers' Day as the main labour holiday around the world, Labor Day and making the eight-hour day a worldwide objective by workers organizations and socialist parties worldwide.
The New American Movement (NAM) was an American New Left multi-tendency socialist and feminist political organization established in 1971.
Charlene Alexander Mitchell was an American international socialist, feminist, labor and civil rights activist. In 1968, she became the first Black woman candidate for President of the United States.
The Socialist Youth League was the youth group affiliated with the Workers Party, a splinter Trotskyist party led by Max Shachtman. The parent group changed its name to the Independent Socialist League in 1950. In February 1954, the Socialist Youth League merged with a faction of the Young People's Socialist League and changed its name to Young Socialist League. The YSL merged with a later incarnation of the YPSL in August 1958, around the same time that the ISL was merging into that group's parent body the Socialist Party – Social Democratic Federation.
Dorothy Ray Healey was a long-time activist in the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) from the late 1920s to the 1970s. In the 1930s, she was one of the first union leaders to advocate for the rights of Chicanos and African Americans as factory and field workers.
The committees of correspondence were bodies organized by the local governments of the American colonies in the late 1700s for the purposes of coordinating written communication outside of the colony.
Socialist democracy is a political system that aligns with principles of both socialism and democracy. It includes ideologies such as council communism, democratic socialism, social democracy, and soviet democracy, as well as Marxist democracy like the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was embodied in the Soviet system (1922–1991). It can also denote a system of political party organization like democratic centralism, or a form of democracy espoused by Marxist–Leninist political parties or groups that support one-party states. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1945–1992) styled itself a socialist democracy, as did the People's Republic of Bulgaria (1946–1990) and the Socialist Republic of Romania (1947–1989).
Erwin Marquit was an American physicist and Marxist philosopher. He was the principal founder of the Marxist Education Press and was editor of the Marxist studies journal Nature, Society, and Thought (1987–2007), making available works of Marxist scholarship, including contributions from European, African, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cuban scholars.
The American left refers to the groups or ideas on the left of the political spectrum in the United States of America. It is occasionally used as a shorthand for groups aligned with the Democratic Party. At other times, it refers to groups that have sought egalitarian changes in the economic, political, and cultural institutions of the United States. Various subgroups with a national scope are active. Liberals and progressives believe that equality can be accommodated into existing capitalist structures, but they differ in their criticism of capitalism and on the extent of reform and the welfare state. Anarchists, communists, and socialists with international imperatives are also present within this macro-movement. Many communes and 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. The left has been involved in both the Democratic and Republican parties at different times, having originated in the Democratic-Republican Party as opposed to the Federalist Party.
The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) is an American political party with a communist platform that was founded in 1919 Its history is deeply rooted in the history of the American labor movement as it played critical roles in the earliest struggles to organize American workers into unions, in leadership of labor strikes, as well as prominent involvement in later civil rights and anti-war movements. Many party members were forced to work covertly due to the high level of political repression in the United States against Communists. CPUSA faced many challenges in gaining a foothold in the United States as they endured two eras of the Red Scare and never experienced significant electoral success. Despite struggling to become a major electoral player, CPUSA was the most prominent leftist party in the United States. CPUSA developed close ties with the Soviet Union, which led to them being financially linked.
Democratic socialism is a left-wing economic and political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within a market socialist, decentralised planned, or democratic centrally planned socialist economy. Democratic socialists argue that capitalism is inherently incompatible with the values of freedom, equality, and solidarity and that these ideals can only be achieved through the realisation of a socialist society. Although most democratic socialists seek a gradual transition to socialism, democratic socialism can support revolutionary or reformist politics to establish socialism. Democratic socialism was popularised by socialists who opposed the backsliding towards a one-party state in the Soviet Union and other countries during the 20th century.
James Patrick Cannon was an American Trotskyist and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.
