Solidarity | |
---|---|
Founded | 1986 |
Merger of | International Socialists Workers Power Socialist Unity |
Headquarters | 7012 Michigan Ave, Detroit, MI 48210 |
Ideology | Revolutionary socialism Socialist feminism Factions: Trotskyism [1] |
Political position | Left-wing to Far-left |
International affiliation | Fourth International [2] |
Website | |
solidarity-us | |
This article is part of a series on |
Socialism in the United States |
---|
Part of a series on |
Socialism |
---|
Solidarity is a revolutionary multi-tendency socialist organization in the United States, associated with the journal Against the Current. Solidarity is an organizational descendant of the International Socialists, a Third Camp Marxist organization which argued that the Soviet Union was not a "degenerated workers' state" (as orthodox Trotskyists argue) but rather "bureaucratic collectivism," a new and especially repressive class society. [3]
Solidarity describes itself as "a democratic, revolutionary socialist, feminist, anti-racist organization." [4] Its roots are in strains of the Trotskyist tradition but has departed from many aspects of traditional Leninism and Trotskyism. It is more loosely organized than most "democratic centralist" groups, and it does not see itself as the vanguard of the working class or the nucleus of a vanguard. It was formed in 1986 from a fusion of the International Socialists, Workers Power, and Socialist Unity. The former two groups had recently been reunited in a single organization, while the last was an expelled fragment of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Solidarity's name was originally in part an homage to Solidarność — a US-backed labor union in Communist Poland which, in Solidarity's view, had challenged the Soviet Union from the left.[ citation needed ] As of its 2011 convention, Solidarity is a sympathizing organization of the official Fourth International. [5]
From the beginning, Solidarity was an avowedly pluralist radical organization that included several currents of Trotskyism, socialist-feminists who had been in the New American Movement, and veterans of earlier New Left groups such as Students for a Democratic Society. Solidarity sought to "regroup" with others to create a larger revolutionary socialist-feminist organization. They hoped to initiate a broad regroupment that would include, for example, some of the fragments of the disintegrating New Communist Movement and many more socialist-feminists and New Left veterans. Discussions of regroupment and "Left Refoundation" have been initiated between Solidarity and other left groups of varying tendencies from the 1980s to the present, but these have not led to broader fusions.
Smaller-scale regroupments have occurred, however. During the 1990s, two organizations fused with Solidarity—the Fourth Internationalist Tendency (a group expelled from the SWP) and Activists for Independent Socialist Politics (a Socialist Action split that had previously worked in Committees of Correspondence). In 2002, members of the Trotskyist League joined Solidarity.
Solidarity members often work in various unions for shop-floor militancy and rank-and-file democracy, and some have played key roles in maintaining and providing staff for Labor Notes magazine and Teamsters for a Democratic Union. Solidarity members have worked in many other mass movements in the US, including the anti-apartheid, reproductive rights, LGBTQ, Central American solidarity, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, anti-war, and Global Justice movements, as well as the Green Party and the 1990s attempt at building a mass Labor Party. Solidarity members were deeply involved in Occupy Wall Street and Occupy in other cities since the Fall of 2011.
Solidarity prides itself on a "non-sectarian" approach to building these movements, and traditionally has prioritized the movements over building itself: "Too often socialist groups have seen the development of a movement not for what it is and can become, but only what it might offer in the way of recruits. We reject this conception and affirm the need for an effective class movement in and for itself, which requires new forms of action, thinking and dialogue rather than repeating the known formulas" (Regroupment & Refoundation of a U.S. Left). [6] Solidarity publishes a bi-monthly Marxist journal, Against the Current, [7] which is produced by an editorial board including Solidarity members and independent socialists.
In the 2010 midterm elections, Dan La Botz, a member of Solidarity and a co-editor of New Politics, ran for the United States Senate under the banner of the Socialist Party of Ohio and received 26,454 votes, or 0.69% of the total vote. [8]
In 2000, Solidarity endorsed both the Green Party's Ralph Nader and the Socialist Party USA's David McReynolds for President. In August 2004, Solidarity again endorsed the now independent candidacy of Ralph Nader. In 2008, the organization endorsed Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party for President. [9] In 2012, Solidarity urged its members to vote for the nominees of either the Green Party, Peace and Freedom, or Socialist Party USA. [10] For 2016, the organization again endorsed Jill Stein of the Green Party for President. [11]
In the 2020 presidential election, Solidarity initially endorsed the campaign of Howie Hawkins in November 2019, who was running as the candidate for the Socialist Party and the Green Party. [12] The organization later decided in August 2020, after a poll of its members, to take no official position regarding the presidential election. [13]
Year | President | Vice President | Votes | Endorsed Party |
---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | Ralph Nader | Winona LaDuke | 2,882,955 | Green Party US |
David McReynolds | Mary Cal Hollis | 5,602 | Socialist Party USA | |
2004 | Ralph Nader | Peter Camejo | 465,650 | Independent |
2008 | Cynthia McKinney | Rosa Clemente | 161,797 | Green Party US |
2012 | Jill Stein | Cheri Honkala | 469,627 | Green Party US |
Roseanne Barr | Cindy Sheehan | 67,326 | Peace and Freedom | |
Stewart Alexander | Alex Mendoza | 4,430 | Socialist Party USA | |
2016 | Jill Stein | Ajamu Baraka | 1,457,218 | Green Party US |
2020 | No official position | N/A | N/A |
The Socialist Party of the United States of America is a socialist political party in the United States. SPUSA formed in 1973, one year after the Socialist Party of America splintered into three: Social Democrats, USA, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (split), and SPUSA.
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 Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) is a trotskyist and socialist feminist political party in the United States. FSP formed in 1966, when its members split from the Socialist Workers Party.
The Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) was a Trotskyist group in the United States established in 1973 and disbanded in 1989.
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is a communist organization political party in the United States. FRSO formed in 1985 as a merger of several Maoist-oriented New Communist movement organizations.
Howard Gresham Hawkins III is an American trade unionist, environmental activist, and perennial candidate from New York. A co-founder of the Green Party of the United States, Hawkins was the party's presidential nominee in the 2020 presidential election. His ideological platform includes enacting an eco-socialist version of the Green New Deal—which he first proposed in 2010—and building a viable, independent working-class political and social movement in opposition to the country's two major political parties, and capitalism in general.
Socialist Alternative is a Trotskyist political party in the United States. SAlt formed as Labor Militant in 1986, when members of the Committee for a Workers' International created a US branch.
Daniel H. La Botz is an American labor union activist, academic, journalist, and author. He was a co-founder of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) and has written extensively on worker rights in the United States and Mexico. He is a member of the socialist organization Solidarity, which describes itself as "a democratic, revolutionary socialist, feminist, anti-racist organization," which comes out of the Trotskyist tradition. La Botz ran in 2010 for a seat in the United States Senate for the Socialist Party. He is also a member of the Brooklyn branch of the Democratic Socialists of America and a co-editor of the socialist journal New Politics.
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.
Socialism in Australia dates back at least as far as the late-19th century. Notions of socialism in Australia have taken many different forms including utopian nationalism in the style of Edward Bellamy, the democratic socialist reformist electoral project of the early Australian Labor Party (ALP), and the revolutionary Marxism of parties such as the Communist Party of Australia.
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) is a Trotskyist political party in the United States. SEP first formed in 1964 as the American Committee for the Fourth International, created by expelled members of the Socialist Workers Party. SEP and its previous forms were associated with the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), a Trotskyist political international.
The International Socialists (1968–1986) was a Third Camp Trotskyist group in the United States.
The Workers Party (WP) was a Third Camp Trotskyist group in the United States. It was founded in April 1940 by members of the Socialist Workers Party who opposed the Soviet invasion of Finland and Leon Trotsky's belief that the USSR under Joseph Stalin was still innately proletarian, a "degenerated workers' state." They included Max Shachtman, who became the new group's leader, Hal Draper, C. L. R. James, Raya Dunayevskaya, Martin Abern, Joseph Carter, Julius Jacobson, Phyllis Jacobson, Albert Glotzer, Stan Weir, B. J. Widick, James Robertson, and Irving Howe. The party's politics are often referred to as "Shachtmanite."
The International Socialist Organization (ISO) was a Trotskyist group active primarily on college campuses in the United States that was founded in 1976 and dissolved in 2019. The organization held Leninist positions on imperialism and the role of a vanguard party. However, it did not believe that necessary conditions for a revolutionary party in the United States were met; ISO believed that it was preparing the ground for such a party. The organization held a Trotskyist critique of nominally socialist states, which it considered class societies. In contrast, the organization advocated the tradition of "socialism from below." as articulated by Hal Draper. Initially founded as a section of the International Socialist Tendency (IST), it was strongly influenced by the perspectives of Draper and Tony Cliff of the British Socialist Workers Party. It broke from the IST in 2001, but continued to exist as an independent organization for the next eighteen years. The organization advocated independence from the U.S. two-party system and sometimes supported electoral strategies by outside parties, especially the Green Party of the United States.
The Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) was an international association of Trotskyist political parties and organisations. Today, two groups claim to be the continuation of the CWI, the refounded Committee for a Workers' International and International Socialist Alternative.
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a communist party in the United States. The SWP began as a group which, because it supported Leon Trotsky over Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, was expelled from the Communist Party USA. Since the 1930s, it has published The Militant as a weekly newspaper. It also maintains Pathfinder Press.
The Social Movement is a Ukrainian left-wing community organization founded in 2015, which stands on the principles of democratic socialism, opposing capitalism and xenophobia. It operates in the largest cities of Ukraine. The group is aspiring to become a grassroots political party and came to some prominence during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine when it called upon the international left to support the Ukrainian resistance to Russian imperialism and campaigned against wartime curtailing of certain labour rights by the Ukrainian government.