Thehistory of the socialist movement in the United States has encompassed various types of tendencies, includinganarchists,communists,democratic socialists,social democrats,Marxists,Marxist–Leninists,Trotskyists, andutopian socialists. These movements trace their origins back toutopian communities that took root in the early 19th century, such as theShakers, the activist visionaryJosiah Warren, andintentional communities inspired byCharles Fourier. In the 1860s, immigration fromEurope of radical labor activists, particularly of German, Jewish, and Scandinavian backgrounds, led to the establishment of theInternational Workingmen's Association in 1864 and theSocialist Labor Party of America in 1877.
During the 1870s, socialists of various tendencies actively participated in early American labor organizations and workers' demands to improve working conditions, as well as to officially recognize and practically implement the basiclabor rights. These grievances culminated in the 1886Haymarket massacre in Chicago, which resulted in the death of eleven people. One of the consequences of this tragic event was the establishment ofInternational Workers' Day, which was proclaimed as a fundamental labor holiday. Apart from that, workers' organizations and socialist parties worldwide made theestablishment of an eight-hour workday their primary objective.[1]
In 1901, multiple socialist parties merged to create theSocialist Party of America (SPA). In 1905, anarchists created theIndustrial Workers of the World. The Socialist Party of America, led by its national chairmanEugene V. Debs (who was also the SPA's candidate in theU.S. presidential elections), played a crucial role in igniting a widespread socialistopposition to World War I, which eventually led to the nationwide governmental repression collectively known as theFirst Red Scare. The Socialist Party declined in the 1920s, but the party nonetheless often ranNorman Thomas for president. In the 1930s, theCommunist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) played a significant role in the labor and racial struggles of that time, despite being severely affected by an internal split, when many of its members parted ways and, in 1938, under the leadership ofJames P. Cannon, founded the TrotskyistSocialist Workers Party (SWP). In the 1950s, socialism was affected byMcCarthyism, and in the 1960s, it was revived by the widespread radicalization brought by theNew Left and similar movements' social struggles and revolts. In the 1960s,Michael Harrington and other socialists were called to assist theKennedy administration and then theJohnson administration'swar on poverty andGreat Society,[2] while socialists also played important roles in thecivil rights movement.[3][4][5][6]
In the 1990s, interest in socialism slowly began to rise again, particularlyamong Millennials. The anarchist-associatedalter-globalization movement led numerous protests against theWorld Trade Organization. In 2011,Occupy Wall Street further spurred the growth of socialist organizations. In 2015,Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign led to an explosion of socialist organizing, with the associatedDemocratic Socialists of America reaching membership levels similar to those of the 1900s.
Unlike in Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, a major socialist party has never materialized in the United States,[7] whose socialist movement was relatively weak in comparison.[8] The legacy of slavery entrenched deep racial divisions within the American working class, in stark contrast to the more cohesive labor movements in countries without such a history. These divisions created a two-tiered labor force with differing political priorities along racial lines, ultimately undermining class solidarity. This racial stratification posed a formidable obstacle to left-wing politics, constraining support for progressive policies on taxation, social welfare, and economic equality.[9] In the United States,socialism can bestigmatized because it is commonly associated withauthoritarian socialism, theSoviet Union, and other authoritarian Marxist–Leninistregimes.[10] Writing forThe Economist, Samuel Jackson argued thatsocialism has been used as a pejorative term, without any clear definition, byconservatives andright-libertarians to taintliberal andprogressive policies, proposals, and public figures.[11] The termsocialization has been mistakenly used to refer to any state or government-operated industry or service (the proper term for such being eithermunicipalization ornationalization). The term has also been used to mean any tax-funded programs, whether privately run or government-run. The termsocialism has been used to argue againsteconomic interventionism, theFederal Deposit Insurance Corporation,Medicare, theNew Deal,Social Security, and universalsingle-payer health care, among others.[12][13]
Milwaukee has had several socialist mayors, such asEmil Seidel,Daniel Hoan, andFrank Zeidler, whilst Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs won nearly one million votes in the1920 U.S. presidential election.[14][15] Moreover, self-declared democratic socialistBernie Sanders won 13 million votes in the2016 Democratic Party presidential primary, gaining considerable popular support, particularly among the younger generation and theworking class.[16][17][18] A September 2025Gallup poll reported 39% of American adults had a positive view of socialism and 54% had a positive view ofcapitalism, down from 60% in 2021.[19] In 2025, democratic socialistZohran Mamdani defeatedindependent candidateAndrew Cuomo to win themayorality ofNew York City, the United States' most populous city.[20]
Utopian socialism was the first American socialist movement. Utopians attempted to develop model socialist societies to demonstrate the virtues of their brand of beliefs. Most utopian socialist ideas originated in Europe, but the United States was most often the site for the experiments themselves. Many utopian experiments occurred in the 19th century as part of this movement, includingBrook Farm,New Harmony, theShakers, theAmana Colonies, theOneida Community,The Icarians,Bishop Hill Commune,Aurora, Oregon, andBethel, Missouri.
Robert Owen, a wealthy Welsh industrialist, turned to social reform and socialism and in 1825 founded a communitarian colony calledNew Harmony insouthwestern Indiana. The group fell apart in 1829, mostly due to conflict between utopian ideologues and non-ideological pioneers. In 1841,transcendentalist utopians foundedBrook Farm, a community based on FrenchmanCharles Fourier's brand of socialism.Nathaniel Hawthorne was a member of this short-lived community, andRalph Waldo Emerson had declined invitations to join. The group had trouble reaching financial stability, and many members left as their leader,George Ripley, turned more and more to Fourier's doctrine. All hope for its survival was lost when the expensive, Fourier-inspired main building burnt down while under construction. The community dissolved in 1847.
Fourierists also attempted to establish a community inMonmouth County, New Jersey. TheNorth American Phalanx community constructed aPhalanstère—Fourier's concept of a communal living structure—out of two farmhouses and an addition that linked the two. The community lasted from 1844 to 1856, when a fire destroyed the community's flour and saw mills, alongside several workshops. The community had already begun to decline after an ideological schism in 1853. French socialistÉtienne Cabet, frustrated in Europe, sought to use hisIcarian movement to replace capitalist production with workers cooperatives. He became the most popular socialist advocate of his day, with a special appeal to English artisans who were being undercut by factories. In the 1840s, Cabet led groups of emigrants to found utopian communities in Texas and Illinois. However, his work was undercut by his many feuds with his own followers.[21]
Utopian socialism reached the national level fictionally inEdward Bellamy's 1888 novelLooking Backward, a utopian depiction of a socialist United States in the year 2000. The book sold millions of copies and became one of the best-selling American books of the nineteenth century. By one estimation, onlyUncle Tom's Cabin surpassed it in sales.[22] The book sparked a following of Bellamy Clubs and influenced socialist and labor leaders, includingEugene V. Debs.[23] Likewise,Upton Sinclair'sThe Jungle was first published in the socialist newspaperAppeal to Reason, criticizingcapitalism as being oppressive and exploitative to meatpacking workers in the industrialfood system. The book is still widely referred to today as one of the most influential works of literature in modern history.
Josiah Warren is widely regarded as the first Americananarchist,[24] and the four-page weekly paper he edited during 1833,The Peaceful Revolutionist, was the first anarchist periodical published.[25] Warren, a follower ofRobert Owen, joined Owen's community atNew Harmony, Indiana. He coined the phrase "Cost the limit of price," with "cost" here referring not to the monetary price paid but the labor one exerted to produce an item.[26] Therefore, "[h]e proposed a system to pay people with certificates indicating how many hours of work they did. They could exchange the notes at local time stores for goods that took the same amount of time to produce."[24] He put his theories to the test by establishing an experimental "labor for labor store" called theCincinnati Time Store where trade was facilitated by notes backed by a promise to perform labor. The store proved successful and operated for three years, after which it was closed so that Warren could pursue establishing colonies based onmutualism. These included "Utopia" and "Modern Times." Warren said thatStephen Pearl Andrews'The Science of Society, published in 1852, was the most lucid and complete exposition of Warren's own theories.[27] For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette Schuster: "It is apparent ... thatProudhonian Anarchism was to be found in the United States at least as early as 1848 and that it was not conscious of its affinity to the Individualist Anarchism ofJosiah Warren andStephen Pearl Andrews ...William B. Greene presented this Proudhonian Mutualism in its purest and most systematic form."[28]
American anarchistBenjamin Tucker wrote inIndividual Liberty:
The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of hisWealth of Nations,—namely, that labor is the true measure of price. ... Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy ... This seems to have been done independently by three different men, of three different nationalities, in three different languages:Josiah Warren, an American;Pierre J. Proudhon, a Frenchman;Karl Marx, a German Jew ... That the work of this interesting trio should have been done so nearly simultaneously would seem to indicate that Socialism was in the air, and that the time was ripe and the conditions favorable for the appearance of this new school of thought. So far as priority of time is concerned, the credit seems to belong to Warren, the American,—a fact which should be noted by thestump orators who are so fond of declaiming against Socialism as an imported article.[29]
GermanMarxist immigrants who arrived in the United States after the1848 revolutions in Europe brought socialist ideas with them.[30]Joseph Weydemeyer, a German colleague ofKarl Marx who sought refuge inNew York in 1851 following the 1848 revolutions, established the first Marxist journal in the United States,Die Revolution, but it folded after two issues. In 1852, he established theProletarierbund, which would become the American Workers' League, the first Marxist organization in the United States, but it too proved short-lived, having failed to attract a native English-speaking membership.[31] In 1866,William H. Sylvis formed theNational 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 theFirst International as Section One in the United States. By 1872, there were 22 sections, which held 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.[32]
A larger wave of German immigrants followed in the 1870s and 1880s, including social democratic followers ofFerdinand Lasalle. Lasalle regarded state aid through political action as the road to revolution and opposed trade unionism, which he saw as futile, believing that, according to theiron 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 theWorkingmen's Party of the United States in 1876. When the Lasalleans gained control in 1877, they changed the name to theSocialist Labor Party of America (SLP). However, many socialists abandoned political action altogether and moved to trade unionism. Two former socialists,Adolph Strasser andSamuel Gompers, formed theAmerican Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886.[30]
TheSocialist Labor Party (SLP) was officially founded in 1876 at a convention inNewark, New Jersey. The party was made up overwhelmingly of German immigrants, who had broughtMarxist ideals with them to North America. So strong was the heritage that the official party language was German for the first three years. In its nascent years, the party encompassed a broad range of various socialist philosophies, with differing concepts of how to achieve their goals. Nevertheless, there was amilitia—theLehr und Wehr Verein—affiliated to the party. When the SLP reorganised as a Marxist party in 1890, its philosophy solidified and its influence quickly grew and by around the start of the 20th century the SLP was the foremost American socialist party.
Bringing to light the resemblance of the American party's politics to those of Lassalle,Daniel De Leon emerged as an early leader of the Socialist Labor Party. Additionally, he also adamantly supportedunions, but criticized thecollective bargaining movement within the United States at the time, favoring a slightly different approach.[a] The resulting disagreement between De Leon's supporters and detractors within the party led to an early schism. De Leon's opponents, led byMorris Hillquit, left the Socialist Labor Party in 1901 as they fused withEugene V. Debs's Social Democratic Party and formed the Socialist Party of America.
As a leader within the socialist movement, Debs' movement quickly gained national recognition as a charismatic orator. He was often inflammatory and controversial, but also strikingly modest and inspiring. He once said: "I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else. [...] You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition." Debs lent a great and powerful air to the revolution with his speaking: "There was almost a religious fervor to the movement, as in the eloquence of Debs."[33]
The Socialist movement became coherent and energized under Debs. It included "scores of former Populists, militant miners, and blacklisted railroad workers, who were ... inspired by occasional visits from national figures like Eugene V. Debs."[34]
The first socialist to hold public office in the United States wasFred C. Haack, the owner of a shoe store inSheboygan,Wisconsin. Haack was elected to the city council in 1897 as a member of thePopulist Party, but soon became a socialist following the organization of Social Democrats in Sheboygan. He was re-elected alderman in 1898 on the Socialist ticket, along with August L. Mohr, a local baseball manager. Haack served on the city council for sixteen years, advocating for the building of schools and public ownership of utilities. He was recognized as the first socialist officeholder in the United States at the 1932 national Socialist Party convention held in Milwaukee.[35][36]
One of the first general strikes in the United States, the1877 St. Louis general strike grew out of theGreat Railroad Strike of 1877. The general strike was largely organized by theKnights of Labor and theMarxist-leaningWorkingmen's Party, the main radical political party of the era. When the railroad strike reachedEast St. Louis, Illinois in July 1877, the St. Louis Workingman's Party led a group of approximately 500 people across the river in an act of solidarity with the nearly 1,000 workers on strike.[37]
 | This articleis missing information about the split between the IWW, SP, and SLP, with the IWW rejecting political means and the SP expelling IWW members. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on thetalk page.(March 2008) |
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The Socialist Party formed strong alliances with a number of labor organizations because of their similar goals. In an attempt to rebel against the abuses of corporations, workers had found a solution—or so they thought—in a technique of collective bargaining. By banding together into "unions" and by refusing to work, or "striking", workers would halt production at a plant or in a mine, forcingmanagement to meet their demands. From Daniel De Leon's early proposal to organize unions with a socialist purpose, the two movements became closely tied. They shared as one major ideal the spirit of collectivism—both in the socialist platform and in the idea of collective bargaining.
The most prominent American unions of the time included theAmerican Federation of Labor, theKnights of Labor, and theIndustrial Workers of the World (IWW). In 1869,Uriah S. Stephens founded the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, employing secrecy and fostering a semi-religious aura to "create a sense of solidarity."[38] The Knights comprised in essence "one big union of all workers."[39] In 1886, a convention of delegates from twenty separate unions formed the American Federation of Labor, withSamuel Gompers as its head. It peaked[when?] at approximately 4 million members. In 1905, the IWW (or "Wobblies") formed along the same lines as the Knights to become one big union. The IWW found early supporters in De Leon and in Debs.
The socialist movement was able to gain strength from its ties to labor. "The [economic]panic of 1907, as well as the growing strength of the Socialists, Wobblies, and trade unions, sped up the process of reform."[40] However, corporations sought to protect their profits and took steps against unions and strikers. They hired strikebreakers and pressured government to call in the statemilitias when workers refused to do their jobs. A number of strikes collapsed into violent confrontations.
In May 1886, the Knights of Labor were demonstrating in theHaymarket Square in Chicago, demanding aneight-hour day in all trades. When police arrived, an unknown person threw a bomb into the crowd, killing one person and injuring several others. "In a trial marked by prejudice and hysteria," a court sentenced sevenanarchists, six of them German-speaking, to death—with no evidence linking them to the bomb.[41]
Strikes also took place that same month (May 1886) in other cities, including in Milwaukee,where seven people died when Wisconsin GovernorJeremiah M. Rusk ordered state militia troops to fire upon thousands of striking workers who had marched to the Milwaukee Iron Works Rolling Mill in Bay View on Milwaukee's south side.
In early 1894,a dispute broke out betweenGeorge Pullman and his employees. Debs, then leader of theAmerican Railway Union, organized a strike. United States Attorney GeneralOlney and PresidentGrover Cleveland took the matter to court and were granted several injunctions preventing railroad workers from "interfering with interstate commerce and the mails."[42] The judiciary of the time denied the legitimacy of strikers. Said one judge, "[neither] the weapon of the insurrectionist, nor the inflamed tongue of him who incites fire and sword is the instrument to bring about reforms."[42] This was the first sign of a clash between the government and socialist ideals.
In 1914, one of the most bitter labor conflicts in American history took place at a mining colony in Colorado calledLudlow. After workers went on strike in September 1913 with grievances ranging from requests for an eight-hour day to allegations of subjugation, Colorado governorElias Ammons called in theNational Guard in October 1913. That winter, Guardsmen made 172 arrests.[b][43]
The strikers began to fight back, killing four mine guards and firing into a separate camp where strikebreakers lived. When the body of a strikebreaker was found nearby, the National Guard's GeneralChase ordered the tent colony destroyed in retaliation.[43]
"On Monday morning, April 20, two dynamite bombs were exploded, in the hills above Ludlow ... a signal for operations to begin. At 9 am a machine gun began firing into the tents [where strikers were living], and then others joined,"[43] one eyewitness reported as "[t]he soldiers and mine guards tried to kill everybody; anything they saw move."[43] That night, the National Guard rode down from the hills surrounding Ludlow and set fire to the tents. Twenty-six people, including two women and eleven children, were killed.[44]
Union members now feared to strike. The military, which saw strikers as dangerous insurgents, intimidated and threatened them. These attitudes were compounded by a public backlash against anarchists and radicals. As public opinion of strikes and of unions soured, the socialists often appeared guilty by association. They were lumped together with strikers and anarchists under a blanket of public distrust.
The American anarchistBenjamin Tucker (1844–1938) focused on economics, advocating "Anarchistic-Socialism"[45] and adhering to themutualist economics ofPierre-Joseph Proudhon andJosiah Warren while publishing his eclectic influential publicationLiberty.Lysander Spooner (1808–1887), besides his individualist anarchist activism, was also an importantanti-slavery activist and became a member of theFirst International.[46] Two individualist anarchists who wrote in Benjamin Tucker'sLiberty were also important labor organizers of the time.Joseph Labadie was an American labor organizer,individualist anarchist, social activist, printer, publisher, essayist and poet. Without the oppression of the state, Labadie believed, humans would choose to harmonize with "the great natural laws ... without robbing [their] fellows through interest, profit, rent and taxes." However, he supported community cooperation as he supported community control of water utilities, streets and railroads.[47] Although he did not support the militant anarchism of theHaymarket anarchists, he fought for clemency for the accused because he did not believe they were the perpetrators. In 1888, Labadie organized the Michigan Federation of Labor, became its first president and forged an alliance withSamuel Gompers.[47]Dyer Lum was a 19th-century Americanindividualist anarchistlabor activist and poet.[48] A leadinganarcho-syndicalist and a prominentleft-wingintellectual of the 1880s,[49] he is remembered as the lover and mentor of earlyanarcha-feministVoltairine de Cleyre.[50] Lum wrote prolifically, producing a number of key anarchist texts and contributed to several publications, includingMother Earth,Twentieth Century,Liberty (Tucker'sindividualist anarchist journal),The Alarm (the journal of theInternational Working People's Association), andThe Open Court, among others. He developed a "mutualist" theory of unions and as such was active within theKnights of Labor and later promotedanti-political strategies in theAmerican Federation of Labor. Frustration withabolitionism,spiritualism, and labor reform caused Lum to embrace anarchism and to radicalize workers, as he came to believe thatrevolution would inevitably involve a violent struggle between theworking class and the employing class.[50] Convinced of the necessity of violence to enact social change, he volunteered to fight in theAmerican Civil War of 1861–1865, hoping thereby to bring about the end ofslavery.[50]
By the 1880s,anarcho-communism had reached the United States as can be seen in the publication of the journalFreedom: A Revolutionary Anarchist-Communist Monthly byLucy Parsons and Lizzy Holmes.[51] Parsons debated in her time in the United States with fellow anarcha-communistEmma Goldman over issues offree love and feminism.[51] Another anarcho-communist journal,The Firebrand, later appeared in the United States. Most anarchist publications in the United States were in Yiddish, German, or Russian, butFree Society was published in English, permitting the dissemination of anarchist communist thought to English-speaking populations in the United States.[52] Around that time,[when?] these American anarcho-communist sectors entered into debate with the individualist anarchist faction led by Tucker.[53] Furthermore, in February 1888, Berkman left his native Russia for the United States.[54] Soon after his arrival in New York City, Berkman became an anarchist through his involvement with groups that had formed to campaign to free the men convicted of the 1886Haymarket bombing.[55] Berkman and Goldman soon came under the influence ofJohann Most, the best-known anarchist in the United States and an advocate ofpropaganda of the deed—attentat, or violence carried out to encourage the masses to revolt.[56][57][58] Berkman became a typesetter for Most's newspaperFreiheit.[55]
Victor L. Berger ran for Congress and lost in1904 before winningWisconsin's 5th congressional district seat in1910 as the first Socialist to serve inCongress. In Congress, he focused on issues related to theDistrict of Columbia and also more radical proposals, including eliminating the president'sveto, abolishing theSenate,[59] and thesocialization of major industries. Berger gained national publicity for his old-age pension bill, the first of its kind introduced into Congress. Less than two weeks after theTitanic passenger ship disaster of 1912, Berger introduced a bill in Congress providing for the nationalization of radio-wireless systems. A practical socialist, Berger argued that the wireless chaos which occurred during theTitanic disaster had demonstrated the need for a government-owned wireless system.[60] Outside of Congress, socialists were able to influence a number of progressive reforms (both directly and indirectly) on a local level.[61]
Socialists faced overwhelming public and political opposition when they voiced their opposition to America's entry intoWorld War I (1914–1918), and they even attempted to interfere with the conscription laws that required all younger men to register for the draft. On April 7, 1917, the day after theUnited States declared war on the German Empire, an emergency convention of the Socialist Party took place in St. Louis. It declared the war "a crime against the people of the United States"[62] and began holding anti-war rallies. Socialist anti-draft demonstrations drew as many as 20,000 people.[63] In June 1917, PresidentWoodrow Wilson signed into law theEspionage Act,[64] which included a clause providing prison sentences for up to twenty years for "[w]hoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty ... or willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment of service of the United States."[63] With their talk of draft-dodging and war-opposition, the socialists found themselves the target of federal prosecutors as scores were convicted and jailed.Archibald E. Stevenson, a New York attorney with ties to the Justice Department, probably as a "volunteer spy,"[65] testified on January 22, 1919, during the German phase of the subcommittee's work. He established that anti-war and anti-draft activism during World War I, which he described as "pro-German" activity, had now transformed itself into propaganda, "developing sympathy for the Bolshevik movement."[66] The United States' wartime enemy, though defeated, had exported an ideology that now ruled Russia and threatened the United States anew: "The Bolsheviki movement is a branch of the revolutionary socialism of Germany. It had its origin in the philosophy of Marx and its leaders were Germans."[67]
After visiting three communists imprisoned in Canton, Ohio, Eugene V. Debs crossed the street and made a two-hour speech to a crowd in which he condemned the war. "Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. [...] The master class has always declared war, and the subject class has always fought the battles," Debs told the crowd.[68] He was immediately arrested and soon convicted under the Espionage Act. During his trial, he did not take the stand, nor call a witness in his defense. However, before the trial began and after his sentencing, he made speeches to the jury: "I have been accused of obstructing the war. I admit it. Gentlemen, I abhor war. [...] I have sympathy with the suffering, struggling people everywhere ...." He also uttered what would become his most famous words: "While there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison and served 32 months until President Warren G. Harding pardoned him.
During the war, about half the socialists supported the war, most famouslyWalter Lippmann. The other half were under attack for obstructing the draft and the Courts held they went beyond the bounds of free speech when they encouraged young men to break the law and not register for the draft. Howard Zinn, historian on the left, says: "The patriotic fervor of war [was] invoked. The courts and jails [were] used to reinforce the idea that certain ideas, certain kinds of resistance, could not be tolerated."[69] The government crackdown on dissenting radicalism paralleled public outrage towards opponents of the war. Several groups were formed on the local and national levels to stop the socialists from undermining the draft laws. TheAmerican Vigilante Patrol, a subdivision of theAmerican Defense Society, was formed with the purpose "to put an end to seditious street oratory."[70] TheAmerican Protective League was a new private group that kept track of cases of "disloyalty." It eventually claimed it had found 3,000,000 such cases:[70] "Even if these figures are exaggerated, the very size and scope of the League gives a clue to the amount of 'disloyalty'."[70]
The press was also instrumental in spreading feelings of hatred against dissenters:
In April of 1917, theNew York Times quoted (formerSecretary of War)Elihu Root as saying: 'We must have no criticism now.' A few months later it quoted him again that 'there are men walking about the streets of this city tonight who ought to be taken out at sunrise tomorrow and shot for treason'. [...] The MinneapolisJournal carried an appeal by the [Minnesota Commission of Public Safety] 'for all patriots to join in the suppression of anti-draft and seditious acts and sentiment'.[70]
Meanwhile, corporations pressured the government to deal with strikes and other disruptions from disgruntled workers. The government felt especially pressured to keep war-related industries running: "As worker discontent and strikes [...] intensified in the summer of 1917, demands grew for prompt federal action. [...] The anti-labor forces concentrated their venom on the IWW."[71] Soon, "the halls of Congress rang with denunciations of the IWW" and the government sided with industry as "federal attorneys viewed strikes not as the behavior of discontented workers but as the outcome of subversive and even German influences."[71]
On September 5, 1917, at the request of President Wilson the Justice Department conducted a raid on the IWW. They stormed every one of the 48 IWW headquarters in the country as "[b]y month's end, a federal grand jury had indicted nearly two hundred IWW leaders on charges of sedition and espionage" under the Espionage Act.[72] Their sentences ranged from a few months to ten years in prison. An ally of the Socialist Party had been practically destroyed. However, Wilson did recognize a problem with the state of labor in the United States. In 1918, working closely withSamuel Gompers of the AFL, he created theNational War Labor Board in an attempt to reform labor practices. The Board included an equal number of members from labor and business and included leaders of the AFL. The War Labor Board was able to "institute the eight-hour day in many industries, [...] to raise wages for transit workers [...] [and] to demand equal pay for women [...]."[73] It also required employers to bargain collectively, effectively making unions legal.
On January 21, 1919, 35,000 shipyard workers inSeattle went on strike seeking wage increases. They appealed to the Seattle Central Labor Council for support from other unions and found widespread enthusiasm. Within two weeks, more than 100 local unions joined in a call on February 3 for general strike to begin on the morning of February 6.[74] The 60,000 total strikers paralyzed the city's normal activities, like streetcar service, schools and ordinary commerce while their General Strike Committee maintained order and provided essential services, like trash collection and milk deliveries.[75] The national press called the general strike "Marxian" and "a revolutionary movement aimed at existing government."[76] "It is only a middling step," said theChicago Tribune, "from Petrograd to Seattle."[76] Though the leadership of theAmerican Federation of Labor (AFL) opposed a strike in the steel industry, 98% of their union members voted tostrike beginning on September 22, 1919. It shut down half the steel industry, including almost all mills inPueblo, Colorado;Chicago, Illinois;Wheeling, West Virginia;Johnstown, Pennsylvania;Cleveland, Ohio;Lackawanna, New York; andYoungstown, Ohio.[77] After strikebreakers and police clashed with unionists inGary, Indiana, theUnited States Army took over the city on October 6 andmartial law was declared. National guardsmen, leaving Gary after federal troops had taken over, turned their anger on strikers in nearbyIndiana Harbor, Indiana.[78]
Internal strife caused a schism in theAmerican Left afterVladimir Lenin's successful revolution in Russia. Lenin invited the Socialist Party to join the Third International. The debate over whether to align with Lenin caused a major rift in the party. A referendum to join Lenin's Comintern passed with 90% approval, but the moderates who were in charge of the party expelled the extreme leftists before this could take place. The expelled members formed theCommunist Labor Party and theCommunist Party of America. The Socialist Party ended up, with only moderates left, at one third of its original size.[79]John Reed,Benjamin Gitlow and other socialists were among those who formed theCommunist Labor Party while socialist foreign sections led byCharles Ruthenberg formed the Communist Party. These two groups would be combined as theCommunist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA).[80] The Communists organized theTrade Union Unity League to compete with the AFL. By August 1919, only months after its founding, the Communist Party USA claimed 50,000 to 60,000 members.[81] Members also includedanarchists and otherradical leftists. In contrast, the more moderate Socialist Party of America had 40,000 members. The sections of the Communist Party'sInternational Workers Order meanwhile organized for communism along linguistic and ethnic lines, providingmutual aid and tailored cultural activities to an IWO membership that peaked at 200,000 at its height.[82] (In 1928, following divisions inside the Soviet Union,Jay Lovestone, who had replaced Ruthenberg as general secretary of the CPUSA following his death, joined withWilliam Z. Foster to expel Foster's former allies,James P. Cannon andMax Shachtman, who were followers ofLeon Trotsky. Following another Soviet factional dispute, Lovestone and Gitlow were expelled andEarl Browder became party leader.[83])
On January 7, 1920, at the first session of theNew York State Assembly, Assembly SpeakerThaddeus C. Sweet attacked the Assembly's five Socialist members, declaring they had been "elected on a platform that is absolutely inimical to the best interests of the state of New York and the United States." The Socialist Party, Sweet said, was "not truly a political party," but was rather "a membership organization admitting within its ranks aliens, enemy aliens, and minors." It had supported the revolutionaries inGermany, Austria andHungary, he continued; and consorted with international Socialist parties close to theCommunist International.[84] The Assembly suspended the five by a vote of 140 to 6, with just one Democrat supporting the Socialists. A trial in the Assembly, lasting from January 20 to March 11, resulted in a recommendation that the five be expelled and the Assemblyvoted overwhelmingly for expulsion on April 1, 1920.
The five party members had been deeply involved with supporting the1918–1920 New York City rent strikes. Running on a campaign during the lead up of the November 1919 elections, that promised to fight for a several distinct tenant rights. They also before that became involved directly as a supporting role through organizing, after the strikes had already begun.[85] The rent strikes themselves, led to the passage of the first ever rent control laws in the nation.[85][86][87]
Later in 1920,Anarchists bombed Wall Street and sent a number of mail-bombs to prominent businessmen and government leaders. The public lumped together the entire far left as terrorists. A wave of fear swept the country, giving support for the Justice Department to deport thousands of non-citizens active in the far-left.Emma Goldman was the most famous. This was known as thefirst Red Scare or the "Palmer Raids".[88]
Attorney GeneralA. Mitchell Palmer, a Wilsonian Democrat, had a bomb explode outside his house. He set out to stop the "Communist conspiracy" that he believed was operating inside the United States. He created inside the Justice Department a new division theGeneral Intelligence Division, led by youngJ. Edgar Hoover. Hoover soon amassed a card-catalogue system with information on 60,000 "radically inclined" individuals and many leftist groups and publications.[89] Palmer and Hoover both published press releases and circulated anti-Communist propaganda. Then on January 2, 1920, the Palmer Raids began, with Hoover in charge. On that single day in 1920, Hoover's agents rounded up 6,000 people. Many were deported but the Labor Department ended the raids with a ruling that the incarcerations and deportations were illegal.[90]
"Socialism" gradually came to be an American conservative attack-word aimed at merely liberal policies and politicians.[91] Since the late 19th century, conservatives had used the term "socialism" (or "creeping socialism") as a means of dismissing spending on public welfare programs which could potentially enlarge the role of the federal government, or lead to higher tax rates. This use of the word had little to do with government ownership of any means of production, or the various socialist parties, as whenWilliam Allen White attacked presidential candidateWilliam Jennings Bryan in 1896 by warning that "[t]he election will sustain Americanism or it will plant Socialism."[92][93]Barry Goldwater in 1960 called for Republican unity againstJohn F. Kennedy and the "blueprint for socialism presented by the Democrats."[94]
When the 1920s began, "the IWW was destroyed, the Socialist party falling apart. The strikes were beaten down by force, and the economy was doing just well enough for just enough people to prevent mass rebellion."[95] Thus, the decline of the socialist movement during the early 20th century was the result of a number of constrictions and attacks from several directions. The socialists had lost a major ally in the IWW Wobblies and their free speech had been restricted, if not denied. Immigrants, a major base of the socialist movement, were discriminated against and looked down upon. Eugene V. Debs—the charismatic leader of the socialists—was in prison, along with hundreds of fellow dissenters. Wilson's National War Labor Board and a number of legislative acts had ameliorated the plight of the workers.[96] The socialists were regarded as being "unnecessary", the "lunatic fringe" and a group of untrustworthy radicals. The press, courts and other establishment structures exhibited prejudice against them. After crippling schisms within the party and a change in public opinion due to the Palmer Raids, a general negative perception of the far-left and attribution to it of terrorist incidents such as theWall Street Bombing, the Socialist Party found itself unable to gather popular support. At one time, it boasted 33 city mayors, many seats in state legislatures and two members of the House of Representatives.[97] The Socialist Party reached its peak in1912 when Debs won 6% of the popular vote.[98]
HistorianEric Foner described the fundamental problem of those years in a 1984 article for theHistory Workshop Journal:
Where was the Socialist party at McKee's Rocks, Lawrence or the great steel strike of 1919? The Industrial Workers of the World demonstrated that it was possible to organize the new immigrant proletariat, but despite sympathy for the IWW on the part of Debs and other left-wing socialists, the two organizations went their separate ways. Here, indeed, was the underlying tragedy of those years: the militancy expressed in the IWW was never channeled for political purposes while socialist politics ignored the immigrant workers.[99]
However, despite this decline, a focus on specific local examples shows that within certain communities the socialist trends seen on a national scale continued to influence local socialist movements even after the decline of the mainstream Socialist Party. In specific parts of the United States, such as Ybor City, Tampa, immigrant populations played significant roles in helping translate national socialist efforts into local action. Fuelled by a rising and often radical Latin American immigrant population emerging in the early 1900s, Florida saw major socialist developments both politically for the Socialist Party with their successes in the 1904, 1908 and 1921 national elections and industrially through strike action such as the primarily Latin led February 1919 cigar factory strike inYbor City,Tampa.[100]
Within Ybor City specifically, supported mainly by the predominantly immigrant workforce, radical socialist ideas spread rapidly, with these ideas continuing late into the 1920s and early 1930s, even after the mainstream decline of socialism in the United States.[101] Within cigar factories the often-illiterate workforce would be educated by a 'lector'- a paid spokesperson who recited anarchist, communist and fictional material to workers.[101]Peter Kropotkin was a particular favourite of workers in Ybor City with his ideas of mutual aid inspiring community led projects and mutual aid societies.[102] These were almost always led by immigrant communities, such as Tampa's significant Cuban, Spanish and Italian populations.[102] Women played major roles in these socialist projects, with a variety of women, predominantly Latin American, Italian, and Spanish migrants expressing various degrees of leadership and taking up roles including teaching, volunteering and political organising.[103][104]
The ideological rigidity of theThird Period (fromc. 1928) began to crack with two events: the election ofFranklin D. Roosevelt as President of the United States in 1932 andAdolf Hitler's rise to power inNazi Germany in 1933. Roosevelt's election and the passage of theNational Industrial Recovery Act in 1933 sparked a tremendous upsurge in union organizing in 1933 and 1934. Many conservatives equated theNew Deal withsocialism or withCommunism as practiced in the Soviet Union and saw its policies as evidence that the government had been heavily influenced by Communist policy-makers in the Roosevelt administration.[105]Marxian economistRichard D. Wolff argues that socialist and communist parties, along with organized labor, played a collective role in pushing through New-Deal legislation, and that conservative opponents of the New Deal coordinated an effort to single out and destroy them as a result.[106] TheUnited States Progressive Party of 1948 was aleft-wingpolitical party that served as a vehicle for former Vice PresidentHenry A. Wallace's 1948 presidential campaign. The party sought desegregation, the establishment of a national health insurance system, an expansion of the welfare system, and the nationalization of the energy industry. The party also sought conciliation with theSoviet Union during the early stages of theCold War. Accusations ofCommunist influences and Wallace's association with controversial Theosophist figureNicholas Roerich undermined his campaign, and he received just 2.4 percent of the nationwide popular vote.
TheSeventh Congress of the Comintern made a change in line official in 1935, when it declared the need for apopular front of all groups opposed tofascism. The CPUSA abandoned its opposition to the New Deal, provided many of the organizers for theCongress of Industrial Organizations and began supporting civil rights of African Americans. The party also sought unity with forces to its right.Earl Russell Browder offered to run asNorman Thomas'running mate on a joint Socialist Party–Communist Party ticket in the1936 presidential election, but Thomas rejected this overture. The gesture did not mean that much in practical terms, since by 1936 the CPUSA was effectively supporting Roosevelt in much of his trade-union work. While continuing to run its own candidates for office, the CPUSA pursued a policy of representing theDemocratic Party as the lesser evil in elections. Party members also rallied to the defense of theSpanish Republic of 1931-1939 during this period after a Nationalist military uprising moved to overthrow it, resulting in theSpanish Civil War (1936–1939). The CPUSA, along with leftists throughout the world, raised funds for medical relief, while many of its members made their way to Spain with the aid of the party to join theLincoln Brigade, one of theInternational Brigades. Among its other achievements, the Lincoln Brigade became the first American military force to include blacks and whites integrated on an equal basis.
Intellectually, the Popular-Front period saw the development of a strong communist influence in intellectual and artistic life. This often took place through various organizations influenced or controlled by the party, or—as they were pejoratively known—"fronts". The CPUSA under Browder supportedStalin'sshow trials in the Soviet Union, called theMoscow Trials.[107] Therein, between August 1936 and mid-1938, the Soviet government indicted, tried and shot virtually all of the remainingOld Bolsheviks.[107] Beyond the show trials lay a broader purge, theGreat Purge, that killed millions.[107][need quotation to verify] Browder uncritically supported Stalin, likeningTrotskyism to "cholera germs" and calling the purge "a signal service to the cause of progressive humanity."[108] He compared the show-trial defendants to domestic traitors (Benedict Arnold,Aaron Burr, disloyalWar of 1812Federalists andConfederate secessionists) while likening persons who "smeared" Stalin's name to those who had slanderedAbraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.[108]
For the first half of the 20th century, the Communist Party was a highly influential force in various struggles for democratic rights. Itplayed a prominent role in the United States labor-movement from the 1920s through the 1940s, having a major hand inmobilizing the unemployed during the worst of theGreat Depression[109][110] in the early 1930s and founding most[quantify] of the country's firstindustrial unions (which would later use the 1950McCarran Internal Security Act to expel their Communist members) while also becoming known foropposing racism and fighting for integration in workplaces and communities during the height of theJim Crow period ofracial segregation. HistorianEllen Schrecker concludes that decades of recent scholarship[111] offer "a more nuanced portrayal of the party as both aStalinist sect tied to a vicious regime and the most dynamic organization within the American Left during the 1930s and '40s."[112] TheCommunist Party USA played a significant role in defending the rights of African Americans during its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. Throughout its history, many of the party's leaders and political thinkers have been African Americans:James Ford,Charlene Mitchell,Angela Davis, andJarvis Tyner (the current executive vice chair of the party) all ran as presidential or vice-presidential candidates on the party ticket. Others likeBenjamin J. Davis,William L. Patterson,Harry Haywood, James Jackson,Henry Winston,Claude Lightfoot,Alphaeus Hunton, Doxey Wilkerson,Claudia Jones and John Pittman also contributed in important ways to the party's approaches to major issues from human and civil rights, peace, women's equality, the national question, working-class unity, socialist thought,cultural struggle and more. African-American thinkers, artists and writers such asClaude McKay,Richard Wright,Ann Petry,W. E. B. Du Bois,Shirley Graham Du Bois,Lloyd Brown,Charles White,Elizabeth Catlett,Paul Robeson,Gwendolyn Brooks and many more were one-time members or supporters of the party and the Communists also had a close alliance with Harlem CongressmanAdam Clayton Powell Jr.[113] A rivalry emerged in 1931 between the NAACP and the CPUSA, when the CPUSA responded quickly and effectively to support theScottsboro Boys, nine African-American youth arrested in 1931 in Alabama for rape.[114] Du Bois and the NAACP felt that the case would not be beneficial to their cause, so they chose to let the CPUSAorganize the defense efforts.[115]
In 1929 ReverendA. J. Muste attempted to organize radical unionists opposed to the passive policies ofAmerican Federation of Labor presidentWilliam Green (in office: 1924–1952) under the banner of an organization called theConference for Progressive Labor Action (CPLA).[116] In 1933 Muste's CPLA took the step of establishing itself as the core of a new political organization called theAmerican Workers Party (AWP).[117] Contemporaries informally referred to this organization as "Musteite".[117] The AWP then merged with the TrotskyistCommunist League of America in 1934 to establish a group called theWorkers Party of the United States. Through it all Muste continued to work as a labor activist, leading the victorious ToledoAuto-Lite strike of 1934.[117] Throughout 1935 the Workers Party remained deeply divided over the "entryism" tactic called for by the "French Turn", and a bitter debate swept the organization. Ultimately, the majority faction ofJim Cannon,Max Shachtman andJames Burnham won the day and the Workers Party determined to enter theSocialist Party of America (SPA), though a minority faction headed byHugo Oehler refused to accept this result and split from the organization. The Trotskyists retained a common orientation with the radicalized SPA in their opposition to the European war,[which?] their preference forindustrial unionism and theCongress of Industrial Organizations over the trade unionism of the AFL, a commitment to trade union activism, the defense of the Soviet Union as the first workers' state; while at the same time maintaining an antipathy toward the Stalin government and in their general aims in the 1936 election.[118] TheCommunist Party of the USA (Opposition) was aright oppositionist movement of the 1930s. The organization emerged from a factional fight in the CPUSA in 1929 and unsuccessfully sought to reintegrate with that organization for several years[119]
Norman Thomas attracted nearly 188,000 votes in his 1936 Socialist Party run for president, but performed poorly in historic strongholds of the party. Moreover, the Socialist Party of America's membership had begun to decline.[120] The organization was deeply factionalized, with the Militant faction split into right ("Altmanite"), center ("Clarity") and left ("Appeal") factions, in addition to the radical pacifists led by Thomas. A special convention was planned for the last week of March 1937 to set the party's future policy, initially intended as an unprecedented "secret" gathering.[121]
They fear, in a word, that Soviet America will become the counterpart of what they have been told Soviet Russia looks like. Actually American soviets will be as different from the Russian soviets as the United States of President Roosevelt differs from the Russian Empire of Czar Nicholas II. Yet communism can come in America only through revolution, just as independence and democracy came in America.
Constance Myers indicates that three factors led to the expulsion of the Trotskyists from the Socialist Party in 1937: the divergence between the official Socialists and the Trotskyist faction on the issues, the determination ofJack Altman's wing of the Militants to oust the Trotskyists and Trotsky's own decision to move towards a break with the party.[123] Recognizing that the Clarity faction had chosen to stand with the Altmanites and the Thomas group, Trotsky recommended that the Appeal group focus on disagreements over Spain to provoke a split. At the same time, Thomas, freshly returned from Spain, had come to the conclusion that the Trotskyists had joined the Socialist Party not to make it stronger, but to capture the organization for their own purposes.[124] The 1,000 or so Trotskyists who had entered the Socialist Party in 1936 exited in the summer of 1937 with their ranks swelled by another 1,000.[125]On December 31, 1937, representatives of this faction gathered in Chicago to establish a new political organization—theSocialist Workers Party (SWP).
The1948 United States presidential election was the last election where aSocialist named party presidential candidate received over 100,000 votes as of 2024.
Monthly Review, established in 1949, is an independentsocialistjournal published monthly inNew York City. As of 2013, the publication remains the longest continuously published socialist magazine in the United States. It was established byChristian socialistF. O. "Matty" Matthiessen andMarxisteconomistPaul Sweezy, who were former colleagues atHarvard University.[126] The world-famous physicist and resident in the United StatesAlbert Einstein published a famous article in the first issue ofMonthly Review (May 1949) arguing for socialism titled "Why Socialism?". It was subsequently published in May 1998 to commemorate the first issue ofMonthly Review's fiftieth year.[127] Editors Huberman and Sweezy argued as early as 1952 that massive and expanding military spending was an integral part of the process of capitalist stabilization, driving corporate profits, bolstering levels of employment and absorbing surplus production. The illusion of an external military threat was required to sustain this system of priorities in government spending, they argued; consequently, the editors published material challenging the dominant Cold War paradigm of "Democracy versus Communism".[128] TheJohnson–Forest tendency, sometimes called the Johnsonites, refers to a radical left tendency in the United States associated with Marxist theoristsC. L. R. James andRaya Dunayevskaya, who used the pseudonyms J. R. Johnson and Freddie Forest respectively. They were joined byGrace Lee Boggs, a Chinese American woman who was considered the third founder. After leaving the TrotskyistSocialist Workers Party, Johnson–Forest founded their own organization for the first time, called Correspondence. In 1956, James would see theHungarian Revolution of 1956 as confirmation of this. Those who endorsed the politics of James took the nameFacing Reality, after the 1958 book by James co-written with Grace Lee Boggs and Pierre Chaulieu, a pseudonym forCornelius Castoriadis, on the Hungarian working class revolt of 1956.
Anarchism continued to influence important American literary and intellectual personalities of the time, such asPaul Goodman,Dwight Macdonald,Allen Ginsberg,Leopold Kohr,[129][130]Julian Beck andJohn Cage.[131] Goodman was an Americansociologist, poet, writer, anarchist andpublic intellectual. Goodman is now mainly remembered as the author ofGrowing Up Absurd (1960) and an activist on thepacifist left in the 1960s and an inspiration to that era's student movement. He is less remembered as a co-founder ofGestalt Therapy in the 1940s and 1950s. In the mid-1940s, together withC. Wright Mills, he contributed toPolitics, the journal edited during the 1940s by Dwight Macdonald.[132] An Americananarcho-pacifist current developed in this period as well as a relatedChristian anarchist one. Anarcho-pacifism is a tendency within the anarchist movement which rejects the use of violence in the struggle for social change.[133][134] The main early influences were the thought ofHenry David Thoreau[134] andLeo Tolstoy while later the ideas ofMohandas Gandhi gained importance.[133][134] It developed "mostly in Holland, Britain, and the United States, before and during the Second World War."[135]Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devoutCatholic convert who advocated the Catholic economic theory ofdistributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist[136][137][138] and did not hesitate to use the term.[139] In the 1930s, Day worked closely with fellow activistPeter Maurin to establish theCatholic Worker Movement, a nonviolent, pacifist movement that continues to combine direct aid for the poor and homeless withnonviolent direct action on their behalf. The cause for Day'scanonization is open in theCatholic Church.Ammon Hennacy was an American pacifist, Christian anarchist,vegetarian, social activist, member of the Catholic Worker Movement and aWobbly. He established theJoe Hill House of Hospitality inSalt Lake City, Utah and practiced tax resistance.
Reunification with theSocial Democratic Federation (SDF) was long a goal of Norman Thomas and his associates remaining in the Socialist Party. As early as 1938, Thomas had acknowledged that a number of issues had been involved in the split which led to the formation of the rival SDF, including "organizational policy, the effort to make the party inclusive of all socialist elements not bound by communist discipline; a feeling of dissatisfaction with social democratic tactics which had failed in Germany" as well as "the socialist estimate of Russia; and the possibility of cooperation with communists on certain specific matters." Still, he held that "those of us who believe that an inclusive socialist party is desirable, and ought to be possible, hope that the growing friendliness of socialist groups will bring about not only joint action but ultimately a satisfactory reunion on the basis of sufficient agreement for harmonious support of a socialist program."[140] Following directions from the Soviet Union, theCommunist Party USA (CPUSA) and its members were active in theCivil Rights Movement for African Americans.[141] Following Stalin's "theory of nationalism", the CPUSA once favored the creation of a separate "nation" for negroes to be located in the American Southeast.[142] In 1941, after Germany invaded theSoviet Union, Stalin ordered the CPUSA to abandon civil rights work and focus supporting American entry intoWorld War II. Disillusioned,Bayard Rustin began working with members of theSocialist Party USA (SPUSA) ofNorman Thomas, particularlyA. Philip Randolph, the head of theBrotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. The Socialist Party and the SDF merged to form the Socialist Party–Social Democratic Federation (SP–SDF) in 1957. A small group of holdouts refused to reunify, establishing a new organization called theDemocratic Socialist Federation (DSF). When the Soviet Union led an invasion of Hungary in 1956, half of the members of communist parties around the world quit and in the United States half did and many joined the Socialist Party.Frank Zeidler was an American socialist politician and mayor ofMilwaukee, Wisconsin, serving three terms from April 20, 1948, to April 18, 1960. He was the most recent socialist mayor of any major American city. Zeidler was Milwaukee's third socialist mayor afterEmil Seidel (1910–1912) andDaniel Hoan (1916–1940), making Milwaukee the largest American city to elect three socialists to its highest office.
In 1958, the SPUSA welcomed former members of theIndependent Socialist League (ISL), which before its 1956 dissolution had been led byMax Shachtman. Shachtman had developed aMarxist critique ofSoviet 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 dissidentMilovan Djilas. Shachtman's ISL had attracted youth likeIrving Howe,Michael Harrington,[143]Tom Kahn and Rachelle Horowitz.[144][145][146] TheYoung People's Socialist League was dissolved, but the party formed a new youth group under the same name.[147]
The Second Red Scare is a period lasting roughly from 1950 to 1956 and characterized by heightened fears of Communist influence on American institutions andespionage bySoviet agents. During the McCarthy era, thousands of Americans were accused of being communists or Communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. The primary targets of such suspicions were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators andunion activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment and/or destruction of their careers; and some even suffered imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned,[148] laws that would be declared unconstitutional,[149] dismissals for reasons later declared illegal[150] oractionable,[151] or extra-legal procedures that would come into general disrepute. The most famous examples of McCarthyism include the speeches, investigations and hearings of Senator McCarthy himself; theHollywood blacklist, associated with hearings conducted by theHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC); and the various anti-communist activities of theFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under DirectorJ. Edgar Hoover. It is difficult to estimate the number of victims of McCarthyism. The number imprisoned is in the hundreds and some ten or twelve thousand lost their jobs.[152] In many cases, simply being subpoenaed by HUAC or one of the other committees was sufficient cause to be fired.[153] Many of those who were imprisoned, lost their jobs or were questioned by committees did in fact have a past or present connection of some kind with the CPUSA. However, for the vast majority both the potential for them to do harm to the nation and the nature of their communist affiliation were tenuous.[154] The African American intellectual and activistW. E. B. Du Bois was affected by these policies and he became incensed in 1961 when theSupreme Court upheld the 1950McCarran Act, a key piece of McCarthyism legislation which required communists to register with the government.[155] To demonstrate his outrage, he joined the CPUSA in October 1961 at the age of 93.[155] Around that time, he wrote: "I believe in communism. I mean by communism, a planned way of life in the production of wealth and work designed for building a state whose object is the highest welfare of its people and not merely the profit of a part."[156] In 1950, Du Bois had alreadyrun for senator from New York on the socialistAmerican Labor Party ticket and received about 200,000 votes, or 4% of the statewide total.[157]
Harry Hay was an English-born American labor advocate, teacher and early leader in the AmericanLGBT rights movement. He is known for his roles in helping to found several gay organizations, including theMattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States which in its early days had a strong Marxist influence. TheEncyclopedia of Homosexuality reports: "As Marxists the founders of the group believed that the injustice and oppression which they suffered stemmed from relationships deeply embedded in the structure of American society."[158] A longtime member of the CPUSA, Hay's Marxist history led to his resignation from the Mattachine leadership in 1953. Hay's involvement in the gay movement became more informal after that, although he did co-found the Los Angeles chapter of theGay Liberation Front in 1969. As Hay became more involved in his Mattachine work, he correspondingly became more concerned that his homosexuality would negatively affect the CPUSA, which did not allow gays to be members. Hay himself approached party leaders and recommended his own expulsion. The party refused to expel Hay as a homosexual, instead expelling him as a "security risk" at the same time declaring him to be a "Lifelong Friend of the People".[159] Homosexuality was classified as a psychiatric disorder in the 1950s.[160] However, in the context of the highly politicised Cold War environment homosexuality became framed as a dangerous, contagious social disease that posed a potential threat to state security.[160] This era also witnessed the establishment of widely spread FBI surveillance intended to identify homosexual government employees.[161]
The term New Left was popularised in the United States in an open letter written in 1960 bysociologistC. Wright Mills (1916–1962), entitledLetter to the New Left.[162] Mills argued for a newleftist ideology, moving away from the traditional focus on labor issues (Old Left), towards issues such as opposingalienation,anomie andauthoritarianism. Mills argued for a shift from traditional leftism toward the values of thecounterculture and emphasized an international perspective on the movement.[163] According to David Burner, C Wright Mills claimed that the proletariat were no longer the revolutionary force as the new agent of revolutionary change were young intellectuals around the world.[164]
In the wake of the downfall of Senator McCarthy (who never served in the House, nor HUAC), the prestige of HUAC began a gradual decline beginning in the late 1950s. By 1959, the committee was being denounced by former PresidentHarry S. Truman as the "most un-American thing in the country today."[165] The committee lost considerable prestige as the 1960s progressed, increasingly becoming the target of political satirists and the defiance of a new generation of political activists. HUAC subpoenaedJerry Rubin andAbbie Hoffman of theYippies in 1967 and again in the aftermath of the1968 Democratic National Convention. The Yippies used the media attention to make a mockery of the proceedings. Rubin came to one session dressed as a United States Revolutionary War soldier and passed out copies of theUnited States Declaration of Independence to people in attendance. Rubin then "blew giant gum bubbles while his co-witnesses taunted the committee withNazi salutes."[166]
TheProgressive Labor Party (PLP) was formed in the fall of 1961 by members of the CPUSA who felt that theSoviet Union had betrayed communism and becomerevisionist amidst theSino-Soviet Split. Progressive Labor Party founded theuniversity campus-based May 2 Movement (M2M), which organized the first significant general march against theVietnam War inNew York City in 1964. However, once theStudents for a Democratic Society (SDS) came to the forefront of the American leftist activist political scene in 1965, PLP dissolved M2M and entered SDS, working vigorously to attract supporters and to form party clubs on campuses. On the other hand, the TrotskyistSocialist Workers Party (SWP) supported both the civil rights movement and the black nationalist movement which grew during the 1960s. It particularly praised the militancy of black nationalist leaderMalcolm X, who in turn spoke at the SWP's public forums and gave an interview to theYoung Socialist. Like all left wing groups, the SWP grew during the 1960s and experienced a particularly brisk growth in the first years of the 1970s. Much of this was due to its involvement in many of the campaigns and demonstrations against thewar in Vietnam.
Kahn and Horowitz, along withNorman Hill, helpedBayard Rustin with thecivil rights movement. Rustin had helped to spreadpacificism andnon-violence to leaders of the civil rights movement, likeMartin Luther King Jr. Rustin's circle andA. Philip Randolph organized the1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.[3][4][5][6] King began to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the political and economic life of the nation and more frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a redistribution of resources to correct racial and economic injustice.[167] As such, he started hisPoor People's Campaign in 1968 as an effort to gain economic justice forpoor people in the United States. He guarded his language in public to avoid being linked tocommunism by his enemies, but in private he sometimes spoke of his support fordemocratic socialism. In a 1952 letter to Coretta Scott, he said: "I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic."[168] In one speech, he stated that "something is wrong with capitalism" and claimed that "[t]here must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism."[169]
Dr. Martin Luther King was the leader of theCivil Rights Movement, which emphasized nonviolence in the struggle for social justice and to give Black Americans equal rights under the law. According to David J. Garrow, King in private conversation "made it clear to close friends that economically speaking he considered himself what he termed a Marxist, largely because he believed with increasing strength that American society needed a radical redistribution of wealth and economic power to achieve even a rough form of social justice."[170] King, in 1966, "rejected the idea of piecemeal reform within the existing socio-economic structure. Only at that time did he become persuaded that capitalism is the common determinant linking together racism, economic oppression, and militarism."[170] There is conflicting interpretation by scholars who view King's radicalization of thought as being a result of experience and pressure from theBlack Power Movement or whether it was rooted in his formative experience atMorehouse College. It is speculated that King readKarl Marx as a college student. Nevertheless, King began to push for a more socialistic platform during his time as the leader of thePoor People's Campaign. He began pushing for policies such as a guaranteed annual income, constitutional amendments to secure social and economic equality, and greatly expanded public housing. In addition, he advocated for a jobs guarantee, a living wage and universal healthcare. King was transitioning from the leader who led campaigns for civil rights and racial justice, to a campaign that was more anti-Capitalistic, anti-War, and a full frontal attack on the war on poverty. In a 1961 speech to the Negro American Labor Council, King declared, "Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children."
Michael Harrington soon became the most visible socialist in the United States when hisThe Other America became a best seller, following a long and laudatoryNew Yorker review by Dwight Macdonald.[171] Harrington and other socialists were called to Washington, D.C. to assist theKennedy administration and then theJohnson administration'swar on poverty andGreat Society.[2] Shachtman, 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 towardssocial liberal orsocial democratic positions, at least on civil rights and the war on poverty.[172][173] Harrington, Kahn and Horowitz were officers and staff-persons of theLeague for Industrial Democracy (LID), which helped to start theNew LeftStudents for a Democratic Society (SDS).[174] The three LID officers clashed with the less experienced activists of SDS, likeTom Hayden, when the latter'sPort Huron Statement criticized socialist and liberal opposition to communism and criticized the labor movement while promoting students as agents of social change.[175][176] LID and SDS split in 1965, when SDS voted to remove from its constitution the "exclusion clause" that prohibited membership by communists:[177] The SDS exclusion clause had barred "advocates of or apologists for totalitarianism."[178] 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.[179] Afterwards,Marxism–Leninism, particularly the PLP, helped to write "the death sentence" for SDS,[180][179][181][182] which nonetheless had over 100 thousand members at its peak.Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order is a book byPaul Sweezy andPaul A. Baran published in 1966 by Monthly Review Press. It made a major contribution toMarxian theory by shifting attention from the assumption of a competitive economy to the monopolistic economy associated with the giant corporations that dominate the modern accumulation process. Their work played a leading role in the intellectual development of the New Left in the 1960s and 1970s. As a review in the American Economic Review stated, it represented "the first serious attempt to extend Marx's model of competitive capitalism to the new conditions of monopoly capitalism."[183] It has recently attracted renewed attention following theGreat Recession.[184][185][186]
In the 1960s, thehippie movement influenced a renewed interest in anarchism, and some anarchist and other left-wing groups developed out of the New Left[188][189][190] and anarchists actively participated in thelate sixties students and workers revolts.[191] Anarchists began usingdirect action, organizing throughaffinity groups duringanti-nuclear campaigns in the 1970s. The New Left in the United States also included anarchist,countercultural andhippie-related radical groups such as theYippies who were led by Abbie Hoffman, theDiggers[192] andBlack Mask/Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers. By late 1966, the Diggers openedfree stores which simply gave away their stock, provided free food, distributed free drugs, gave away money, organized free music concerts and performed works of political art.[193] The Diggers took their name from the originalEnglish Diggers led byGerrard Winstanley[194] and sought to create a mini-society free of money andcapitalism.[195] On the other hand, the Yippies employed theatrical gestures, such as advancing a pig ("Pigasus the Immortal") as a candidate for president in 1968, to mock the socialstatus quo.[196] They have been described as a highly theatrical,anti-authoritarian and anarchist[197] youth movement of "symbolic politics".[198] Since they were well known for street theater and politically themed pranks, many of the "old school"political left either ignored or denounced them. According toABC News: "The group was known for street theater pranks and was once referred to as the 'GrouchoMarxists'."[199] By the 1960s,Christian anarchistDorothy Day earned the praise ofcounterculture leaders such as Abbie Hoffman, who characterized her as the first hippie,[200] a description of which Day approved.[200]Murray Bookchin[201] was an Americananarchist andlibertarian socialist author, orator andpolitical theoretician.[201] A pioneer in theecology movement[202] by publishing that and other innovative essays on post-scarcity and on ecological technologies such as solar and wind energy and on decentralization and miniaturization. Lecturing throughout the United States, he helped popularize the concept of ecology to thecounterculture. TheBlack Panther Party was a blackrevolutionary socialist organization active in the United States from 1966 until 1982. The Black Panther Party achieved national and international notoriety through its involvement in theBlack Power movement and American politics of the 1960s and 1970s.[203] Gaining national prominence, the Black Panther Party became an icon of thecounterculture of the 1960s.[204] Ultimately, the Panthers condemned black nationalism as "black racism" and became more focused on socialism without racial exclusivity.[205] They instituted a variety of community social programs designed to alleviate poverty, improve health among inner city black communities and soften the Party's public image.[206]
Activists in the 1970s used Socialism and reinterpreted in order to encompass members of radical movements, whether it be theBlack Panther Party or the Gay and Lesbian Left. The overlap between all of these different radical movements was that they were oppressed peoples who were subjugated by the ruling straight white male elite class. Similar themes between these different movements was the issue of capitalist violence that was used to preserve power for the ruling class. There was a prominent group of socialist activists in San Francisco who were combatting the issues of homophobia,American imperialism, and police brutality. The assassination of gay rights proponentHarvey Milk by an ex-cop resulted in police violence that "encouraged attacks on gay men, Lesbians, prostitutes, and Third World people."[207]Angela Davis, an ally of the Black Panther Party and a socialist, viewed capitalism as an inherently violent system. In response to a question regarding the violent nature of the Black Panthers, she says "If you are a black person who lives in a black community all your life and walk out on the street everyday seeing white policemen surrounding you… When you live under a situation like that constantly, and then you ask me whether I approve of violence, I mean, that just doesn't make sense at all." Davis speaks to how capitalism subjugates black people through violence and that the main purpose of police is to protect white supremacy. The Black Panther Party were prominent members of Black Power Movement and was fueled by what they saw as systemic racism perpetuated against black people. According to Douglas Sturm, Professor Emeritus of Religion and Political Science atBucknell University: "Police brutality, lack of opportunity, and the realization that opportunity was not forthcoming in the near future led many Blacks to conclude that armed self-defense coupled with self-help was the only way to end the despair."[208] This armed-self defense made many white Americans fearful of the Black Panthers and contributed to theFBI's designation of the Black Panthers as aterrorist organization. Although the Black Panthers were labeled violent extremists and terrorists, they provided many resources to their communities, including free healthcare, breakfast, and education services.[209]
COINTELPRO was a series ofcovert and at times illegal[210] projects conducted by the United StatesFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveying, infiltrating, discrediting and disrupting domesticpolitical organizations[211] FBI records show that 85% of COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals that the FBI deemed "subversive",[212] includingcommunist andsocialist organizations; organizations and individuals associated with the Civil Rights Movement, including Martin Luther King Jr.; theAmerican Indian Movement; and broad range of organizations labeled "New Left", including Students for a Democratic Society and theWeathermen; almost all groups protesting theVietnam War as well as individual student demonstrators with no group affiliation; organizations and individuals associated with thewomen's rights movement; nationalist groups such as those seeking independence forPuerto Rico,United Ireland, and additional notable Americans —evenAlbert Einstein, who was a socialist and a member of several civil rights groups, came under FBI surveillance during the years just before COINTELPRO's official inauguration.[213]
In 1972, the Socialist Party voted to rename itself asSocial 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; andCharles S. Zimmerman, an officer of theInternational Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).[214][215] In 1973, Michael Harrington resigned from SDUSA and founded theDemocratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), which attracted many of his followers from the former Socialist Party.[216] That same year,David McReynolds and others from the pacifist and immediate-withdrawal wing of the former Socialist Party formed theSocialist Party USA (SPUSA).[217]Bayard Rustin was the national chairperson of SDUSA during the 1970s. SDUSA sponsored a biannual conference[218] that featured discussions, for which SDUSA invited outside academic, political and labor union leaders. These meetings also functioned as reunions for political activists and intellectuals, some of whom worked together for decades.[219]
TheWeather Underground Organization, commonly known as the Weather Underground, was an Americanradical left organization founded on theAnn Arbor campus of theUniversity of Michigan. Weatherman organized in 1969 as afaction ofStudents for a Democratic Society (SDS)[220] composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their supporters. With revolutionary positions characterized byBlack Power and opposition to theVietnam War,[220] the group conducted a campaign of bombings through the mid-1970s and took part in actions such as thejailbreak ofTimothy Leary. The "Days of Rage", their first public demonstration on October 8, 1969, was a riot in Chicago timed to coincide with the trial of theChicago Seven.[221] The United Federated Forces of theSymbionese Liberation Army was an American self-styled left-wing revolutionary group active between 1973 and 1975 that considered itself avanguardarmy. TheBlack Liberation Army (BLA) was an underground,black nationalist militant organization that operated in the United States from 1970 to 1981. TheCommunist Workers' Party was aMaoist group in the United States which had its origin in 1973 as the Asian Study Group (renamed the Workers' Viewpoint Organization in 1976) established byJerry Tung, a former member of the PLP[222] who had grown disenchanted with the group and disagreed with changes taking place in the party line. The party is mainly remembered as one of the victims of theGreensboro Massacre of 1979 in which five protest marchers were shot and killed by members of theKu Klux Klan and theAmerican Nazi Party at a rally organized by the Communist Worker's Party intended to demonstrate radical, even violent, opposition to the Klan. The "Death to the Klan March" and protest was the culmination of attempts by the Communist Workers' Party to organize mostly black industrial workers in the area. TheCommunist Party (Marxist–Leninist)'s predecessor organization, the October League (Marxist–Leninist), was founded in 1971 by several local groups, many of which had grown out of the radical student organizationStudents for a Democratic Society (SDS) when SDS split apart in 1969.Michael Klonsky, who had been a national leader in SDS in the late 1960s, was the main leader of the Communist Party (Marxist–Leninist)[223] which was also joined by the black communist theoristHarry Haywood. TheRevolutionary Communist Party, USA, known originally as the Revolutionary Union, is a Maoist communist party formed in 1975 in the United States.
From 1979–1989, SDUSA members likeTom Kahn organized theAFL–CIO's fundraising of 300 thousand dollars, which bought printing presses and other supplies requested bySolidarity, the independent labor-union of Poland.[224][225][226] SDUSA members helped form abipartisan coalition of theDemocratic andRepublican parties to support the founding of theNational Endowment for Democracy (NED), whose first president wasCarl Gershman. The NED publicly allocated US$4 million of public aid to Solidarity through 1989.[227][228]
Because of their service in government, Gershman and other SDUSA members were called State Department socialists by Massing,[229] who wrote that theforeign policy of the Reagan administration was being run byTrotskyists, a claim that was called a myth by Lipset.[230] This so-called Trotskyist charge has been repeated and even widened by journalistMichael Lind in 2003 to assert a takeover of theforeign policy of the George W. Bush administration by former Trotskyists.[231] However, Lind's "amalgamation of the defense intellectuals with the traditions and theories of 'the largely Jewish-American Trotskyist movement' [in Lind's words]" was criticized in 2003 by University of Michigan professor Alan M. Wald, who had written a history of the so-calledNew York intellectuals that discussed Trotskyism andneoconservatism.[232] The SDUSA and allegations that former Trotskyists subverted the foreign policy of George W. Bush have been mentioned by self-styledpaleoconservatives (traditionalconservative opponents of neoconservatism).[233][234]
TheDemocratic Socialists of America (DSA) was formed in 1982 after a merger between theDemocratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and theNew American Movement (NAM).[235][236] At the time of the merger of these two organizations, DSA was said to consist of approximately 5,000 former members of the DSOC, along with 1,000 from the NAM.[237] Much like the DSOC before it, DSA was very strongly associated in electoral politics withMichael Harrington's position that "the left wing of realism is found today in the Democratic Party." In its early years, DSA opposedRepublican presidential candidates by giving critical support to Democratic Party nominees likeWalter Mondale in 1984.[238] In 1988, DSA enthusiastically supportedJesse Jackson's second presidential campaign.[239] DSA's position on American electoral politics states that "democratic socialists reject an either—or approach to electoral coalition building, focused solely on [either] a new party or on realignment within the Democratic Party."[240]
Anarchists became more visible in the 1980s as a result of publishing, protests and conventions. In 1980, the First International Symposium on Anarchism was held in Portland, Oregon.[241] In 1986, the Haymarket Remembered conference was held in Chicago[242] to observe the centennial of the infamousHaymarket Riot. This conference was followed by annual, continental conventions in Minneapolis (1987), Toronto (1988) and San Francisco (1989). In the 1980s, anarchism became linked withsquats/social centers likeC-Squat andABC No Rio both inNew York City. In the 1990s, a group of anarchists formed theLove and Rage Network which was one of several new groups and projects formed in the United States during the decade. American anarchists increasingly became noticeable at protests, especially through a tactic known as theblack bloc. American anarchists became more prominent as a result of theanti-WTO protests in Seattle: In the 1990s, "there was an effort to create a North American anarchist federation around a newspaper calledLove & Rage that at its peak involved hundreds of activists in different cities."[243]Common Struggle—Libertarian Communist Federation orLucha Común—Federación Comunista Libertaria (formerly the North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists; the NEFAC, or theFédération des Communistes Libertaires du Nord-Est)[244] was aplatformistanarchist communistorganization based in the northeast region of the United States.[245] The NEFAC was officially launched at a congress held in Boston, Massachusetts over the weekend of April 7–9, 2000,[246] following months of discussion between former Atlantic Anarchist Circle affiliates and ex Love & Rage members in the United States and ex members of the Demanarchie newspaper collective in Quebec City. Founded as a bi-lingual French and English-speaking federation with member and supporter groups in the northeast of the United States, southern Ontario and the Quebec province, the organization later split up in 2008. The Québécoise membership reformed as the Union Communiste Libertaire (UCL)[247] and the American membership retained the name NEFAC before changing its name to Common Struggle in 2011 and then merging into the Black Rose Anarchist Federation.
Noam Chomsky, a member of DSA[248][249] and theIndustrial Workers of the World,[250][251] is described byThe New York Times as "arguably the most important intellectual alive"[252] and has been on the list of the most cited authors in modern history.[253]
In 2008, theDemocratic Socialists of America (DSA) supportedDemocratic presidential candidateBarack Obama in his race againstRepublican candidateJohn McCain.[citation needed] Following Obama's election, many on the right began to allege that his administration's policies were socialistic, a claim rejected by DSA and the Obama administration alike.[254] The widespread use of the word socialism as a politicalepithet against the Obama government by its opponents caused National DirectorFrank Llewellyn to declare that "over the past 12 months, the Democratic Socialists of America has received more media attention than it has over the past 12 years."[255]
An April 2009Rasmussen Reports poll conducted during theGreat Recession (which many believe resulted due to lack of regulation in the financial markets) suggested that there had been a growth of support for socialism in the United States. The poll results stated that 53% of American adults thought capitalism was better than socialism and that "[a]dults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided."[256] In a 2011Pew poll, young Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 favored socialism to capitalism by 49% to 43%, but Americans overall had a negative view of socialism, with 60% opposing.[257] According to a June 2015Gallup poll, 47% of American citizens would vote for a socialist candidate for president while 50% would not.[258] Willingness to vote for a socialist president was 59% among Democrats, 49% among independents and 26% among Republicans.[259] An October 2015 poll found that 49% of Democrats had a favorable view of socialism compared to 37% for capitalism.[260]
In 2009,Redneck Revolt was founded as a socialistpro-guns organization.[261][262][263] Although the group does not identify itself as part of thepolitical left,[264] nor as politicallyliberal,[261] it has been argued that the group's ideology is a form oflibertarian socialism.[265] In 2018, theSocialist Rifle Association, a similar socialist organization,[266] was founded.[267][268]
In 2011, theOccupy Wall Street movement provided a breeding ground for anti-capitalist activism that featured anarchists and socialists, and gave a renewed interest to socialist thought. The long-term background of Occupy begins with theGreat Recession, which boosted sentiment for the anti-Capitalist andSocial Democratic left, and created a movement against rampant wealth inequality, greed, and rallied for corporations to be held accountable for their incessant lobbying and economic strong-arming of the personal wealth of the owner-class. According to Holly Campbell:[269]
In addition, the Occupy movement itself also created a number of spaces through which to communicate and exercise dissent—physical spaces through encampments (for their duration), a virtual space of discussion through social media, and an intellectual space through, again, the language of popular occupation and 'the 99%.' All of these spaces have provided a place for people to gather and partake in a sustained dialogue through which to share stories, generate knowledge, and develop resources for dissent against the forces of neoliberal capitalism.
Although the Occupy movement did falter, it did help to revitalize the American Left, which lost considerable influence since the 1970s. There was a greater mainstream interest to left-wing politics and socialism.
In November 2013,Socialist Alternative (SA) candidateKshama Sawant was elected to Position 2 of theSeattle City Council. Sawant was the first socialist on the council in recent memory.[270][271] Philip Locker, at the time a national organizer for SA, says it "was a watershed moment for the socialist movement across the country."[272]
In a 2013 interview withPolitico, radio hostThom Hartmann, whose nationally syndicated radio show draws 2.75 million listeners a week, affirmed his position as a democratic socialist.[273]
In 2016, SenatorBernie Sanders decided torun for president as ademocratic socialist. In his bid, "Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders attracted some of the largest crowds of the 2016 presidential campaign... 11,000 in Phoenix, 25,000 in Los Angeles, and 28,000 in Portland, Oregon. Sanders, a democratic socialist who for three decades has won office as an Independent, ran in the Democratic Party primaries. While he does not advocate the original goal of socialism—that 'a nation's resources and major industries should be owned and operated by the government on behalf of all the people, not by individuals and private companies for their own profit,'... Sanders has put "socialism" back in American political discourse."[274] Sanders is the leading figure in the"political revolution," by which he means an insurgent movement of voters and activists, not a violent storming of the barricades—can make the U.S. work for the majority of its citizens. In addition, his 2020 run for President of the United States saw even larger crowds, topping 26,000 attendees. Senator Sanders also received the most votes in the2020 Democratic Iowa andNevada Caucuses,New Hampshire Primary, and theCalifornia primary, the most populous state in the Union.
The 21st century has seen an increase in the participation of socialist and left-wing organizing, precipitated by the Occupy movement and Bernie Sanders' 2016 and 2020 presidential runs. This has resulted in an explosive growth of theDemocratic Socialists of America (DSA) where by "December 2018, DSA had some 55,000 members in 166 chapters and 57 high school and college groups, making it the largest socialist organization in the United States since the heyday of the Communist Party in the 1930s and 1940s."[275] In an interview by The New Labor Forum, a DSA member testifies "I have basically been a lifelong liberal who has very slowly radicalized and was kind of catapulted into radicalization by the Bernie primary campaign. I really didn't know about the term democratic socialism until Bernie started using it."[275] These organizations like DSA are leading a movement that is giving voice to left-wing positions, emphasizing issues such as affordable housing, universal health care, opposing public subsidies for corporations, seeking the creation of government-owned banks, environmental justice, and free college for all. There have been an increase of democratic socialists elected to Congress, most notably a group of four congresswomen known as "The Squad". In a 2011 survey, more people under the age of 30 had a favorable view of socialism than of capitalism.
Sanders served as the at-large representative for the state of Vermont before being elected to the Senate in 2006. Sanders has been credited with reviving the American socialist movement by bringing it into the mainstream public view for the2016 presidential election.[276] With the election ofDonald Trump, DSA soared to 25,000 dues-paying members[277] and SA at least 30 percent.[278] Some DSA members had emerged in local races in states like Illinois and Georgia.[279] Subscribers to the socialist quarterly magazineJacobin doubled in four months following the election to 30,000.[280]
In 2017, theDemocratic Socialists of America (DSA), the only American member organization of the worldwideSocialist International, voted to disaffiliate from that organization for its perceived acceptance ofneoliberal economic policies.[281]
According to a November 2017YouGov poll, a majority of Americans aged 21 to 29 prefer socialism to capitalism and believe that the American economic system is working against them.[282] In the same month, 15 members of DSA were elected to various local and state governmental positions around the country in the2017 elections.[283] Tracing its lineage from theNew Left toNorman Thomas andEugene Debs, DSA was the largest Socialist organization in the United States by 2017. As of September 2018, membership stood at 50,000, and the number of local chapters had increased from 40 to 181.[284]
In June 2018,Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of DSA, won the Democratic primary inNew York's 14th congressional district, defeating the incumbentDemocratic Caucus ChairJoe Crowley in what was described as the biggestupset victory of the2018 midterm-election season.[285] She was elected to theHouse of Representatives inNovember 2018.
According to Gallup, socialism has gained popularity within the Democratic Party. As of 2018, 57% of Democratic-leaning respondents viewed socialism positively as compared with 53% in 2016. The perception of capitalism among Democratic-leaning voters has also seen a decline since the 2016 presidential election from 56% to 47%. 16% of Republican-leaning voters and 37% of American adults overall had a positive view of socialism in the 2018 poll, compared with 71% and 56% holding a positive view of capitalism, respectively.[286] A 2019Harris Poll found that socialism is more popular with women than men, with 55% of women between the ages of 18 and 54 preferring to live in a socialist society. A majority of men surveyed in the poll chose capitalism over socialism.[287] A 2019 YouGov poll showed that 70% of millennials would vote for a socialist presidential candidate, and more than 30% think highly ofcommunism.[288] A 2021Axios poll found that 41% of all US adults have a positive view of socialism, up from 39% in 2019.[289]
On April 2, 2019, four DSA members won run-off elections inChicago while two others retained or won their seat in the February election, bringing the total number to six socialists on the council. Socialists control twelve percent of Chicago's city council power whichJacobin managing editor Micah Uetricht states inThe Guardian that it is further evidence of a "socialist surge" in the United States and "the largest socialist electoral victory in modern American history."[290]
At the start of the 2021-22 legislative session, theNew York State legislature had the most self-identifying socialist members in over a century. DSA-endorsed candidatesZohran Mamdani,Marcela Mitaynes, andPhara Souffrant Forrest, along with DSA membersEmily Gallagher andJessica González-Rojas, became openly socialist members of theNew York State Assembly. DSA-endorsedJabari Brisport joined re-elected incumbentJulia Salazar in theNew York State Senate, bringing the total number of elected self-identifying socialists in New York state government to 7.[291]
In 2022,Milwaukee, Wisconsin elected two democratic socialists to theWisconsin State Assembly,Darrin Madison andRyan Clancy. Madison and Clancy, who are both members of the Democratic Party, announced they would form an informal Socialist Caucus, the first of its kind in Wisconsin since 1931.[292] In 2025, this caucus expanded to includeFrancesca Hong fromMadison, Wisconsin andChristian Phelps fromEau Claire, Wisconsin.[293]
In May 2023,Rick Scott issued a travel advisory for socialists and communists visiting the state of Florida, saying it is "openly hostile" to them.[294]
In June 2023, philosopherCornel West, who has called himself a "non-Marxist socialist" announced his run for president under thePeople's Party in2024, he then later announced he was also seeking theGreen Party nomination before running as an independent.[295] TheParty for Socialism and Liberation,Socialist Workers Party,Socialist Equality Party and theSocialist Party USA also had presidential candidates in the2024 election.
Party for Socialism and Liberation nominee,Claudia De la Cruz received 167,772 votes (0.11%). De la Cruz nearly doubled the PSL's2020 total, and won the most votes received by a candidate running on an explicitly socialist presidential ticket since theSocialist Party'sNorman Thomas in1936.
In July 2024, dissenting members in theCPUSA formed their own party, theAmerican Communist Party (ACP), with political commentatorsHaz Al-Din as its founding Chairman andJackson Hinkle as a founding Plenary Committee member.[296][297] The ACP, Haz Al-Din, and Jackson Hinkle have drawn criticism for populist tactics such asMAGA Communism.[298][299][300]
In June 2025, theNew York City DSA chapter-endorsed candidate,Zohran Mamdani, won the Democratic Partyprimary election for mayor, defeating former governorAndrew Cuomo. Once sworn in he will become the second DSA mayor of New York City afterDavid Dinkins left office in 1993.[301]
An August 2025Gallup poll found that 39% of Americans held a positive view of socialism, and 57% a negative view.[302] Younger Americans were more likely to hold a positive view, including 49% of those aged 18–34, 42% aged 35–54 and 30% over 55. Women (46%) were more positive than men (32%), and college graduates (47%) more positive than high school graduates or non-graduates (38%) and those with some college education (31%). Sentiment did not vary by household income: 41% under $50,000, 39% $50,000–100,000 and 39% over $100,000 expressed a positive view.[303]
Based on earlier Gallup polls, the share of Democrats with a positive view of socialism increased from 50% in 2010 to 66% in 2025, while among Republicans it declined from 19% to 14%, and among independents increased slightly from 36% to 38%. Conversely, a positive view of capitalism declined among Democrats from 51% to 42%, and among independents from 61% to 51%, while increasing slightly among Republicans from 71% to 74%.[302] Younger Americans were less positive towards capitalism, whereas college graduates were more positive than those with less education, and those with higher household incomes more positive than those with lower household incomes.[303]
An April 2025YouGov/Cato Institute poll found that 43% of Americans had favorable views of socialism and 57% had favorable views of capitalism.[304]
And he has clung to a mantle — socialism — that brings considerable stigma, in large part for its association with authoritarian communist regimes (which Sanders is quick to disavow).
Socialism is not 'the government should provide healthcare' or 'the rich should be taxed more' nor any of the other watery social-democratic positions that the American right likes to demonise by calling them 'socialist'—and granted, it is chiefly the right that does so, but the fact that rightists are so rarely confronted and ridiculed for it means that they have successfully muddied the political discourse to the point where an awful lot of Americans have only the flimsiest grasp of what socialism is.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)Josiah Warren: The First American Anarchist — A Sociological Study, Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1906, p. 20.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)Finally, somewhat aside from the curve that runs from anarchist individualism to anarcho-syndicalism, we come to Tolstoyanism and to pacifist anarchism that appeared, mostly in Holland,Britain, and the United states, before and after the Second World War and which has continued since then in the deep in the anarchist involvement in the protests against nuclear armament.
Drucker, Peter (1994).Max Shachtman and his left: A socialist's odyssey through the "American Century". Humanities Press.
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.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Shevis, James M. (1981). "The AFL-CIO and Poland's Solidarity".World Affairs.144 (Summer, number 1). World Affairs Institute:31–35.JSTOR 20671880.
Kahn, Tom;Podhoretz, Norman (2008)."How to supportSolidarnosc: A debate"(PDF).Democratiya (Merged with Dissent in 2009).13 (Summer). Sponsored by theCommittee for the Free World and theLeague for Industrial Democracy, with introduction byMidge Decter and moderation byCarl Gershman, and held at the Polish Institute for Arts and Sciences, New York City in March 1981:230–261. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on November 17, 2011.
Puddington, Arch (2005)."Surviving the underground: How American unions helped solidarity win".American Educator (Summer). American Federation of Teachers. RetrievedJune 4, 2011.
King, Bill (March 22, 2004)."Neoconservatives and Trotskyism".Enter Stage Right.2004 (3). The question of 'Shachtmanism', pp. 1–2.
became devotees of a former Trotskyist named Max Shachtman—a fact that today has taken on a life of its own. Tracing forward in lineage through me and a few other ex-YPSL's [members of theYoung Peoples Socialist League] turned neoconservatives, this happenstance has fueled the accusation that neoconservatism itself, and through it the foreign policy of the Bush administration, are somehow rooted in 'Trotskyism.'
I am more inclined to laugh than to cry over this, but since the myth has traveled so far, let me briefly try once more, as I have done at greater length in the past, to set the record straight.[See "The Neoconservative Cabal,"Commentary, September 2003] The alleged connective chain is broken at every link. The falsity of its more recent elements is readily ascertainable by anyone who cares for the truth—namely, that George Bush was never a neoconservative and that most neoconservatives were never YPSL's. The earlier connections are more obscure but no less false. Although Shachtman was one of the elder statesmen who occasionally made stirring speeches to us, no YPSL of my generation was a Shachtmanite. What is more, our mentors, Paul and Tom, had come under Shachtman's sway years after he himself had ceased to be a Trotskyite.