User:SocDoneLeft/List of leftist organizations in the United States

The following is a list of political organizations in the United States which support left-wing politics: social democracy, socialism, communism, or anarchism.

The list below focuses on creation, splits, merges, and ends of various leftist organizations. This page hopes to outline the extremely messy organizational history of leftism and socialism in the United States. This page also hopes to help readers see that the US history of leftism and history of socialism has deep roots that stretch back to 1848 and earlier.

Groups included
This page focuses on mass organizations: Leftist orgs which have a mass dues-paying membership, which claimed to have one, or which planned to build one. Many are organized as political parties. Many reject electoral politics altogether. This criterion excludes most organizations focused on publishing media, small collectives with no focus on growth, terrorism, and clandestine cells. Some major paramilitary organizations are included, if they hoped to use propaganda of the deed to achieve socialist revolution or emerged from mass organizations (such as the Weathermen).

This page focus on overtly leftist organizations: Organizations which are capitalism-critical or anti-capitalist. Some progressive capitalist organizations are included, because they have a substantial leftist membership or were critical to the formation of a leftist group. Some major labor federations are included, despite few labor federations explicitly adopting anti-capitalist rhetoric, because labor federation competition is often intertwined with competition between leftist organizations.

Eras
The "eras" below describe major movements of socialists or which substantially affected the nature of socialist organizing in the United States.


 * Utopian socialisms (mostly before 1900):
 * Owenism (mostly 1820s): Inspired by Robert Owen, emphasized worker cooperatives and moral economy
 * Fourierism or associationism (mostly 1840s and 1850s): Inspired by Charles Fourier and Albert Brisbane, emphasized communal living in a profit sharing phalanstère
 * Icarianism (mostly 1840s to 1890s): Inspired by Étienne Cabet and The Voyage to Icaria, emphasized communal living
 * Bellamyism or Nationalist Clubs (mostly 1880s to 1890s): Inspired by Edward Bellamy and Looking Backward: 2000–1887, emphasized public ownership of industry
 * Before World War 1 (before 1917):
 * Anarchism (mostly 1860s to 1920s): Emphasized propaganda of the deed and syndicalism
 * Marxism (mostly 1870s to present): Inspired by Karl Marx, emphasized collective ownership of the means of production (against Proudhon's mutualism) and revolutionary socialism
 * Lassallism (mostly 1870s to 1890s): Inspired by Ferdinand Lassalle, emphasized winning elections through a socialist party as key to winning socialism
 * First-wave feminism (until ~1920s): Emphasized women's suffrage, women's property rights, and women's legal equality
 * After Bolshevik revolution (1917 to 1945):
 * Social democracy (mostly 1920s to 1960s): Emphasized reform to socialism, usually through independent socialist parties
 * Leninism (mostly 1920s to 1980s): Inspired by Vladimir Lenin, emphasized professional revolutionaries in vanguard party structured through democratic centralism
 * Marxism–Leninism (Stalinism, mostly 1930s to 1980s): Inspired by Joseph Stalin, emphasized authoritarian elements of democratic centralism and (variously) opposing social fascism (until 1933) or supporting popular front (after 1933) or supporting Actually Existing Socialism (after 1945)
 * Trotskyism (mostly 1930s to 1980s): Inspired by Leon Trotsky, criticized Soviet Union and People's Republic of China as deformed or degenerated workers' states (earlier), or as bureaucratic collectivist or state capitalist (later)
 * After World War 2 (1945 to 1990):
 * Anti-revisionism (including Hoxhaism, 1950s to present): Upheld Stalinism against Khrushchev's reforms
 * Environmental movement (mostly 1960s to present): Inspired by Silent Spring, emphasized ecology and anti-nuclear
 * Maoism (mostly 1960s to 1990s): Inspired by Mao Zedong, emphasizes anti-imperialism, mass line, and people's war to revolutionary socialism
 * New Left (mostly 1960s to 1970s): Emphasized anti-racism, anti-sexism
 * Black power movement (mostly 1960s to 1980s): Emphasized anti-racism, black liberation, and black nationalism
 * Second-wave feminism (mostly 1960s to 1980s): Emphasized broad sexual equality, early intersectionality, and early women's liberation
 * New Communist movement (mostly 1970s to 1980s): Mixture of New Left with Marxism-Leninism and Maoism
 * Anarchism and libertarian socialism (mostly 1960s to present): Inspired by Murray Bookchin, David Graeber, and Noam Chomsky; emphasizes social ecology or deep ecology, communalism or Syndicalism, and community organizing or prefigurative politics
 * Democratic socialism (mostly 1970s to present): Inspired by Michael Harrington and Bernie Sanders, emphasized socialist reformism and inside-outside strategy as key
 * After Dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991 to present):
 * Climate movement (mostly 1990s to present): Emphasizes larger greenhouse gas emission reductions and faster decarbonization
 * Anti-globalization movement (mostly 1990s to present): Emphasizes opposition to economic globalization and multinational corporations
 * Third-wave feminism and fourth-wave feminism (mostly 1990s to present): Emphasizes broad sex positivity, strong intersectionality, and transgender rights
 * Millennial socialism: Emphasizes a rejection of older socialisms (especially authoritarian socialisms dominant from 1920 to 1990) for a variety of new, competitor socialisms
 * Multipolarity (mostly 1990s to present): Emphasizes importance of competitor hegemons against United States; negatively described as campism

Notable socialist organizations with no mass membership

 * MERGE UP
 * Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP): An anti-racist, anti-fascist skinhead collective network. Created in 1987 among Traditional skinheads (Trads). In 1987, helped found Anti-Racist Action (ARA) Network. Inspired Red and Anarchist Skinheads (RASH). Remains active.
 * Red and Anarchist Skinheads (RASH), a leftist anti-fascist skinhead collective network. Created in 2004 inspired by Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP). Remains active.
 * Food Not Bombs (FNB): A large leftist mutual aid collective network. Created in 1980. Remains active.
 * Had no clear organization structure:
 * Youth International Party (YIP or Yippies): A counter-cultural and hippie movement. Created in 1967. As late as 1979, pied several politicians. Faded away in 1980's.
 * Structured as cells or network of small collectives:
 * Climate Emergency Movement: Climate activist organizations associated with Margaret Klein Salamon. After 2014 People's Climate March, Salamon co-created The Climate Mobilization (TCM) [created 2014, active], in 2016 Salamon pushed for Climate emergency declarations (started 2016, active), Salamon led since 2021 Climate Emergency Fund (CEF) [created 2019-present], Salamon funded through CEF Climate Defiance (CD) [created 2023, active]. No organizations have clear mass membership, but instead focus on direct action for climate change mitigation.
 * CODEPINK: A leftist anti-war collective network. Created in 2002 by Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin to oppose the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Medea was previously a Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) member and created Global Exchange in 1988. In 2007, began strongly supporting Venezuelan government. In 2020, began boosting Qiao Collective. In 2019, joined International Peoples' Assembly (IPA). In 2021, joined Progressive International (ProgInt). In 2022, condemned Russian invasion of Ukraine and opposed military aid to Ukraine. Remains active.
 * Copwatch: A leftist anti-police brutality collective network. Created in 1990, inspired by the Black Panther Party (BPP). Remains active.
 * Earth Liberation Front (ELF): A leftist ecodefense clandestine cell network. Created in 1992. Faded away by 2009.
 * Armed Forces of National Liberation (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña, FALN): A clandestine cell network that supported Marxism-Leninism and Puerto Rican independence. In 1950, created. In 1974, did Fraunces Tavern bombing. In 1983, dissolved. Remnants joined Boricua Popular Army (Ejército Popular Boricua, EPB or Macheteros, lit. 'machete wielders'). In 1999, Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of 16 FALN members.
 * Institute for Anarchist Studies (IAS): A collective of anarchist-communist writers. Created in 1996. Still active.
 * Unicorn Riot (UR): A small leftist anti-fascist media-making collective network. Created in 2015. Remains active.
 * United Freedom Front (UFF): A small Marxist-Leninist terrorist group. Created in 1975. Dissolved in 1984.
 * ZNetwork: A libertarian socialist media network. Created in 1986 by Michael Albert and others.
 * Structured primarily as a single large collective:
 * MOVE: A commune. In 1972, created as Christian Movement for Life. In 1985, MOVE was bombed by Philadelphia police. Remains active.
 * National Conference on Organized Resistance (NCOR): An annual gathering of socialists, anarchists, and greens led by a student collective. Started in 1998. Ended in 2008.
 * Peoples Temple: A Pentecostal communist destructive cult led by Jim Jones. In 1954, Jones opened his first church in Indianapolis, Indiana, Community Unity Church (CUC). In 1955, Jones reorganized CUC in a new building as Wings of Deliverance, then renamed the org to Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. In 1956, Jones joined the Independent Assemblies of God (IAoG). In 1959, Jones renamed the org to Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel. In 1963, Jones moved the church to Redwood Valley, California. In 1960s, Jones began to preach "Apostolic Socialism". In 1971, Jones opened a church in San Francisco, California. In 1972, Jones opened a church in Los Angeles, California. In 1970s, Jones founded Truth Enterprises for direct mail sales. In 1973, a "Gang of Eight" defectors fled the church to Montana; in response, Jones began conducting fake suicide rituals. In 1977, Jones moved about 1000 followers to the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project in Jonestown, Guyana. In 1978, Jones attempted to force all Jonestown residents to commit suicide.

Non-notable socialist organizations
These groups are not notable and are also not clearly tied to any notable groups:
 * Party of Communists USA (PCUSA): A Stalinist organization. In 2014, PCUSA created as split from Communist Party USA (CPUSA). In 2017, minority faction American Council of Bolsheviks (ACB) split. In 2023, faction split to create Communist Workers’ Platform (CWPUSA). Remains active.
 * In Defense of Communism (IDoC): Unclear origins. Marxist-Leninist newspaper.
 * American Party of Labor: A Hoxhaist, Stalinist organization. In 2008, APL created by former members of Alliance! (Marxist–Leninist) [AML] and International Struggle Marxist–Leninist (ISML). In 2018, APL gained observer status in the International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO). Remains active.
 * Group on Advanced Leadership (GOAL): A Black liberation organization. In 1961, GOAL created. In 1963, GOAL member Albert Cleage broke with C. L. Franklin, who was attempting to create a Northern Christian Leadership Conference (NCLC) to parallel Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and created a rival Northern Negro Grassroots Leadership Conference (NNGLC) that invited the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the Nation of Islam, and UHURU. In 1963, Malcolm X delivered Message to the Grass Roots at the NNGLC. In 1963, Cleage helped found Freedom Now Party (FNP). In late 1960's, GOAL dissolved. In 1968, former GOAL members helped found Malcolm X Society (MXS) and then Republic of New Afrika (RNA).
 * Revolutionary Maoist Coalition (RMC): A Maoist organization. Created 2021 Includes several former Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) memers. Remains active.
 * UHURU: A Black liberation organization. Created in early 1960's. Helped create Group on Advanced Leadership (GOAL), Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM), and League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW). Dissolved in late 1960's.
 * Ujima People's Progress Party (UPPP): A Black liberation political party in Baltimore, Maryland. Created in 2010's. Remains active.
 * Center for Political Innovation (CPIUSA or CPI): A conservative Communist (or national Bolshevik) group. Allegedly a political cult. Created in 2021 and led by Caleb Maupin, a former RT employee. Briefly dissolved, then reformed, in 2022, after Maupin was accused of sexual abuse.
 * Social Democrats of America (SDA): A social democratic organization. Likely created in 2021 as a split from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Notable non-socialist organizations sometimes labelled as socialist
The organizations below have sometimes been, incorrectly, described as having socialist politics:


 * Progressives:
 * Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a progressive activist group created by former socialists and members of Union for Democratic Action (UDA) and Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies (CDAAA); the group was most powerful in the 1940's to 1960's but remains active
 * Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN): A progressive community organization network. Peak members 500,000. In 1970, ACORN was founded. In 2010, ACORN US filed for bankruptcy. In 2012, some former organizational members of ACORN created Center for Popular Democracy (CPD).
 * Citizen Action: A liberal activist organization. Created in 1980. Former members of Massachusetts Fair Share created some chapters. Dissolved in 1999. Succeeded by USAction from 1999 to 2016, when USAction merged into People's Action. May have had ~1.7 million members (600,000 / 0.35).
 * Connecticut Citizen Action Group (CCAG): A progressive activist organization. At peak, 50000 dues-paying members. In 1970, created by Ralph Nader. Still active.
 * Massachusetts Fair Share: A progressive activist organization. At peak, 110000 dues-paying members. Unclear creation and dissolution dates; 1970s and 1983 likely. Unclear if modern Fair Share Alliance is related.
 * National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB), which would become the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), both founded by former IWW member and anti-Stalinist Roger Nash Baldwin, who was a victim of the First Red Scare and the Palmer Raids
 * National Action Network (NAN): Progressive organization. In 1991, NAN was created by Al Sharpton. Remains active.
 * National Black Political Convention (NBPC or Gary Convention): Progressive gathering of Black political leaders in 1972 which issued Gary Declaration. Inspired Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to be more aggressive.
 * National Equal Rights Party (NERP): Pro-labor feminist party.
 * Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO): Pro-racial equality third party. Created in 1965. After Voting Rights Act of 1965, LCFO third party created by staff of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) under leadership of Kwame Ture Stokely Carmichael, opposed to the openly white supremacist Alabama Democratic Party under George Wallace. In 1965, LCFO adopted black panther as icon, opposed to white chicken (symbol of Alabama Democratic Party). In 1966, LCFO inspired Black Panther Party (BPP). In 1970: LCFO merged into Alabama Democratic Party.
 * Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a progressive civil rights movement organization. Created in 1960. In 1968, Black Panther Party (BPP) attempted to merge with SNCC. In June 1968, after BPP members allegedly put gun into James Forman's mouth, SNCC distanced itself from BPP. Essentially defunct in 1968.
 * TrueMajority: A progressive organization founded by Ben & Jerry's cofounder Ben Cohen. Created in 2002. Merged with USAction in 2007.
 * Black Nationalists:
 * US Organization (USO): A Black nationalist organization led by Hakim Jamal and Maulana Karenga. Created in 1965. In late 1960s, Jamal (and his leftist politics) left organization, replaced by Karenga's Black/Pan-African cultural educationalism. In 1966, created Kwanzaa. In 1969, on misinformation from COINTELPRO, entered gunfight with Black Panthers Party (BPP) and killed 4 BPP members. BPP called the USO "United Slaves". In 1971, Karenga convicted of assault and kidnapping two women. USO fell apart. In 1974, USO dissolved.
 * Conservatives:
 * Nation of Islam (NOI), a conservative new religious movement led by Louis Farrakhan that promotes Black nationalism, Black capitalism, social conservatism, and the Yakub myth
 * Syncretic:
 * Women's Liberation Front (WoLF): A nominally second wave feminist and women's liberation organization. In practice, supports anti-trans policies and conservative commentators. Created in 2014 by Lierre Keith, who supports the anti-civilization Deep Green Resistance movement. Remains active.
 * Huey Long's Share Our Wealth Society (SOWS): A group of progressive wealth redistribution organizations. Created in 1934. After Long's assassination, was repurposed to support social conservative, economic leftist Union Party of Charles Coughlin ("Father Coughlin"), which collapsed in 1936.

TODO: """ACORN in the West, Massachusetts Fair Share in the East, the Highlander Center in Appalachia, TWO in Chicago, SEASHA and the Federation of Southern Cooperatives in the South are some of the many ongoing democratic experiments that deserve support and encouragement. [....] The lesson of recent history is that such programs need to be shaped and instituted by citizens themselves. This requires marshalling of power at the ballot box and within the only political party at all receptive to the needs of the disenfranchised, the Democratic party.""" https://democracyjournalarchive.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/berman_mainstream-politics-democracy-3-2_-may-1983.pdf

Trade unions without substantial socialist leadership

 * American Federation of Labor: In 1881, created as Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (FOTLU or FOOTLU). In 1886, reorganized as American Federation of Labor (AFL or AF of L). In 1955, merged into AFL-CIO. Ideology: "pure and simple" unionism.
 * Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO): TODO
 * United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA): TODO

Other acronyms

 * J18: international anti-G8 event, during 25th G8 summit, "Carnival Against Capital", on June 18, 1999
 * N30: 1999 Seattle WTO protests, "Battle of Seattle", from November 30, 1999 to December 3, 1999
 * A16: Washington A16, 2000, anti-IMF protests, on April 16, 2000

todo

 * Southern Workers Assembly
 * list of radical groups Dyson 1971 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3742075

prog ?

 * Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) https://jacobin.com/2021/10/socialism-1950s-civil-rights-montgomery-boycott-rustin-muste-randolph
 * CORE -> National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) -- earlier Poverty Rights Action Center (PRAC) and National Coordinating Committee of Welfare Rights Groups (NCC)
 * Rathke was member of SDS and NWRO -> Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), History of ACORN in the United States, ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy, ACORN International https://newpol.org/review/rise-and-fall-acorn/
 * ACORN -> Working Families Party (WFP)

black lib ?

 * Network of Black Organizers (NBO)
 * Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM)
 * Hampton Institute (2013) (HI) 2013-2023

black crm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Caleb_Maupin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colored_Conventions_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Equal_Rights_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Negro_Labor_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colored_National_Labor_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP https://www.jstor.org/stable/27557254

anarchist
Black Autonomy Network Community Organization
 * 1970s: Black Panther Party (BPP) member and former SNCC organizer Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin imprisoned
 * 1970s: in prison, Ervin began working with [Social Revolutionary Anarchist Federation]] (SRAF)
 * 1979: Ervin released, started working with African People's Socialist Party (APSP)
 * 1990s: Ervin, then a member of Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (LRRAF) helps create Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizers (BANCO)
 * 2003: BANCO appears to have been renamed Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO)
 * 1994: Ervin helps create Federation of Black Community Partisans (FBCP), which seems to run through 1997 and publishes Black Autonomy
 * """The emergence of radical feminism, with its anti-hierarchical ethos, afforded another opportunity for the rediscovery of anarchism. Throughout the 1970s, Peggy Kornegger and others contributed to a growing body of anarcho-feminist theory. Meanwhile, although black radicals tended to take Third World Marxist movements as their model, some looked back to anarchism; the Black Panthers reprinted Nechaev’s Catechism of the Revolutionary, and in 1979, a former Panther disenchanted with communism, Lorenzo Komboa Ervin (b. 1947), published his seminal pamphlet, Anarchism and the Black Revolution, introducing the concept of a “Black Anarchism” to radical debate. Another ex-Panther, Ashanti Alston Omowali (b. 1954), began publishing a zine titled Anarchist Panther in 1999."""
 * terminology note: Black autonomy used as anarchist alternative to Black nationalism and Black separatism; sometimes quilombo mentioned
 * terminology note: "anarchistic franchise organizations" (AFOs): anarchist inspired groupings with the same name, yet no centralized coordination (Williams 2012)

labor

 * Labor federation competition in the United States
 * AFL-CIO group: Working America