When discussing political organizing in the United States, the left is often ignored or relegated to the sidelines. Labor unions have been weakened to the point where they no longer possess the substantial bargaining power they did decades ago; the “progressive” party in our two-party government is owned by capitalists and powerful interest groups and consistently fails to push for a progressive agenda; third parties are largely viewed as a joke; and working class politics almost always seem to be pushed aside by the establishment. What is often overlooked in this discussion is what some of those alternative leftist political spaces actually look like in the US. The first part of this article provides an informative overview of the activities of four organizations: The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and the American Communist Party (ACP). Due to its brief nature, this article will inevitably omit certain details and organizations, and readers are encouraged to conduct their own research. 

DSA

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States today. For many decades, the DSA, founded in 1982 by writer and political activist Michael Harrington, was predominantly frequented by Jewish socialists. It remained a relatively niche organization—with memberships typically hovering around 5,000—until Bernie Sanders’s presidential run in 2016, when it became the primary home of the young left. Between 2013 and 2019, the average age of members dropped from 68 to 33. Nowadays, the organization has over 80,000 active members.

Unlike most of the other parties on this list, the DSA considers itself pluralist; this means that it allows its members to hold and promote a wide variety of political opinions within the organization, from reformist socialist positions to Marxist-Leninist revolutionary ones. The DSA’s central program promotes both domestic and foreign policies—including Medicare, housing, college for all, ending the US military-industrial complex, and Palestinian liberation.

Most of the DSA’s work is done in local chapters, whose emphases vary greatly depending on where their chapter lies on the DSA’s political spectrum. As such, some DSA chapters focus primarily on electing socialist candidates in local elections, while others eschew electoral politics entirely and focus on influencing policy in other ways, including direct action, protesting, and creating policy proposals. Some chapters also focus on community organizing projects, such as mutual aid programs and tenant unionization. Additionally, some chapters have had success in electing candidates to more influential offices, notably electing US. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, an active member of the Metro Detroit chapter. Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s new mayor-elect, is an active member of the DSA, which played a major role in guiding his campaign.

Today, the DSA continues its upward trajectory as the face of socialism in America. Time will tell whether its pluralist, non-cadre party model is a successful one, but it’s certainly helped to propel socialism back into popularity in the US, and there’s no denying that DSA is a driving force in the American left.

PSL

The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a Marxist-Leninist party founded in 2004. Something that sets the PSL apart from other leftist organizations is its use of the “cadre” organization model; members are expected to fulfill a variety of responsibilities to the party, discouraging passive membership. Because of this structure, the official membership of the party is misleading; though they are a relatively small organization, the average PSL member is much more involved than in most other organizations.

The PSL organizes various types of events, with an emphasis on popular education and mass mobilization. These can take the form of protests, teach-ins, campaign rallies, and more. The bulk of the PSL’s work consists of organizing localities through political education and mobilization—whether it be working in tandem with other aligned organizations to turnout thousands of protesters to rally around an issue or hosting local teach-ins such as a “Socialism Teach-in” held at the Oberlin Public Library this spring.

The PSL also fields candidates in federal, state, and local elections, although they have never won. It is worth noting that they have fielded a presidential candidate since 2008 and have received increasing support each time. The most recent culmination of this was Claudia de la Cruz’s campaign, which won 166,175 votes in 2024 (6th place). Her campaign called for radical changes such as reparations for Black Americans, creating a single-payer healthcare system, and cutting the military budget by 90%.

Through their activities, the PSL aims to be a vanguard party, advancing the politics of the masses by making revolutionary socialist ideas more visible and accessible for involvement. They may not be as influential as the DSA, but their cadre approach to organizing allows them to wield significant influence among American socialists. 

CPUSA

The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) was the largest party fighting for socialism in America throughout the 20th century. Established in 1919 following the Russian Revolution and guided by Marxist-Leninist theory, the CPUSA began its organizing and activism in the United States with guidance from the Communist International (Comintern). 

The Comintern was an international organization established by the USSR under Lenin to support revolutionary movements worldwide. From its inception to its decline, the CPUSA consistently looked to the Comintern for political guidance; this manifested in multiple ways, such as its shifting positions on the rise of European fascism and WWII. In the 1930s, the party adopted the Soviet stance of fierce opposition to fascism, later shifting its emphasis to peace following the formation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. When Nazi Germany broke this pact and the war in Europe intensified, the CPUSA returned to its original position and broadly supported the Allied powers. 

The CPUSA was among the first to join the fight for civil rights for Black Americans; this began with their Great Depression-era advocacy for working Americans, which emphasized the importance of combating systemic racism as part of the movement. Here, the party was also guided by Comintern politics, such as the “Set of Theses on the Negro Question,” which placed the issue of American structural racism in the context of the worldwide fight against exploitation. As the party grew, reaching over 75,000 members at its peak, the CPUSA became an increasingly important body for organizing Black workers in the context of a growing labor movement that largely excluded them. They also provided legal defense for African Americans facing injustice, such as in the case of the Scottsboro Boys, whose convictions were overturned by the Supreme Court with the help of the International Labor Defense, a group closely affiliated with the CPUSA.

The downfall of the party began in the 1950s, marked by federal persecution during the Second Red Scare and internal disputes that divided its politics. Khrushchev’s rise and denunciation of Stalin’s rule, as well as growing fear among Americans of Soviet Communism, caused many in the party to reconsider their relationship with the USSR. Membership dwindled, and by 1957, over 10% of its now mere 10,000 members were FBI agents using blackmail and intimidation to sabotage efforts to organize. The CPUSA continued to mobilize, later participating in the opposition movement against the Vietnam War, but as the years went by, it became a shell of its former self. The CPUSA claimed 20,000 members on its mailing list in 2024 and has focused much of its recent work on fielding candidates in local elections. 

ACP

In July of 2024, a small faction of the CPUSA broke off from the party and created the American Communist Party (ACP). Their stated reasons for this split are extensive, but can be summarized as a failure of the CPUSA to acknowledge the organizing challenge of political polarization in the USA, an ideological shift from communism to liberalism, and the general incompetence of the party’s leadership. Despite its small membership, the ACP has grown somewhat infamous for its unconventional interpretation of Marxist-Leninism, which is reflected in the party’s aesthetics and target audience. The executive board of the ACP has been described as being socially conservative and economically left, fascists masquerading as socialists, and “MAGA Communists.”

“MAGA Communism” is a so-called political movement fathered by ACP Chairman Haz Al-Din and Jackson Hinkle, another executive of the party who shares his controversial views with his 3.6 million followers on X. It identifies the MAGA movement in the US as having the most revolutionary potential, and seeks to channel American discontent with the system into a communist revolution using social conservatism and patriotism. Contrary to what the name suggests, it is not aligned with the Trump administration and denounces the Republican Party. You can find these two tweeting statements like “Marxism is not woke,” and being featured on Russian and Iranian state media for their statements condemning Western imperialism and the military industrial complex. Other party leaders differ from these two, using their platforms to teach socialist theory and history, and give solid analyses of contemporary politics, with the occasional take that will raise the eyebrows of many leftists. 

The official party program found on their website is distinctly socialist, including policies such as free healthcare, land reform, an economic bill of rights, and investment in public infrastructure and transportation. There are over thirty chapters across the country with members who organize by joining picket lines and working with unions, volunteering at food banks, cleaning public spaces, and doing outreach to working Americans.

Overall, it’s difficult to characterize the essence of the ACP, as it seems to be multiple things at once. On the one hand, the party has major red flags of social chauvinism and dubious leadership, reeking of opportunism and clout-chasing. On the other hand, they appear to have mobilized a small but potentially non-negligible number of Americans from traditionally conservative backgrounds to organize around leftist politics, although the scale of this feat is difficult to verify due to a lack of transparency regarding the numbers. The ACP is frankly completely irrelevant in American politics and has no prospects of changing the nation's political landscape (despite their monumental victory of getting Chris Helali elected as High Bailiff in Orange County, Vermont). The question of revolutionary potential in the US is an interesting one. There’s a strong argument to be made that the average Republican voter has shown themselves to be more welcoming of drastic changes to the system than the average Democrat, which largely stems from a class disparity between each party’s respective base. 

The second part of this article covering another batch of organizations will be released at a later date…

Cover artwork by Caroline Acker.