History of left-wing politics in the United States facts for kids
The history of left-wing politics in the United States is about many different people and groups who have worked for big changes to make things more fair and equal for everyone. These groups have helped push for important social changes, like improving conditions for workers and fighting for civil rights. They have also questioned how capitalism works.
In the United States, many communities have tried living together based on shared ideals, some of which were about creating a perfect society where everyone was equal. The idea of "left-wing" politics in the U.S. goes back to the French Revolution. This is when the terms "Left" and "Right" first appeared. In early American politics, the Democratic-Republican Party was seen as representing the "Left," while the Federalist Party was on the "Right."
Early American History
Many Native American tribes in North America lived in ways that shared resources and worked together. This was a form of economic cooperation among tribe members.
Communities for a Better World
The first European groups who believed in socialist ideas came to North America. One Christian group, called the Labadists, started a community in Pennsylvania in 1683. They lived communally, meaning they shared everything, similar to how early Christians lived. The Shakers, another religious group, also began setting up communities in the late 1700s. Some of these communities lasted well into the 1900s.
Fighting for Fairness and Rights
Even in early America, people started to demand better rights. The first strike in America happened in 1619. Polish workers in the Jamestown colony stopped working to demand the right to vote.
In 1676, a diverse group of people in Virginia joined Bacon's Rebellion. They complained about unfair taxes, corrupt judges, and leaders being chosen without the people's consent. Even though the rebellion failed, it was one of the first big movements where ordinary people stood up against British colonial rule before the American Revolution.
In the 1760s, people in North Carolina, mostly from the working class, began to protest against what they saw as a corrupt government. These protests grew into the War of the Regulation. In 1768, the Regulators entered Hillsborough, stopped the court, and dragged officials they thought were corrupt through the streets. After losing a battle, the movement ended, and their demands were not met. However, this movement helped spark the American Revolution.
Early Efforts to End Slavery
As slavery grew in the 1600s, many people began to speak out against it. Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island, tried to ban slavery in the colonies, but he was not successful. Samuel Sewall, a judge who later regretted his role in the Salem Witch Trials, became a strong opponent of slavery. He wrote a book called The Selling of Joseph, arguing against slavery and racial inequality.
Many early abolitionists (people who wanted to end slavery) were Quakers. However, a few Quakers did own slaves. The first two Quakers to speak out strongly against slavery were Anthony Benezet and John Woolman. They asked, "What worse thing can be done to us than if men should rob or steal us away and sell us for slaves to strange countries?" Around the same time, a group of Quakers and German Mennonites met in Germantown, Pennsylvania, to discuss why they were moving away from slavery. This call to end slavery was often linked to a bigger criticism of greed and wealth.
Enslaved people also resisted slavery. In the 1600s, new slaves would ask courts for their freedom, arguing that becoming Christian should free them. Many enslaved people, inspired by religious movements, saw their fight against slavery as a religious struggle, comparing themselves to the ancient Israelites in Egypt. There were several slave revolts, including in Virginia in 1663, in New York in 1712 and 1741, and in South Carolina in 1736. These revolts often included Native Americans and poor white people.
19th and 20th Centuries
The Rise of Socialist Ideas
The first non-religious American socialists were German immigrants who followed the ideas of Karl Marx. They arrived after the Revolutions of 1848. Joseph Weydemeyer, a friend of Karl Marx, came to New York in 1851 and started the first Marxist newspaper in the U.S. He also created the first Marxist group, the American Workers League, but it didn't last long because it couldn't attract English-speaking members.
In 1866, William H. Sylvis formed the National Labor Union (NLU). A German refugee named Friedrich Sorge connected a local NLU group to the First International, a global workers' organization. By 1872, there were 22 such groups in the U.S. The International's main council even moved to New York with Sorge as its leader, but it broke up in 1876 due to internal disagreements.
More German immigrants arrived in the 1870s and 1880s, including followers of Ferdinand Lassalle. Lassalle believed that government help through political action was the way to revolution, and he didn't think labor unions were very useful. His followers formed the Social Democratic Party of North America in 1874. Both Marxists and Lassalleans formed the Workingmen's Party of the United States in 1876. When the Lassalleans took control in 1877, they changed the name to the Socialist Labor Party of North America (SLP). However, many socialists left politics to focus on forming labor unions. Two former socialists, Adolph Strasser and Samuel Gompers, created the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886.
Anarchists, who believe in no government, separated from the Socialist Labor Party to form the Revolutionary Socialist Labor Party in 1881. They grew to 7,000 members by 1885. After a violent protest in Chicago in 1886, public opinion turned against anarchism. Later, an attempt to murder a rich businessman and the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 by people who said they were anarchists led to strict laws against them. In 1919, many anarchists, including Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, were arrested and sent out of the country. Anarchism gained attention again with the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, who were executed in 1927.
Daniel De Leon became the leader of the SLP in 1890 and moved it more towards Marxist ideas. Eugene Debs, a labor organizer, formed a competing group called the Social Democratic Party in 1898. Members of the SLP who disagreed with De Leon joined with Debs's group to form the Socialist Party of America (SPA).
In 1905, socialists, anarchists, and union members who were unhappy with the AFL's leadership founded the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Leaders included William D. "Big Bill" Haywood, Helen Keller, De Leon, and Debs.
The IWW leaders disagreed on whether to use elections to help workers. Debs left the IWW in 1906, and De Leon was removed in 1908. The IWW focused on "revolutionary industrial unionism," avoiding elections. It successfully organized workers in logging, farming, and construction in the Western states, and immigrant textile workers in the Eastern states.
The SPA was divided between those who believed socialism could be achieved through small changes to capitalism and those who thought capitalism needed to be completely overthrown. The party tried to find a middle ground. The SPA was most successful by 1912, when its presidential candidate received 5.9% of the votes. The first Socialist congressman, Victor Berger, was elected in 1910. By early 1912, there were over 1,000 Socialist officeholders, including mayors and city council members. Cities like Milwaukee and Berkeley were run by Socialists. The SPA also had many newspapers.
When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, there was a wave of strong nationalistic feelings against Germans, immigrants, African Americans, workers, and Socialists. Laws like the Espionage Act and Sedition Act were used against them. The government bothered Socialist newspapers, stopped their mail, and arrested anti-war activists. Debs and over sixty IWW leaders were charged under these laws.
Communists, the New Deal, and Red Scares
In 1919, John Reed and others formed the Communist Labor Party of America, while other Socialist groups formed the Communist Party. These two groups later combined to become the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA). The Communists formed the Trade Union Unity League to compete with the AFL.
Over time, there were many disagreements and splits within the Communist Party, often related to political fights happening in the Soviet Union. Different leaders like Jay Lovestone, William Z. Foster, James P. Cannon, and Earl Browder took control at different times.
In the 1930s, the Socialist Party was also divided. Some members left to form the Social Democratic Federation. Other groups, like the Workers Party, joined the Socialists but later split off again, forming groups like the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
Some former Socialists formed the American Labor Party (ALP) in New York, with support from labor unions. This party was quite popular in New York State in the 1930s and 1940s.
The United States Progressive Party of 1948 was a left-wing political party that supported former Vice President Henry A. Wallace for president in 1948. This party wanted to end segregation, create a national health insurance system, expand social programs, and have the government control the energy industry. They also wanted to improve relations with the Soviet Union during the early Cold War.
Civil Rights, Helping the Poor, and the New Left
In 1958, the Socialist Party welcomed members from another group called the Independent Socialist League. This group's leader, Max Shachtman, had developed a new way of thinking about Soviet communism, calling it "bureaucratic collectivism," which he saw as a very harsh type of class society. Shachtman's ideas attracted young people like Irving Howe and Michael Harrington.
Tom Kahn and Rachelle Horowitz, along with Norman Hill, worked with Bayard Rustin on the civil rights movement. Rustin helped teach leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. about non-violence. Rustin and A. Philip Randolph organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
Michael Harrington became a well-known socialist in the U.S. when his book The Other America became very popular. Harrington and other socialists were asked to help the Kennedy Administration and later the Johnson Administration with their programs to fight poverty and create a "Great Society."
Shachtman, Harrington, Kahn, and Rustin believed in a strategy called "realignment." This meant making labor unions and other progressive groups stronger within the Democratic Party. By working on civil rights and labor issues, socialists gained trust and influence. This helped push Democratic politicians towards more socially liberal or social-democratic ideas, especially on civil rights and fighting poverty.
Harrington, Kahn, and Horowitz were part of the League for Industrial Democracy (LID), which helped start the New Left group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The LID leaders disagreed with the younger SDS activists, like Tom Hayden. SDS criticized socialists and liberals for opposing communism and criticized the labor movement, while promoting students as agents of social change. LID and SDS split in 1965 when SDS removed a rule that prevented communists from joining. This change led to more internal conflicts, and SDS eventually broke apart, even though it had over 100,000 members at its peak.
In 1972, the Socialist Party voted to change its name to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA). Its leaders included Bayard Rustin, a peace and civil rights leader, and Charles S. Zimmerman, a union official. In 1973, Michael Harrington left SDUSA and founded the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), which attracted many of his followers. That same year, David McReynolds and others formed the Socialist Party, USA.
From 1979 to 1989, SDUSA members like Tom Kahn helped the AFL–CIO labor union raise money to buy printing presses and supplies for Solidarnosc (Solidarity), an independent labor union in Poland. SDUSA members also helped create a group that supported the founding of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which provided public aid to Solidarity.
New Ways of Protesting
In the 1990s, anarchists tried to organize across North America. One successful anarchist group was Food Not Bombs, which gave out free vegetarian meals. Anarchists gained a lot of media attention for disrupting the 1999 World Trade Organization conference in Seattle, known as the Battle in Seattle. Many of these groups were short-lived, and anarchism declined after authorities increased their actions against them following the September 11 attacks in 2001.
21st Century
Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, and Occupy
Bernie Sanders, who calls himself a democratic socialist and runs as an independent, first won election as mayor of Burlington, Vermont in 1981. He served four terms. He then represented Vermont in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 2007, and has been a U.S. Senator for Vermont since 2007.
In the 2000 presidential election, Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke ran on the Green Party ticket and received 2.74% of the popular vote.
Filmmaker Michael Moore directed popular movies that looked at the U.S. and its government from a left-wing point of view. These included Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine, Sicko, Capitalism: A Love Story, and Fahrenheit 9/11, which became the highest-grossing documentary film ever.
In 2011, Occupy Wall Street protests began in Manhattan, New York. They demanded accountability for the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and protested against inequality. These protests quickly spread to other cities and became known as the Occupy Movement.
On June 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of United States v. Windsor. This ruling said that part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which limited the federal definition of "marriage" to only heterosexual unions, was unconstitutional.
On November 5, 2013, Kshama Sawant, a candidate from the Socialist Alternative party, was elected to the Seattle City Council.
The Black Lives Matter movement gained popularity on social media in July 2013. This happened after the person who shot Trayvon Martin was found not guilty. The movement quickly grew in response to other shooting incidents, like the August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown. This led to nationwide protests, especially in Ferguson, Missouri.
On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges. This ruling stated that the right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by the U.S. Constitution.
On November 3, 2015, Kshama Sawant was re-elected to the Seattle City Council.
In the 2016 presidential election, independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders ran a strong campaign for president. He didn't win the nomination, but he won in many states, including a surprise victory in Michigan. The Sanders movement led to the creation of new progressive groups like Brand New Congress, Indivisible, Justice Democrats, and Our Revolution.
Sanders ran for president again in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. At one point, he was seen as the frontrunner. However, when other candidates united against him, he lost to former Vice President Joe Biden. After Biden was elected, his presidency took on some progressive ideas, such as the American Rescue Plan.
