A Family Tree of the American Left

[MarxSchmarx]

In case you are interested, here is an old image on the development of various leftist groups in america at least until 1990. It needs quite abit of updating but I thought it would help summarize who was who and what was what, at least until 20 years ago. It comes from some DSA guy named J Hughes from a now defunct website
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/leftwing.htm

http://www.dsausa.org/GIF/History.GIF

[RED DAVE]

It's extremely incomplete and has much inaccuracy. For example, it does not mention the American Labor Party, which played a major role in the 1930s as an intellectual force behind industrial unionism.

RED DAVE

[Q]

It's extremely incomplete and has much inaccuracy. For example, it does not mention the American Labor Party, which played a major role in the 1930s as an intellectual force behind industrial unionism.

RED DAVE

Make a better one :p

[Mather]

Why does it refer to the RCP as "white Maoists"? It doesn't make any references to race or ethnicity for all the other parties/groups.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

There's a version of that on the leftwing Trainspotters yahoo group. There's also a flow chart of the US Maoist and Trotskyist movements. They're interesting but its probably more accurate to think in terms of people instead of organizational groupings.

Also-I don't think the Utne Reader, Dissent, Mother Jones, The Nation,In these Times or the New Republic are leftist by any means.They're liberal. That's not to say they're not worthwhile reading. In 1990 they possibly were more to the left than they are now.I'm not sure about Z Magazine or Progressive.

The DSA, Citizen's Action, etc, are also liberal, not leftist.I believe this flowchart was actually made by someone in the DSA.This is a social democratic view of the "left". Revoloutionary leftists are in the "looney left" The ISO just barely escapes this but the CPUS is on the far end.

[Mather]

Revoloutionary leftists are in the "looney left" The ISO just barely escapes this but the CPUS is on the far end.


True, there is no way anyone can say that the CP-USA is to the left of all those stalinist/maoist/trotskyist groups. The CP-USA are much more closer to the DSA than anything else.

[Red Commissar]

Unrelated, but I took a look at the website this is on, it's on some right-wing loon's site. He's got a bit on why socialism, communism, "Democratism" (?), and fascism are the same thing. Most of his content seems to be along the same lines.

Guess it's only fitting that inaccurate sectarian nonsense introduced by a DSA member would wind up on this sort of site.

I've always wanted to make one of my own but the sheer number of parties and splits makes it a difficult task.

[RED DAVE]

The most complete "Family Tree" that I know of is in Walter Goldwater's book on radical periodicals, which, as I recall, has a chart as an appendix, but Goldwater's book only goes up to 1950.

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