What is the Largest Left Wing Party in the US?

[craigd89]

What are the largest or most active socialist and communist parties in the US?

[Lucretia]

Most active? Tough call. Largest? Probably the SP-USA, followed by the ISO.

[Rusty Shackleford]

is the CP-USA still the largest? last i heard, they were hemorrhaging membership.

[Tablo]

I think CPUSA has got to be small. I've run into many more ISO, SPUSA, and REVCOM members than CPUSA. I think CPUSA lies about its membership numbers.

[Widerstand]

But is the CPUSA leftist?

[Tablo]

But is the CPUSA leftist?
Good point. While I think there may be some real leftist involvement in the party it is clear that it's leadership rejects communism..

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The Democratic Party.

[Rusty Shackleford]

But is the CPUSA leftist?
a rhetorical comment.

the CP's stated ideology is Marxism-Leninism, but their actions, primarily being co-opted by the democrats make them ineffectual as an independent political force.

yes, they are leftist.

are they revolutionary? no.

[Widerstand]

the CP's stated ideology is Marxism-Leninism, but their actions, primarily being co-opted by the democrats make them ineffectual as an independent political force.

If their stated Ideology was Social Democrat, would you support them equally?

Similarly, if the Democrats' stated ideology was Marxism-Leninism, would you?



yes, they are leftist.

are they revolutionary? no.

Then I guess the Democrats are the largest leftist party.

[Tablo]

I think it is impossible to determine the largest leftist party in the US when none of them actually release membership information(which I think it is good they don't release).

[chegitz guevara]

Most active? Tough call. Largest? Probably the SP-USA, followed by the ISO.

Nope. Only five years ago we could claim 1,500 (of whom, probably only 10% were active). The latest membership numbers I've seen are 700, but I don't know how old that figure is. Generally party membership rises considerably during Presidential election years and then tapers off. The Obama campaign sucked the wind out of the left's sails, and we had no membership growth in 2008, and we have continued to decline. At the same time, our public face has become decidedly less radical and revolutionary, making us less attractive to newly radicalizing people.

No one knows the true membership numbers for the CPUSA, but I recently saw speculation that it had dropped to 700 also. That organization is in terminal decline.

PSL is growing like a weed. While I doubt that they have the 600 claimed by another comrade on RevLeft recently (based on the numbers that attended PSLs recent conference), it wouldn't surprise me if they had more than half that. Given that they are a young group and started much smaller, their growth is impressive. They seem to be doing something right, but only time will tell if it is sustainable.

I've read recently that ISO topped 1,100 members in the last few years. Even assuming historic turnover rates for the ISO of 100% per year, they are still the largest ostensibly revolutionary party in the U.S. My understanding of ISO recruitment methods is its very easy to get in to the ISO (unlike PSL which has a six month candidacy period and extensive study). Once in the ISO, people quickly find out that it isn't for them.

The "largest" "left" organization in the U.S. is the Democratic Socialists of America, which claims some 12,000 members. This is misleading, however. It is mainly based on their number of people they have on their mailing list.

I know NOTHING about the size of various anarchist groups in the U.S., so keep that in mind.

[KurtFF8]

Once in the ISO, people quickly find out that it isn't for them.

This seems to be the case indeed. I know an entire group of folks who were in the ISO, and after attending just once conference, they had a conflict with the leadership and decided to leave for another organization.


I know NOTHING about the size of various anarchist groups in the U.S., so keep that in mind.

Which would of course be difficult, because American Anarchist groups tend to take "security culture" quite seriously and wouldn't want folks knowing the answers to that. From my experience, the groups tend to be small but there are quite a few anarchist groups around. They are also not as connected as Communist or Socialist parties of course (by design), which does sometimes lead to various tendencies (e.g. some groups that think maintaining their infoshop is the same thing as challenging capitalism versus those who believe in real organizing)

[Lucretia]

is the CP-USA still the largest? last i heard, they were hemorrhaging membership.

I think the OP was referring to left-wing parties, not parties that use overwrought rhetoric to mask a basically liberal political operation.

[KurtFF8]

I think the OP was referring to left-wing parties, not parties that use overwrought rhetoric to mask a basically liberal political operation.

The CPUSA certainly doesn't have much support at RevLeft, it's one of the few things that most posters here actually agree on. But it is certainly worth counting them in this assessment. As mentioned before, they are still an organization that claims to be Marxist-Leninist. The reason for their lack of popularity amongst the rest of the American Left is of course their "opportunism" or "Democratic Party tailism" but it's still quite relevant for us to assess their strength.

Just like it's important to know where "revolutionary" parties and organizations stand in relation to groups like the DSA.

It sometimes makes sense for revolutionaries and groups like the DSA to work together, after all the DSA is probably more left wing than CPUSA (it has folks like Chomsky and Cornel West)

[Lucretia]

The CPUSA certainly doesn't have much support at RevLeft, it's one of the few things that most posters here actually agree on. But it is certainly worth counting them in this assessment. As mentioned before, they are still an organization that claims to be Marxist-Leninist. The reason for their lack of popularity amongst the rest of the American Left is of course their "opportunism" or "Democratic Party tailism" but it's still quite relevant for us to assess their strength.

Just like it's important to know where "revolutionary" parties and organizations stand in relation to groups like the DSA.

It sometimes makes sense for revolutionaries and groups like the DSA to work together, after all the DSA is probably more left wing than CPUSA (it has folks like Chomsky and Cornel West)

I would have to ask then what criteria we are using to determine whether a group is leftist. Didnt Marx have a clever quote about judging people/groups based on their own conception of themselves rather than other criteria? I could claim to be the queen of England, but that doesn't make it so.

[Rusty Shackleford]

a social democrat/democratic socialist is pretty much the border of leftism. the CP-USA is in this realm.

do i support them? obviously not.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

...which should probably make you wonder exactly what the "left" is and if you want to be a part of it.

[KurtFF8]

I would have to ask then what criteria we are using to determine whether a group is leftist. Didnt Marx have a clever quote about judging people/groups based on their own conception of themselves rather than other criteria? I could claim to be the queen of England, but that doesn't make it so.

I don't know about the Marx quote but I know that Althusser had something along the lines of that we should "judge people by their work, not their word" (probably more in reference to written work actually but I think it could also be applied to organizations).

Either way, I don't think it's valuable for Leftists to just be uninterested in the nature of an organization because we disagree with them.

If anything, it's really important for us to understand the history of the CPUSA and how it got to where it is today, and understand exactly what we mean by "where it is today" and what that means for the revolutionary Left.

[Kassad]

The ISO is probably the largest in number. However, they have a serious revolving door problem. At the university closest to me, they have all new members every year because the people who attend the meetings never come back.

[Palingenisis]

The ISO is probably the largest in number. However, they have a serious revolving door problem. At the university closest to me, they have all new members every year because the people who attend the meetings never come back.

Which has the largest working class membership?

[Kassad]

Which has the largest working class membership?

That's pretty impossible to tell from my angle. In regards to my party, members need to either join unions at their workplace or do their best to get one started. I don't know how other organizations manage that kind of issue.

There are a lot of parties that though they are made up of workers to some extent (RCP, Spartacists, etc.), they have given up working with unions and striking workers. That's a pretty depressing trend, if you ask me.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Which has the largest working class membership?

The Democratic Party.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think CPUSA has got to be small. I've run into many more ISO, SPUSA, and REVCOM members than CPUSA. I think CPUSA lies about its membership numbers.It's apples and oranges... I meet CPUSA members who are just card carriers or members on paper. The ISO and other groups are activist groups so our members are actually active local organizers. I don't think the CPUSA lies about their members, they just include people whose level of activism is being on a mailing list or whatnot.

About how big was Love and Rage at its height? It must have been right up there - I wasn't active at that time but I meet a lot of people who say they were connected with that to various degrees.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

The ISO did have quite the revolving door problem, however, the recruitment process is changing and I can tell you that the recruitment process for myself and several other new members in our branch took about five or six months and involved several reading groups and plenty of one-on-one contact meetings where members answer questions about the organization or do article reviews and education with one contact.

[Widerstand]

The ISO did have quite the revolving door problem, however, the recruitment process is changing and I can tell you that the recruitment process for myself and several other new members in our branch took about five or six months and involved several reading groups and plenty of one-on-one contact meetings where members answer questions about the organization or do article reviews and education with one contact.

It's a pain in the ass when orgs are like that, but definitely a plus (though it doesn't take from them from the ability to have absolutely horrible politics).

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

Actually, the old recruiting methods and the problems with them were some of the first things I was told about the history of the ISO by the Branch Coordinator. I think they recognized the problem with attempting to recruit a bunch of people really quickly into a group that demands quite a bit of dedication and activism.

[Jimmie Higgins]

These turnover claims are pretty exaggerated and people have been claiming this for at least the 10 or so years I have been involved. It just kind of reeks more of petty resentment than any kind of analysis to say that X is the biggest group on the organized radical left... but they also always loose all of their members. If that were true, how did we get the initial members to begin with?

Is there turnover - sure, but I don't think it's because of subjective problems as much as the objective situation of the left. Every movement I have been in sees a lot of turnover and there has been little consistency in independent activists from one movement to the next. In that kind of atmosphere I think it's hard for groups to grow.

In college based branches there tends to be higher turnover because people just move away or are recruited in the spring and treat it like a school club and drop off when they are out of school. It's like that for all the other student-based campus groups too -except the Sparts who have the same 40 year old non-student on campus each year. I'm in a community branch and we tend to grow more slowly but we also have almost no turnover unless someone moves to another city or has a baby and has to cut back on their organizing time. About half our branch has been in the organization for 10 or more years and all but 2 of our newer members are out of school and full-time workers.

Of the people who leave over political disagreements, it's usually just because they are not won away from liberal ideas. Really in effect our process isn't all that different than the PSL waiting 6 months... there's a period of weeks to months (depending on the individual) when people join but probably aren't totally convinced of Marxist ideas yet (particularly students who are also being fed all these POMO and liberal ideas in their classes). We just don't have any ridged screening period or requirements for joining beyond a basic set of points of agreement - as members we try and try and determine if someone is convinced or not. As an organization that wants active organizers and grassroots/rank and file leaders, it really is counter-productive from that perspective to have members that exist only on paper.

When I joined, it was right before 9/11 and I had a lot of soft-anarchist ideas at the time and some of the liberal ideas of the anti-golbalization movement like that corporate power made states are irrelevant in the "interrelated corporate world hegemony". ISOers kept pushing me to read about the theory of the capitalist state and arguing this point with me and I was like, damn, why are they so pushy, we agree on corporations being bad, isn't that enough? Then a little while later 9/11 happened and learning about imperialism and state-power was suddenly more relevant and I became much more convinced of our politics.