Socialist Alternative

Socialist Alternative is affiliated with the United for Peace and Justice.

Socialist Alternative is in political solidarity with the Committee for a Workers' International, a worldwide socialist organization in 37 countries, on every continent.

Origins

Socialist Alternative first emerged as “Labor Militant” in 1986. Its activists were inspired by the example of the U.K. socialist group Militant Tendency, which sought to enter the British Labour Party in order to radicalize its rank-and-file. A decade later it would use its position on the Liverpool City Council and elsewhere to lead an aggressive campaign against the Thatcher administration’s cuts to social programs.

The American militants adapted their tactics to the conditions in their own country. Without a mass social-democratic party to enter into, Socialist Alternative used its early influence in the now-defunct U.S. Labor Party of the late 1990s to advocate for electoral opposition to Democratic Party politicians. In the coming years the organization would be active in social movements, but it wasn’t much of a presence even by the slim standards of the American Left. It had neither the clout of the Democratic Socialists of America nor the number of activists of the largest American bastion of Trotskyism, the International Socialist Organization.

Nationwide Anti-Trump Organizing

In an article at a Socialist Alternative publication, Patrick Ayers writes:

"Within hours of Trump’s victory, on November 8, Socialist Alternative branches around the county helped initiate protests that saw as many as 40,000 people come out on the streets on November 9."

Additionally, Ayers continues:

"Defeating Trump’s agenda would massively raise the confidence of working people to fight for other demands including a $15 federal minimum wage, single-payer healthcare, an end to mass incarceration, and tuition-free college. But victories under capitalism, as in the past, can be reversed. Globally, capitalism faces a historic crisis that the U.S. cannot escape. The world economy faces an epoch of sluggish growth, while wars, social conflict and environmental catastrophe threaten to engulf the planet. We believe the fight against the right must be part of building an independent movement of working people to fundamentally transform society along socialist lines."

Anti-Trump Protests

See also: NeverTrump

Socialist Alternative "helped kick off massive marches in New York City, Seattle, Philadelphia, Oakland, California, and Ann Arbor, Michigan."

2020 Antifa riots

See also: 2020 Antifa riots

In Marxist–Leninist and Maoist theory, a United front is a coalition of leftist organizations that collude for the purpose of taking over a government. In the 116th Congress, the Committees of Correspondence for Democratic Socialism, Democratic Socialists of America, Liberation Road (formerly Freedom Road Socialist Organization}, and Communist Party of the United States formally created a united front of the nation's four largest Communist organizations to take over the Democratic Party. As of 2018 the umbrella group is known as the Left Inside/Outside Project (“One foot in the institutions, one foot in the streets.”) consisted of 57,000 community organizers. At its August 2019 convention the DSA passed a resolution to form a

“National Working Group to help drive collaboration and resource sharing to support our antifascist organizing.”

Law enforcement authorities found evidence of pre-planning. The Minneapolis Star/Tribune reported:

state officials said several caches of flammable materials were found both in neighborhoods where there have already been fires and “in cars we’ve stopped as recently as this morning,” said John Harrington, state public safety commissioner. Some of the caches look like they may have been planted days ago and some only in the last 24 hours or so, he said. Police are also finding stolen vehicles with plates removed that are being used to transport the flammable materials. Looted goods and weapons also have been found in the stolen cars, he said.

The Sunrise Movement, with established groups in several major cities, has heavily recruited activists from the DSA and Liberation Road affiliated groups, such as the Pennsylvania Student Power Network. Sunrise founding activists are all current trainers with Momentum Community, which is a training workshop funded by millionaires and billionaires to “incubate” supposed "grassroots" organizations such as Sunrise and the Movimiento Cosecha (Harvest Movement). Democrat millionaire donor and former 2020 presidential election candidate Tom Steyer's NextGen America is also tied to the Sunrise Movement, and according to the New York Times, the two groups “strategize” together.

The DSA itself as of 2020 has 66,000 members nationwide and locals in almost every state. Other communist groups such as Communist Party USA, Liberation Road, Socialist Alternative, Workers World Party, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Socialist Unity Party, and Revolutionary Communist Party and their allies in Black Lives Matter and Antifa can mobilize tens of thousands of militants and organizing cadre at short notice. The American Left has the power to start race riots in nearly every major U.S. city. DSA branches in Memphis, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Louisville, Philadelphia, and Richmond are raising funds for “George Floyd Uprisings Nationwide.”

Regional affiliates

• Socialist Alternative - Austin
• Socialist Alternative - Houston
• Socialist Alternative - Michigan
• Socialist Alternative - NYC
• Socialist Alternative - Seattle

Solidarity with Sept. 24 FBI Raid Activists

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression lists Socialist Alternative as one of the organizations that has issued a statement of solidarity in support of the activists raided in the September 24, 2010 FBI Raids.

Electoral politics

In 2013 Socialist Alternative ran several high-profile local city council races — Kshama Sawant’s in Seattle, Ty Moore’s in Minneapolis and Seamus Whelan’s in Boston.

Savant won, Moore came very close.

External links

• United for Peace and Justice website