What is wrong with the left?
On July 7, the Revolutionary Communists of America published an article endorsing Kshama Sawant’s independent socialist campaign for Congress. They explain: “One of the principal lessons of the worldwide class struggle is the importance of the workers acting as a class.”
A handful of other socialist organizations like Labor Militant, the Spartacist League, ISA (revolutionary), Seattle Revolutionary Socialists, and Socialist Action have also endorsed Kshama’s campaign. But this is not the general case. Most of the left has failed to “act as a class” and leave sectarianism and infighting tendencies behind.
The left is splintered into dozens of little “socialist parties.” These organizations refuse to cooperate and in the worst cases, actively help the Democratic Party. With our forces united, we could build a socialist party to elect socialist candidates independent of the Democratic and Republican Parties. Instead, many socialist and left organizations treat each other as small competing businesses.
Party for Socialism and Liberation
After the Democratic Socialists of America, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is the largest socialist organization in the U.S., with about 4,000 members. The party is running an ambitious slate of independent socialist campaigns in 2026: Greg Levy in Ohio, Andre Easton in New York, and Joe Tache in Massachusetts.
It’s good that PSL is running these campaigns, and workers should support them. But PSL does not work with other left forces to create something that could truly challenge capitalism. It runs its candidates with the narrow aim of recruiting to PSL. When PSL does collaborate, it’s usually with liberal organizations like the Green Party. But none of the PSL candidates have so much as mentioned Kshama’s campaign for Congress in Washington.
Kshama is guilty of this, too. She has been silent on virtually every other independent campaign. In California, she endorsed liberal Green Party candidate Butch Ware for Governor over PSL’s socialist candidate Ramsey Robinson. She hasn’t said a word about any of the PSL candidates.
This kind of sectarianism is holding back the socialist movement. Instead of teaming up with Democrats and liberals, PSL and Kshama should present themselves as a united front of independent socialist campaigns.
Democratic Socialists of America
The DSA has its own host of problems but boasts to be the largest socialist organization with over 120,000 members. Yet it has done nothing close to what that large membership could accomplish. Even worse, it has dozens of elected officials that have sold out the working class again and again. This is because the DSA is tied to the Democratic Party. They refuse to look at any candidate but a Democrat candidate.
The perfect example is Seattle DSA’s decision to endorse Jaeylnn Scott, a Democrat running for State House, while refusing to even have a debate on endorsing Kshama Sawant. Jaeylnn Scott is a Democrat who joined DSA recently to get an endorsement to further her political career. Kshama has a long track record of fighting for historic victories for the working class such as the $15 Now movement. Kshama has also been a long standing member of the DSA. There is simply no excuse for not endorsing her.
DSA needs at the least to publish its criticisms with other socialist organizations in the open. This would allow for open and public debate. It would also allow organizations to share and compare notes in a scientific approach.
Socialist Alternative
Socialist Alternative (SAlt) is a particularly sad case of sectarianism. In this case, its inability to work with other organizations has left it totally paralyzed and unable to do anything. This is a turn inwards that does not help to organize the working class.
SAlt is Kshama’s former organization. Kshama won four elections under the Socialist Alternative banner, and her City Council campaigns helped build the organization into a small but significant force of 1,000 members nationally.
Kshama left SAlt in 2024 with her faction to form Revolutionary Workers and build a broader organization called Workers Strike Back.
SAlt is a deeply pessimistic organization whose entire outlook in 2024 was that the working class was too demoralized to take action. This left them in a state of paralysis. Their solution was to look inwards instead of building coalitions or attempting to build working-class organizations like Workers Strike Back.
Today, the organization has become so insular and embittered that it refuses to even mention that Kshama is running a congressional campaign, much less endorse her. Only a small faction of the organization (ISA Revolutionary) has argued for supporting Kshama’s campaign.
[Editor's note: Since the publication of this article, Socialist Alternative has published an endorsement of the Sawant campaign, but so far this remains a paper endorsement.]
United Front for a Workers’ Party
United Front has been created to begin addressing these weaknesses on the left. One is the tie between the socialist movement and the Democratic Party, which needs to be severed. The other is the refusal of different organizations to communicate and coordinate.
As a scattering of competing individual forces, the left has not been able to do much. It has not been able to connect with working class movements and build them in lasting organization.
This comes from tying itself to the Democratic Party like the DSA does. By constantly dragging movements into electing Democratic Party candidates, the DSA has forced these working class movements into the Democratic Party. The party then kills the movements with some platitudes. Whatever independent working class organization that could come out of these movements instead become a branch of the Democratic Party. The DSA needs to stop bolstering the forces of the Democratic Party while claiming to be a Democratic Socialist organization.
On the other side, the Marxist left needs to shed its sectarianism.
The RCA’s endorsement of Kshama is a good start, but it should also mean material support. Instead, the RCA seems to be taking the route of a paper endorsement. They have not worked with either United Front or Kshama’s campaign to actively door knock, rally or campaign for Kshama. The endorsement appears to be mainly a tool for them to avoid charges of sectarianism.
It is not enough to simply give a paper endorsement like the RCA. SRS, Labor Militant, ISAr, and the Spartacist League have worked together to actually build Kshama’s campaign, and other independent campaigns around the country. These organizations have doorknocked and tabled for Kshama’s campaign on a monthly basis. They have built monthly meetings together as part of United Front with constant discussion on how to break form the Democratic Party, sharing notes and criticism where we disagree.
We need much more of this type of joint work. United Front is hosting a town hall on August 8. We are inviting all socialists and workers to come together, including with their criticisms and suggestions, to discuss how we can build principled unity and break the socialist movement away from the Democratic Party.