Detail of “Death of the Party”, Painting by Mike Alewitz

Socialist Resurgence (SR) is a new national organization of activists in the United States committed to the interests of workers and the oppressed, and the creation of a socialist world in which society is organized according the needs of working people rather than profit. 

We think that the moment is extremely favorable for the founding of a new revolutionary socialist organization. We are greatly enthused by the increased interest in socialist ideas in the United States, the rise in activism in the labor movement as well as in many social movements, and the fervent dialogue within the socialist movement about how to advance the efforts to build a revolutionary party. We wish to participate in that dialogue.

For a brief introduction to the program of our new organization, please click on “What we stand for” on the top menu of the Home Page. Some of our founding programmatic documents are in the “SR Documents” section of this site. In the coming days, we will post many more articles and documents that explain the program of Socialist Resurgence.

The core of our group originated as a tendency within Socialist Action—the Permanent Revolution Faction (PRF)—that had been formed to defend the historic program of revolutionary socialism as practiced during the best years of Socialist Action and the Socialist Workers Party before that. Most of our founding members were expelled or resigned from Socialist Action in mid-October 2019. The attempts by the faction that dominates Socialist Action to avoid thorough investigation and discussions of those issues led them to take organizational steps against comrades now in Socialist Resurgence. Ultimately, our comrades were purged and silenced because of their dissident views. The major differences we had with the dominant faction of Socialist Action had to do with several key international struggles, including those in Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Kashmir.

Throughout the debates in Socialist Action, we attempted to halt the organization’s backsliding on basic principles of our revolutionary program, such as how Trotsky’s thesis of Permanent Revolution ties in with our analysis of current uprisings, wars, and imperialist interventions in the semi-colonial world. The opening debate in Socialist Action, beginning in late 2015, concerned the war in Syria, when we opposed the position in SA that the authoritarian regime of Bashar Assad, and its Russian and Iranian allies, were liberators of the Syrian people. We also rejected the adaptation by the Socialist Action leadership majority to those in the antiwar movement who promote Russia and China as progressive powers in the semi-colonial world. 

We were further appalled by the Socialist Action leadership’s rejection of the efforts by revolutionaries and labor militants in Iran, Venezuela, and other countries to develop an independent working-class front against imperialism. And we criticized the failure of SA to warn that semi-colonial capitalist regimes would likely default in the struggle against imperialism. We believe that the fight against U.S. imperialism, which entails mobilizing the largest numbers possible in united-front actions to get the “U.S. Out Now,” also requires socialists to engage in direct solidarity with the struggles of the workers inside the semi-colonial countries, who are most capable of mounting an effective struggle against imperialist intervention. 

Again, this is merely a brief introduction about the origins of our new group. To learn more about us, we invite you to explore the other articles and documents on this site.