Socialist Alternative (United States)

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Socialist Alternative
Chairperson	National Committee (no single chairperson)
Founded	April 1986; 38 years ago (1986-04) (as Labor Militant)
Headquarters	New York City, New York
Newspaper	Socialist Alternative
Student wing	Socialist Students
Membership	≈1,000 (2020)[1]
Ideology	Marxism[2] Revolutionary socialism[1] Trotskyism
Political position	Far-left
International affiliation	International Socialist Alternative[3]
Colors	Red
Slogan	"Struggle, Solidarity, Socialism"
Website
socialistalternative.org
Politics of United States Political parties Elections

Socialist Alternative (sometimes shortened to SA or SAlt, and founded as Labor Militant) is a Trotskyist political party in the United States. It describes itself as a revolutionary party fighting for a democratic socialist economy, because capitalism is fundamentally incapable of serving the interests of the majority of people.

SAlt's highest-profile public representative was former Seattle City Councillor Kshama Sawant, who was elected in November 2013.^[4] It is active in over 50 cities in the United States,^[5] and campaigns for socialist issues. SAlt is a member of International Socialist Alternative, a Trotskyist political international.^[3]

SAlt was officially formed as Labor Militant in 1986 by members of the Committee for a Workers' International who had moved to the United States and formed the Labor and Trade Union Group in the early 1980s. Labor Militant was a small group with its membership made mostly of trade union members.^{[citation needed]}

By the mid-1990s, Labor Militant became part of a campaign to form the Labor Party where it was in the leadership of the New York Metro Chapter. The New York Metro Chapter, the largest in the country, saw Labor Militant and its allies run again for the leadership of the chapter under the United Action slate only to be defeated in an Executive Committee election. Labor Militant members and the United Action slate had argued that the Labor Party should vigorously run candidates against the Democrats, whereas the national leadership of the Labor Party refused to take such an approach. After the election, the New York Labor Party State Executive upheld the election results while suspending the New York Metro Chapter and several of its officers, eventually shutting down the chapter.^[6]

In the late 1990s, Labor Militant changed its name to Socialist Alternative to reflect what was classified as a change in the political period.^[7] From 1998 to 2002, SAlt party was active in the anti-globalization movement. It was present at many of the major protests during this time, including the N30 Protests in Seattle. At these protests, it argued that the movement should take up the key demands of "abolish the IMF, World Bank and the WTO", "cancel the international debt", "papers for all undocumented immigrants" and "take the banks and financial institutions into public ownership".^[8]

In 2004, SAlt members initiated Youth Against War and Racism (YAWR) as a sustained campaign against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. YAWR worked mainly in high schools primarily in counter-recruitment activism in several cities. In 2005, several hundred Seattle's high school students walked out of class in order to march in protest of the war in Iraq causing conflict with parents and school officials who contended that the students should focus on school during the day.^[9] Following protests by members of YAWR and SAlt against military recruitment in schools, the Seattle School Board enacted some restrictions on military recruiters at Seattle high schools. The changes included limiting military recruiters to visiting twice a year to each school despite the demands by the YAWR protesters for a total ban on military recruitment at schools.^[10]

In fall 2011, SAlt was active in the Occupy movement in cities across the country,^[11] and issued a statement of solidarity. The party argued that the movement should develop concrete demands along working class lines.^[12] The party assisted in outreach, planning and organizing public meetings to help grow the campaign.^[13]

In 2020, Socialist Alternative members began joining the Democratic Socialists of America, in order to encourage it to support a socialist independent party.^[14]

On May 12, 2024, 8 leading members of the organisation, including former Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, issued an open letter announcing the resignation from their positions in the party. Their letter stated that issues such as lack of support for Workers Strike Back, an initiative founded by Sawant following the end of her term on the Seattle City Council, conflicting views on "the dual task" and labour work,low pay for full-time party workers, and lack of support for leadership were major problems that were hurting the party. ^[15] Three weeks later, Sawant resigned from the party as well as the International Socialist Alternative.^[16] On July 30, 2024, Sawant and 32 other SAlt members created a new organization, named Revolutionary Workers.^{[citation needed]}

In April 2014, SAlt stated it had gained 200 new members after Sawant's victory.^[17] In February 2017, SAlt stated its membership had grown 30% since the election of Donald Trump.^[18] In February 2020, SAlt stated it had "just under 1,000" members.^[1]

In September 2013, SAlt began publishing a national monthly newspaper, Socialist Alternative.^[19] SAlt also publishes Boston Organizer, a local bi-monthly newsletter in Boston, Massachusetts, and New York Socialist, a local bi-monthly newsletter in New York, New York.

Socialist Alternative is a Trotskyist, revolutionary socialist party^[1] that advocates democratic socialism as an alternative to bureaucratic socialism of the former Soviet Union and the capitalist democratic model, which it describes as designed to benefit only the "ruling class and disenfranchise working people".^[20]

The party holds that the former Soviet Union was not socialist, but instead a "tragic degeneration" of the Russian Revolution and the socialist tradition.^[21] While it views the Russian Revolution positively as a mass democratic revolution of the working class in Russia, it opposes Joseph Stalin's reign of terror following the death of Vladimir Lenin.^[21] Like other Leninist and Trotskyist parties, it upholds the principles of democratic centralism in order to ensure "bottom-up democracy" among party members.^[22]

Socialist Alternative expressed solidarity with Hong Kong localists and opposes the suppression of opposition by China.^[23]

In contrast to most US socialist groups, Socialist Alternative supports a socialist two-state solution in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.^[24]

In 2013, Seattle Central Community College and Seattle University part-time economics professor Kshama Sawant was elected to the Seattle City Council from Position 2 as a candidate for Socialist Alternative.^[25] She had previously won 35% of the vote in the August primary election and advanced into the general election against incumbent Richard Conlin.^[26] On November 15, 2013, Conlin conceded to Sawant after late returns showed him down by 1,640 votes or approximately 1% of the vote.^[27][28] This made Sawant the first socialist to win a citywide election in Seattle since the communist supporter Anna Louise Strong was elected to the School Board in 1916.^[29] Sawant went on to be reelected in 2015 and 2019 with 56% and 51.8% of the vote respectively. Additionally, she defeated a recall in 2021 with 50.4% of the vote. In January 2023, Sawant announced that she would not seek re-election, and would instead promote the Socialist Alternative campaign Workers Strike Back to unionize workers.^[30]

Sawant had previously run for election as the Socialist Alternative candidate in the 43rd district of the Washington House of Representatives against incumbent Democrat Frank Chopp in 2012.^[31][32] Sawant advanced past the primaries for Position 2 while also advancing in Position 1 where she was on the ballot challenging Jamie Pedersen. The Sawant campaign won a subsequent court battle against the Secretary of State for the right to list her party preference on the ballot in the elections. Sawant was endorsed by the Local 587 of the Amalgamated Transit Union^[33] and the alternative newspaper The Stranger.^[34] She received over 20,000 votes, or 29%.^[35]

Sawant's platform included a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour, rent control and taxes on higher-income individuals.^[26]

In 2014, Socialist Alternative chose Jess Spear, an Organizing Director for one of their campaigns, to run for Washington State Representative against Speaker of the House Frank Chopp.^[36] Spear's platform included rent control, increasing education funding through increasing taxes on the wealthy and stopping the use of all fossil fuels in Washington. During her campaign, Spear led several protests against oil and coal trains moving through Seattle and was arrested after trespassing at one of the protests.^[37] In the general election, Spear received 8,606 of 48,630 non-write-in votes (17.7%).^[38]

In 2007, Matt Geary ran for Boston City Council as the Socialist Alternative candidate in a plurality-at-large election in which each voter could vote for up to four candidates.^[39] Geary received 3,025 votes of 46,249 non-blank ballots (6.5%).^[40] In 2013, Seamus Whelan ran for Boston City Council as the Socialist Alternative candidate. Whelan was a registered nurse and union activist.^[41] In an unusually crowded municipal election, with 19 candidates for City Councilor, Whelan was eliminated in the preliminary election with 3,118 votes of 113,319 non-blank ballots (2.6%).^[42] Whelan's main support was from working class areas in West Roxbury and Dorchester.

In 2013, Ty Moore ran for Minneapolis City Council as the Socialist Alternative Candidate.^[43] He received support from SEIU MN State Council, Occupy Homes, the Green Party of Minneapolis, some immigrant rights organizers and some neighborhood leaders.^[44] In the final round, Moore received 1,758 of 3745 non-exhausted ballots (46.9%).^[45]

In early 2017, Ginger Jentzen ran for Minneapolis City Council in Ward 3 as the Socialist Alternative candidate.^[46] Jentzen won the first round with 3,290 votes, but eventually finished in second place behind Steve Fletcher in the final round with 3,844 of 8,705 non-exhausted ballots (44.2%) under Minneapolis's ranked choice voting system.^[47][48]

Socialist Alternative has also fielded candidates for labor union leadership positions. In 2017, Socialist Alternative member Ryan Timlin was named President-elect of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005 in Minneapolis after running unopposed.^[49]

Socialist Alternative supported the candidacies of Ralph Nader during the 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. Prior to the 2008 presidential election, Socialist Alternative criticized Barack Obama,^[50][51] pointing to his pro-free market stance on job creation, his record in congress of voting in favor of bills such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, his stance on healthcare reform and on other issues.^[52]

In 2012 and 2016, the group supported Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Despite criticism from other socialist groups about supporting "bourgeois candidates", Socialist Alternative argued that Stein supported a Green New Deal jobs program, ending wars, canceling student debt, a single-payer health care system and other reforms supported by the party.^[53]

In 2020, it endorsed Green Party of the United States and Socialist Party USA nominee Howie Hawkins for the 2020 general election as a protest vote against the two major parties of the United States.^[54]

In 2023, SAlt endorsed Cornel West, saying that he had "enormous potential" to change the political system.^[55]

• American Left
• Democratic Socialists of America
• International Socialist Alternative
• Green Party of the United States
• History of left-wing politics in the United States
• Labor history of the United States
• Militant tendency

• Socialist Alternative