Talking about “American socialism” as if it were a single current is misleading. Under that label democratic socialists, Marxists, Marxist-Leninists, Trotskyists and openly revolutionary groups coexist. They share a criticism of capitalism, but disagree about the Democratic Party, elections, the market, private property, the organization of power and, above all, how to move towards a socialist society. Understanding these differences allows us to see a much broader, more fragmented and complex phenomenon than public debate usually suggests.
To understand this framework, the best entry point is the Democratic Socialists of America, DSA. In July 2026, the DSA announced that it had reached 120,000 members and presented itself as the largest American socialist organization. It is not formally a party: it combines electoral campaigns, union activity, community organization and direct action. Its conception of democratic socialism is not limited to the welfare state: the DSA maintains that capitalism must be replaced and proposes forms of collective ownership over fundamental economic sectors, while claiming to reject authoritarian models and demanding a “democratic path to socialism.”
The DSA functions as a big tent of caucuses with different positions on strategy, party structure and objectives. Bread & Roses, for example, defines itself as Marxist socialist, places the class struggle and the union movement at the center of its project and proposes building a mass movement capable of extracting concessions from the economic elites and, eventually, displacing them from power.
Other currents use language closer to the classical revolutionary tradition. The Marxist Unity Group proposes as its horizon a society without market, borders or classes, which it identifies with communism, and also proposes abolishing the Presidency, the Electoral College and the Senate. Reform & Revolution defines itself as Marxist and aims to turn the DSA into a force capable of carrying out a socialist revolution, “dismantling” the capitalist State and building a workers’ State. Among his references he mentions Marx, Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin and Trotsky.
This does not mean that these currents reject elections. The key is to distinguish between participating in existing institutions and considering them the final destination. For some, winning positions allows them to obtain reforms; For others, elections also serve to build organization and political capacity with a view to subsequent transformation. The disagreement does not always consist of participating or not, but rather determining why one participates.
There arises a central discussion: What to do with the Democratic Party. The dirty break strategy proposes temporarily using its electoral line while building an independent socialist organization capable of separating in the future. The surrogate party seeks for the DSA to assume functions of its own party, although its candidates continue competing in Democratic primaries. The realignment is committed to moving the Democratic Party to the left. Other sectors favor a faster break and the creation of an independent socialist party.
There is also the dual power strategy, linked mainly to libertarian and anarchist currents. Their priority is not to win positions, but to strengthen unions, cooperatives and other structures capable of accumulating social power outside of traditional institutions. For some currents, the electoral system is the main vehicle of transformation; for others, a provisional tool or just one of several areas of struggle.
Outside of the DSA, the panorama of socialist and revolutionary organizations in the United States is even broader. The Party for Socialism and Liberation, PSL, declares that it exists to fight for socialism in the United States and proposes a “revolutionary socialist government” that would replace the current one and take over planning the economy. The Revolutionary Communists of America, RCA, formed in Philadelphia in July 2024, states that it seeks to organize a force capable of leading the working class to the “revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.” Other Marxist-Leninist, Trotskyist and feminist currents act alongside them.
The result is a constellation that shares a deep critique of capitalism, but maintains substantial disagreements about democracy, party, centralization, elections, and the speed of change. It would be incorrect to convert democratic socialism, Marxism-Leninism and revolutionary communism into a single doctrine, but also to present them as hermetically separate worlds when some of these currents coexist within the same organization and debate how to build political power.
Beneath these differences, a common language appears that helps understand why different movements end up having similar causes.. Anti-capitalist criticism intersects with identity politics, intersectional feminism and, in its most radical expressions, with proposals such as the abolition of police and prisons. Not all of them share these positions, but a good part of that universe interprets society through a recurring matrix: oppressors and oppressed. Economic class is one dimension, but not the only one; Race, sex, gender and identity can be incorporated into a network of power relations that intersectionality seeks to explain jointly.
From this perspective, discourses about “whiteness”, the body, privileges and the transformation of cultural structures that supposedly reproduce these hierarchies make sense. This ability to offer a general explanation of society—with categories of domination, privilege, guilt, conscience, and emancipation—leads some critics to compare this worldview to a kind of political religion, rather than a simple economic program.
When going through that map another thread appears that, for someone who comes from Cuba, is difficult to ignore.
The relationship of sectors of the American radical left with the Cuban regime began long before the DSA existed. In 1969, the Venceremos Brigade was born, promoted by activists linked to Students for a Democratic Society, SDS, and other sectors of the New Left. Its first contingent traveled to Cuba during the 1969-1970 harvest to cut cane and learn first-hand about the Revolution. Over the next decade, several thousand American activists participated in those trips.
What is significant is that this link reappeared under new organizations and generations. In 2019, the DSA National Convention approved a resolution of solidarity with the “Cuban socialist struggle,” condemned the US embargo and ordered deepening cooperation with solidarity organizations with the island. At the moment, The Cuba Solidarity Working Group of the DSA continues to promote campaigns against the embargo and sanctions.
The approach is not purely rhetorical either. In October 2025, the DSA sent a delegation of 40 elected leaders and chapter members from different parts of the country to Cuba. According to the organization’s own report, the participants visited Cuban institutions, met with workers, doctors and officials, including Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Fernández de Cossío, and thanked the Amistur agency and the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, ICAP, for facilitating the trip.
That bond took on an additional dimension in 2026. On June 4the United States included ICAP and Amistur on the list of sanctioned entities, identifying the former as an agency or instrument of the Cuban government. Two months later, the State Department also sanctioned three senior ICAP leaders and accused the Cuban government of using networks linked to educational and cultural exchanges to identify, recruit and radicalize sympathizers in the United States.
The measures adopted by the US government add relevant context to the relationships that DSA itself documented with these institutions. At the same time, it is important to make a distinction: opposing the embargo is not equivalent, by itself, to supporting the Cuban political system. In 2014, for example, the DSA declared its support for “full democracy and human rights” in Cuba and explicitly defended the right to dissent and form free associations and political parties. That position is part of his public record and should be read in conjunction with his subsequent statements of solidarity with socialist Cuba.
Not all the organizations on this map look towards Havana in the same way, nor do these links show that they intend to reproduce the Cuban system in the United States. What they do document is a historical continuity: from sectors of the New Left of the sixties to current currents of American socialism, Cuba has preserved a unique place as a political reference, destination of delegations and object of ideological solidarity.
Therefore, perhaps the least interesting question is the most repeated: “Are they socialists?” They themselves usually answer it clearly. The most revealing questions begin later: what do they understand by socialism? What institutions do they want to transform? What place do they reserve for the market and private property? What relationship do they imagine between economic power and political power? What limits do they establish for the State? And through what specific strategy do they intend to achieve their objectives?
By abandoning labels and examining programs, factions, alliances, and methods, the true map of American socialism appears.
Frank Zimmerman He is a strategic advisor and executive producer of Contracorriente at the Adam Smith Center for Economic Freedom at Florida International University.
Consultant and political commentator, he is the author of 12 myths about Cuba and numerous articles on freedom, democracy and authoritarianism in Latin America.
