Left Socialism (from 1918)

The term "left socialism" denotes those theories and discussions that emerged, as it were, in the space between dogmatic Marxism-Leninism and the reformism of social democracy, in Western Europe and North America.

Within social democracy, critics of the majority current began to call themselves "left socialists" in the 1920s. Max Adler's Linkssozialismus. Notwendige Betrachtung über Reformismus und revolutionären Sozialismus ("Left Socialism: Necessary Considerations on Reformism and Revolutionary Socialism"), published in 1933, is considered to be one of their key texts. In West Germany, following the Second World War, left Social Democrats and parts of the 1968 student movement built on this current.

Texts and sources can be researched at the Marxist Internet Archive, among other places.  Further information can be found in the Historico-Critical Dictionary (entries on left socialism and left communism; an entry on council communism is being prepared). Since 1999, the Dietz publishing house has been issuing the Rote Reihe ("Red Series") on persons and theories associated with "the history of communism and left socialism".