Publications Index | Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive

The Militant
[and The New Militant & Socialist Appeal]

The Militant was published in the United States by the Trotskyist movement originally as the US Section of the International Left Opposition, later the Fourth International. Originally this movement was called the “ The Opposition Group” of the Workers (Communist) Party of the America but settled in as the "Communist League of America (Opposition)" by early 1929. The Militant name became The New Militant, in Decenmber of 1934 when the CLA fused with the American Workers Party (lead by A. J. Musty) to form the Workers Party of the United States.

In 1936 The New Militant itself ceased publication during the period the Trotskyists were members of the Socialist Party, with Socialist Appeal, indexed separately here, published in Chicago, becoming the journal of US Trotskyists from 1936 until 1937. A new Socialist Appeal, however, published in New York City by the Trotskyist dominated left-wing branches of the Socialist Party, started publishing first as a tabloid and then a full broadsheet paper of the same name. At this point the Chicago based Socialist Appeal ceased publications, it’s subscriber lists and resources transferred to the New York based version of the paper. This Socialist Appeal then become the organ of the newly established Socialist Workers Party in early 1938 after the Trotskyists were expelled from the the Socialist Party. In 1941 Socialist Appeal becameThe Militant again, organ of the Socialist Workers Party. Each volume listed below will bring the user to an index page showing a table of contents for each issue during the year.

Special thanks goes to the Holt Labor Library for allowing us access to their microfilm and bound volumes of The Militant.

Toward the Fall and Winter of 2010, the recently organized Riazanov Library, organized by Dr. Marty Goodman, started bringing his hard-copy and microfilm collection online in collaboration with the ETOL. Additionally, the well established Holt Labor Library located in San Francisco began making it’s own massive collection of original hard-copy Militants completely available for this project as well. Some of the early years of The Militant have been placed on line at various web sites previously. They generally do not have quite the high-quality to what the ETOL is being provided by the Riazionov Library scanning center. Eventually we will transcribe these editions of The Militant so they can be better integrated into the ETOL’s database of writers and subjects.

Note on file size: The file sizes for the The Militant run between approximately 30MB to 60MB. This large file sizes are due to the higher resolution of the scans produced by the Riazanov Library Project. Higher resolution means higher quality especially when the image on the screen is magnified for purposes of reading small or unclear text. The files presented below were scanned at between 300dpi and 600dpi in black and white. For *lower resolution* scans for a limited run of The Militant please go to the The Militant website which uses lower, 150dpi scans with embedded OCR.

Click Here for information on the recently (Nov 2017) added second set of digital images of The Militant, which offer searchable OCR, a smaller more compact file size, and some cleaning up of the images.

Searchable Text Table of Contents 1928 – 1949

The Militant

By Year/Volume

[Transcribers Note: This ends the run of the original The Militant. With the fusion with the Communist League of America with the American Workers Party (lead by A. J. Muste), the new party, the Workers Party of the United States, launched the New Militant. This starts with the Volume 1 Nos. 1 – 3 for December of 1934 in The Militant directory above. The rest of Volume 1 continues through the year 1935, below]

New Militant

By Year/Volume

1935—Volume 1

1936—Volume 2

[Transcribers Note: This ends the run of the original the New Militant. With the entry of the Workers Party of the United States into the Socialist Party of America, no official publications of the Left Oppositionists was permitted. This lack of publication was partially mitigated by the Chicago based Socialist Appeal edited by Albert Goldman, a supporter of the Trotskyists but someone who entered the SP before the bulk of the Trotskyists from the Workers Party did. In August of 1936, the Trotskyists in the SP organized the New York City based Socialist Appeal which officially was the paper of the "Left Wing Branches of the Socialist Party" but edited by the Trotskyist faction inside the SP.

Socialist Appeal

By Year/Volume

Please note that this listing continues onto the final 4 issues of Socialist Appeal, Volume 5 for January of 1941. After this date the paper reverts back to The Militant.