A review cited by Just the News found that several Democratic Socialists of America leaders belong to caucuses that openly identify with Marxism, communism or revolutionary socialist goals.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Several leaders within the Democratic Socialists of America belong to internal caucuses that openly identify with Marxism, communism or revolutionary socialist politics, according to a review of party records, caucus platforms and social media posts.
The findings come after recent primary victories by democratic socialist candidates renewed national debate over the direction of the Democratic Party and the influence of socialist-aligned candidates in major cities.
President Donald Trump has warned that several democratic socialist candidates are “hardcore Godless communists” and represent a threat to the United States. His comments drew pushback from commentators including CNN Chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, who argued that democratic socialism should not be equated with communism.
“While Democrats themselves have been wrestling with what Tuesday night means for the direction of their party, socialism, much less democratic socialism, is not communism,” Collins said on air earlier this week.
But a Just the News report said several figures in the Democratic Socialists of America’s leadership are affiliated with caucuses that explicitly describe themselves as Marxist or communist. The report found that 10 members of the DSA’s 25-member National Political Council, the organization’s governing body, either belong to caucuses that espouse communism or have publicly supported the ideology.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a DSA member, has backed proposals including abolishing prisons, ending deportations, creating federal job guarantees and implementing Medicare for all.
Another recent nominee, Darializa Avila Chevalier, reportedly maintained a Twitter account that expressed support for communism and Marxist ideology, including sympathy for Soviet figures.
One of the DSA’s co-chairs, Megan Romer, is a member of the Red Star caucus, a DSA faction that identifies itself as Marxist-Leninist and says its goal is to abolish capitalism and achieve communism.
The caucus says on its website that “We understand Marxism as a living, breathing theoretical framework, which is not and never can be a static set of dogmas. We see Marxism as the foundational and most informative lens through which to understand the workings of capitalism.”
“Red Star is a Marxist-Leninist caucus in DSA. Our primary goal, the goal which informs all of our organizing work, is to abolish capitalism and, ultimately, to achieve communism,” the caucus states in its Points of Unity. “We do not believe that capitalism can be reformed into socialism – it must be overthrown and replaced.”
Red Star also says it seeks to “cohere a vanguard party,” a concept associated with Vladimir Lenin’s theory of revolutionary organization. Lenin argued that workers would not spontaneously create a socialist revolution and that an organized party was needed to lead that process, according to a political theory summary. The same summary explains that Lenin saw such a party as necessary to move workers beyond demands for better wages and toward revolutionary change.
The Red Star caucus describes its organizing as aimed at building toward a “Revolutionary Situation” that would end capitalism in the United States.
Romer has also promoted readings from communist and revolutionary figures while serving on the DSA’s National Political Council. In July 2025, she invited people to discuss writings by Lenin, Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh and Cuban revolutionary figure Che Guevara.
“Come read Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara, and (of course, I picked the readings myself) Marta Harnecker and talk about the theoretical basis for mass protagonism and collective member/cadre/organizer development,” Romer posted to Bluesky.
In April, Romer met with representatives of the French Communist Party and spoke at the European Left conference in Belgium.
Two other members of the DSA National Political Council are also members of the Red Star caucus, according to the report.
Other DSA caucuses also identify with Marxist politics. Members of Bread & Roses and the Marxist Unity Group serve on the national committee. The Marxist Unity Group describes itself as “an organization committed to political struggle within the Democratic Socialists of America” and says it seeks to organize Marxists within the DSA.
The group states that its name is aspirational, saying it hopes “to rally the thousands of Marxists in DSA around a shared vision for our movement’s future.”
Three current DSA committee members are linked to the Marxist Unity Group, including members identified through Seattle DSA, X and City & State New York.
The DSA did not respond to a request for comment.
On May 1, International Workers’ Day, Marxist Unity Group National Political Council member Chris Connolly retweeted a post commemorating “comrades” killed in the Spanish Civil War, including “anarchists and communists both,” as well as Bolsheviks killed in the Russian Civil War, veterans of Mao Zedong’s Long March in China and revolutionaries involved in the Cuban Revolution.
Bread & Roses, another DSA caucus, has three members in DSA leadership. The caucus does not explicitly use the word communism on its website but calls for a major redistribution of wealth and power.
“And since no ruling class has ever peacefully ceded power, in a transitional period, a socialist government backed by popular mobilizations will have to do everything necessary to defend the mandate they have won to carry out a program of redistribution, expropriation, and democratic reform of state institutions,” Bread & Roses says.
The Libertarian Socialist caucus describes itself as “a political home within the Democratic Socialists of America for all socialists who are opposed to the state,” including “libertarian socialists, libertarian Marxists, anarchists, left communists” and other left-wing socialist tendencies.
The caucus has one member on the DSA national committee, David Jenkins, who described the organization’s broader goal in direct terms.
“Our goal is liberation. Our goal is communism,” Jenkins wrote.
The report’s findings highlight the ideological range inside the DSA at a time when democratic socialist candidates are gaining new attention in Democratic primaries and local races. They also show that while some public defenders of democratic socialism reject the communist label, several caucuses represented in the DSA’s leadership openly use Marxist or communist language to define their goals.
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