Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (USA)

The Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) was a Maoist political party in the United States.

The Communist Party (Marxist–Leninist)'s predecessor organization, the October League (Marxist-Leninist), was founded in 1971 by several local groups, many of which had grown out of the radical student organization Students for a Democratic Society when SDS split apart in 1969. Michael Klonsky, who had been a national leader in SDS in the late 1960s, was the main leader of the CP(M-L).

The October League came out of the Revolutionary Youth Movement II grouping in the SDS split. During the early 1970s the OL took positions that were at odds with most of the US Left, including opposition to gay liberation and support of the shah of Iran, whose regime they saw as a bulwark against Soviet social-imperialism.

The OL established influence within some of the established civil rights organizations, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Southern Conference Educational Fund, which had been under the influence of the Moscow-oriented Communist Party USA.

In late 1975 they organized a "National Fight Back Conference," which drew 1,000 participants and was attended by representatives of the August 29th Movement, the Congress of Afrikan People and the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee of San Francisco. They also had a youth group called the Communist Youth Organization.

In June 1977, the October League transformed itself into the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), with Klonsky as chairman and Eileen Klehr as vice-chairman.

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