The League of Revolutionary Struggle (Marxist-Leninist) was a Marxist-Leninist[1] movement in the United States formed in 1978 by merging communist organizations. It was dissolved by the organization's leadership in 1990.
The LRS(M-L) was formed from a merger of the Asian American communist organization I Wor Kuen and the Chicano-Latino communist organization August 29th Movement (M-L) in September 1978. By 1979, they absorbed a number of other ethnic based radical groups including the East Wind Collective of Japanese Americans in Los Angeles, the Seize the Time Collective of Chicanos and African Americans in San Francisco and The New York Collective of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Early in 1980 it also merged with the Revolutionary Communist League (Marxist-Leninist-Mao Tse-tung Thought) led by Amiri Baraka. This organization, formerly known as the Congress of Afrikan People, was composed mostly of African-Americans and had stressed Black cultural nationalism. When this merger occurred they issued a joint statement declaring ""Our unity signals a big advance in this struggle for Marxist-Leninist unity and for a single, unified, vanguard communist party."[2]
Communism took hold of the United States' left wing politics primarily following the Russian Revolution of October 1917. The early 1920s was marked by surges in nativism and racism. Meanwhile, ethnic communism thrived among the Workers Party, which was renamed as the Communist Party USA. The center of the movement revolved around the American communist party.