Editing Left-wing politics (section)

=== Social progressivism and counterculture ===
{{see also|Counterculture|New Left|Socialism and LGBT rights|Socialist feminism}}
{{Globalize|section|United States|date=August 2021}}
[[Social progress]]ivism is another common feature of modern leftism, particularly in the United States, where social progressives played an important role in the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolition of slavery]],<ref>James Brewer Stewart, ''Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War'', [[University of Massachusetts Press]], 2008, {{ISBN|978-1-55849-635-4}}. "[...] the progressive assumptions of 'uplift'." (page 40).</ref> the enshrinement of [[women's suffrage]] in the [[United States Constitution]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/progress/suffrage/suffrage.html |title=For Teachers (Library of Congress) |publisher=Lcweb2.loc.gov |access-date=13 May 2010 |archive-date=10 January 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090110213539/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/progress/suffrage/suffrage.html |url-status=live }}</ref> and the protection of [[civil rights]], [[LGBTQ rights]], [[women's rights]] and [[multiculturalism]]. Progressives have both advocated for [[alcohol prohibition]] legislation and worked towards its repeal in the mid to late 1920s and early 1930s. Current positions associated with social progressivism in the [[Western world]] include strong opposition to the [[death penalty]], [[torture]], [[mass surveillance]], and the [[war on drugs]], and support for [[abortion]] rights, [[cognitive liberty]], LGBTQ rights including legal recognition of [[same-sex marriage]], [[same-sex adoption]] of children, the [[Gender reassignment|right to change one's legal gender]], distribution of [[contraceptives]], and public funding of embryonic [[stem-cell research]]. The desire for an expansion of social and civil liberties often overlaps that of the [[libertarian]] movement. Public education was a subject of great interest to groundbreaking social progressives such as [[Lester Frank Ward]] and [[John Dewey]], who believed that a democratic society and system of government was practically impossible without a universal and comprehensive nationwide system of education.

Various counterculture and anti-war movements in the 1960s and 1970s were associated with the New Left. Unlike the earlier leftist focus on [[labour union]] activism and a proletarian revolution, the New Left instead adopted a broader definition of political activism commonly called [[social activism]]. The New Left in the United States is associated with the [[hippie movement]], mass protest movements on school campuses and a broadening of focus from protesting [[Social class|class]]-based oppression to include issues such as [[gender]], [[Race (classification of human beings)|race]] and [[sexual orientation]]. The British New Left was an intellectually driven movement which attempted to correct the perceived errors of the [[Old Left]]. The New Left opposed prevailing authoritarian structures in society which it designated as "[[The Establishment]]" and became known as the "Anti-Establishment". The New Left did not seek to recruit industrial workers en masse, but instead concentrated on a social activist approach to organization, convinced that they could be the source for a better kind of [[social revolution]]. This view has been criticized by several [[Marxists]], especially [[Trotskyists]], who characterized this approach as "substitutionism" which they described as a misguided and non-Marxist belief that other groups in society could "substitute" for and "replace" the revolutionary agency of the working class.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1960/xx/trotsub.htm |title=Tony Cliff: Trotsky on substitutionism (Autumn 1960) |publisher=Marxists.org |access-date=13 May 2010 |archive-date=15 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100615002815/http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1960/xx/trotsub.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/4662049/Against-Substitutionism |title=Against Substitutionism |publisher=Scribd.com |date=6 November 2006 |access-date=13 May 2010 |archive-date=20 February 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090220003148/http://www.scribd.com/doc/4662049/Against-Substitutionism |url-status=live }}</ref>

Many early [[feminists]] and advocates of women's rights were considered a part of the Left by their contemporaries. Feminist pioneer [[Mary Wollstonecraft]] was influenced by [[Thomas Paine]]. Many notable leftists have been strong supporters of gender equality such as [[Marxist]] philosophers and activists [[Rosa Luxemburg]], [[Clara Zetkin]] and [[Alexandra Kollontai]], [[anarchist]] philosophers and activists such as [[Virginia Bolten]], [[Emma Goldman]] and [[Lucía Sánchez Saornil]] and [[democratic socialist]] philosophers and activists such as [[Helen Keller]] and [[Annie Besant]].<ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Campling |author-first1=Jo |editor-last1=Bryson |editor-first1=Valerie |title=Feminist Political Theory: An Introduction |date=2003 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |location=Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire [u.a.] |isbn=978-0-333-94568-1 |edition=2nd}}</ref> However, Marxists such as Rosa Luxemburg,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1912/05/12.htm |title=Rosa Luxemburg: Women's Suffrage and Class Struggle (1912) |publisher=Marxists.org |access-date=15 November 2016 |archive-date=13 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170113123614/https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1912/05/12.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> Clara Zetkin,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1976/women/3-zetkin.html |title=Clara Zetkin: On a Bourgeois Feminist Petition |publisher=Marxists.org |date=28 December 2008 |access-date=15 November 2016 |archive-date=17 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180717034055/http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1976/women/3-zetkin.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1920/lenin/zetkin1.htm |title=Clara Zetkin: Lenin on the Women's Question – 1 |publisher=Marxists.org |date=29 February 2004 |access-date=15 November 2016 |archive-date=30 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191030154957/http://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1920/lenin/zetkin1.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> and Alexandra Kollontai,<ref>{{cite web |author-first=Alexandra |author-last=Kollontai |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1909/social-basis.htm |title=The Social Basis of the Woman Question by Alexandra Kollontai 1909 |publisher=Marxists.org |access-date=15 November 2016 |archive-date=28 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191028195319/http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1909/social-basis.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author-first=Alexandra |author-last=Kollontai |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1919/women-workers/ch01.htm |title=Women Workers Struggle For Their Rights by Alexandra Kollontai 1919 |publisher=Marxists.org |access-date=15 November 2016 |archive-date=12 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181212181444/http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1919/women-workers/ch01.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> who are supporters of radical social equality for women and have rejected and opposed [[liberal feminism]] because they considered it to be a capitalist [[bourgeois]] ideology. Marxists were responsible for organizing the first [[International Working Women's Day]] events.<ref>{{cite web |author-first=Alexandra |author-last=Kollontai |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/womens-day.htm |title=1920-Inter Women's Day |publisher=Marxists.org |date=26 August 1920 |access-date=13 May 2010 |archive-date=23 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180523044541/https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/womens-day.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

The [[women's liberation movement]] is closely connected to the New Left and other [[new social movements]] which openly challenged the orthodoxies of the Old Left. Socialist feminism as exemplified by the [[Freedom Socialist Party]] and [[Radical Women]] and [[Marxist feminism]], spearheaded by [[Selma James]], saw themselves as a part of the Left that challenges male-dominated and [[sexist]] structures within the Left. The connection between left-wing ideologies and the struggle for LGBTQ rights also has an important history. Prominent socialists who were involved in early struggles for LGBTQ rights include [[Edward Carpenter]], [[Oscar Wilde]], [[Harry Hay]], [[Bayard Rustin]] and [[Daniel Guérin]], among others. The New Left is also strongly supportive of LGBTQ rights and liberation, having been instrumental in the founding of the [[LGBTQ rights movement]] in the aftermath of the [[Stonewall riots|Stonewall Riots]] of 1969. Contemporary leftist activists and socialist countries such as Cuba are actively supportive of LGBTQ+ people and are involved in the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights and equality.