Marxist Unity Group (MUG)

MUG’s policy agenda includes the establishment of a universal government-funded welfare system, fewer restrictions on unions, reduced working hours, targeted wealth redistribution, and state ownership of “large industry.”  ¹

Background

The Marxist Unity Group is a revolutionary communist caucus within the Democratic Socialists of America. MUG claims that its primary goal is to promote unity in the DSA; following this aim MUG focuses on seven areas of unity: political independence, programmatic unity, electoral discipline, nationwide struggle, fighting the imperial police state, fighting the Constitution, and demanding a new republic. MUG is a pro-revolution group within the DSA, and its ultimate vision is to shift from democratic socialism to communism.  ¹

MUG also claims that its agenda includes merging “the day-to-day interests that inspire the fighting working class with a final goal of socialism.” The group also advocates for left-wing positions on social issues, including abortion access and transgender interests.  ²

After the 2025 DSA Convention, MUG held three seats on DSA’s National Political Committee (NPC), which the DSA describes as functionally its 25-person board of directors.  ^{3  4}

Platform

The Marxist Unity Group refers to the Constitution as the “slaveholder’s constitution,” stating no one can have freedom under a “reactionary constitution written by the dead.” Furthermore, MUG claims that workers are necessarily prevented from being free “under a constitution that enshrines private property.” Accordingly, MUG claims its agenda is to erode popular support for the Constitution through “combative political agitation.” Moreover, MUG supports the “working class to take power by any means necessary.” The group advocates for an armed working class in preparation for what it claims is the “inevitable violence of reaction” to its agenda; moreover, the group admits that a “successful revolution” requires it to win the support of a large section of the military’s rank-and-file.  ¹

The group’s socialist policy agenda includes the establishment of a universal government-funded welfare system, greater freedom for unions, reduced working hours, targeted wealth redistribution, and state ownership of “large industry.” Along governance lines, MUG advocates that every institution that hinders popular democracy be torn down, ultimately resulting in a single popularly elected legislative body with “supreme power.”  ¹

The end goal of MUG’s proposed revolution for democratic socialism is to the eventually establish communism, which the group defines as the abolition of “money, class distinctions, racial discrimination, patriarchy, national boundaries, oppressive gender roles, the mental/manual division of labor, and all other forms of social oppression,” thus commencing the “true beginning of human history.”  ¹

DSA

The Marxist Unity Group is composed of members of the far-left Democratic Socialists of America, a social-welfare and political advocacy organization that claims to have over 80,000 members nationwide.  ^{5  1}

The DSA asserts that the “capitalist economic system is the cause of violence, unemployment, and a climate crisis that poses an existential threat to life on earth.” As part of its platform, the DSA advocates that large businesses should be subject to government ownership and control.  ⁶

The DSA also demands free public higher education and the cancellation of all student loan debt, an end to the “War on Drugs,” universal government-funded single-payer health care, the abolition of mandatory minimum sentences and cash bail, an end to all economic sanctions including those imposed on Venezuela and Iran, voting rights for noncitizens and those with a criminal conviction, and a reduction of the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review.  ⁶

Furthermore, the DSA advocates increased access to abortions and increased access to sex-change procedures. The group also advocates for unrestricted migration and access to social services for all migrants.  ⁶