Young Communist League USA (YCL USA)

The organization’s lineage dates to 1920, but its national body was disbanded in 2015. CPUSA’s 2019 national convention adopted a resolution calling for the re-creation of a national communist youth organization, after which local clubs formed in a handful of states. As of October 2025, the league had not adopted a constitution, elected national officers, settled the question of dues, or held a re-founding convention, and its own national organizer reported that it had no cohesive national presence. ³ Chapter campaigns have concentrated on opposition to U.S. support for Israel, opposition to the Trump administration, tenant organizing, and support for labor unions. ^{4 5 6}

Background

A skeletal Young People’s Communist League existed by 1920, and a founding convention of the Young Communist League of America was held in secret at Bethel, Connecticut, in April 1922, attended by 14 delegates representing four Communist Party USA districts. ^{7 8}

Gil Green, who joined the predecessor Young Workers League, became national secretary of the league in 1932 and held the position throughout the decade. He attended the Communist International’s Seventh Congress in Moscow in 1935, where he advocated for the emerging Popular Front line. He would be convicted under the Smith Act in 1949 and was imprisoned from 1956 until 1961. ⁹

The league dissolved itself in 1943 and reconstituted as American Youth for Democracy; later party youth vehicles included the Labor Youth League, the W.E.B. Du Bois Clubs of America, and the Young Workers Liberation League. The national organization was disbanded in 2015. The rival Party of Communists USA subsequently established its own youth wing, the League of Young Communists USA, which it presents as the successor to the disbanded body. ^{5 10}

Activities

Anti-Israel campus organizing

At Michigan State University, Young Communist League members organized with the Hurriya Coalition to disrupt the September 2024 investiture of university president Kevin Guskiewicz, protesting what the league characterized as the university’s $500 million in weapons-manufacturer investments and its profits from a $200,000 Israeli bond. On October 25, 2024, five students were arrested on misdemeanor trespassing charges after refusing to leave the Hannah Administration Building following a sit-in demanding divestment from Israel. The league later stated that four of the five arrested were its members. The university had previously said it would not consider divestment of any kind with respect to its Israel-related holdings. ^{11 4 12}

Chapters also joined rallies calling on the Biden administration to halt arms shipments to Israel, and New York members marched in the 2024 New York Pride Parade to condemn what the group called imperialist “pinkwashing.” In 2025, the league’s national organizer reported that a Michigan member faced university discipline over pro-Palestinian campus activism. ^{3 4}

Other Campaigns

In June 2023, the Philadelphia Young Communist League joined the local chapter of ACT UP in leading the first of three planned protests against the “Joyful Warriors” national summit of Moms for Liberty, a right-of-center education-policy group, outside Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution. Other reported chapter activity has included tenant mobilizations with the Michigan Rent Is Too Damn High Coalition, tabling in Missouri for ballot measures raising the minimum wage and repealing the state’s abortion restrictions, solidarity events for the Starbucks Workers United union-organizing campaign, and a vigil organized with the NAACP and a university Black student union. Chapters have also worked on the Free DC campaign, the Protect Trans Youth Coalition, a New York campaign against 24-hour home care shifts, and advocacy for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming at Missouri State University. ^{3 13 4}

Chapters have been formally recognized as student organizations at institutions including Arcadia University and New York University, and Communist Party USA clubs named for party figure Claudia Jones formed at Howard University and American University. ¹⁴

Membership and Structure

An October 2025 report from the Young Communist League’s national organizer to the Communist Party USA National Committee provided public membership accounting. New York City reported 64 members on paper, of whom roughly 48 were active; Springfield, Missouri, reported 42; Philadelphia reported approximately 30; Michigan reported close to 30; Washington, D.C. reported 25; and Connecticut reported 12. The report acknowledged that other chapters were too small to be stable, too disconnected from national direction, or organized loosely around a few individuals and narrow interests, and it proposed forming an organizing committee to draft a constitution, raise money, and prepare a national convention. ³

International Activity

In November 2025, the Young Communist League stated that it belonged to the World Federation of Democratic Youth alongside 150 other youth organizations. U.S. officials identified that federation during the Cold War as one of the international communist fronts operating in the youth and student field, and the Central Intelligence Agency ran a covert action program designed to oppose it. ^{15 16}

In August 2025, member Naomi Martinez delivered a report on the league’s behalf to the Central Committee of EDON, the youth wing of the Cypriot communist party AKEL, alongside delegations from Russia, Syria, Iraq, and other countries. Her remarks described U.S. and NATO policy as imperialist aggression, called the killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani illegal, and concluded that the fight for peace was the fight for socialism. ¹⁷