Before Mamdani... There was John Reed

John Reed was one of the foremost left-wing leaders during America’s early 20th-century Progressive Era and had much in common with today’s Democratic Socialists. John Silas “Jack” Reed was a Zohran Mamdani of his era. Both rose in left-wing American politics in their late twenties and early thirties, embraced socialism, and framed politics through class struggle and oppressor/oppressed themes. Both believed America’s political and capitalist systems had to be radically transformed -- or dismantled -- for working-class liberation. Were he alive today, Reed would likely see eye to eye with the NYC mayor. Reed and his contemporary comrades might view...