The term revolutionary socialism refers to socialist tendencies that subscribe to the doctrine that social revolution is necessary in order to affect structural changes to society. More specifically, it is the view that revolution is a necessary precondition for a transition from capitalism to socialism. Revolution is not necessarily defined as a violent insurrection; it is defined as seizure of political power by mass movements of the working class so that the power is given directly to the state to directly control the working class as opposed to the capitalist class and its interests that allow for individual choice. Revolutionary socialists believe such a state of affairs is a precondition for establishing socialism and Orthodox Marxists believe that it is inevitable but not predetermined.

Revolutionary socialism encompasses multiple political and social movements that may define "revolution" differently from one another. These include movements based on Orthodox Marxist theory, such as DeLeonism, Impossibilism and Luxemburgism; as well as movements based on Leninism and the theory of Vanguardist-led revolution, such as Maoism, Marxism–Leninism and Trotskyism. Revolutionary socialism also includes non-Marxist movements like anarchism, revolutionary syndicalism, and some forms of democratic socialism. It is used in contrast to the reformism of social democracy, which is not anti-capitalist in form. Revolutionary socialism is opposed to social movements that seek to gradually ameliorate the economic and social problems of capitalism through political reform. Revolutionary socialism also exists in contrast to the concept of small revolutionary groups seizing power without first achieving mass support, termed Blanquism.

Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California. He wrote nearly 100 books and other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well known and popular in the first half of the 20th century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.

In 1906, Sinclair acquired particular fame for his classic muck-raking novel, The Jungle, which exposed labor and sanitary conditions in the U.S. meatpacking industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muck-raking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the "free press" in the United States. Four years after publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created. Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence". He is also well remembered for the quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." He used this line in speeches and the book about his campaign for governor as a way to explain why the editors and publishers of the major newspapers in California would not treat seriously his proposals for old age pensions and other progressive reforms. Many of his novels can be read as historical works. Writing during the Progressive Era, Sinclair describes the world of the industrialized United States from both the working man's and the industrialist's points of view. Novels such as King Coal (1917), The Coal War (published posthumously), Oil! (1927), and The Flivver King (1937) describe the working conditions of the coal, oil, and auto industries at the time. ( Full article...)

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• ... that in the 1990s, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire was the largest third party in the United States in terms of state legislators since the Socialist Party of America in the 1930s?
• ... that by mid-1920, hundreds of German and Austrian communists fought in Red Army units in Turkestan?
• ... that the Lithuanian-Belorussian Soviet Republic exchanged 13 detained German diplomats for 24 jailed leaders of the Kaunas Soviet of Workers Deputies?
• ... that Western media treated Egyptian activist Gihan Ibrahim as a face of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, but rarely mentioned her revolutionary-socialist political views?
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• ... that Bill Shearer, a leader of the segregationist George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign, also advocated for ballot access for the Socialist Workers Party?