Top 10 Leftist Thinkers

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr., January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) was an African American minister and a pioneering civil rights leader. From 1955 until his assassination in 1968, he was the most visible spokesperson for the civil rights movement. King is best known for leading nonviolent... read more

He helped get equal footing for black families during the 60s. He also considered himself to be a democratic socialist.

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair (June 25, 1903 - January 21, 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic. He is best known for his books Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, which critique totalitarianism and explore themes of truth and freedom... read more

Stop trying to steal him, right wingers, don't you know property is theft? Or was that by a communist? Wait, wasn't he a socialist, and didn't he fight against fascists, the modern right? He criticized Stalin, but not communism.
No, he hated the fascist left!

He wrote classic books on the abuse of state governments, critics of capitalism and communism, and poverty. Orwell considered himself to be a democratic socialist, and even sympathized with the anarchists during the Spanish Civil War.

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, and political activist who revolutionized the field of linguistics with his theory of generative grammar. Beyond academia, he has been a prominent critic of political systems, advocating for human rights and social justice. Throughout his prolific... read more

Chomsky is one of the most popular political scientists in recent history. He considers himself to be a Libertarian Socialist.

Leo Tolstoy

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time.

His notable works include War and Peace and Anna Karenina, which are considered two of the finest novels ever written. Tolstoy also became... read more

Tolstoy was an anarchist and a pacifist. His philosophy was to treat everyone kindly and to be peaceful.

Bernie Sanders

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders, born in 1941, is an independent U.S. senator from Vermont who was first elected in 2006 and has served since 2007. He mounted campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020, advocating for policies such as Medicare for All and tuition-free public college... read more

John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. was an American author of 27 books, including 16 novels, six nonfiction books, and five collections of short stories. He is best known for works such as The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and East of Eden. Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962.

John Steinbeck's novels were usually about the struggles of ordinary people. Because of that, he showed sympathies towards socialists and communists, although he never came out and openly expressed his political views.

He made beautiful books that subtly pointed at flaws in the American lifestyle that rely on the working class to break their backs for a cause they will never see.

Emma Goldman

Goldman was a famous anarchist and feminist. She fought for better working conditions, equality for both sexes, and less state involvement in the lives of the people.

Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut (November 11, 1922 - April 11, 2007) was an American author known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels.

His published work includes fourteen novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works produced over a career spanning more than fifty years... read more

His novels expressed concern for the rising abuse of the state, the unsettling rise of religious intolerance, and the rise of ignorance. He showed sympathies towards socialism and communism, although he admitted that he was not very political.

Malcolm X

Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little and later known as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist. He was a prominent figure in the Nation of Islam during the civil rights movement and advocated for the rights of African Americans. He was assassinated in 1965.

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879-18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory of relativity, but he also made important contributions to the development... read more

Einstein supported socialism, and promoted peace and tolerance.

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B. R. Ambedkar

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (14 April 1891-6 December 1956), popularly known as Babasaheb Ambedkar or B. R. Ambedkar, was an Indian jurist, economist, politician, and social reformer who inspired the Dalit Buddhist movement. He campaigned against discrimination toward Dalits and supported the rights of women... read more

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John Ruskin

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, born October 13, 1989 and also known by her initials AOC, is an American activist and politician. She has served as the U.S. representative for New York's 14th congressional district since 2019. She is a member of the Democratic Party and has become one of the most prominent... read more

Aldous Huxley

Huxley was against tyranny, and supported democracy and individualism, and supported liberal causes. He was also critical of capitalism.

Karl Marx

Karl Marx (5 May 1818-14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, critic of political economy, economist, historian, political theorist, journalist, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known works are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto, co-written with Friedrich Engels, and the three-volume Das... read more

The pioneer of modern socio-economic ideologies, author of Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto, and a major figure in communist thought is only in 15th place. Shaking my head, proletarians of America.

He provided many quotes in his time that describe the current events in life as being flawed.

One of the greatest thinkers of all time.

Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India.

He's widely known for his philosophy of nonviolent resistance, or satyagraha, which helped lead India to independence in 1947. Gandhi's methods and beliefs influenced civil rights... read more

Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg (5 March 1871-15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalized German revolutionary socialist, orthodox Marxist, and anti-war activist during the First World War. She became a key figure in the revolutionary socialist movements of Poland and Germany during the late 19th and early 20th centuries... read more

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (April 22, 1870 - January 21, 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his leadership, Russia... read more

Reinhold Niebuhr

Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892 - June 1, 1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was a prominent public intellectual in the United States during the mid-20th... read more

Upton Sinclair

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt, born October 27, 1858, and deceased January 6, 1919, was an American statesman, author, naturalist, soldier, and reformer. He served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. As a leader of the Progressive Movement, he championed trust-busting, conservation, and... read more

Simone de Beauvoir

Howard Zinn

Zinn was a political scientist who supported democratic socialism, and held sympathies towards anarchism as well.

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky was a Russian revolutionary, Marxist theorist, and Soviet politician whose strain of Marxist thought is known as Trotskyism. He played a leading role in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War. Trotsky was later exiled and assassinated in Mexico in 1940.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18 July 1918 - 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first Black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government... read more