The American Communist Party (ACP) is a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States. The ACP was formed in 2024 when its members split from the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).
The ACP officially espouses Marxism–Leninism, specifically Xi Jinping Thought. The ACP regards the Chinese view of the Sino-Soviet split as correct, considers Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization efforts in the Soviet Union as having been revisionist, supports the Cultural Revolution while also supporting Deng Xiaoping's pro-market economic reforms, and upholds Juche. The ACP and its leaders have voiced support for China, North Korea, Iran, Nicaragua, Nicolás Maduro, and the Russian "Special Military Operation", stating that "Russia remains at the forefront of the world liberation movement".
The ACP has been described as "MAGA communist". Both notable ACP founders Jackson Hinkle and Haz Al-Din have promoted MAGA Communism and similar "conservative communist" labels since 2022. MAGA Communism has been characterized as pro-social services, pro-tax cuts, anti-Zionist, anti-feminist, anti-queer, anti-woke, and both anti-Donald Trump and pro-Donald Trump by critics. The ACP denies ever supporting Donald Trump,<ref name=ElPais2024Fernandez / with ACP leaders arguing that MAGA Communism is a tool to shift the American working class away from capitalism and the Republican Party and toward communist mass politics.
History
Origins The ACP has two figureheads, the former environmental activist Jackson Hinkle and the political streamer and self-described anti-revisionist Marxist–Leninist Haz Al-Din. Hinkle and Al-Din would become acquainted with each other in 2021 after Hinkle garnered attention online for denying the Assad regime in Syria's use of chemical weapons on its civilian population. Al-Din was intrigued by Hinkle's appearance on left-wing streamer Vaush's show prompting Al-Din to make a formal introduction to Hinkle.
Both Al-Din and Hinkle were individuals who were attracted to the working class collectivist ideas exhibited by the Marxist–Leninist branch of communism and the nativist right-wing ideology espoused by the MAGA movement. This overlap in ideologies prompted Al-Din to coin their new ideology "MAGA communism" which Al-Din pitched to Hinkle as a new "working class revolutionary movement" while visiting Hinkle in Los Angeles later in 2021.
From 2022 until 2024 prior to ACP breaking away from the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Al-Din and Hinkle attempted to join and remake the CPUSA in order to "reclaim" CPUSA from "liberals, federal agents and Democrats".
In May 2024, CPUSA's 32nd National Convention passed Resolution 5, which supported a "broad front to defeat Trump, Trumpism, and the MAGA Republicans". Al-Din's group opposed CPUSA's support for the Democrats and claimed that CPUSA had violated democratic centralism by suppressing opposition and limiting debate over Resolution 5.
Split from CPUSA
In July 2024, the Infrared-led group split from the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and created the American Communist Party (ACP). ACP described itself as "[a] reconstitution of the Communist Party USA", viewing the CPUSA as having had rejected Marxism–Leninism and embraced "allegiance to the Democratic Party". The ACP's founding executive committee included Jackson Hinkle, Haz Al-Din, and former Party of Communists USA (PCUSA) leader and International Freedom Battalion volunteer Christopher Helali. ACP has since positioned itself as a "patriotic" American alternative to CPUSA.
ACP's founding declaration stated that 29 CPUSA clubs and 3 PCUSA cells had switched affiliations to the new party. CPUSA leadership denied this and 10 of the listed CPUSA clubs denied signing it. In response, ACP argued "these accounts are controlled by" the "[Joe] Sims clique", not "authentic representatives of the clubs".
In April 2024, prior to the official founding of the party, ACP think tank Institute for a Free America hosted a Free America to Free Palestine event in Dearborn, Michigan, which attracted controversy for its unique mixture of anti-Zionist, pro-Russia, and MAGA rhetoric.
Subsequent history In August 2024, ACP joined the World Anti-Imperialist Platform. In November 2024, in Orange County, Vermont, ACP International Secretary Christopher Helali won a write-in campaign for high bailiff, a largely ceremonial position, with 5% turnout. From November 2024 to November 2025, Helali was the only member of a communist party who held elected office in the United States. In November 2025, three CPUSA candidates would join Helali in holding elected offices after winning city council or school council elections.
In March 2025, Hrvatska radiotelevizija described Jackson Hinkle as "the most famous American communist today" during an article on Hinkle's speech to the Houthis. On May 2, 2025, ACP representatives gathered in Chicago, Illinois to elect the party's first Central Committee, which consisted of 32 members. The party also defined its organizational structure, adopting the principle of democratic centralism.: " ["On May 2, 2025, delegates from all over the world gathered in Chicago to elect the first Central Committee of the 32-member New American Communist Party. This election further improved the organizational structure of the New American Communist Party and laid an important foundation for its implementation of the principle of democratic centralism."]
During the 2025 New York City mayoral election, the party spoke against candidate Zohran Mamdani, whom Helali described as one of the "most anti-communist politicians" in practice and a "pure Democrat" who "sheepdogs the people once more into the dead end of the Democratic Party". The ACP denounced Mamdani's condemnations of Nicolás Maduro and Miguel Díaz-Canel, arguing that Mamdani "plays right into the hands of the CIA narratives and imperialist propaganda coming out of Washington". At the same time, the party stated that "there is no disagreement [with Mamdani] with providing affordable or even free childcare, healthcare, education, public transportation, and other public needs and service"; however, the ACP criticized Mamdani's proposal of creating an "office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs".
In December 2025, Jesse Watters showed footage of an ACP physical fitness camp on his Fox News show, which Watters described as a Democratic Party-run "commie boot camp". In response to the footage, Stephen Miller claimed that the Democratic Party is a "communist party" that supports "DEI communism". Later in December, ACP member Addison Aronson was selected to join the Dubuque, Iowa Arts & Cultural Affairs Commission.
On February 13, 2026, ACP hosted events both in New Jersey and Florida to commemorate the 84th birthday of deceased North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. At the events, ACP speakers expressed full support for Kim's son Kim Jong Un and voiced support for his re-election as General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea at the party's 9th Congress. In March 2026, Helali also met with the president of the DPRK International Solidarity Group Zheng Yutong, who expressed her plans on "strengthening ties with progressive forces such as the American Communist Party".
In April 2026, the ACP became a co-founder of the "Sovintern", an international network which aims to unite left-wing parties under the banner of "Socialism 2.0". Apart from the ACP, the network's co-founders include the Workers Party of Britain, Union of Democratic Socialists, Party of Progress and Socialism, Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova, Sandinista National Liberation Front, Movement of Socialists, Tunisia Forward, and A Just Russia. The network aims to introduce an alternative to capitalism, which would be based on the "achievements of Soviet civilization", and espouses socialism of the 21st century and socialist internationalism. According to Resumen Latinoamericano, Hinkle, who the publication identified as a member of the Executive Council of the ACP, was listed among the speakers scheduled for the inaugural Sovintern conference in Moscow. Haz Al-Din spoke at the first conference of the Sovintern on April 27, denouncing capitalism, and stating that the United States "has no moral or spiritual right to teach others or impose its value system" as it rules not through moral superiority, but through "material power, corruption, and bribery." Later that month, Al-Din claimed that he was under investigation by the FBI, allegedly receiving an email from his email provider Google LLC stating that the company released his personal information to the FBI because of the agency's legal proceedings.
Ideological background
The American Communist Party's ideology is based on the political backgrounds of its two founders, Jackson Hinkle and Haz Al-Din. Haz Al-Din, who is a Lebanese American from Dearborn, Michigan, was a self-proclaimed "Marxist" during his university years who was somewhat sympathetic to the political ideology of Bernie Sanders. Hinkle is a former high-profile high school student environmental activist who supported Sanders and promoted school walkouts in favor of gun control, racial justice, and campaigns against building nuclear powerplants. In 2018 and 2019 Hinkle ran for public office in his hometown of San Clemente, California.
The election of Donald Trump galvanized both Hinkle and Al-Din to go further to the right on social issues while still maintaining their ideas on collectivism with regards to governmental oversight and economic policy. Al-Din has said that the mainstream American left is "out of touch with actual working people" and has called out their liberal values with regards to their tolerance of "so-called alternative sexualities and fringe countercultural tendencies." Additionally both Al-Din and Hinkle do not see a distinction between being patriotic as well as communist citing China and the Soviet Union as models to follow for their "MAGA communist" movement. The ACP models itself on the legacy of the Soviet Union and promotes Soviet nostalgia through their support of a Marxist–Leninist interpretation of communism which they allege was socially conservative in nature.
In its criticism to the party it split from, CPUSA, the ACP argues that the "political repression caused by McCarthyism has gradually eroded the revolutionary spirit and steadfastness" of the CPUSA, causing the party to have "rejected all Marxist–Leninist interpretations opposing neoliberalism". According to ACP, the CPUSA abandoned its original revolutionary socialist political position and instead adopted a stance of peaceful transition towards socialism, which the ACP denounces as "opportunism and capitulationism". In turn, the CPUSA accused the ACP of being a populist party that is "superficially left-wing but actually right-wing", and "a product of a red-brown alliance". Comparing the two parties, Xu Yanchun of the Renmin University of China states that the two visibly differ in that while the CPUSA primarily claims the legacy of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, the ACP instead relies on the doctrines of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong as its ideological framework.: "" ["Compared with the Communist Party of the United States, which is guided by Marx, Engels, and Lenin Thought, the New American Communist Party incorporates Stalin and Mao Zedong Thought into its guidance system, and emphasizes the need to combine theory with practice."] The CPUSA does not mention Stalin or Mao at all in its program.