This is a partial list of notable democratic socialists.
Heads of government
- Salvador Allende, President of Chile (1970–1973)[2][3]
- Jacobo Árbenz, President of Guatemala (1951–1954)[4]
- Clement Attlee, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1945–1951)[6][7]
- Michelle Bachelet, President of Chile (2006–2010; 2014–2018)[citation needed]
- David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel (1948–1954; 1955–1963)[8][9]
- Léon Blum, Prime Minister of France (1936–1937; 1938)[10]
- Willy Brandt, Chancellor of Germany (1969–1974)[12]
- Álvaro Colom, President of Guatemala (2008–2012)
- Alexander Dubček, leader of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1968–1969)[13]
- Peter Fraser, Prime Minister of New Zealand (1940–1949)[14]
- Mauricio Funes, President of El Salvador (2009–2014)[15]
- Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leader (1985–1991)[16][17]
- António Guterres, Prime-Minister of Portugal (1995 - 2002) and Secretary General of the United Nations (2016–present)
- Cheddi Jagan, President of Guyana (1992–1997)[18]
- Norman Kirk, Prime Minister of New Zealand (1972–1974)[19]
- Fernando Lugo, President of Paraguay (2008–2012)[15]
- Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1924; 1929–1935)[20]
- Nelson Mandela, President of South Africa (1994–1999)[21][22]
- Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica (1972–1980)[23]
- François Mitterrand, President of France (1981–1995)[24][25]
- Evo Morales, President of Bolivia (2006–2019)[15]
- José Mujica, President of Uruguay (2010–2015)[15]
- Walter Nash, Prime Minister of New Zealand (1957–1960)[26]
- Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India (1947–1964)[27][28]
- Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua (1985–1990; 2007–present)[15]
- Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden (1969–1976; 1982–1986)[13]
- José Ramos-Horta, President of East Timor (2007–2012)[29]
- Giuseppe Saragat, President of Italy (1964–1971)[30]
- Michael Joseph Savage, Prime Minister of New Zealand (1935–1940)[31]
- Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil (2003–2011, 2023–present)
- Sutan Sjahrir, Prime Minister of Indonesia (1945–1947)[32]
- Mário Soares, Founder and Leader of the Socialist Party (1973–1986), Prime-Minister of Portugal (1976–1978; 1983–1986) and President of the Portuguese Republic (1986–1996)
- Kalevi Sorsa, Prime Minister of Finland (1972–1975; 1977–1979; 1982–1987)[33]
- Alexis Tsipras, Prime Minister of Greece (2015–2019)[34]
- Tabaré Vázquez, President of Uruguay (2005–2010; 2015–2020)
- Chris Watson, Prime Minister of Australia (1904)[35]
- Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1964–1970; 1974–1976)[36]
- Lionel Jospin, Prime Minister of France (1997–2002)
Other politicians
- Niki Ashton, member of Parliament of Canada, two time Leadership candidate
- Obafemi Awolowo, Premier of the Western State of Nigeria (1954–1960)[49]
- Tony Benn, member of the Labour Party and founder of the Socialist Campaign Group[50][51]
- Eduard Bernstein, member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany
- Aneurin Bevan, father of the National Health Service[55][56][57]
- Louis Blanc, member of the French Provisional Government of 1848[58]
- Lee J. Carter, member of the Virginia House of Delegates[59]
- Alexandre Boulerice, deputy leader of the NDP, member of parliament of Canada
- Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition[60]
- Anthony Crosland, member of the Labour Party[61]
- Eugene V. Debs, five-time Socialist Party of America presidential candidate
- Tommy Douglas, father of Medicare[63]
- Evan Durbin, member of the Labour Party
- Michael Foot, leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition[64]
- Peter Hain, member of the Labour Party[66]
- Joel Harden, member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament.[67]
- Michael Harrington, founder of the Democratic Socialists of America
- Denis Healey, member of the Labour Party[68][69][70]
- Karl Kautsky, member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany
- Neil Kinnock, leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition[72]
- Kevin Kühnert, member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany[73]
- Ferdinand Lassalle, founder of the General German Workers' Association[58]
- Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London (2000–2008)[74]
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, member of the French Parliament in 1848[75]
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Representative[76]
- Bernie Sanders, Senator from Vermont
- Kshama Sawant, Seattle City Council member[78]
- Norman Thomas, six-time Socialist Party of America presidential candidate
- Rashida Tlaib, Michigan Representative[80]
- Jean-Luc Mélenchon, French presidential candidate
- Edward Bellamy, American author, journalist and political activist
- Fred Hampton, American activist and chairman of the Black Panther Party
- Étienne Cabet, French philosopher and utopian socialist
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar , Indian Polymath
- Jim Cornette, American professional wrestling personality and manager[81]
- Milovan Đilas, Yugoslav communist politician and dissident[82]
- Barbara Ehrenreich, American author and political activist[83]
- Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist[84][85][86][87][88]
- Friedrich Engels, German philosopher and sociologist[89][90][91]
- Erich Fromm, Jewish German philosopher[92][93][94]
- Charles Fourier, French philosopher and utopian socialist
- Henry George, American social reformer
- Charles Hall, British physician, social critic and Ricardian socialist[95]
- Christopher Hitchens, English-American journalist[96]
- Owen Jones, English journalist and political commentator[97]
- Helen Keller, American political activist[98]
- Martin Luther King Jr., African-American civil rights leader[99][100][101]
- Naomi Klein, Canadian author and social activist[102]
- Leszek Kołakowski, Polish philosopher and communist dissident[103][104][105]
- Rosa Luxemburg, Polish philosopher and economist
- Karl Marx, German philosopher, sociologist and economist[91][89][90]
- John Stuart Mill, British philosopher and economist[107]
- George Orwell, English novelist[108]
- Robert Owen, Welsh social reformer and utopian socialist
- Thomas Paine, English-born American philosopher and political theorist[109]
- Bertrand Russell, British philosopher[110]
- Andrei Sakharov, Soviet physicist, dissident and human rights activist[111]
- Henri de Saint-Simon, French political and economic utopian socialist theorist
- Roger Waters, English musician[112]
- Cornel West, American philosopher and political activist [113]
- Richard D. Wolff, American economist[114]
- Howard Zinn, American historian[115]
Citations
Medina, Eden (2014). Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile. MIT Press. p. 39. [...] in Allende's democratic socialism.
Winn, Peter (2004). Victims of the Chilean Miracle: Workers and Neoliberalism in the Pinochet Era, 1973–2002. Duke University Press. p. 16. The Allende government that Pinochet overthrew in 1973 had been elected in 1970 on a platform of pioneering a democratic road to a democratic socialism.
Morgan, Kenneth O. (2001). Britain Since 1945: The People's Peace. Oxford University Press. p. 111. The last years of Attlee's democratic socialist regime [...].
Beech, Matt (2012). "The British Welfare State and its Discontents". In Connelly, James; Hayward, Jack (eds.). The Withering of the Welfare State: Regression. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 90. Attlee's goal was a democratic socialist society [...].
Gal, Allon (1991). David Ben-Gurion and the American Alignment for a Jewish State. Indiana University Press. p. 216. Ben-Gurion, Zionist and socialist-democrat [...].
Jones, Clive A. (2013). Soviet Jewish Aliyah, 1989–1992: Impact and Implications for Israel and the Middle East. Routledge. p. 61. [...] Mapai, the democratic socialist party of David Ben Gurion.
Hanhimäki, Jussi M.; Westad, Odd Arne (2004). The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts. Oxford University Press. p. 441. Palme: Why I am a Democratic Socialist, 1982.
Navarro, Armando (2012). Global Capitalist Crisis and the Second Great Depression: Egalitarian Systemic Models for Change. Lexington Books. p. 299. Bell, Edward Price (1924). "Ramsay MacDonald Socialism.": Great Britain's Socialist Labor Prime Minister, in an Authorized Interview, Outlines His Ideals in Government". Chicago Daily News. p. 15. "He asserts that socialists of his school are "not only democrats, but the only democrats."
Benson, Mary (1986). Nelson Mandela. Harmondsworth: Penguin. pp. 231–232. ISBN 9780140089417. Riemer, Neal; Simon, Douglas (1997). The New World of Politics: An Introduction to Political Science. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 147. Moraes, Frank (2007). Jawaharlal Nehru. Jaico Publishing House. p. 187. Powers, Roger S.; Vogele, William B.; Bond, Douglas; Kruegler, Christopher (1997). Protest, Power, and Change: An Encyclopedia of Nonviolent Action from Act-Up to Women's Suffrage. Taylor & Francis. p. 347. ISBN 9781136764820. Hoadley, J. Stephen (1975). The Future of Portuguese Timor. Institute of Southeast Asian. p. 25. Ramos Horta during his December 1974 trip to Australia was careful to distinguish between Fretilin and Frelimo, arguing that his own party was a democratic socialist party [...].
Anwar, Rosihan (2010). Sutan Sjahrir: True Democrat, Fighter for Humanity, 1909–1966. Penerbit Buku Kompas. p. 115. Sjahrir [...] called the ideology he had thought up and that he followed 'democratic socialism' [...].
Foot, Paul (1968). The Politics of Harold Wilson. Penguin. p. 143. ISBN 978-7-8003-2236-5. "Harold Wilson had declared: Democratic socialism as we know it will be meaningless without a great drive towards equality." Faucher-King, Florence; Le Galès, Patrick; Elliott, Gregory (2010). The New Labour Experiment: Change and Reform Under Blair and Brown. Stanford University Press. p. 18.
Munck, Ronaldo (2012). Contemporary Latin America. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 119. In a broad historical sense Chávez has undoubtedly played a progressive role but he is clearly not a democratic socialist [...].
Iber, Patrick (Spring 2016). "The Path to Democratic Socialism: Lessons from Latin America". Dissent. "Most of the world's democratic socialist intellectuals have been skeptical of Latin America's examples, citing their authoritarian qualities and occasional cults of personality. To critics, the appropriate label for these governments is not socialism but populism." Williams, Shirley (3 December 2009). Climbing The Bookshelves: The Autobiography of Shirley Williams. Hachette UK. ISBN 978-0-7481-1612-6. "Jim Callaghan's political life ran in tandem with the rise and the decline of democratic socialism." Coates, Ken, ed. (31 October 2008). What Went Wrong?: Explaining the Fall of the Labour Government. Spokesman Books. ISBN 978-0-8512-4754-0. Steele, Tom; Taylor, Richard (21 April 2011). British Labour and Higher Education, 1945 to 2000: Ideologies, Policies and Practice. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4411-3606-0. ASIN B017PNUIJM. "James Callaghan, a long-standing centre-right figure in the Labour Party [...]." Adams, Ian (1993). Political Ideology Today. Manchester University Press. p. 139. Tony Benn's socialism is distinctive in the importance he places in combining socialism with radical democracy.
Wright, Tony (2005). Socialisms: Old and New. Routledge. p. 55. "[A] democratic socialist like Aneurin Bevan [...]." ISBN 978-1-1347-4540-1. Coupland, Nikolas (2008). "Aneurin Bevan, class wars and the styling of political antagornism". In Auer, Peter. Style and Social Identities: Alternative Approaches to Linguistic Heterogeneity. Walter de Gruyter. p. 213. "[Aneurin Bevan] is the icon of British democratic socialism in the twentieth century." ISBN 978-3-1101-9850-8. Foot, Michael (2011). Aneurin Bevan: A Biography: 1945–1960. 2. Faber & Faber. "[Aneurin Bevan] was a democratic Socialist [...]." ISBN 978-0-5712-8085-8. Closko, George (26 May 2011). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 378–379. ISBN 978-0-1992-3880-4. Freeden, Michael; Sargent, Lyman Tower; Stears, Marc, eds. (15 August 2013). The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies. OUP Oxford. p. 356. ISBN 978-0199585977. Lovick, L. D. (30 September 2013). "Tommy Douglas". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13 February 2020. Wilson, Cristopher (5 December 2013). Understanding A/S Level Government Politics. Manchester University Press. p. 150. ISBN 978-0-7190-6081-6. Hill, Dave (2002). Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory. Lexington Books. p. 188. Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone can be depicted as two of the leaders of the democratic socialist (or 'hard') left [...].
Đilas, Milovan (1957). The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System. Greek edition. Athens: Horizon Athens. Prologue. p. 16.
Calaprice, Alice; Lipscombe, Trevor (2005). Albert Einstein: A Biography. Greenwood. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-3133-3080-3. He committed himself to the democratic-socialist goals that became popular among intellectuals in Europe at the time.
Draper, Hal (1974). "Marx on Democratic Forms of Government". Socialist Register. pp. 101–124. Retrieved 8 February 2020. "Marx's theory moves in the direction of defining consistent democracy in socialist terms, and consistent socialism in democratic terms." Wilde, Lawrence (2004). Erich Fromm and the Quest for Solidarity. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 14. ISBN 978-1403961419. Friedman, Lawrence J. (2014) [2013]. The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love's Prophet. Columbia University Press. p. 236. ISBN 978-0231162586. Braune, Joan (2014). Erich Fromm's Revolutionary Hope: Prophetic Messianism As A Critical Theory of the Future. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. p. 40. ISBN 978-94-6209-812-1. Sturm, Douglas (1990). "Martin Luther King, Jr., as Democratic Socialist". The Journal of Religious Ethics. 18 (2): 79–105. JSTOR 40015109. The essay argues that King was in fact a democratic socialist [...].
Falk, Barbara J. (2003). Dilemmas of Dissidence in East-Central Europe: Citizen Intellectuals and Philosopher Kings. Central European University Press. p. 157. "[Leszek Kołakowski] was increasingly critical of the Marxism institutionalized by the party-state, drawing his inspiration from the newly published writings of the "young" Marx, as well as Gramsci and Lukács, and promoted a more humane and democratic socialism".
Hitchens, Christopher (20 July 2009). "Leszek Kolakowski, 1927–2009". Slate. "[Leszek Kolakowski] advocated a form of democratic socialism approximately based on a reading of young—as opposed to late—Karl Marx". Retrieved 12 November 2019. Biskupski, M. B. B.; Pula, James S.; Wróbel, Piotr J. (2010). The Origins of Modern Polish Democracy. Ohio University Press. p. 17.
Baum, Bruce. "J. S. Mill and Liberal Socialism". In Urbanati, Nadia; Zachars Alex, eds. (2007). J. S. Mill's Political Thought: A Bicentennial Reassessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. "Mill, in contrast, advances a form of liberal democratic socialism for the enlargement of freedom as well as to realize social and distributive justice. He offers a powerful account of economic injustice and justice that is centered on his understanding of freedom and its conditions".
Orwell, George (1968) [1958]. Bott, George (ed.). Selected Writings. London: Heinemann. p. 103. ISBN 0-435-13675-5. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.
Ryan, Alan (1981). Bertrand Russell: A Political Life. Macmillan. p. 87. ISBN 9780374528201. None the less Russell joined the ILP [Independent Labour Party] and declared himself a democratic socialist, then and thereafter.
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