The events in Los Angeles come at a time when the United States left is going through a process of discussion and reorganisation.
Green Left Weekly spoke to Max Elbaum, managing editor of the progressive monthly publication CrossRoads, about the left and the Los Angeles events.
"Right now the left in the US, as in many other countries, is going through a period of upheaval, realignment and transition.
"There certainly are groupings and forces that hold on to traditional views and believe that the revolutionary program is all in place and they embody it, but that is not the majority tendency.
"The majority sentiment is that there need to be some new approaches and new combinations. People from a variety of traditions — whether it be traditional communism, traditional social democracy, the groups and people that originated in the Trotskyist and Maoist movements — are in motion to find one another and develop new forms that are more appropriate for the contemporary period and rooted in the realities of the 1990s", Elbaum said.
Some of this process is reflected in the development of "committees of correspondence" by dissidents within the Communist Party who are calling for more democracy and a program that takes account of the failure of bureaucratic socialism.
"They've launched an initiative to move towards something new and have attracted other individuals and groups. They are holding a major conference on the west coast in July to take that process to another stage", reported Elbaum.
Discussing the rebellion in Los Angeles, Elbaum says that "it calls attention to something that everyone across the political spectrum has known for a long time. The conditions for large sectors of the working people of the US, particularly communities of colour and the African-American community, have deteriorated since the 1960s and sooner or later would take the form of more conspicuous mass resistance.
"For the first time in a number of years, there is a strong pole out there that points to the economic and social conditions, the whole frame of racism and economic inequality that really created this", he added.
Elbaum argues that the ideological battle between the "law and order" forces and those who "point to systemic injustice and racism" has moved closer to centre stage and "provides some kind of opening for that battle to be waged.
"In that sense, on one level it has a positive impact on the left in that it points out that things are not stagnant, that there is a lot of motion among masses of people and there is going to be resistance. It is not the end of history, or anything like that. That is fuel for people to try to create a more viable progressive movement and left", explained Elbaum.
Questions of program, strategy and organisation are still to be answered, according to Elbaum. The events in Los Angeles did not solve these issues, he said, but spurred people into a more active resistance and a more energetic attempt to solve the problems.
The Los Angeles rebellion has led to the development of new coalitions, he added.
"There is the immediate response of people trying to come together in all kinds of various ways. There has also been a surge of activity among youth: a lot of high school walkouts, a lot of rallies at high schools and universities.
"I think it is too soon to say that there is some particular organisation or organisational form, certainly on a national level, that is coming out of this. But I would certainly say new types of coalition relationships at this stage."