Its membership was overwhelmingly left-wing and professed to be secular, although the fairly obvious sectarian appeal of Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and some of the Sunni Arab nationalist organizations in some cases made this claim debatable.

Its main ideological positions were: the abrogation of sectarianism, political and social reforms, the clear proclamation of the Arab identity of Lebanon, and increased support for the Palestinians.

Most of them were marginal political organizations of revolutionary or populist trend (Arab nationalist, libertarian/anarchist, liberal/idealist, radical socialist, Marxist–Leninist, Hoxhaist, Trotskyist, or Maoist) that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and despite their rather limited base of support, they were quite active.

Anti-status quo, Pan-Arabist, and pro-Palestinian in policy, they strived for a social revolution that would transform Lebanese society, therefore sharing the same objectives as the leading LNM secular parties – the recognition of Lebanon as an Arab country and unwavering support for the PLO.

However, apart this minority of committed idealists, the vast majority of the remainder 'movements' were actually façades or 'shops' (Arabic: dakakin) – slightly politicised neighbourhood militias operating under grandiose pseudo-revolutionary labels – set up by PLO factions (mainly Fatah) in a misguided effort to widen its base of local support among the unemployed Lebanese urban youth.

In most cases, their small, poorly disciplined, ill-equipped militia establishments were ad hoc formations made of lightly armed and largely untrained Christian or Muslim youths that rarely surpassed the 100-300 fighters' mark – about the size of an understrength company or battalion.

Those groups either unable or unwilling to raise their own militias played a political role only by engaging in propaganda activities, keeping themselves out of the 1975-76 savage street battles and sectarian killings, with some of their militants preferring instead to join the medical relief agencies organized by the LNM.

For the most part forced to go underground, some evolved to Islamic fundamentalist groups, whilst the less politicized simply degenerated into criminal street-gangs that engaged in assassinations, theft, smuggling, and extortion.

In 1977, Walid Jumblatt became the head of the LNM after the murder of his resigning father, Kamal, in an ambush widely accredited to either pro-Syrian Palestinian militants or Lebanese SSNP agents working for the Syrian intelligence services.