[2] An earlier publication called The Militant was launched in November 1928 by James P. Cannon and other American Trotskyists gathered together in the Communist League of America (CLA).

It declared its goal to be a fight "in the interest of the working people" against the capitalist system, imperialist wars, and the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union, which according to the Trotskyists had betrayed and corrupted the October Revolution.

The paper was succeeded by a similar broadsheet that served as the official organ of the WPUS called the New Militant, edited by Cannon.

[citation needed] In 1964, The Militant gained unwanted attention when it was revealed during the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald had his wife, Marina Oswald Porter take two photographs of him around March 31, 1963 posing in his backyard holding a copy of The Militant and another communist newspaper The Worker in one hand and the rifle that he would later use on November 22 to assassinate John F. Kennedy on the other (he held them in different hands in both photographs).

[7] In the summer of 2005, The Militant became a bilingual newspaper, published in both English and Spanish (El Militante), and with lead articles and editorials appearing in both languages.