Formed out of the Bay Area Revolutionary Union (BARU) and collectives that had been rooted in the Revolutionary Youth Movement II (RYM II) faction of the Students for a Democratic Society after the latter fell apart in 1969.There were also discussions with several other Marxist-Leninist formations in the short-lived National Liaison Committee. The party is led by its elected National Chairman and primary theoretical spokesperson, Bob Avakian. It is one of the few surviving direct descendants of the New Left of the 1960s and 70s. It is by far the biggest, most active, and most widely-recognized group in the U.S. that identifies itself as Maoist.