This essay studies the Ecuadorian left in its specific organizational forms as well as examining its interventions in spaces of dialogue and dispute with other political forces such as the public sphere and in State formation. It examines the press and different spaces of leftist participation in political contestations concerning collective action and the organs of the state. It is suggested that the emergence of the Ecuadorian left was rooted in the press and other political organizations closely aligned with Alfarist radicalism, and that within the context of the crisis of 1920 the left adopted notions of justice that had been previously popularized during the democratic revolution, combining them with the discourse of twentieth century revolutions, including Russian, Mexican and Peruvian variants of Marxism.