"In its formative period, the world communist movement had a disdainful attitude towards transitional forms and stages. The struggle for socialism was direct and compressed in time. It was damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.
The operative slogans were "class against class," and "No Retreat, No Surrender." "
"But things didn't work out the way that those young militants believed.
Revolution gave way to counterrevolution."
" In the aftermath of this upheaval in the early 1920s, Lenin argued that the revolutionary process would stretch out over time and go through different stages, with distinct strategic tasks specific to each stage."
"He further argued that the new communist parties must search for forms of transition to socialism, springing from a sober estimation of the level of class consciousness and the balance of class and social forces at a particular moment."
"... it wasn't until the 7th Congress of the Communist International in 1935 that this serious weakness of the communist movement was corrected. "
" Georgi Dimitrov... said that the immediate strategic task was not socialism, but rather to build a broad working class led people's coalition to defeat the growing fascist threat."
"Dimitrov ridiculed what he called "cut and dried" schemes that ignored the political situation and dynamics on the ground. He maintained that strategic and tactical concepts had to be fashioned to fit concrete reality, to fit a particular stage of struggle.
He argued that communists must shed simplistic understandings of the revolutionary process like class against class, skipping intermediate stages of struggle, and countering every demand of the social democrats with a demand that was twice as radical."
"a broad based alliance with the working class at its core and an insistent argument against "self-satisfied sectarianism," an attitude and practice that consisted of taking seemingly militant REVOLUTIONARY positions that were divorced from the concrete realities on the ground."
Strategy and strategic policy
" Our party in 1930s, for example, changed its strategic policy in the mid 1930s (from class against class to the building of a broad working class led people's coalition against the economic crisis and fascism). In doing so, we enhanced our status and prestige, grew rapidly in size, and advanced the broader movement in innumerable ways."" a wrongly conceived strategy can isolate the party and weaken the working class and people's movement."
"A strategic policy is not an exact roadmap to the future, but a broad outline of where we want to go. It delineates to millions a path from one stage of struggle to another stage in the context of a larger revolutionary process. It pinpoints the main social forces hindering progressive development, while at the same time identifying the main class and social forces that have an objective interest in moving society to a higher stage of struggle."
"A strategic policy doesn't provide neat boundaries that seal off one stage of struggle from another nor does it adhere to a set timetable. In fact, it can take an agonizingly long time to complete."
"Strategic policies don't grow out of thin air or moral outrage or our desire for revolution. Instead, it is determined by two factors.
One is an objective assessment of the level of social and economic development of a society; an anti-corporate strategy, for example, would been of little help to the revolutionaries of 1776.
The other factor is a concrete estimate of the balance of forces of all the social classes and groups in society.
Finally, tactics (issues of struggle, forms of organization and unity, slogans, demands, etc.) flow from a strategic policy, not the other way around."
Road to socialism
"the main stages of struggle""The first is the struggle against right wing extremism."
" This is not a new policy; it goes back to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. At that point and since then it became evident that the main obstacle to social progress remains rightwing extremism and its corporate backers. They cast a reactionary shadow over the whole political process then and now."
"The election of Barack Obama was a blow to the right, but subsequent events have demonstrated that it wasn't a decisive blow.
The right still retains considerable power, and initiative to frame the debate and disrupt the legislative and political agenda.
Its overarching goal this year is to regain control of all three branches of the federal government. How dangerous is that? In my view it would set the stage for a period of extreme rightwing onslaught.
If you don't believe me take a glimpse at Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio where rightwing Republicans took control of the levers of power in 2010 and then ruthlessly rolled back rights, eliminated social programs and attacked the labor movement.
Those actions are a harbinger of what the Republican Party would do if in command of the federal government next year."
"By contrast, the decisive defeat of the right would weaken Wall Street and the entire corporate class, give leverage and momentum to the people's movement and clear the ground for an era that puts people and nature before profits and "free markets.""
" that will happen only if an electoral coalition is assembled that includes the left, progressives, independents and moderates."
"Said differently and dialectically, the defeat of the right at the polls next year cannot be achieved on a pure anti-corporate basis, given the existing relationship of forces. The 99 per cent versus the 1 per cent is a good slogan and representation of economic reality, but it doesn't reflect the actual political balance of forces on the ground at this moment."
"The political complexion of the country is more complicated, thus making a broader strategy that reaches out to moderates (Republican as well as Democrats) and independents necessary."
"Moreover, such a strategy if successful becomes the basis on which tens of millions will encounter a new relationship of forces, which, in turn, is the ground on which to move to a higher level of understanding and struggle."
"None of this is to suggest that the Democrats aren't now or won't be in the future an obstacle to progressive change; in too many instances they are, but they aren't the main obstacle for the moment."
"This election, then, is not about choosing a lesser evil. It is about our nation's future: are we going to move in a progressive-democratic or rightwing anti-democratic-authoritarian direction"
NB " distinguish this characterization from fascism which has a particular meaning
in the communist movement:
- the open terroristic dictatorship
of the most backward sections of the capitalist class- "
" the labor-led people's coalition, and Communists as a current within that coalition, must make every phase of the election process a number one priority."
"The people's coalition must be a major factor in the primaries. It must reach, register and educate new and stay-at-home voters. It must guarantee a maximum voter turnout on Election Day."
"No less important, it must unrelentingly expose the reactionary positions of the Republican candidates and their racist and anti-democratic systematic campaign to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters."
"Not everyone shares this view. Some think the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans. Others go further and say that the Democrats are worse because they create popular illusions that change is possible within the two-party system. Still others say the electoral process is so compromised by corporate money that participating in it is a fool's errand. And finally there are advocates of running a third-party presidential candidate in this election."
"Like it or not, millions go to the polls in spite of their misgivings. They are invested in the electoral process. Voting is a sacred duty. And the Democratic Party is the vehicle of reform for tens of millions, the majority of whom are working and oppressed people."
"What is more, labor will throw itself into the campaign to elect Democrats, moderate as well as progressive, albeit from its own organizational base. Four hundred thousand campaign volunteers are going to walk neighborhoods this fall."
"Much the same can be said about the racially oppressed. Ditto women and seniors. The majority of youth will also take part in the elections, and like four years ago on the side of President Obama and the Democrats."
"A third-party presidential candidate would only help the extreme right as well as isolate the left from the broader movement."
"The two parties of the capitalist class have similarities. That is undeniable. But differences also exist at the level of social composition and political policies - policies that can be widened under the impact of a powerful people's movement, as they were in earlier historical periods."
" It is easy to imagine any number of electoral strategies but:
which one is rooted in objective realities and advances class and democratic struggles?
which one positions the popular forces to go on the offensive
in the post-election period?
which outcome will clear the ground of neoliberal polices and debris? Which one will weaken the corporate class as a whole? "
"To skip over the current stage in the name of militant radicalism may feel revolutionary, but in the end it is self-defeating and strategically misguided."
Anti-corporate stage
"The decisive defeat of the right in November will result in a different and far more favorable balance of forces. The fight for a people's agenda, the fight for an anti-crisis economic program will bring the labor led people's movement into loggerheads with corporate economic and political power.""Although the terrain of struggle will tilt in the direction of the broad democratic movement, no one should expect that the corporate class to retreat without a struggle.
Employing its considerable political, economic, and ideological power it will attempt to disrupt, divide, and divert the people's movement in the short term."
"In the longer term it will seek to regain the initiative and unrivaled political dominance.
Needless to say, it will get help from the mass media as well as breathe new life into the extreme right wing.
And expect racism in new as well as old, open as well as veiled forms to continue as the corporate class attempts to reverse the election outcome, poison class consciousness, and divide the people's movement.
"Only a closer alliance of a surging labor movement and its strategic allies - the African American people, Latino people, and other peoples of color, women and youth - have the wherewithal to turn back this corporate counterattack, "
"while at the same time enact progressive measures such as public works jobs, living wages, economic conversion to peace time and green production, affirmative action, immigrant rights, housing relief, shorter hours, infrastructure renewal, expand democratic rights, etc."
"At the same time, new forms of independent political action will continue to grow outside of the Democratic Party apparatus.
Indeed, as the anti-corporate struggle intensifies the contradictions and tensions within the Democratic Party will continue to grow given the multiclass class character of the party."
"While pressures to break with the corporate elements in the Democratic Party and their program will surely surface, it is unlikely that any formal rupture will occur before this broad alliance exhausts every (or nearly every) opportunity to reform the Democratic Party, including converting it into a people's party."
"Obviously we welcome the growing trends towards political independence. After all, it hard, if not impossible to imagine, any deep going anti-corporate reform unless the multi-racial working class, the racially oppressed, women, and youth (and their allies) have their own political formation."
"Such a development in all likelihood would be combined with new forms of organization (Immigrant rights organizations and Occupy are examples of this phenomenon) and the growth and maturing of the left, not least the Communist Party."
"This stage of struggle doesn't supplant capitalism, but brings the socialist stage closer as tens of millions become convinced in the course of struggle (experience is a great teacher; messaging, sloganeering, and agitation is not enough) that capitalism doesn't work for them."
"Of course, objective conditions as well as unforeseen events will leave their mark on this bitter confrontation. Social change seldom follows a prescribed course. We envision a process of change, but not a process into which everything must fit; history is more multi-form than we can ever imagine."
"Thus we have to anticipate novelty, that is, unforeseen turns and breaks in the political process."
The socialist stage
"The struggle for socialism is a complex process with no fixed timetable. Periods of advance yield to periods of retreat and vice versa. Shifting alliances form and reform with each side struggling to turn provisional allies into stable ones. New political understandings that accent unity, equality, empowerment, and anti-capitalism compete with ruling class notions that frame how millions understand the world, and the state becomes a contested battleground.""The opening stage in this process will see a substantial and sustained shift to the left among the core forces of social change (the multi-racial working class, people of color, women, and youth plus various social movements), a deepening of anti-racist (including anti-immigrant) consciousness and practice, growing support for an anti-crisis program, the further congealing of an anti-corporate alliance of social groupings, and the growth of the Communist Party and other left organizations. "
"This stage will culminate in the election of a people's government, based on a left and progressive majority at the polls."
"The election of a people's government will mark the transition of the revolutionary process to a second stage."
" It will be characterized by a combined struggle inside and outside of government to implement the key policies of an anti-crisis program. "
"Of special importance at this stage are steps to control the movement of capital, to redistribute income from the wealthy to working people, and to place under democratic control sectors of the economy, such as finance, that are a threat to the people's government and socialist revolution. "
"At the same time, legislative initiatives to counteract the grip of a small number of monopoly conglomerates on the capitalist mass media will be of critical importance. A more diverse pattern of ownership and control in the print, broadcasting, film, telecommunications and web-based media would mirror the wide range of interests and aspirations in a modern, democratic society."
"So there is no misunderstanding, it should be said that a people's government does not mean that the entire capitalist state and its personnel are now on the side of a fundamental transformation of society."
"Therefore, the state itself will become a focal point for sharp class and democratic struggles. In the early going, the people's government will have to introduce extensive changes in recruitment, staffing and management policies within the diplomatic services, government agencies, the judiciary, the police, the secret services and armed forces for the purpose of replacing key personnel with supporters of the government's goals. "
"It will be vital to secure the widest possible public support for these steps, including in mass referendums, while continuing to extend and deepen democratic rights, improve the living standards of working people and other non-corporate strata, and reduce racial, gender, and other inequalities."
"New bodies of working class and popular power, if history is any guide, are likely to arise in the course of these struggles."
"This thrust by the new government will almost certainly meet the most determined resistance from powerful sections of the capitalist class and its forces within and outside the state apparatus."
"(Unlike other countries we can worry less about outside interference militarily and economically because of our dominant position in world affairs and the likelihood that we will not be the first to make this transition.)"
"hus, enormous confrontations will occur, signifying that the revolutionary process has entered its third and most crucial stage as tens of millions come to the realization that capitalism is the problem. In the course of these confrontations - not least in the electoral arena - the question of who controls the state will be decided - the corporate- finance capitalist class or the working class and its allies."
"Much will depend not only on the balance of forces in the state and in society as a whole, but also on the sustained mobilization of tens of millions to uphold the people's democratic will and to respond in a timely way to any acts of sabotage."
"In the course of this process, the constructive involvement of the labor movement in general and the public sector trade unions in particular will be essential. "
"For many reasons (the sanctity of life, the terrifically destructive weaponry that exists, the lasting wounds that are left in the aftermath of an armed engagement, etc.) the socialist movement seeks a peaceful path."
" The extent to which this is possible will depend on the scope of the popular mobilization and the ability of the socialist movement to minimize the capacity for resistance of the capitalist class, including the utilization of the slightest divisions in its ranks."
" As the working class and oppressed invariably bear the brunt of counter-revolutionary violence, it is the duty of the socialist forces to devise such a strategy, rather than propose simplistic notions of violent insurrection and armed struggle."
"At one time, we envisioned a narrowing of the movement from the anti-corporate stage of struggle to the socialist stage. There was a grain of truth here, but only a grain; probably some social strata will peel away as the dawn breaks on socialism, but at the same time, the overall movement must be gaining in breadth and depth. It must be winning ever more millions of people to its banner, including those who were formerly politically passive or a part of the opposition bloc."
"Therefore, any notion of the transition to socialism as a purely working-class affair or a project of just the left should be rejected. Only a movement of the great majority and in the interests of the great majority, only a movement whose mass character deepens again and again, is capable of winning socialism in our country."
Political rupture
"Even when a political rupture occurs, it will be neither complete nor irreversible."" On the day after the transfer of power, socio-economic life will probably look much like it did the day before and power will continue to be contested."
"In such circumstances, as important as the battle of ideas is, it is also imperative to continue to enact measures to weaken the class adversary, while at the same time taking steps to expand the rights of tens of millions, and enact people driven economic measures."
"It is also imperative to win bigger majorities in subsequent elections.
Thus, revolutions are not a single act, but rather a series of events and complex processes stretching over time."
Nationally specific path
"Nor are revolutions imitative. While there are clearly some common features, this transformational process can happen in a variety of ways; one size doesn't fit all.In considering forms of transition to socialism, we should be unabashed proponents of our own nationally specific path."
"While we should study the experiences of other countries, those experiences should not imprison our political imagination."
"If I were to write a book on our own country's path to socialism, I would make the particular features a main thread, not an addendum. "
"For example, given the democratic sentiments of the American people and given the powerful impact of race and gender on the politics, economics, culture, consciousness, and historical trajectory of our nation, our vision of socialism must include an unyielding commitment to completing the unfinished democratic tasks that we will inherit and expanding democracy, beginning with the eradication of racism and male supremacy."
"Even the slightest devaluing of democracy or the fight against racism and gender oppression will keep the socialist movement on the political periphery."
The Communists and the left
"We also have to anticipate that multiple parties and movements will be a feature of the U.S. path to socialism.""That said, I would argue that our party has a unique role both now and in the future."
"Our embrace of a theory of society and social change that is historical, ecological, dialectical, comprehensive and independently elaborated - without shortcuts, simplifications or official boundaries.
Our affinity to the American radical/democratic tradition.
Our use of class analysis and categories in a way that is broad and unifying.
Our focus on the real needs, struggles and interests of the working class and people.
Our commitment to equality and internationalism in their various forms.
Our determination to assist (and lead) in the building of a broad people's movement at the core of which is the multi-racial working class, people of color, women, and youth.
Our understanding of the special (central) place of the struggle against racism in the fight for social advance and socialism.
Our disposition for action, but not any kind of action, but united action along a specific strategic and tactical path.
Our accent on social processes and contradictions.
Our conviction that the multi-racial, male- female working class and its organized sector play a decisive role on the path to social progress and socialism.
Our refusal to confuse slogans and militancy for analysis.
Our insistence on making a concrete presentation of every question.
Our belief in the necessity of a broad strategic perspective.
Our use of flexible tactics that unite and move forward the labor led people's movement
Our appreciation of the interconnection between the struggle for democracy and the struggle for socialism.
Our ability to stay clear of false oppositions between partial and more advanced demands, between gradual and radical change, between electoral forms of action and direct action, between patriotism and anti-imperialism, between struggle against the state and struggle within the state, and between anti-capitalism and rifts in capital.
Our insistence that the electoral/legislative arena grows in importance as we move down the road to socialism.
Our belief that popular majorities make change.
Our vision of Bill of Rights socialism.
Our confidence in the democratic and revolutionary character of the American people."
"our party is unique and necessary to the revolutionary process at every stage."
What will it will look like
It will complete the unfinished democratic tasks left to us by capitalism.
It will expand the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
.
It will encourage new social arrangements to care for the very young and the very old.
U.S. socialism will insist on the separation of church and state, but it will also assume that people of faith and non-faith will be active participants in society.
"It will also bring an end to exploitation of wage labor, not in one fell swoop, but over time.
A mixed economy operating in a regulated socialist market and combining different forms of state, cooperative and private property will define the economic landscape."
"Such a mixture of ownership relations and market mechanisms does not preclude economic planning or a national investment strategy."
"Finally, socialism will give priority to sustainability and sufficiency, not growth without limits."
