Towards a Socialist Intervention in the Contemporary Democratic Movement

by Scottie L.

April 7, 2024

I

Socialism, as it is conceived by the left at large, is treated as an object which can be “studied” as an idea floating in the air, which, if understood “properly,” can be applied to any social situation, and in any country. It is as if the principles supplied by the library of Marxist theory give communists the know-how to navigate and overcome any given political juncture, no matter how particular or unique it might be. This approach fails to recognize, however, that socialism is not an ‘object’ or body of thought which can be studied and then applied, nor a set of principles that can be simply transcribed, from either the page or the history of prior socialist states, into reality. Communism is, and necessarily must be, a politics arising from the grounds which it wishes to arise. It must give full primacy to the political battles in motion; it cannot sit on the sidelines attempting to create its own “more revolutionary” struggles.1

A pertinent example of this problem within the socialist left is Marxist Unity Group’s slogan “Fight the Constitution.” With this slogan they hope to encourage the founding of a new “socialist democratic republic,” and write a “new constitution,”  a surely noble aim, but it seems to appear out of thin air. The slogan neglects the fact that the Constitution itself is a political battleground on which the fight for democracy has, in this country, always taken place. They leave the field to other political forces, who act upon the terrain which actually exists and who do not just propose alternate realities. We should also not forget that most people are not thinking about “The Constitution;” its ‘discursive potency’ is next-to-nothing in the present juncture. Instead of working through, and grappling with, the “real movement to abolish the present state of things” they once again make the classic move of making communism an “ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself.”2

It follows the classic formula of appealing to the abstract ideal of socialism in an attempt to negate the present juncture of politics. It is a non-strategic retreat of the highest order, while also being a clear expression of the communist left’s (mis)understanding of politics—a misunderstanding which allows it to justify to itself its premature declaration of a “revolutionary situation,” while at the same time leaving the political battlefield completely to the initiative of other forces. They let other, less resolute, forces fight the democratic fight.

There is no consideration for the grounds their socialism wishes to stand on, only consideration of its own internal logic, its ideal—absolutely detached from the present and concrete reality of American politics. “Whole-hearted support” of a 250 year old document written by slaveholders and aristocrats is not a prerequisite for seeing that document as a political battleground on which rights can be won and secured. Nor is it the prerequisite for believing that the advancements attained under this political order are meaningful for millions of people.

There can be no doubt that the overcoming of the current order is the ultimate aim of our movement; the process of overcoming however, is found directly within the development of that order—in its exhaustion through political struggle. The fact that we wish we were fighting on a different field is no reason to give up the battlefield we currently find ourselves on. Communists view the task of building a communist party as a matter of building support for their abstract ideal of socialism, completely outside the American political universe and the concerns of the millions of people they wish to mobilize. Their slogans constantly discount the fact that the current order is a flexible and open battleground—fertile for the advancement of socialism through the ongoing struggle for democracy. They prefer to negate the present democratic struggle as a means for overcoming it, not realizing that its negation is found precisely within that struggle.

This seems to be the common sense view of the communist left today: that by getting enough people to accept the concept of socialism in the abstract, there will come a point where that group will become large enough to constitute a capable social force, a relevant political bloc in national political life. It is taken as a matter of bringing down from the heavens a new political ‘pole’ for people to rally to, without participating in, or even seriously considering, existing political motion; they don't realize that building a political bloc is a matter of interacting meaningfully with politics already in motion. It is somewhat understandable that communists want to differentiate themselves from the dominant progressive movement, especially when we repeatedly bear witness to their seeming vacillation—their tendency to fall short of addressing the systemic problem in favor of playing “whack-a-mole” with the symptoms of the systemic problems that communists are able to recognize. It is frustrating to see millions of people invest so much energy and effort into reforms that we know will not address the root of the problem; and consequently it is no surprise that communists become jaded and begin to reject dominant progressivism in favor of trying to build their own ‘version’ of political culture. 

Our communists paint pressing issues of national politics as “distractions” and believe that politics is a matter of bringing down from heaven the abstract idea of communism, instead of seeing communism as something which must necessarily arise out of existing social life. To think that politics is simply a matter of getting enough people to agree with an idea is voluntarism—it negates that politics takes place in real, objective, and historically constructed social life and is determined by it (i.e., that politics does not originate in the mind of but in objective social activity). What is forgotten here is that “operationalizing” an entire class for political action cannot be done by “converting” individuals to hold and subscribe to an abstract idea of socialism, for even if they are “converted,” it does not mean that they or their ideas are inserted into national political life by doing so; in fact, more times than not it means the opposite: they are taken out of national political struggle and the battlefield is surrendered to the Right, while the struggle for the expansion of democracy is left to the ever-vacillating liberals who lack the vigor an active communist presence in the movement could offer. Take, for example, a young student who has become cynical in regards to the dominant progressive movements of the day—for not doing enough, for falling short, etc. They find Marxism, become convinced that the dominant movements of the day must be “distractions” from class war, and end up telling their progressive friends that they are wasting time by engaging with dominant Culture War issues. They join a socialist organization, and on the weekend they go out with their friends and hand out flyers at the train station about “economic exploitation,” while the issues and conflict that hundreds of millions participate in are left outside of their field of activity This person has, in effect, exited national political life—objective social activity—and has isolated themselves from the scene on which those politics are actually progressing and on which their politics strive to arise. 

The conception this hypothetical student has adopted implicitly rejects the fact that politics is historically constructed, since it holds that the Culture War is not a true reflection of reality, even though it exists in reality before them and is obviously the preoccupation of all American politics in the present. We must remember that the ethico-political debate we are seeing play out now is the natural course of bourgeois-democratic development—it is the struggle over whether we are going to extend political rights to those which have historically been deprived of such rights. The bourgeois order attains its self-realization through the extension of political equality to all citizens, and it is this which is the main content of the bourgeois-democratic revolution historically. This student, instead of seeking to carry out the democratic revolution as speedily as possible so that socialism may assert itself, has abandoned it, and has chosen to espouse a political program which actively downplays its importance. Talk about a partisan of progress!

This view fails to see that whichever political battle is being waged on the national level is not the “calculated machination” of a group of men in suits in a room somewhere, but a culmination of the country’s history up to this point—of all real, objective social activity. Instead of abandoning the democratic revolution and actively diverting from it, the task of socialists should be to see to it that it be carried out as quickly as possible. If there is a struggle for political rights which can plausibly be attained under this order, why else should any other struggle play out? We should be the first to support these movements. We should encourage them to become themselves fully and carry themselves out to their logical conclusions. Though we may see that the full development of these movements for political rights will not solve the problem of economic inequality, it is wise for every Marxist to remember that it is only through a bourgeois societies’ ‘total’ development that the conditions for its dissolution emerge. Every struggle seemingly ‘accommodated’ in the political order is, in fact, the movement to transcend that very order.

Communism is not something which is supposed to “fall out of a coconut tree.” The solution to every political problem is not proclaiming that we need to “overthrow capitalism!” 

II

The political arena is not, and never was, an empty space. There are pre-existing tensions, actors, institutions, values, etc., all of which dictate the terms of a polity’s development, and how the actors within it may interact with it and its other actors. Many communists view politics in a fashion akin to how John Locke paints America in his Second Treatise on Government:

…in the beginning, all the world was America… (§ 49)

Locke is trying to paint the world as being a tabula rasa, or, a ‘blank slate,’ on which human civilizations assert their will. His concept of the state of nature is one where any actor or polity can implement their vision without resistance. American political scientists Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek provide a much needed counter to this conception in their 2004 book The Search for American Political Development. Directly responding to Locke:

...all political change proceeds on a site, a prior political ground of practices, rules, leaders, and ideas, all of which are up and running. The site can be any definable political expanse—a geographical area, a policy network, a political institution. [....] A historical site [...] will display all the tensions and contradictions of prior construction. That is to say, no matter how far back we go in real time, change confronts political authority already on the scene. By virtue of its historical character, political change is always a reconstruction. [My emphasis] (p. 20-21)

Continuing, they assert:

In short, authority in different forms and in mutually impinging arrays permeates the field. Far from filling a void, political development on this site would very soon confront rules governing everything from the legitimate uses of land and work relations to the practice of religion and the relations of husband and wife. With this view of the matter, Locke's "America" quickly gives way to other imagery: "in the beginning, all the world was downtown Tokyo.” (p .22)

Of particular importance here is how we understand the word “authority” in the first quoted passage. Authority can be understood as the amalgamation of “practices, rules, leaders, and ideas (20).” If we understand the word to just mean the purely instrumental authority of government (the ability to use force), then we easily fall prey to crude and mechanical ‘materialism’ and the conception of the state it produces, in which politics is reduced to the substitution of one ruling party by another by means of force alone. Authority, however, is not just coercion or the ability to coerce but the securing of ‘consent’ as well. Any politics which hopes to displace an existing order (which “confronts political authority already on the scene”) is initially located within the common sense of the order it seeks to displace—and simply placing in contradistinction one’s own common sense to the popular one is not enough. To the contrary, the political newcomer uses the old paradigm as a starting point; through a ‘tactical mixture’ of both the old and the new common sense, however, he achieves an exhaustion and consequent transcending of the old in practice. In other words, it is precisely where the old falls short that the new finds the space to intervene. This is the meaning of the quote “revolution is impossible without a change in the views of a majority of the working class, a change brought about by the political experience of the masses, never by propaganda alone.”3 It can only be the real objective experience of politics as it plays out which changes the views of the vast majority of people—not what we say alone.

Further, also crucial is the idea of “political change” being “always a reconstruction.” Political change cannot be fabricated ‘off-site’ before being brought ‘on-site’ on the back of an “oversized load” truck—the political change that actually arrives is always the old order and set of ideas sublated and advanced upon. Yet, an ‘off-site’ fabrication is exactly what communists attempt to achieve by trying to rally people around socialism as an abstract idea while either neglecting, or outright rejecting, the broader progressive motion happening around them. After all, revolution is “brought about by the political experience of the masses, never by propaganda alone,” is it not? Jelani Cobb, a liberal journalist, observed the same phenomenon when he wrote after Barack Obama’s election as President that “until there was a Black Presidency it was impossible to conceive of the limitations of one.”4 It was only the real experience of Obama’s presidency that allowed the people to see that having a black president would not address the problem of racism the way they hoped to see it addressed. But before the experience of Obama’s presidency, saying that a black president would not be enough to address the problem of racism, while certainly foreseeable, was not a point which could really be acted upon until this real experience had played out and these foresights confirmed in living experience.

Communism is not achieved by condemning everything under the sun as “bourgeois” and calling for the total overthrow of everything; communism is achieved through exhausting all forms of life ‘implicit’ in this bourgeois society, by pushing progressive motion to the point where its mere existence becomes incompatible with the old order. Marx writes in his preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:

No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions for their existence have matured in the womb of old society. Therefore mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the task itself only arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.

Society sets for itself tasks that it can solve, or for which the solution's possibility is emerging. When an entire nation finds itself locked into a battle over a problem, it does not do so because it has been “purposely” made that way by a group of political actors, but because society is grappling with the questions it has inherited in the only way it possibly can: the way in which it actually can carry out its solution. 

When Lenin wrote that revolution happens when “the ‘lower classes’ do not want to live in the old way and the ‘upper classes’ cannot carry on in the old way,” he was not simply writing a poetic truism, he was pointing to that moment outlined above, where the sentiment of the millions, and the ability of millions (crystalized by a communist party), directly runs counter to the ability of the ruling class to contain that sentiment and ability. This thesis emphasizes that communist politics is not just the process of building the communist party but also requires at the level of society the exhaustion of the masses in their real, objective social activity of their ability to ‘carry on in the old way.’ In other words, politics is not a game in which class-subjects enter into political space on the basis of their volition and will—it is, once again, real, objective social activity—volition can only gain meaning when it properly relates itself to that real social activity, when it comes to terms with the objective activity playing out in front of it. 

This quote of Lenin’s is also not an invitation to a sort of accelerationism, that treats the rise of a figure like Donald Trump with indifference and hopes that the subsequent suffering will bring about a desire for revolution. Rather, this exhaustion must follow the climax of social activity, not its defeat and destruction. The accelerationist approach follows from a mechanistic teleology in which volition does not matter at all and what is instead relied upon are “necessary laws of development” or something of the like that will bring communism on their own. The defeat of the movement by the right results in disillusion, the shattering of organization, and a retreat in the general sense of revolutionary possibility. When the right wins, the masses don’t enter a revolutionary mindset but at best a defensive one. In regards to that latter ‘accelerationist’ camp, what these types do not realize is that when reaction rises, it leaves the masses little choice but to struggle for basic democracy—or what they had before—but when democracy advances, it “only makes the class struggle more direct, wider, more open and pronounced...”5 

It is here also worth recalling Michel Proust’s words that “there can be no peace of mind in love, since the advantage one has secured is never anything but a fresh starting-point for future desires.” The accelerationist notion that “reforms placate the masses” needs to finally be laid to rest; the truth is precisely the opposite: reforms, once accomplished, only lead politics to strive for ever newer and more expansive goals that are now put in the realm of possibility. 

III

A common orientation towards national politics held by the Left is that the “Culture War'' we have all heard so much about for the last eight years is some sort of “distraction” designed by the ruling class to keep us within the political boundaries of their order. Because this “Culture War” plays out largely in electoral conflict, many communists advocate for general voter abstention as some sort of way to “delegitimize the state.” Firstly, the idea that the entirety of national politics is the culmination of some grand ruling class conspiracy is simply absurd (not to mention completely idealist—as it implies that objective, real, social activity is constructed voluntaristically); secondly, the tactic of abstention is counter-intuitive and completely devoid of any consideration of real dynamics of American politics. Respectively, the “Culture War” is not a “distraction” as they like to paint it as; it is the definitive battle over the social and political values which will dictate the path forward for this country for generations; it is the culmination of American history—all activity in this country—up to this point. And we should be attuned to the fact that the Right has always relied on keeping people away from the polls to maintain its power, and I certainly don’t think any of our abstentionists would suggest that the people they want to get to abstain from electoral politics are Republicans. 

Every question over which a grand battle is raging in this country is one of prime importance to communism. Only a fool in communist’s clothing could look at the progressive side of the Culture War and not see it as their own. Communists should, more than anything, aim to lead this democratic struggle, and carry it through as quickly and as decisively as possible, since we have gathered from history that American Liberalism will embrace struggles of the oppressed up to the moment it no longer buttresses their political ends; they, because of their vacillation and indecisiveness, are unable to carry these struggles through to their logical political ends. 

A good example of this phenomenon can be found within the history of Reconstruction. As soon as aiding the struggle for civil rights in the South threatened to undermine newly-reconstructed national unity and the prestige of the Republican Party, the Republicans were glad to throw freedmen to the wind; even though ten years earlier they were the vanguard party of abolition. Today, the Democratic Party has taken up the mantle of racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, voting rights, and many other democratic struggles; yet,  once the Republican Party and its base have been relegated to history—by the carrying through of these struggles to their “conclusions''— the Democratic Party will be free from pressure from the right and be more than willing to throw those very same movements to the wind the same way the Republicans did to freedmen in the mid 1870s once they were similarly no longer useful.

Times change, alliances shift, and in time political blocs are reconstituted—ejecting formerly crucial voter bases and creating them anew. Hence why at one moment a party may take up a particular group’s struggle only to later abandon it in favor of new “alliances.” I will quote an unpublished work of a friend and fellow editor to illustrate this dynamic of politics:

“...the accumulation of these [political] changes stack on top of each other until—suddenly, the paradigm collapses; the identities, conceptions, and social order of before is no longer compatible with these identities that through their own development have negated the conditions of their own existence. Consequently, no one wins in history; the defeat of a rival is always the heralding of the abolition of both winner and loser, who, in the new social order, are newly re-interpellated and newly set at odds.”

It is exactly for this reason that a hypothetical ‘total victory’ of the Democrats over the Republicans would not actually be a victory at all for the Democrats, but, rather, a total re-framing of the national political landscape. The “coming together” of a political order or party system, in practice, means its dissolution. Politics is not stuck with two static actors for all of time—the ascendancy of one over the other can only mean that the terms of the debate have been fundamentally altered. It is in this light that we understand our role in the current political battle being waged. We have to force, through a progressive cultural victory, the inner contradictions of such a victory to play out—to force it to grow beyond the bounds possible under the capitalist order. The relegation of the modern Republican Party to total irrelevancy through total enfranchisement does not mean that Democrats ‘win’ per se, but, rather, that the identity of the Democratic Party loses its meaning and that the process of political articulation is therefore forced to begin anew.

But who and what exactly are we trying to defeat? The question is warranted since I am speaking of the defeat of only one group within the capitalist order. The answer is the reactionary minority bloc which clings to power through the disenfranchisement of voters (through voter ID, voter roll purges, and redistricting) and reliance on the disproportionate representation awarded to it in both houses by the electoral college and the basic constitutional makeup of the Senate. Not to mention the Supreme Court now dominated by judges appointed by these forces. All of these are symptoms of the perennial problem of American politics; the suppression of democracy by the regime of white supremacy in states currently dominated by the Republican Party. The defeat of these forces is the fundamental task of any democratic push in American politics today.

Southern states originally were allowed to count slaves as 3/5th of a person so that they would get apportioned more seats in Congress. Since the end of Reconstruction, they have utilized a disenfranchised black population to bolster its Congressional representation even further; allowing white people in the South to vote, in effect, in the name of themselves and someone who cannot vote (and who if given the opportunity would vote against them). This is why many historians argue that, while the North won the Civil War, the South won the peace. When the Voting Rights Act was passed and signed into law in 1964, it led to the creation of our modern party voting blocs, and for a brief moment in history began to undermine this Jim Crow arrangement. This was until 2013, when the Supreme Court stripped the Attorney General’s Office of its ability to enforce the Voting Rights Act by declaring Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act “unconstitutional” on the basis of its violation of “states rights” in the landmark case Shelby County v. Holder. 

We now live in a time when the Voting Rights Act is no longer an enforceable piece of legislation, and where states dominated by the Republican party are free to enact voter suppression of all kinds without Federal interference. This is why progressives in this country stress so heavily getting out to vote, because, whether they realize it or not, the right to suffrage is the question of the day,  not some “Democratic party psy-op designed to distract the masses from class struggle.” Republicans know they would never win a House or Senate majority again if every eligible voter voted, nor would they hold nearly as many state legislatures as they do. No Republican tells themselves that “voting doesn't matter.” When election day comes, they head to the polls and vote with no hesitation or deliberation. Progressive-minded people who would inevitably vote for the Democrats, by nature of their more forward thinking, tend to be more cynical and tell themselves that their vote doesn't matter since no matter who wins it will always be “the same old shit.” This is why Democrats spend millions on ‘get out the vote’ campaigns, because the question of voting rights is, alongside—and in way an aspect of—the Culture War, the central reference point for American politics in this political moment.

So instead of letting our politics be obscured behind (or to the side of) the contemporary political struggle for democracy, we must join the contemporary political struggle—on the side of this progressive cultural bloc, which is struggling for democracy, in order to further its constituent movements and to expand their aims beyond the limits of what is possible under the current political order. And this does not mean fooling ourselves as to the nature of the Democratic Party or its satellites—the Democratic Party represents an opportunistic and vacillating section of capital: the shareholders of oil companies which fill our air with smoke, of weapons companies which make life living hell for millions across the globe, all while bleeding our country dry of the resources it needs for schools, infrastructure, healthcare, and other instruments of facilitating life. We also do not fool ourselves as to how far these progressive movements can go in the attainment of their goals under capitalism; our understanding of these movements hinges on the passage from Marx quoted above. When any one of these movements achieves a paltry reform, they will not simply walk home and call it a day—there will always be the next step. We must give the progressive movement that has temporarily found its home in the Democratic bloc awareness of its historical role—give it consciousness of itself so that it may become itself totally:

"...while Cavour was aware of his role in as much as he was critically aware of that of Mazzini, the latter, as a consequence of his scanty or non-existent awareness of Cavour's role, had in fact little awareness of his own either. Hence his vacillations and his ill-timed initiatives---which therefore became factors only benefiting the policies of Piedmont. This is an exemplification of the theoretical problem, posed in the *Poverty of Philosophy*, of how the dialectic must be understood. Neither Proudhon or Mazzini understood the necessity for each member of a dialectical opposition to seek to be itself totally and throw into the struggle all the political and moral "resources" it possesses, since only in that way can it achieve a genuine dialectical "transcendence" of its opponent." (p. 109, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, IP)

In order to do this we do not tell the world what it should struggle for, but what it is already struggling for:

"We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to.

The reform of consciousness consists only in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in awakening it out of its dream about itself, in explaining to it the meaning of its own actions.” (Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge, 1843)

We must encourage the democratic movement to be as resolute as possible in the achievement of its aims, for it to undertake its task as quickly as possible so that it may clear the way for the direct struggle for socialism. To tell the democratic movement that it is “actually” mistaken is to cease to be a living Marxist and become an armchair antique. And to go so far as to label these movements as “distractions” from “the class struggle” is to take the world as a static object in which the now will always be the reference point for what we should be ‘grateful’ for.

Humanity always takes what it has in the now as its baseline, and will inevitably strive for higher things. Think of the spoiled child, who takes for granted what the poor child would be immensely grateful for. It is for this reason that the notion that reforms “placate” or “distract” the “masses” is an unfounded assumption; these reforms simply open up the next phase of the battle. Humanity needs to be, should be, and is—that spoiled child.

This is not to say we view reforms as an end in themselves, but it is to say that reforms indicate motion in a certain direction—that the forces which won them are coming to the fore. Self-professed “revolutionaries” should not one-sidedly balk at reforms as insufficient and refuse to partake in their attainment. These reforms may be insufficient if the point of reference is the complete overthrow of all that exists—a far-off goal. But the present should not be subordinated to a future ideal. In figuring out what is to be done, instruction can only be derived from studying the present. Possibility has its only roots planted firmly in the immediate concrete juncture. Reforms are not just means to attain possible ‘goods,’ but are ends in themselves if their attainment is completely subordinated to the task of building ethico-political hegemony of the communist political party, the same way the point above the target is, for the archer, the living and effective ends to aim for in hitting the target. The point is to exhaust the current order of all it is capable of in regards to the advancement of democratic rights. One must blow air into the balloon before it pops.

Regardless of what exactly the nature of democratic reforms are, they are not what we are specifically striving for; the task of the day is that of democratic revolution. What is key here is that letting the vacillating and inconsistent democratic bourgeoisie take the reins of this struggle for democracy only means a democratic movement hampered by their tendency to make compromises with the reactionaries for the sake of peace and tranquility. If fundamental change is to be genuinely pursued, it can only be done through a complete destruction of the party system as we know it—a complete realignment of the political order. The dominant questions of the day are not overcome by pretending they do not—or should not—exist. They are overcome by their resolution and subsequent dissolution in the face of new realities—through their own overcoming. The point is not to subsume our activity under the activity of bourgeois democracy, but to create conditions within it more favorable to socialism, and in the process, create discursive political space for the insertion of our ideas within the newly constituted political arena we ‘helped’ create.6

Our magazine began its life amidst accusations of “liquidationism;” our politics calling for the forging of an alliance between the dominant progressive movement found within the Democratic Party and the communist movement. Concerns about “dissolution into bourgeois democracy” not only informed our opponent’s critiques of our tendency, but actively informs the communist left’s disposition more broadly towards national politics. That being its aversion towards interaction with the real tides of national politics, its marginal and sectarian nature. Funnily, however, is that they have not realized that in avoiding all contact with national politics out of a fear of “dissolving” in it, they have unknowingly already been dissolved.

Lenin in Two Tactics of Social-Democracy is acutely aware of the danger of the Social-Democratic Party becoming dissolved in bourgeois democracy in its participation in the democratic revolution, and in fact he takes this as a certain ‘given’ while partaking in the democratic revolution. The real question he is concerned with however, is “from what direction is the proletariat threatened” with this danger? He begins by pointing out some basic but fundamental characteristics of the question:

The question is not whether this or that Social-Democratic group will want to dissolve in bourgeois democracy or whether they are conscious of the fact that they are merging. Nobody suggests that. We do not suspect any Social-Democrat of harboring such a desire, and this is not at all a question of desires. Nor is it a question whether this or that Social-Democratic group will formally retain its separate identity, individuality, and independence of bourgeois democracy throughout the course of the revolution. They may not only proclaim such “independence” but even retain it formally, and yet it may turn out that their hands will be nonetheless tied in the struggle against the inconsistency of the bourgeoisie. The final political result of the revolution may prove to be that, in spite of the formal “independence” of Social-Democracy, in spite of its complete organizational individuality as a separate party, it will in fact not be independent, it will not be able to put the imprint of its proletarian independence on the course of events, will prove so weak that, on the whole and in the last analysis, its “dissolving” in the bourgeois democracy, will nonetheless be a historical fact. This is what constitutes the real danger. (p .48-49, FLP)

The course of events he is describing is exactly what modern American communists are allowing to happen today. We sit on the sidelines pretending we are independent, when, in reality, we allow events to play out without putting our stamp on them. We are totally dissolved into bourgeois democracy when we really take a sober look at things: we are so dissolved that we are undetectable! Democratic struggles are raging—deaths and casualties included—but we are nowhere to be seen. It seems to stem from the fact that most communists hold a sort of sentimental and moral imperative to differentiate themselves from dominant progressivism, and hence refuse to critically engage with it on the basis of a shared fundamental progressive orientation. But engagement with that basic shared orientation would challenge their economic-reductionist schemas of politics!

Our dissolution into bourgeois democracy is becoming a historical fact! Yet we pat ourselves on the back for retaining our formal independence? Why let the vacillating and opportunist wing of the democrats lead the battle against the far-right when it could be us leading the fight, pushing the bounds of the battle further than the order can handle. We want total defeat of the far-right, not a precarious compromise. Lenin writes that there are two possible outcomes for the democratic revolution.

Either 1) the result will be a “decisive victory over tsarism,” or 2) the forces will be inadequate for a decisive victory and the matter will end in a deal between tsarism and the most “inconsistent” and most “self-seeking” elements of the bourgeoisie. All the infinite variety of detail and combinations, which no one is able to foresee, reduce themselves—in general and on the whole—to either the one or the other of these two outcomes. (P.49-50, FLP)

An attitude that rejects participation in the national democratic struggle is an attitude complacent with the latter outcome. Just replace tsarism with Christian fundamentalism or Jim Crow conservatism and the parallel becomes immediately clear. In the name of “not sacrificing our independence,” our communists have sacrificed relevance in the first place. They fail to understand that political independence is not determined by formal organizational independence, but by the ability to actually affect the course of events and brand them with the stamp of genuine “proletarian political intervention.” Lenin asks:

The question now arises: in which of these two possible outcomes will Social-Democracy find its hands actually tied in the fight against the inconsistent and self-seeking bourgeoisie, find itself actually “dissolved,” or almost so, in bourgeois democracy? [...] If the bourgeoisie succeeds in frustrating the Russian revolution by coming to terms with tsarism, Social-Democracy will find its hands actually tied in the fight against the inconsistent bourgeoisie; Social-Democracy will find itself dissolved “in bourgeois democracy” in the sense that the proletariat will not succeed in putting its clear imprint on the revolution, will not succeed in settling accounts with tsarism in the proletarian, or as Marx once said, “in the plebeian” way. […] (P.52-52, FLP)

I ask you, reader, would you rather live the rest of your life in irrelevancy yelling at the clouds about the inconsistent bourgeoisie, or would you rather stamp events with our classes’ brand, build a sphere of ethico-political hegemony around the party among politically engaged progressives—our ‘army at the front?’ The left as it stands is actively choosing the former. It is high time we consider seriously the latter.

If we communists are to make any real attempt at stamping the movement of history with our brand, it has to start where real political activity is, where political battles for democracy are being waged. If we want to avoid our dissolution into bourgeois democracy becoming a historical fact, then there is no reason we should not be at the forefront of every movement aiming to give due representation to under-represented urban regions, at the forefront of every push for voting rights for every marginalized group, and at the forefront of every “woke” movement so commonly rejected by the left. Our theoretical discourse needs to center these issues and locate the most politically potent avenues for their advancement; otherwise we are doomed to keep repeating the same old mistakes. The Democratic Party looks to maintain a favorable position within the current framework—not to transcend it. To realign politics is to call into question the prerogatives which form the basis of the political parties and force them to articulate themselves anew. To overturn the questions of the day by answering them concretely through their resolution is to destroy the Republican party and the basis of the Democratic party. Democratic revolution consists in the total mobilization of democracy against all anti-democratic elements and their total defeat—a task the Democratic party as it stands refuses to take up.

This does not mean simply “voting for the Democrats.” We want to support the Democrat Party “in the same way the rope supports a hanged man.” A severely critical approach which highlights the shortcomings of dominant progressivism while also acknowledging its historically necessary role is the precondition for the formation of a concrete political movement that is able to ground itself within the existing political structure and at the same time move to abolish it. Necessary to this participation in dominant electoral politics—and to politics in general—is to view this participation from a ‘dual-perspective:’ from the point of view of the immediate interests of the people we wish to lead, and from the point of view of the ultimate goal of communist revolution. To lose sight of either one of these perspectives is to cease to be a revolutionary. Losing sight of the former leads to sectarian irrelevancy, and losing the latter point of view means to surrender to circumstance, to go about politics aimlessly, and, assuming one is still a socialist, to condemn oneself to a life of endless and meaningless activism. This dual-perspective is the basis of all visionary politics, and necessarily must be the basis of the political orientation of the 21st century communist movement. 

1 - See quote at the end of Why Geese? A Statement of Principles

2 - Karl Marx, The German Ideology

3 - Vladimir Lenin, Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (p.80-81) - FLP

4 - Michael Kazin, What it Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party (p.307)

5 - Vladimir Lenin, A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism

6 - I intend to start a conversation on what ‘exactly’ this means in the near future.