Revolutionary Party
What kind of party do we need?
This is a crucial moment for the socialist movement. There has been substantial growth of socialist organization in the last four years and the highest point of public support for socialism since the 1970s. But it would be a mistake to believe that socialism’s popularity will simply continue along this trajectory indefinitely, or that this necessarily translates to a fundamental shift towards class struggle. Membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), largest U.S. socialist group in the US, has recently plateaued. The second largest group, the International Socialist Organization, collapsed 2 years ago. To make matters worse, the trend within DSA which had been moving toward a break with the Democrats and the formation of an independent party has undergone a reversal. If this trend becomes dominant within the socialist movement, the trajectory towards socialist party building will become stunted, and a new generation of potential revolutionaries will be funneled back into the Democratic Party like so many before them.
Base building meets cadre development: the alternative to socialist opportunism
The subterranean forces of capitalist development have begun to produce ruptures. The economic growth of the neoliberal period stalled as early as 2007-08, leading to the Occupy movement and the nascent class politics of the 99%. The phony post-racialism of the early Obama period has been exposed as a fraud again and again, most significantly by the Ferguson riots and the national uprising following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Covid-19 exposed the inability of our capitalistic health infrastructure to even keep the economy running, let alone care for people’s basic needs. As both the ecological and economic situation continue to deteriorate, these crises will only compound. Without an organizational framework that can capture the inevitable rage of the exploited and oppressed and bind it to a vision for revolutionary transformation, the potential power of the working class – the only class which can overthrow capitalism – will not be realized. It will remain a “class-in-itself” but not a “class-for-itself.”
