jdhoch
27th April 2012, 06:13
http://www.systemiccapital.com/connecting-the-dots-from-here-to-socialism/
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.)
Thus, 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 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 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.
MORE…
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.)
Thus, 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 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 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.
MORE…