Creating a Democratic Left

[heiss93]

I know most people on this forum probably regard the US Democratic Party with disgust, and rightly so. However Lenin argued that real revolutionaries should be able to brave the pinpricks that come with working within reactionary organizations. Clearly the Democratic Party is where the AFL-CIO and the workers are at right now.

[MarxSchmarx]

Efforts to take over the democratic party before building a massive, effective social movement is putting the cart before the horse.

If you look at how the zealots hijacked the RP, they did so by first buildling institutions like the Christian coalition and Focus on the Family OUTSIDE the framework of the GOP. They had organized groups that could support the GOP or not that allowed the fundies to gain influence within the GOP only after a long and protracted struggle.

Ditto with the Democrats. Starting inside that party with the paltry non-party institutions will not work. In fact, this kind of entryism was tried under Michael Harrington and failed miserably.

What we need to do is build powerful unions, powerful civic organizations, and then start to smartly use our leverage to force to Democrat's hands, or just jettison that approach altogether.

But in either case, the approach won't work by simply "working within the democratic party". We need powerful, leftist organizations that aren't tied to any political party that can lay the groundwork.

The party needs to reflect the movement. Not the otherway around. Right now we have no movement and we have one to build.

[mikelepore]

A movement should begin with a coherent sentence about a goal. Here's a sentence: Organize politically and industrially to establish a classless society, based on the workers' collective ownership and democratic control of the industries and services. Then it can be: Hey, Democrat, will you decide to support that? Hey, Republican, will you decide to support that? Hey, Socialist, will you decide to support that? We can't simply start with a discussion about cooperating with a lot of registered Democrats, etc. A clear goal comes first.

[Herman]

Entryism in the Democratic Party is useless. It's been tried before.

Besides, we never join forces with liberals, no matter how much popularity they may have among workers.

[duffers]

And look what happened to Militant; they were purged from Labour. Class collaboration will never be a means to an end. This has been proved time and time again, and if anything, is the most crucial lesson.

[Die Neue Zeit]

A movement should begin with a coherent sentence about a goal. Here's a sentence: Organize politically and industrially to establish a classless society, based on the workers' collective ownership and democratic control of the industries and services. Then it can be: Hey, Democrat, will you decide to support that? Hey, Republican, will you decide to support that? Hey, Socialist, will you decide to support that? We can't simply start with a discussion about cooperating with a lot of registered Democrats, etc. A clear goal comes first.

I agree to some extent. However, given the various "socialisms" described in the Communist Manifesto and the emerge of new "socialisms" since then, I prefer the Basic Principles that I've outlined (what you've said, class struggle which filters out "reformists" and terrorist "revolutionists," transnational emancipation, partiinost, and perhaps also "the democracy question").

[Herman]

The DP does not operate like European parties, it is more of a parliament itself than a traditional party. Why try to pressure them from the outside, when we could have our own people elected? The media also pays much more attention to politics within the 2-party system. Useless. The party forces you to tone down your language and politics. It's what centrist and moderate parties do in general. Otherwise you will never be elected as a a party official. This is especially the case in the Democratic Party. They are liberals, they have no tradition of socialist or labour politics and have gladly contributed to squashing down labour unrest and strikes.


Under the much more centralized UK Labour Party structure, the Militant tendency and LRC were able to have several members of parliament elected. It would not be impossible to have socialists elected at the city and state level, within the next few years. As small as the Left is, from observing the resources of several parties, I would say if them emplyed their current level of strength towards this project, they could expect payoff within the next few years,Although the Militant was purged from the party, they were able to do so because the Labour Party has, at the very least, a left-wing tradition originating from socialistic policies and actions. The constitution even declares the party to be "democratic socialist". The same cannot be said about the Democratic Party.

If you can read Spanish, check my signature. If not, then here's a translation:

"The PSOE's ideal is the complete emancipation of the working class; in other words, the abolition of all social classes and their conversion and unification in one sole class of workers, owners of the fruit of their labour, free, equal, honorable and intelligent."

"Those who mix liberalism and socialism, either they don't know the former, or they do not recognize the true objectives of the latter"

"It is true that we aspire to bring representatives of our ideas to the town hall, to the PMs and to the parliament, but we have never believed, and we don't believe, that from there can we destroy the bourgeois order and establish the social order that we defend."

[LOLseph Stalin]

Apperently having revolutionaries working within Social Democratic parties is quite common here in Canada. I believe there's revolutionaries in our NDP party. Not that they would achive much, but the NDP are still our third largest political party.