Comments on: Workers’ governments and socialist strategy — a reply

By: Binh

Binh — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 06:59:26 +0000

An article that sheds light on Lenin’s attitude towards socialists holding executive positions in a bourgeois state:
http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1912/jul/15b.htm

By: John Riddell

John Riddell — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:59:59 +0000

In reply to Binh.

I agree that it is useful for socialists to contest political office, where this is possible, and to take office if elected. How can a socialist movement ensure that its elected officials march in step with the needs of the working class as a whole and do not get swallowed up by capitalist parliamentarism? A lot has been said on that question, and most revolutionary socialists have argued that it is better to run these risks rather than to boycott the electoral process.

There are some other reasons why socialists may wish to be cautious regarding running for election. To start with, running a candidate is easier for an organization that is homogenous and has a broad program. It is not so easy for a wide coalition of forces, who may not agree on whether taking part in elections is a good idea, who may be divided on their approach to the Democratic Party, as well as approach to other issues. Sometimes, electoral projects are launched in an attempt to shift a mass movement away from a militant course of action. On this, see Fred Halstead’s historic account of the Anti-Vietnam War Movement, “Out Now.”

However, all this depends on circumstances. I think Pham Binh’s basic point is correct.

By: Binh

Binh — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:50:04 +0000

Thanks for the reply. I don’t know if my first question was ever really addressed. Occupy has certainly posed the question of power indirectly, but there is zero chance of Occupy running its own candidates for any office any time soon. There is a struggle over what “Occupy Congress” will mean concretely (sit-ins at the offices of politicians, voting for Democrats, or both).

Based on these discussions it is very clear that the revolutionary left is wary of dealing concretely with the question of power prior to a revolutionary overturn. Why shouldn’t we have socialists holding political office at every level of the capitalist state prior to a proletarian revolution? Are we that fearful of opportunism?

By: Michael C

Michael C — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:23:11 +0000

This has been an interesting and enjoyable series. I am left feeling that the slogan does not really express much beyond the general idea of working class power, i.e DOTP, given how hard it is to give the concept a clear meaning beyond this.

I’ll link to an article by Mike Macnair as part of his ‘Revolutionary Strategy’ series that deals specifically with the ‘workers government’ question very clearly:

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=671

Well worth your time reading/

Comradely
Michael C

By: Andrew Pollack

Andrew Pollack — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:44:58 +0000

John is right, the Occupy movement has made the question of a workers’ government relevant. The movement says explicitly that it wants an entirely different form of society. See occupytheory.org, see also the website of the Organization for a Free Society, which includes some leading occupiers, and whose program is word for word that of Znet’s “participatory economics” vision. The occupytheory journal I would characterize as having anarchist leanings mixed in with John Holloway/Zapatista style “please, don’t ask us to take power!”
These positions certainly make a discussion of postcapitalist societies fair game. In the piece here:
http://socialistaction.blogspot.com/2012/01/world-without-wall-street.html
… I think I do so using a relevant hook (as opposed to just shouting about the need for a workers’ governnment). More generally, if you’re going to be claiming to want to occupy Wall Street, then you leave yourself wide open to a discussion of what that would mean should it happen in reality. And for opening that discussion space we should be eternally grateful to Occupy, even if most of their activists at the moment DON’T want to seize Goldman Sachs or any of the other banks.
PS re the tasks of socialists: Pham is right about the need to build the movement and be tactically sensitive. Thus, for instance, when one group tried to get the OWS Labor Outreach Committee to endorse their push to get OWS as a whole behind their jobs for all demand, several of us pointed out how tactically suicidal that would be given that 99% of OWSers still don’t want demands, and instead we encouraged using the LOC to push for jobs using the autonomy that we, like all OWS working groups, have to do whatever we want in the outside world. A similar tactical flexibility is required in the huge opening provided by Occupy’s discussions about this year’s May Day.
Andrew Pollack