The following document appeared in ISO preconvention bulletin #13, January 2019 in response to a proposal by Todd Chretien that the ISO initiate a process of launching a “new socialist party.” In it, I argued that though there were plenty of opportunities for collaboration and joint work on the Left, the time was not ripe for the formation of a broad socialist party independent of the Democratic party; that most people today consider the DSA to already be the “socialist party”; and that efforts by a small group like the ISO to take on this task—which was beyond our capacity and did not fit the moment—would likely lead to its liquidation.
This proposal was all of a piece with the new highly overblown perspectives being developed by the SC majority, which proclaimed that the ISO need only be more outward, more bold, and more energetic; that it need only form “working groups,” take more “national initiatives” and we would be able to double our membership within a year or two. Discussion about the state of the US labor movement were reduced to whether or not you held a “pessimistic” or “optimistic” view of its prospects. The SC majorities main perspective document, “Retooling the ISO to lead,” reflected the hubris with which this faction approached the ISO’s prospects:
The future of the socialist left, the politics it adopts, and its capacity to become a force capable of addressing the interlocking ecological, economic, social, imperial, and political crises may well be determined in the next few years. The future of the ISO and our ability to infuse that left with the principle of working-class self-emancipation, the strategic legacies of the Comintern and the revolutionary movement, and the need for a mass, revolutionary party may also be determined in the next few years. If we want to be a factor a higher level of political struggle, we must grow, and in order to grow, we must change.
The changes proposed to achieve this stunning breakthrough amounted to moving the ISO’s structure, if not its politics, closer to DSA’s, and lowering the political and organizational bar for membership—the idea being that the ISO, if it asked less of its members, would open the recruitment floodgates. One would have to be blind not to see the gap between the grand pronouncements (creating a group that can “infuse the left with the principle of working-class self-emancipation”) quoted above and the means by which this alleged goal was to be achieved—becoming more diffuse, broad, and politically heterogeneous. At the convention, support for this approach led to a discussion by the membership which consisted largely of complaints about how weekly branch routines were tedious, difficult, and boring and held back the members who were ready to be unleashed on the struggle. One member from LA stood up, and to wild applause, railed against any centralized leadership at all and proclaimed triumphantly, “all power to the working groups.” Needless to say, in the short period of their existence before the national convention, these working groups failed to produce a single successful “national initiative” before the ISO was dismantled.
Ironically, not long before he helped shepherd the ISO into non-existence, at the last meeting I attended at the 2019 February convention, Todd Chretien (seated next to me at the speakers’ table) expressed in an aside to me scorn that I would “accuse” him of wanting to liquidate the ISO. Some weeks after, this is precisely what he, along with others in the new leadership, accomplished. At the time, we in the “Steering Committee Minority” were not fully aware of the extent of the secret discussions, rumor campaigns, and behind the scenes denigration of our character that the SC majority, along with another layer beyond them, had been engaging in for some months, and to which we were not in any position—given that the campaign was taking place largely behind our backs—to offer a response. This campaign was quite effective in nullifying the impact of our political arguments, however cogent they may have been. To a great degree these debates felt like shadow boxing against an opponent who refused to enter the ring openly but prefers to take their shots in the dark alley behind the arena. —Paul D’Amato
Is it time to launch a new socialist party?
It has been noted in much of the preconvention discussion, and well before it, that we face a period that presents great opportunities and great challenges. We see for the first time in decades the emergence of a significantly larger, self-identified socialist left; the beginnings of a revival of class struggle; and explosive, but still episodic, social struggles. Among the challenges we face are the dangerous growth of the far right “populism” that has been able to take advantage of the crisis of neoliberal capitalism; a president that, in spite of signs of mass resistance, has largely gotten away with much of his reactionary program; an accelerating environmental crisis that appears irreversible.
As this new left grows, ISO members feel a sense of urgency to meet these challenges and to look to take advantage of the new opportunities to build a bigger, more effective left, and within it, a revolutionary wing. Todd C.’s proposal for a new socialist party has found significant support among ISO members because it addresses this sense of urgency—that we must do more, that we must take bolder steps.
But more than a sense of urgency is needed to develop perspectives on what to do next. To determine what can and should be done it is necessary to gauge the moment correctly—a too-passive policy can lead to stagnation and missed opportunities; but a policy that shoots beyond our capacities and overestimates our possibilities can lead into a ditch. As Trotsky once wrote, “Sheer political impatience, which wishes to reap before it has sown, leads either to opportunism or adventurism or to a combination of both.” It is my contention that Todd C’s proposed project for a new socialist party seeks shortcuts toward building a revolutionary party—and shortcuts will not lead to the intended goal.
Tentatively bold leaps
Todd C. proposes that there be a 3-5–year period of joint discussion, work, etc. “to judge whether or not a strategic leap might be possible and, if so, whether or not we are in a position to take it.” There is a contradiction between the urgency of his call and the tentativeness of his plan. This elastic formulation could be interpreted as: engage in joint work and hold discussions with other left organizations and see what collaboration develops, which is a policy we already employ. If that is the case, why bother with this proposal? Where is the strategic “leap?”
The ISO can and must press towards growth and making revolutionary Marxism a pole of attraction in the new socialist left. Everything we do in the ISO today is an attempt to prepare for a future that we want to be different. However, long-term timetables based on speculative assessments of trends that are not yet very developed is not the best possible method to achieve such goals. First, because the timing for the building of such a party cannot be set in advance; and second, because the scale and character of the class struggle as it unfolds over the coming years, let alone the state of the left generally, cannot now be predicted.
Any effort to form a new party that attempts to merge different organizations and tendencies necessarily requires a great deal of time and effort, and its outcome cannot be known in advance. The question is whether or not we are ready, or conditions are ripe now, to initiate such a process. Or, to put it another way: We have already been engaging in collaborative work with other socialist and radical organizations: joint meetings, conferences, contingents, local electoral campaigns, and struggle, with other organizations as part of efforts to achieve greater collaboration on the Left. The question is: should this process continue on a patient and careful but more systematically planned way, without prejudging or predicting the outcome, or should we “take a leap” now and initiate a public call for a new party?
Why it isn’t time for a new socialist party
My arguments against initiating a new socialist party can be summarized as follows:
- Todd C. doesn’t clarify whether he is proposing a regroupment of the revolutionary left or a broader regroupment to create a more politically heterogeneous socialist party that includes reformists, revolutionaries, and everything in between. These are two distinctly different projects. His summary description of its politics, “a democratic and independent socialist party dedicated to abolishing capitalism and replacing it with workers’ power” can be interpreted either way. It is his inclusion of organizations in his calculus such as DSA’s Momentum caucus and Solidarity which indicate that he is for a broad party.
- Assuming he is for the latter, Todd makes an unsubstantiated assumption that we automatically favor the creation of such a party. There is a certain degree of schematism, or stagism, in the idea that the job of revolutionaries today is to firstinitiate a broad socialist party, presumably out of whicha revolutionary party of the future will emerge. The recent experience of our comrades in Greece with Syriza should be a cautionary tale that informs our approach to this question (see the PCB piece by Antonis Davanellos on their experience with Syriza).
- There isn’t credible evidence that conditions are favorable for the creation of such a party over the next several years. The level of class struggle and class organization, while rising, does not yet support such a project, and the far left, including the ISO, is still quite small.
- The substantial growth of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which owes a great deal of its meteoric rise to its Democratic Party stars, particularly Sanders. DSA’s growth actually works against the creation of a new socialist party at a time when so many see itas the main socialist organization in the United States, and its success as connected to supporting and running candidates within the Democratic Party.
- Todd C. stakes his proposal on the idea that a section of DSA around the Momentum caucus (publisher of The Call, which has already announced its support for Bernie Sanders in 2020) will leave DSA at some point in the coming few years and be open to helping to form a new socialist party; a view, I will argue, that is mistaken.
- If we were to take Todd C.’s estimates at face value, his projected numbers do not amount to an organization large enough to declare itself a party in a country of more than 300 million.
- The relatively unfavorable conditions that exist will lead to the ISO substituting itselfin order to try and make such a project viable. If the priority is to initiate a new broad socialist organization, the ISO will tend to subordinate itself as an organized revolutionary organization within it—in order to make the new socialist organization successful.
- A move to create a new socialist party based on splitting DSA will make DSA less interested in collaboration with the ISO—instead, we will be viewed (justifiably) as a competing broad socialist organization.
- Finally, any discussion of forming a broad party in the United States requires us to look carefully at the international context and evaluate other “broad party” projects that revolutionaries have been involved in over the last decades. Given that in many cases such parties, formed under far more favorable conditions than exist yet in the United States (both in terms of the political system and the state of the left), ran into roadblocks or failed, it would behoove us to evaluate them before embarking on such an ambitious project in the United States.
What kind of party?
We are always in favor of building a bigger, broader left, and within it, a strong revolutionary wing that understand the need for a revolutionary party of the working class and oppressed. How we do that is entirely tactical. But we have always assumed that a revolutionary party could not be created simply through the accumulation of members in the ISO. While we rejected regroupment in the past on the grounds that the left was in retreat, we do not have a principled opposition to it. The question of its feasibility depends upon the existence of a growing radicalization that throwing up new organizations and forces whose politics are shifting leftward. Regroupment can take many forms: the absorption of one group by another; the merging of two organizations and a division of positions in its leading bodies and editorial boards; the recruitment en-masse of a locally emerging workers’ or student groups.
One example of such developments was the fusion of the Communist League of America with the American Workers Party (Musteites) in the 1930s to form the Workers Party of the U.S. (a forerunner of the Socialist Workers Party-U.S.). Another example would be the merging of the British Socialist Party, the Shop Stewards’ and Workers’ Committee Movement, the Socialist Labor Party (centered mainly in Scotland), Sylvia Pankhurst’s Workers Socialist Federation based in London, and the South Wales Socialist Society to form the Communist Party of Great Britain.
We have always stressed that the ISO is neither large nor rooted enough in a definable working-class vanguard to call itself a revolutionary party. The question of what we would consider a revolutionary party in the U.S. is not merely a question of our relative size, but also organized roots in a more combative, organized working class than currently exists. In Duncan Hallas’ words, “In human terms, an organized layer of thousands of workers, by hand and by brain, firmly rooted amongst their fellow workers and with a shared consciousness of the necessity for socialism and the way to achieve it.”
Such an organized vanguard does not yet exist in the United States. Even if we were to identify today other organizations, local and national, on the revolutionary left with which we could begin a dialogue and joint work with the aim of working toward a common organization, this would not be, at the current small size of the revolutionary left overall, or those moving in that direction, a substantial enough number or with a sizable enough organized working-class base to justify the name “party.”
The growth of the radical left, and a new self-identified socialist left, means the possibilities for collaboration and joint work have grown considerably. A larger revolutionary left is possible. We should continue to explore the ways in which these relationships can be strengthened and these processes developed, without creating timetables for a new party. But as I argue below, the level of strikes, the degree of sustainable movement organization, the overall size and state of the Left, and the peculiar nature of DSA’s growth and popularity at this stage preclude the formation of a revolutionary party.
Broad party
That a key component of the new party that is proposed will be a section of DSA (namely the Momentum caucus) that is explicitly reformist suggests that the socialist party being proposed is broader and more heterogenous than the examples discussed above.
The politics of Momentum/Call has been laid out in Jacobin articles by Vivek Chibber, Neil Meyers, and several others.1 It consists of the following: revolution “ruptures” like 1917 are a thing of the past (as Todd C. writes, they explicitly reject what they call “insurrectionary strategies”2); socialism will be achieved through a gradualist path involving an electoral strategy to achieve a socialist majority, backed by struggle in the workplaces and streets in order to “defend the democratic mandate.”3
The question of whether or not we take the initiative to promote the launching of a broad party is not a question of principle, but of tactics based on sober assessment of conditions and criteria. Our comrades in DEA in Greece, for example, felt it absolutely necessary to involve themselves in Syriza—without for a second dissolving into it—as it developed into the political expression of anti-austerity sentiment in Greece. Syriza developed out of years-long left collaboration in Greece and was not a “project” initiated by DEA. Moreover, as events revealed, the result was, in the case of Prime Minister Tsipras, “total social-liberal degeneration” in conditions far more favorable than those existing in the United States.4
In our history, we have been painfully aware of the difference between necessary propaganda against the limits two-party system and having an alternative that we can promote in an election. We have always stressed in our propaganda that we need to break open the two-party system and support genuinely independent left third party initiatives and independent candidacies in local elections. We have supported such initiatives (Kshama Sawant comes to mind) and in some cases actively built such initiatives (the presidential campaigns of Ralph Nader in 2000 and Nader/Peter Camejo in 2004, for example). But this is quite different from initiating a broad party.
But if we were to accept the need for such a party, do conditions exist to begin building one?
Are conditions ripe?
The argument that such a party is ripe for the creation over the next several years is based firstly on the emergence of the “new socialist movement.” Todd argues, for example, that there are “subjective elements” that cry out for a “discussion” of a new party “outside the Democratic Party.” Those conditions are:
• Modest growth of the revolutionary left
• Rise of DSA, including a DSA “left wing”
• A quantitative growth in strikes over the past year
• A “compression of still episodic” social struggles and rising consciousness
• High levels of dissatisfaction with the two-party system
• Signs of a coming global recession
• Deepening ecological crisis
• Political polarization and rise of far right
• A “global crisis of ‘democratic’ bourgeois legitimacy”
According to Todd C., “Any of these factors by themselves (nor even taking them as a whole) have yet qualitatively changed the balance of class forces, but we are dealing with quantitative phenomena that point in a certain direction.”
These are all real developments. Certainly, some of what he lists involve more than “quantitative” changes. For example, the growth in interest in socialism in the U.S represents a qualitative shift from previous years. The Red State teachers’ strikes were both unexpected and unprecedented, and they have begun to revive the idea among layers of workers that it is not only legitimate to strike, but that it can get results. Prior to Trump’s inauguration we had not witnessed such an outpouring of women’s protests.
What Todd C. has presented is a list which he considers to be an adequate justification for his proposal on the basis of conjecture of a certain “direction.” He may well be right. However, we do not know how far, how fast, and how successfully these trends will proceed, and what reverses they may face—and we are not in a position given our size to determine the broad course of these trends, nor to say with certainty what impact they will have on the Left.
For example, merely citing widespread dissatisfaction with the Democrats—which undoubtedly exists—doesn’t tell us how people will vote in 2020 or how and when individuals and groupings will break from them. The fact that a hard right president is in power, and that the Democratic Party, and especially its liberal-progressive-left wing elements, is quite adept at presenting a more progressive face to its disgruntled base, will exert a tremendous pressure on the radicalizing left to not break,but to close ranks in order to defeat the reactionary president. There has been a “high level of frustration with the Democratic party” for some time now, just as polls supporting third parties have over the last many years shown consistently high public support for them. This is hardly evidence that conditions exist for the creation of a viable left third party.
The revival of the labor movement has only recently begun, spurred by labor shortages and a wave of teachers’ strikes. The labor movement has been in retreat both in number of strikes and of organized forces for four decades, since the mid-1970s, and still faces huge obstacles to rejuvenation. While 2017 recorded the second lowest number of strikes on record (7 strikes involving 25,000 workers),5 last year marked a significant shift upward. One writer counted 16 in the first half of the year (the period in which the Red State rebellion took place),6 and this has been followed by the hotel strikes and more teachers’ strikes in Oakland and among hundreds of charter school teachers in Chicago. Moreover, a strike by the UTLA—the second largest teachers’ union in the country—is looming in the near future. These strikes have begun to bring to the public eye the importance and usefulness of the strike weapon in ways that hasn’t happened in quite some time.
As far as movements are concerned, the picture is not one only of growing resistance—it is also one of repression, defeat, and retreat. We have seen a massive outpouring of women’s protests, for example, but the immigrant rights movement, despite our initial predictions and hopes, has been terrorized, subdued, and on the defensive under Trump thus far.
The infrastructures of movement organization, as well as rank and file organization and the beginning of a strike resurgence, remain in a very early stage of development. There remains a deep gap between the demands that the period places on the left—the scale of the crises, the scale of the attacks, and the levels of mass discontent—and our ability given the size and development of the left (and not just the ISO) to close it. This situation puts immense pressure on us to “do more,” but for that very reason it also poses the necessity of responding to new opportunities soberly and clearly, combining a sense of urgency with a sense of what initiatives are currently possible.
Do the numbers add up?
Todd estimates that it is possible to create a new socialist party of 5,000, 10,000 or 20,000 members. But even 20,000 in a country of over 300 million hardly warrants the name “party” and would be significantly smaller even today than DSA, the organization Todd C. describes as “the most important factor.”
Even if we were to convince all of the left groups Todd C. mentions to merge with us into a new organization it would add up to perhaps a few thousand people. Even if you add to this (again, a highly speculative number), his estimation of 750 to 1,000 adherents of DSA Refoundation (now defunct) and the Call would join this new party formation.
There is a further political problem. The organizations that Todd C. seeks to unite are highly varied in size, politics, methods of operation and orientation. Some do not agree with the politics of working-class self-emancipation. Some have long disagreed with the necessity of a revolutionary party and have drifted considerably to the right politically (Solidarity). Some, like Philly Socialists (but also some DSA chapters), place a strong premium on what they call “service work” like community gardens, free English classes, and fixing break lights. The IWW is decidedly anti-party and dual unionist. Left Roots, an NGO left organization, recently sent a delegation to Vietnam, “one of the few surviving 20th century socialist experiments,” and at their recent convention committed itself to “employ an inside/outside approach with the Democratic Party to work not only with progressives but also neoliberals with whom we have important political differences.” Socialist Alternative, an organization with a highly sectarian method of operation, supported Bernie Sanders in 2016 (i.e., is also not a fully “independent” organization), and there is no organized faction within DSA that stands for independent politics in the here and now. Momentum’s recently called for an “independent” campaign for Sanders, but the use of the term “independent” doesn’t alter the fact that this still means their primary strategy is currently to support a candidate running within the Democratic Party.
The challenges facing regroupment of the left, in other words, are considerable and need to be assessed carefully.
DSA, the “most important factor”
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Todd C. argues, are the “most important factor” when weighing the possibility for a new socialist party. While no predictions can be made as to which forces, and what numbers, may break to the left from DSA over its orientation on the Democratic Party in the near or distant future, what we do know is that the gravitational pull of the Democratic Party will be stronger than ever coming into this election cycle. First, because as we approach the 2020 elections, it becomes clearer that Bernie Sanders will attempt another run for president. This alone will pull larger forces on the left into the orbit of DSA—people who are both disgruntled with the failure of the Democrats to fight and their obeisance to corporate America, which Bernie echoes and gives voice to, but who are also energized by Sanders’ “political revolution.”
Secondly, the revulsion toward Trumps politics will also prompt a strong swing toward lesser evilism: anything to stop Trump the “fascist,” no matter who ends up winning the Democratic nomination. As in 2016, if Bernie loses the primary, he will likely work to secure support for the chosen (liberal) candidate. From here, the predictions become shakier. In 2016 Bernie’s impressive primary run, his loss, and move toward Hillary, led not to a flight from DSA over its members’ disappointment, but to substantial growthof the DSA. As Jen Roesch and Alan Maass succinctly put it in SW last July, “The success of socialist candidates running on the Democratic ballot line raises the profile for socialism, but it also strengthens the position of those who argue that DSA should remain within the Democratic Party.”
As Todd C. wrote in Socialist Worker last July, “Sanders remains far and away the most influential voice among DSA’s broad membership, and his forthright insistence that socialists must ‘take back’ the Democratic Party holds sway among most.”7 Of course, this does not mean that everyone who joins DSA joins only because they’re interested in Bernie Sanders. Bernie gave DSA a profile and helped lift the “stigma” of socialism and broadcast the idea that it meant a fairer, more equitable society—hence far more people at this stage who are interested in socialism will join DSA than any other organization. It is for many the socialist organization. These are certainly not conditions in which a new independent socialist party whose main mark of difference is not supporting Democrats (presumably including Bernie Sanders) can thrive.
Who will answer the call?
Implicit in Todd C.’s proposal is the expectation that the Momentum faction, publisher of The Call, will provide some of the forces for a new socialist party because of their stated commitment to the need for an independent party. Todd asks us to accept the Call’s politics at “face value,” and that its “official position” is that “they want a new party.” We do not, of course, doubt the sincerity of Momentum’s official positions. But neither do we doubt the sincerity of Bernie Sanders when he calls for a “political revolution” inside the Democratic Party. However, Marxists never accept at face value what people claim about their politics, but rely only on our own, independent and sober assessment of what their policies and practice actually show us. As Marx once wrote,
As in private life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself and what he really is and does, so in historical struggles one must distinguish still more the phrases and fancies of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality.8
Its support for an independent socialist party does not inform Momentum’s immediate perspective. Though they agree that the Democrats are “principally… dominated by the liberal wing of the capitalist class,” and are critical of the way in which Bernie Sanders has helped “refurbish the image of the Democratic Party among voters,” and “breathed new life among activists into hopes for a realignment of the party’s institutions,”9 the current task is to back Bernie in 2020. The key factor is “the transformation of consciousness” that Bernie Sanders has helped to advance. “The danger of cooptation of movements and reabsorption of working-class people into the party is real,” they admit. However, “the dramatic and rising levels of inequality and political unrest in the U.S. suggests that that’s not the inevitable resolution of this conflict in the near term.” In short, the benefits of running inside the Democratic Party outweigh the risks. This argument (held also by some of our own members) is well summarized in another piece by Brooklyn DSA member Daniel Moraff: “The Democratic Party is deeply flawed and repellent to left challenges—but it still offers the easiest path for socialists to win elections and build power now.”10
Over time, however, according to the Socialist Call, more and more people will come to see that real change will have to come outside the party.11
The problem is that those who draw these conclusions are being told nowto stick with Bernie, who wants them to stick with the Party. Indeed, what could possibly be the futurereason to break (the party already doesn’t represent the interests of its “base”), when the current argument for not breaking is that ballot line strategy helps us build our forces. When, precisely, will this argument cease to be true? A more recent piece in the Call predicted that Bernie’s 2020 run “will spark a wave of mass politicization, particularly among young people as well as working-class people of color.”12 Surely if anything approaching this happens, the pressure to stay with Bernie in the party will be as strong as ever.
It is a given that the experience of the Democratic Party has disillusioned many, and that at high points of struggle people do break from its grip out of that disappointment and realization that the party is a block on the advancement of our movements and struggles. But it is also the case that the party is highly adaptable, and it will utilize every trick, every ruse—even accept “socialists” of sorts (i.e., ones that remain loyal to the party in spite of their criticisms) on its left flank—to absorb its critics and prevent the emergence of a sizable independent left. But a politics that says: go all out to build the “left” wing of that capitalist party by backing Bernie, AOC, and others, is not a politics that will contribute to such breaks. On the contrary, it asks that people put those sentiments on hold. Calling for dependence on the party today in preparation for future independence from it lends a left cover to Sanders and others who seek to prevent the formation of an independent socialist party.
The danger of substitution—leading to liquidation into the project
The disparateness of the politics of the target organizations, the meagerness of the forces compared to the stated aim, and the still undeveloped state of the class struggle and of the working-class movement overall are conditions which call the viability of a new socialist project into question. If the conditions are not ripe, the ISO may be forced to substitute itself as its cadre strain to give it weight and legitimacy. That will not lead to success; but it will lead to the ISO losing its identity in the effort.
The German revolutionary Paul Levi wrote in 1920:
In revolutionary epochs, when the masses are developing rapidly in a revolutionary direction, as against to periods in which the process of transformation is slower and more painful, it can be advantageous for radical or communist groups in opposition to stay within the large parties, so long as it remains possible for them to present themselves openly, and to carry on their agitation and propaganda work unhampered.13
That is, however, a far cry from proposing that revolutionaries place themselves at the center of building such reformist parties. Moreover, in conditions where the constituent elements being proposed for such a party do not yet have close to a mass character, and in a non-revolutionary period, this is doubly problematic. The pressure will be toward wearing the “broad party” hat. The initiators and builders of the new party—our cadre—will face great pressure to play down our revolutionary politics so as to present a “lower bar” to membership in order to try and build up its forces. These comrades will find it difficult in those circumstances to organize or sustain a revolutionary wing that presents itself “openly” and carries on revolutionary “agitation and propaganda work unhampered.” In short, the strenuous efforts to make this party project viable could very well place the ISO in the position of being unable to operate as a revolutionary socialist pole within it.
The international context
In response to the crisis of neoliberalism and the extreme social polarization, there have been efforts in various countries to create new broad left parties gathered around an anti-austerity platform. These projects, in many instances, have not lived up to the expectations of those who launched them.
There isn’t time or space to develop a proper analysis of the broad party experiences of the past few decades. However, if we are to assess the pros and cons of initiating a new socialist party in the United States, it is crucial that we evaluate the efforts in other countries to create broad, anti-capitalist parties. A few salient points can be made here, however.
The first thing to note is that in many of these countries the scale of the political and economic crisis was considerably deeper than in the United States today. In many of these countries, political polarization and the collapse of traditional mainstream parties of the left has been remarkable. In Greece, for example, the Greek social democratic party, PASOK, declined from 44 percent of the vote in 2009 to only 4.7 percent in 2015.
By contrast, in the US, electoral politics remain constrained within the two-party system, and the relative strength of that system makes it far more difficult for third party alternatives to develop traction and for there to be the same kind of centrist and left-centrist party collapse as has developed in Europe and elsewhere. The economy, moreover, has experienced one of its longest periods of sustained growth in its history—though signs of impending crisis are now emerging.
To continue with the example of Greece. It has experienced a comparatively high level of social and class struggle between 2008 and 2013, including many large protests (some as large as 300,000) and street battles, as well 32 twenty-four or forty-eight-hour general strikes. This was in response to deep austerity cuts imposed by European banks, which provoked an even deeper economic crisis triggering a humanitarian catastrophe.
The political fallout of this crisis was, as mentioned, the collapse of the center right and left center, most significantly the electoral free-fall of PASOK. However, even under these conditions, Syriza’s membership never exceeded 36,000 (in a country of just under 11 million). An equivalent size organization in the United States would have to be more than a million members. In 2015, Syriza was able to win close to a majority of seats and the presidency as the anger over the memorandum imposed by the Troika was translated into a mass sentiment to throw out the old parties of neoliberalism.
The obvious differences between the situation in Greece in this period and what we face today is one thing. Another is taking into account overall the results of effort. In Greece, the period from Syriza’s emergence as a small coalition resisting neoliberalism to a relatively large party/coalition developed during a gestation period of more than ten years. Syriza’s meteoric rise to governmental power unfolded over a period of a few years—and once in power, its capitulation to Europe’s creditors took only a matter of months.
Antonis Davanellos, writing of the Syriza experience, remarks:
The founding of Syriza had as a prerequisite the rejection of the center-left strategy. But the evolution of Syriza has demonstrated that the political, ideological, and organizational weaknesses of a unified undertaking of the left offer opportunities for the reconstitution of the center-left (Syriza post-July 2015, although having matured even before that), and can result in total social-liberal degeneration, as in the case of Tsipras.
[In the Spanish state]. the orientation of Iglesias in the case of Podemos (with the possible alliance of PSOE), as well as the change in direction of the Left Block in Portugal towards support—certainly conditional—for a social-democratic government, with tests to come, show that these phenomena are far from isolated.<14
This is of course not an argument for standing apart from such developments, but of the necessity, when doing so, of operating as an independent revolutionary detachment—and taking stock of the experience of leftists who have tried this. Our DEA comrades have always been clear that their political approach was adapted strictly to conditions developing in Greece and not a prescription for what the Left must do elsewhere. In a document written for our Pre-Convention Bulletin, Antonis writes:
Throughout all this course, even during the most “glorious” days of SYRIZA, when we argued for our political direction in the debates inside the international radical Left, we never argued that SYRIZA was a model that should be replicated. We always expressed the view that “the concrete and specific assessment of the concrete specific conditions” in each country and each movement is an irreplaceable precondition for all choices that are to be made.
This project, moreover, was a product of a substantial period of sustained collaboration and joint work on the Left; not a product of a “master plan,” but rather the outcome of a lengthy “period of co-existence in the “Space for Dialogue and Common Action of the Left” that allowed DEA, along with other leftists, “to elaborate in a collective way the preconditions for founding SYRIZA.”
Conclusions
What role would this new socialist party fulfill? As I have argued, to say it will be a party is wishful thinking—whatever it is it will be considerably smaller than a genuine party.
To try and stipulate the politics of a such a broad formation—especially in the US, where the pull of Democratic Party politics has always exerted a magnetic pull that has made forming an independent left party of any sort highly difficult—assumes not only that we initiate the process, but that we exert a political hegemony over it that is highly unlikely unless we dominate it.
If this is the case, then it is not a legitimate broad party, but rather a “front” operation in the style of the old Communist Parties where the latter pulled strings behind an ostensibly broad-based initiative. If it is truly to be a real broad party, the ISO would constitute a revolutionary minority and would not be in a position to stipulate the balance between its involvement in struggle and its involvement in electoral campaigns—or even whether the party committed to consistent independence from the Democratic Party.
Given the as of yet unfavorable conditions for such a party, the most likely danger is that we fall into substituting ourselves for the broader forces that have failed to materialize and carry the project.
What should we do?
The growth of a new socialist left, as well as the general radicalization that goes far beyond this new left, has created increasing possibilities for the ISO that we have already begun to explore and take advantage of. We can and should do this without attaching an end result which at this stage isn’t predictable. This could involve, for example, creating spaces of dialogue with other socialists and radicals, and working on proposals for collaborative activities such as left conferences. We can investigate possibilities for launching or joining with other leftists in joint independent electoral campaigns. In this way, we can create practical examples of the type of independent electoral alternative we want to see thrive in the future, weighing each opportunity carefully because of the great resources such campaigns require. It is in and through these concrete processes that we will be able to assess how to advance, and retreat where necessary, in our efforts to promote independent political action in the United States.
This collaborative work and debate—which can and should be conducted in a more systematic way, including proposing united front style leadership to leadership proposals for joint campaigns and actions—will shape ongoing discussions in our organizations and theirs over how to proceed as the left develops.
Naturally all of this is predicated on the ISO maintaining its commitment to the politics of revolutionary socialism from below.
A proposal to initiate talks for a new socialist party today is premature; the conditions are not ripe, and even if they were, it would require more serious discussion and evaluation of the national and international context, as well as its political desirability, than we have thus far engaged in. What is possible, and necessary, is further Left collaboration—the experience of which will provide the raw data for a more fruitful evaluation—without attaching organizational conclusion or time-frames.
A note on Todd C.’s second document
As I was finishing this document I received PCB #10 with Todd C.’s pre-reply, which includes a complaint that no documents have appeared yet in response to his first document, and that attempts to respond to things I have not yet written. It does not require me to alter what I’ve written above, but I will add some additional points in reaction to it.
My arguments about the ISO potentially dissolving itself into a broad party project have nothing to do with post 1905 debates in the Russian socialist movement. I fully agree with Todd C. that “historical analogies only get you so far.” The fact that Lenin used the term “liquidators” to describe proponents of a legal party in Russia does not “lock” it historically to those particular set of circumstances, any more than the use of terms like “workerism” or “sectarianism” in previous contexts render them unusable in new contexts.
Todd C. argues that the ISO needs to decide on organizing a new socialist party at the upcoming February convention, but that “there isn’t time” to make any decisions regarding our position on Bernie Sanders’ run in 2020, because “We have barely begun to discuss the question of 2020 and the outlines are only just becoming visible of what different forces are planning to do.”
This position, is, to say the least, contradictory. We have only “just begun” to discuss the socialist party question in conditions with even less visible “outlines” of “what different forces are planning to do” than the question of Bernie Sanders next presidential bid. If it is of the greatest urgency for us to decide at this convention whether to push for a socialist party to be created in the next 3-5 years, surely we can take a position on a Sanders run when the presidential election is less than two years’ away.
In explaining his motivations for postponing a decision on Sanders, Todd C. writes:
We must not reduce revolutionary socialist politics and strategies to a litmus test for what any particular comrade believes about 2020 at the very beginning of the debate. Individual comrades should be, in my view, perfectly free to argue that this or that position violates principles or is ill-timed or lacks strategic sense – and no one should get too bent out of shape about it – but as an organization, the ISO welcomes all debate on this question and does not require unanimity of opinion as a basis for membership.
Whether we are at the beginning, middle, or end of a debate its purpose is to fully air all views with as much sharpness and clarity as possible, and then determine, “as an organization” what our position is on the matter. Instead we are presented here with generalizations about “unanimity of opinion” and how we welcome debate. It would have been better if Todd C. openly stated his views on the matter—that is, begun the debate.
We already have one proposal to change the Where We Stand to include support for running socialists on Democratic Party ballot lines. Why then, given that the most prominent socialist running in the Democratic Party is about to announce his second presidential bid, would we not also discuss our position on Sanders? The issue is not “unanimity of opinion”—there clearly isn’t unanimity on this question—but what position the ISO takes on it and expects its members to accept.
The proposal for a new socialist party has an organizational counterpart: the proposal put forward in the PCB by him and Jen R. to downplay ISO branch meetings in favor of “working groups” that seems to mirror the structure of DSA. Their proposal to lower the bar of membership requirements is a further step in the direction of lowering membership requirements in the ISO—when membership in a revolutionary organization, which aims to build a social revolution from below, requires a higher level of commitment than a social democratic party, which primarily relies on an electoral strategy.
Finally, Chretien’s insistence that we take the Call’s support for a new party at face value, and the argument made in some preconvention documents that supporting socialists running as democrats reflects merely “tactical” or “strategic” differences, represent a lowering of the bar politically.
The focus is being put not on the content of our disagreements inside and outside the ISO, but on how not to jeopardize relationships, offend people, shut down debate, etc. But surely what is most important is not whether our arguments give anyone offense, but whether or not they are correct. Then, and only then, can we determine the right “tone” of an argument. If it is correct that our differences with momentum caucus are merely strategic, and that we are merely employing different strategies to the same goal (an independent party), then what is stopping us from beginning merger discussions now? On the other hand, if we understand that these differences guide us in opposite directions (one toward adapting to the Democrats, the other toward independence), then our conclusions must be very different.
Paul D’Amato
Chicago
1 See, for example, See Vivek Chibber, “Our Road to Power,” Jacobin, December 5, 2017; https://jacobinmag.com/2017/12/our-road-to-power.
2 Todd Chretien, “What kind of party for the new socialist movement?” Socialist Worker, September 28, 2018; http://socialistworker.org/2018/09/28/what-kind-of-party-for-the-new-socialist-movement
3 Quoted from the Where We Stand of the Call, https://socialistcall.com/2018/09/26/what-is-democratic-socialism/.
4 Antonis Davanellos, “Reflections on our Experience with Syriza,” ISR 100, https://isreview.org/issue/100/reflections-our-experience-syriza.
5 https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkstp.t01.htm
6 https://medium.com/@ericdirnbach/huge-increase-in-large-work-stoppages-seen-in-2018-28b0e69bd73e
7 “Revolutionaries, elections, and the Democrats,” July 26, 2018; http://socialistworker.org/2018/07/26/revolutionaries-elections-and-the-democrats.
8 Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852, section III), https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch03.htm.
9 Neil Meyer and Ben B., “The Case for Bernie 2020,” August 16, 2018, https://socialistcall.com/2018/08/16/bernie-2020/.
10 “Want to Elect Socialists? Run them in Democratic Primaries,” http://inthesetimes.com/article/19942/left-democratic-socialist-politics-primaries.
11 Neil Meyer and Ben B., “The Case for Bernie 2020,” The Call, August 16, 2018, https://socialistcall.com/2018/08/16/bernie-2020/.
12 Robbie Nelson, “Bernie and Class politics,” December 6, 2018, https://socialistcall.com/2018/12/06/bernie-and-class-politics/.
13 Quoted in Pierre Broué, The German Revolution, 1917–1923 (Chicago, Haymarket Books, 2006), 453.
14 Antonis Davanellos, “Reflections on our experience with Syriza,” ISR 100, Spring 2016, https://isreview.org/issue/100/reflections-our-experience-syriza.
Paul D'Amato is the author of The Meaning of Marxism and was the editor of the International Socialist Review. He is the author of numerous articles on a wide array of topics.
