The history of leftist efforts to realign the Democratic Party demonstrates that strategies like the “dirty break” and the “party surrogate” are not ways forward for the left, but traps instead. Beyond sabotaging left Democrats like Zohran Mamdani and their proposed reforms, a greater danger is the party’s ability to absorb them. Instead, we need an independent socialist workers’ movement.
Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City has caused excitement on the left due to his democratic-socialist politics and his support for Palestine. Such excitement has historically led to disorientation and disillusionment when reformist Democrats — such as AOC and Brandon Johnson — inevitably betray the left. Revolutionaries must retain our opposition to all Democrats and executives of the capitalist state.
Continuing our perspectives series: The period ahead is one of increasing political polarization among the masses and the ruling class. The most obvious result has been the surge of the right, as exemplified by Trump’s return to the White House. While liberals and reformists attempt to paper over this growing divide, revolutionaries should embrace it.
A specter is haunting communism: the specter of “socialism” Reformists and Stalinists, social democrats and communists alike have invented “socialism” as a replacement for Karl Marx’s revolutionary communism. They try to divert the left-wing movement from its goal of...
On May 2, 2022, a draft opinion of the United States Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision was “accidentally” leaked. As it stands, the decision — concerning a Mississippi law seeking to ban abortions past the 15th week of pregnancy — would...
The authentic Marxist tradition has always stressed that democracy is fundamental to socialism. Marx defined socialism as the “self-emancipation of the working class.” In the Communist Manifesto, he and Engels said that the first step on the road to socialism and then...