Marxism versus Leninism

From the Socialist Standard, March 1990.

Marx's theory of socialist revolution is grounded on the fundamental principle that "the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself". Marx held to this view throughout his entire forty years of socialist political activity, and it distinguished his theory of social change from that of both those who appealed to the princes, governments and industrialists to change the world for the benefit of the working class (such as Robert Owen and Saint Simon) and of those who relied on the determined action of some enlightened minority of professional revolutionaries to liberate the working class (such as Buonarotti, Blanqui and Weitling).


Conscious Self-emancipation

Marx saw that the very social position of the working class within capitalist society as a non-owning, exploited, wealth-producing class forced it to struggle against its capitalist conditions of existence. This "movement" of the working class could be said to be implicitly socialist since the struggle was ultimately over who should control the means of production: the minority capitalist class or the working class (i.e. society as a whole). At first the movement of the working class would be, Marx believed, unconscious and unorganised but in time, as the workers gained more experience of the class struggle and the workings of capitalism, it would become more consciously socialist and democratically organised by the workers themselves.

The emergence of socialist understanding out of the experience of the workers could thus be said to be "spontaneous" in the sense that it would require no intervention by people outside the working class to bring it about (not that such people could not take part in this process, but their participation was not essential or crucial). Socialist propaganda and agitation would indeed be necessary but would come to be carried out by workers themselves whose socialist ideas would have been derived from an interpretation of their class experience of capitalism. The end result would be an independent movement of the socialist-minded and democratically organised working class aimed at winning control of political power in order to abolish capitalism. As Marx and Engels put it in The Communist Manifesto, "the proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority".

This in fact was Marx's conception of "the workers' party". He did not see the party of the working class as a self-appointed elite of professional revolutionaries, as did the Blanquists, but as the mass democratic movement of the working class with a view to establishing Socialism, the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.


Lenin's Opposing View

This was Marx's view, but it wasn't Lenin's. Lenin in his pamphlet What Is To Be Done?, written in 1901-2, declared:

"The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals" (Foreign Languages Publishing House edition, Moscow, pp. 50-51).

"Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is, only from outside of the economic struggle, from outside of the sphere of relations between workers and employers" (Lenin's emphasis, p.133).

"The spontaneous working class movement by itself is able to create (and inevitably creates) only trade unionism, and working class trade unionist politics are precisely working class bourgeois politics" (pp. 159-60) .

Lenin went on to argue that the people who would have to bring "socialist consciousness" to the working class "from without" would be "professional revolutionaries", drawn at first mainly from the ranks of the bourgeois intelligentsia. In fact he argued that the Russian Social Democratic Party should be such an "organisation of professional revolutionaries", acting as the vanguard of the working class. The task of this vanguard party to be composed of professional revolutionaries under strict central control was to "lead" the working class, offering them slogans to follow and struggle for. It is the very antithesis of Marx's theory of working class self-emancipation.

The Bolshevik Coup

The implication of Marx's theory of working class self-emancipation is that the immense majority of the working class must be consciously involved in the socialist revolution against capitalism. "The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority".

The Bolshevik coup in November, 1917, carried out under the guise of protecting the rights of the Congress of Soviets, did not enjoy conscious majority support, at least not for socialism, though their slogan "Peace, Bread and Land" was widely popular. For instance, elections to the Constituent Assembly, held after the Bolshevik coup and so under Bolshevik government, gave them only about 25 per cent of the votes.

John Reed, a sympathetic American journalist, whose famous account of the Bolshevik coup, Ten Days That Shook The World, was commended in a foreword by Lenin, quotes Lenin as replying to this kind of criticism in a speech he made to the Congress of Peasants' Soviets on 27 November, 1917:

"If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years . . . The Socialist political party - this is the vanguard of the working class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative…" (Reed's emphasis and omissions, Modern Library edition, 1960, p.15).

Compare this with a passage from the utopian communist, Weitling: "to want to wait . . . until all are suitably enlightened would be to abandon the thing altogether!" Not, of course, that it is a question of "all" the workers needing to be socialists before there can be Socialism. Marx, in rejecting the view that Socialism could be established by some enlightened minority, was merely saying that a sufficient majority of workers would have to be socialists.

Lenin's Legacy

Having seized power before the working class (and, even less, the 80 per cent peasant majority of the population) had prepared themselves for Socialism, all the Bolshevik government could do, as Lenin himself openly admitted, was to establish state capitalism in Russia. Which is what they did, while at the same time imposing their own dictatorship over the working class.

Contempt for the intellectual abilities of the working class led to the claim that the vanguard party should rule on their behalf, even against their will. Lenin's theory of the vanguard party became enshrined as a principle of government ("the leading role of the Party") which has served to justify what has proved to be the world's longest-lasting political dictatorship.

The self-emancipation of the working class, as advocated by Marx, remains on the agenda

WE ARE DEMOCRATS AND SOCIALISTS FOR THE SAME REASON

 The former leadership of the Social Democrats, USA simply stopped functioning in 2005. Members of the SD,USA from across the country began reviving our organization almost immediately. Many of us were members back when we called ourselves the Socialist Party, USA. We wanted to renew the heritage of the Socialist Party. A merger between the Social Democratic Party and the Kangroo Faction of the Socialist Labor Party, in 1901, created the Socialist Party of America. We have no intention of ceding that heritage to self-styled anarchists and revolutionaries. The Social Democrats, USA kept the name Socialist Party for our political arm because we are the party of Eugene Debs, Mother Jones, Helen Keller, Carl Sandburg, Norman Thomas, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and thousands of people who worked to build the civil rights and trade union movements in this country. Many good folks gave their lives in these movements. We claim the history of the entire American social democratic movement with all its flaws and triumphs.

We respect the heritage of the SD,USA that was tied to organized Labor and which supported human rights at home and aboard. However, we reject the lurch toward neo-conservatism and militarism of some of the old guard. As we attempted to relaunch our group we were joined by many people who were never members of the SP, the SD or any other socialist group. We are now buoyed with new ideas environmental protection, and global initiatives to bring peace and end hunger and poverty.

Socialism is economic democracy. The members of the Social Democrats, USA reject a society in which discrimination by class, gender, or race is supported by law. Such a social order is profoundly undemocratic. Our movement has been in the forefront of the struggle for equal rights for women and minorities for more than a century. Equally undemocratic is a society in which giant multi-national corporations can displace thousands of workers and the communities in which they live to maximize profits. The resources of the world and our nation do not belong to a select few and the United States does not exist to serve the rich.

Socialists are committed to giving all citizens a democratic voice in the choices which profoundly effect them. These include government and corporate planning decisions, notjust partisan elections. Social democracy is that school of socialist thought dedicated to changing society by evolutionary rather than revolutionary means. We favor electoral campaigns, ballot initiatives, and demonstrations over bombs and assinations. The Social Democrats broke with the anarchists, Russian Bolsheviks, and others who saw violent revolution as both inevitable and desirable. The social democratic parties of the West created societies that cared for the most vulnerable members. Stalinism and its variants created police states that murdered tens of millions. Stalin, Mao, and Hitler all used the word socialist. Their disciples continue to use it to this day. They also use the words democracy, republic, and freedom. In short, they lie.

American social democrats always recognized this lie. Norman Thomas, the long time leader of the Socialist Party, USA said, "International Communism must be resisted with every means short of war." The Social Democrats, USA is the only group directly descended from the party of Norman Thomas. We have always recognized that totalitarianism is a threat to democracy and we have sought to combat it. We supported the Polish free trade union, Solidarity. In so doing, we helped to bring about the collapse of Soviet Communism. We aided trade unions that helped to destroy apartheid in South Africa. More recently, we called for a consumer boycott of the corporate sponsors of the "Genocide Olympics". The Communist Party of the Peoples' Republic of China has the worst domestic human rights record on the planet. It is occupying Tibet and is now supporting genocide in Burma and the Darfur region of the Sudan. However, American based multi-national corporations paid billions to the Chinese government to advertise during the Olympics. These companies thus supported more oppression and murder.

We are not apologists for the misguided militarism of our own government. Our members may disagree as to what should be done about American military involvement in Iraq today. However, we all recognize that the United States chose to go to war in Iraq. In doing so, we allowed the perpetrators of the crimes of 9-11 to escape. They have since plotted more attacks such as those carried out against civilians in London and Madrid. Some former members of the SD,USA joined the neo-conservative movement because they rejected a Democratic Party that seemed weak in the face of Soviet militarism and Islamic supremacism. If neo-conservatives, Communists, and neo-Nazis in this country all call themselves socialists, why do we? Because words have meaning. No matter how much truth is distorted by the disingenuous, truth exists. We are ready to take on the would be commissars, kommandants, and global "robber barons" within the forum that American democracy provides all citizens.

PARTY WITHIN A PARTY

After the the 1956  presidential election, the Socialist Party--Social Democratic Federation (As the Socialist Party was called then. It would become the Socialist Party, USA in 1962), chose to stop running candidates of its own, except on rare occasion. We began to work in the Democratic Party. This is where our allies in the civil rights and trade union movement worked and continue to work politically. We are proud of what we helped accomplish within the Democratic Party, particularly the civil rights legislation and anti-poverty programs of the the 1960's. The struggle continues. The U.S. is woefully behind the rest of the world in providing health care to all its citizens. As a society, we all pay the cost. Health statistics make the USA look like a third world country. We have only the 47th highest life expectancy among nations. What country can be called a super power and not defend its citizens from preventable disease? We fail our young people by making higher education affordable only to the lucky. Perhaps most grievously, we fail our veterans and our senior citizens. Those who gave us so much are faced with cuts in the programs upon which they rely for survival.

When the banks and the auto industry were in chaos, they demanded and got a bailout. The Republican Party and the "Blue Dog" Democrats argue the cost of aiding the average family with health care, tuition, and housing is too expensive. It is Democratic legislators that we must influence, not to waste the stimulus monies, but to make a plan aids the home buyer and the worker instead of profligate mortage holder and industrialist. Our movement has been involved in the left wing of the Democratic Party since 1947. Socialist Party members helped found Americans for Democratic Action. ADA is this country's premiere "anti-Communist, liberal" organization. We are proud of our long relationships with Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey, and others. We look forward to forging a good working relationship with our fellow pro-labor, anti-totalitarian, left Democrats.

Whose Party?

The right wing accuses us of boring from within. They like the Norman Thomas' quote "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened." When Thomas said this, liberals self-identified very publicly. Hubert Humphrey, for instance, wore the label proudly and worked closely with members of the Socialist Party. American liberalism is much akin to social democracy in protecting the most vulnerable and expanding opportunity. The political upheaval over the Vietnam war shattered the old liberal coalition in the Democratic Party into isolated single interest groups with no long range vision. America was the bulwark against both Fascism and Communism, those pretend socialists. Socialism seemed anti-American.

How American is socialism? Consider "The Pledge of Allegiance". The Pledge was written by the Rev. Francis Bellamy, a Christian pastor and Socialist Party member. Bellamy did not mention the Creator, because as a minister, he believed that blasphemous. He wrote the rest of the Pledge as we say it today.

The members of the Social Democrats, USA are proud of "our flag and the republic for which it stands." We are also internationalists. We work with democratic socialist, social democratic, and labour parties around the world. We will continue to workw ith the Socialist International and its member parties and affiliated groups like the Party of European Socialism, the Women's Socialist International and International Union of Socialist Youth. We will also work with the occasional political party outside the S.I. like the Workers' Party of Brazil. We will also work with inter-party groups like the Fabian Societies of the Britain and Australia. We continue our discussions with trade union and civil rights groups across the world. For us there is no abandonment of the socialist cause. Vice-president Hubert Humphrey sent Norman Thomas a telegram of congratulations on the latter's eightieth birthday. Our group was still called the Socialist Party in 1964. To many of us it will always be "the Party". The fact that we run local candidates in Democratic primaries should strengthen not erode organizational cohesiveness. We refuse to dessemble for temporary gain.

"Political party" means something different to people outside this country. Our political parties are huge catch-all electoral coalitions. Socialist author and Democratic Party activist, Michael Harrington, was fond of saying, "The Democratic Party contains some of the worst and most of the best people in American politics." He also pointed out that small left wing sects, like the Socialist Workers' Party, have more people on national staff than the Democratic Party does in non-presidential election years. In other countries, members of a political party are required to express substantial agreement with the party's programme, pay dues, and participate in electoral campaigns. The British Labour Party, one of the parties with which we work, has less than 200,000 members. Yet, it governs a nation of more than 80 million. The Social Democrats, USA insists that its members agree with our statement of principles, pay dues, and participate in the life of the organization. In this way, we remain a "Socialist Party."

The SD,USA does not generally favor third party candidacies. American politics makes the "two party system" a fixture. There are exceptions, but these are usually regional and temporary. We have learned from our allies in organized labor and the civil rights movement that we need to effect change now. Workers, the poor, and the victims of discrimination can't wait. We are not hiding in the Democratic Party. You will know us by the far reaching proposals we put forward for both the short and long term change. Despite what the right wing pundits say, the liberal movement has become tiny in America. The old liberal, pro-labor coalition needs reviving. We are working with our allies to do just that. You will find Social Democrats building unions and community groups. You may be working with us supporting excellent local candidates for public office. The economic elites want to either own our economy or let it be destroyed and the United States with it. We will fight back. Will you?

The Parties of the Second Part

A majority of delegates to the Socialist Party USA convention voted on New Year's Eve 1972, to officially change the name of the group to the Social Democrats, USA. It probably says something about these people that they were meeting on New Year's Eve. It says even more that the very small group of former Trotskyists not only won over the Socialist Party but became a major force in the broader American ideological debate. Not bad for a group that never had more than three hundred members. We need to remember why the Social Democrats came into existence. The 1960s had seen an explosion ofinterest-group politics. There were feminists, environmentalists, anti-waractivists, Black power advocates, young radicals, and a host of other groupings all vying for power within the Democratic Party.

This was what was called "the New Politics Movement". The SD rejected the New Politics in favor of the broad Labor-Liberal coalition which had governed the Democratic Party since 1932. This was the coalition of the New Deal and the Great Society. It was the coalition that won World War II and rebuilt Europe and Japan. It was the coalition of that passed civil rights legislation. This coalition was damaged by the Vietnam war and the resulting protests, but remained the credible voice of working people in America.

Two other groups emerged from that New Year's Eve conclave, in 1972. The larger was called the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. It sought to reach out to every variety of leftist and
left-liberal to create a broad, "big tent" organization. That actually workedfor a while. After the merger with the New American Movement, the new organization, the Democratic Socialists of America, grew to have 12,000 members by the early 1990's. Many of us were and reamain members of DSA. However, There was something very wrong in the merged organization. It wasn't that anyone was evil, or disingenuous, or unwilling to do his or her share of the work. It was that an attempt to blend two completely separate organizational cultures failed.

The New America Movement held a convention every summer of its ten year existence. At this convention generally six to seven hundred of the one thousand total members showed up and debated passionately. DSOC had 5,000 members by 1982 and likely never had more than 300 of them in any one place. That does not meanthat DSOC members were not as passionately involved as NAM members. DSOC members were union officers, union staff, elected officials, local committee people. In other words, they were busy doing real politics. DSOC created a coalition called
Democratic Agenda which seriously challenged the policies of a sitting Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, at both the 1978 mid-term and the 1980 Democratic conventions. At one time, three DSOC members held seats in the United States Congress. Other DSOC members were elected as the mayors of New York City and Chicago, while still others sat in political bodies ranging from the state legislatures, numerous city councils, boards of education and county committees.

Today, if any DSA member holds public office, even as a committee person, it is a closely guarded secret. DSA has perhaps thirty-five hundred paper members, two hundred of whom are active in some significant way. DSA has less than a dozen functionalchapters. Functioning is here defined as holding a general membership meeting at least once every three months. It used to be said that DSA was the socialist group that worked in the Democratic Party. Now DSA is the socialist group that talks about maybe someday in the future being the socialist element of a progressive group that works in the left fringe of Democratic Party.

The second group to emerge from the 1972 schism attempted to reconstruct the Socialist Party, USA. This group refers to itself as "revolutionary socialist".It now uses the name "Socialist Party of the United States of America". This organization was formed by people who left the old Socialist Party, USA when the later group changed its name to Social Democrats, USA to focus solely on working in the Democratic Party. The Social Democrats, USA never gave up the use of the name Socialist Party, USA and old leadership made this clear. Since 1995, the website banner read: "SD, USA is the successor to the Socialist Party, USA, the Party of Eugene Debs, Norman Thomas, and Bayard Rustin and is a member of the Socialist International".The older website is mirrored here, on the About Us page.

Dispite the fact that their constitutions dropped the name Socialist Party, USA in 1977 and that Party leadership sought to legally trademark the name "Socialist Party of the United States of America" in 2007, this group uses the initials SP, USA. Most members connected to the real Socialist Party, USA have passed away or resigned. It is a conceit for this group to claim any connection to the Party of Debs and Thomas. A political party is not an inheritence. The SP of the USA relies more on the ideas of Leon Trotsky than of Eugene Debs.

Recently, in an effort to become more like Daniel De Leon, the SP of the USA began expelling anyone suspected of having membership in SD,USA and hence the Democratic Party. This included the entire state of Pennsylvania, membership of more than one hundred. While having no formal ban on dual membership with this "party", whose national membership is less than 1,000, we have strong disagreements with them, particularly on the nature of democracy.

Many of us have strong personal ties with SP of the USA members. We endorsed SP of the USA, 2008 presidential candidate, Brian Moore, as "the best candidate running with no hope of influencing the outcome." Unfortunately Moore got less votes than the Party's 1976 presidential candidate even though the electorate has vastly expanded. The SD,USA is sad to see "that other Socialist Party" become just another psuedo-party, anti-American, left wing sect. Such groups abuse the word socialism every bit as much as the right wing pundits, Fascists, and Communists do.

We want to create over the next decade a Social Democrats, USA / Young Social
Democrats which has 5,000 members and a 1,000 activists, in twenty chapters around the country. Hopefully, we will have twicethat many involved with the our allied organizations, the Humphrey Democratic Caucus and the projects of League for Industrial Democracy. We will by then have a small group of elected officials as members and some "expert analysts" to make our critique credible. Most importantly we will have a core of activists dedicated to democratizing both economic and political life here and around the world. Perhaps you believe in America enough to join us in extending democracy to our economy before the "banksters" destroy the nation we all cherish.

The SD,USA-SP,USA in the Next Decade

Towards a Strategy for the Next Decade

We are not sure what others wish to accomplish with the revival of the Social Democrats, USA. We undertook the project with the idea of actually reviving the Social Democrats to which we belonged. The SD,USA is the lineal decedent of the socialist party of Victor Berger, Eugene Debs, and Norman Thomas. By 1972, the party was called the Socialist Party, USA. In its second convention of that year, a majority of delegates voted. on New Year's Eve, to officially change the name of the group to the Social Democrats, USA.

It probably says something about these people that they were meeting on New Year's Eve. It says even more that the very small band of former revolutionary Trotskyists called the Independent Socialist League had captured the Socialist Party and were now major force in American ideological debate. Not bad for a group that never had more than three hundred members. We need to remember why the Social Democrats, USA came into existence. The 1960s had seen an explosion of interest-group politics. There were feminists, environmentalists, anti-war activists, Black power advocates, young radicals, and a host of other groupings all vying for power within the Democratic Party.

This was called "the New Politics Movement". The SD rejected the New Politics in favor of the broad Labor-Liberal coalition which had governed the Democratic Party since 1932. This was the coalition of the New Deal and the Great Society. This was the coalition that won World War II and rebuilt Europe and Japan. It was the coalition of that passed civil rights legislation. The coalition was damaged by Vietnam, but remained the only credible voice of working people in America. Now, if the SD was wrong about the Liberal-Labor coalition and it is possible to build "a patchwork majority" of various leftist strains within the Democratic Party, then it would be senseless to revive the Social Democrats, USA. We would be better off as a caucus in some other group. The United States needs a new left wing sect like the average person needs a new back passage. The left is an alphabet soup of organizations that have minimal impact on real politics.

It is again important to remember that two other groups emerged from that New Year's Eve conclave, in 1972. The larger was called the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. It sought to reach out to every variety of leftist and left-liberal to create a broad, "big tent" organization. That actually worked for a while. After the merger with the New American Movement, the new organization, the Democratic Socialists of America, grew to have 12,000 members by the early 1990's. We can claim, very legitimately, to be founding members of DSA. We were the ones who dropped the balloons at the moment of merger. Even then, we realized there was something very wrong. It wasn't that anyone was evil, or disingenuous, or unwilling to do his or her share of the work. It was that we were trying to blend two completely separate organizational cultures.

The New America Movement held a convention every summer of its ten year existence. At this convention generally six to seven hundred of the one thousand total members showed up and debated passionately. DSOC had 5,000 members by 1982 and likely never had more than 300 of them in any one place. That does not mean that DSOC members were not as passionately involved as NAM members. DSOC members were union officers, union staff, elected officials, local committee people. In other words, they were busy doing real politics. DSOC created a coalition called Democratic Agenda which seriously challenged the policies of a sitting Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, at both the 1978 mid-term and the 1980 Democratic conventions. At one time, three DSOC members held seats in the United States Congress. Other DSOC members were elected as the mayors of New York City and Chicago, while still others sat in political bodies ranging from the state legislatures, numerous city councils, boards of education and county committees. We were both elected DP committeemen.

Today, if any DSA member holds public office, even committee person, it is a closely guarded secret. DSA has perhaps thirty-five hundred paper members, one hundred of whom are active in some significant way. DSA has six functional chapters, with functioning being defined as holding a general membership meeting at least every three months. It used to be said that DSA was the socialist group that worked in the Democratic Party. Now it is the socialist group that talks about maybe someday in the future being the socialist element of a progressive group that works in the left fringe of Democratic Party. As very active DSA members we must accept some of the blame for where DSA is today.

The second group to emerge from the 1972 schism attempted to reconstruct the Socialist Party, USA. In response to the threat of civil suit from the Social Democrats, that group adopted, in 1977, the name the Socialist Party of the United States of America. Today, it has about five hundred members, with perhaps. five functioning locals. In 2008, the SP of the USA's presidential candidate actually got less votes than the candidate it ran in 1976. The SP of the USA is an irrelevant left wing sect.The SP of the USA is about five years from going the way of the Socialist Labor Party, i.e. extinction. We were both members and take no pleasure in stating this truth.

What is to be Done?

If we are to revive the SDUSA, it should be to claim the heritage that the SD lost during its dalliance with neoconservatism. We are not the Reagan socialists. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was in a position to understand these things, once said, "Reagan is two-thirds Orange County and one-third Yipsel". The collapse of the world wide capitalist economy shows us why the compromise made by many social democrats with capitalism was a mistake. Given the real dangers of the Cols War it was an easy mistake to make, but a mistake none the less. Capitalism is inherently unstable, prone to boom and bust. It is not in regulating a capitalist economy, but in thoroughly reforming and democratizing it, that we will create stability. In the meantime, the founders of the SD,USA were absolutely correct in their critic of the New Politics Movement. Further, they were correct in being the anti-totalitarian force on the American Left.

As we look around for allies on the anti-totalitarian left, there are very few. Americans for Democratic Action is about the only venerable liberal organization which still has significant ties to organized Labor. We can and should work with what remains of ADA. Most other liberal and progressive groups have little existence outside cyberspace and the odd convention. Most of these groups have little in common with us, except for being registered Democrats. If we try to be all things to all people, we will end up being nothing to anybody, including ourselves.

It is necessary that we build Community-Labor coalitions that put forward significant pressure to rebuild infrastructure, create industrial jobs, build a green industrial base, and re-establish a unionized workforce in this country. To do this, we need to work with those labor unions that still exist and with the large mainline churches that have as part of their teaching the "Social Gospel". We have immediate goals in things like the Employee Free Choice Act and longer term goals like federally guaranteed full employment. This is more than enough for our organization to work on for a decade. Hopefully, it is not too much to do well.

We therefore, propose that we work to establish "Hubert H. Humphrey Democratic Clubs" in as many cities as possible and that we use these clubs to find and groom a generation of young Democratic leaders who will work to rebuild the tradition of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Hubert Humphrey. This would be a Democratic Party that realizes that the United States has a mission in the world, That mission is to be a beacon for human rights, freedom of conscience, and an end to poverty. It would be an America which stands against totalitarianism and militarism simultaneously. Further, this Democratic Party has a historic mission to support the worker and the minority in their just struggle for equal opportunity and gainful employment with justice here and around the world.

Our Party Inside Their Party

There is no abandonment of the socialist cause here. Vice-president Hubert Humphrey sent Norman Thomas a telegram of congratulations on the latter's eightieth birthday. Our group was still called the Socialist Party in 1964. To many of us it will always be "the Party". The fact that we run few independent candidates should strengthen not erode party discipline. Entryism likely requires more discipline than partisan electioneering. We will continue to work with the Socialist International and its member parties and affiliated groups like the Party of European Socialism, the Women's Socialist International and International Union of Socialist Youth, and with the occasional political party outside the S.I. like the Workers' Party of Brazil. We will also work with inter party groups like the Fabian Societies of the British and Australian Labour Parties. We will continue our internal education and discussion so that we can present a coherent alternative to the collapsing capitalist system. We will not downplay our heritage, with all its ups and downs for momentary political advantage. We also will never allow the loony left to steal or pollute our history without a stern rebuke.


If we can do this, we can create a Social Democrats, USA / Young Social Democrats which, within a decade, might have 5,000 members and a 1,000 activists, in twenty chapters around the country.Hopefully we will have twice that many involved with the Humphrey Democratic Clubs and the projects of League for Industrial Democracy. Our organizations will be a respected friend of Labor, community, and human rights organizations. It will have a small group of elected officials as members and some "expert analysts" to make our critique credible. It will have the web and hard copy facilities to make that critique known to America.

Above we have laid out plenty of goals for our organization. Let us work hard and well at these tasks for ten years and then we can begin solving the rest of the world's ills.


David Hacker

Gabriel McCloskey-Ross

The Jim Burnett Statement On Social Democracy

There are a lot of people these days who call themselves left radical, socialist, etc.,we are all as those things--but we are different.


1.WE SUPPORT THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT. We think that working men and women, organized in their trade unions, are the most important force for progressive social change in their overwhelming majority, workers and their leaders and their leaders do not set the stereotypes of moronic and opportunistic know-nothing-ism advanced by their enemies.

2. WE DEFEND ISRAEL. The State of Israel is not a product of "racism" or "imperialism". It is a democratic society. Its labor movement is lead by social democrats. During the first decades of its existence, it was governed by a social democratic labour party. We are unconditional advocates of Israel's right to exist, and that our support does not depend on it being "nice" in order to deserve our defense. But we are not uncritical. We support Israeli Labour in its criticisms of ultra-right and crack-pot religious policies. There must be a resolution of the Palestinian-Christian that grants the legitimate rational aspirations of these people without fatally compromising the legitimate security concerns of the Jewish State.

3. WE OPPOSE COMMUNISM. Communism was a horrible, destructive parody of socialism. For generations, Stalinism existing in Russia, China and elsewhere presented an image of the socialist ideal that had as much to do with that ideal as the Spanish Inquisition had to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ. All through that period, "Communism" was the most dangerous enemy of democracy and free labor in the world. We rejoice in its collapse in most of most of its former domain. However, the idiocy that this collapse represents the vindication of capitalism is just that idiocy.

4. WE WORK WITHIN THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES. The realities of American politics make running independent socialist candidates for public office almost always a gesture in futility. We ally ourselves with the pro-labor forces of the democratic party and work to change that party into a social democratic party.

5) WE REJECT THE MYTH OF THE "MOVEMENT". This refers to the myth that all who oppose the social and political system of the United States are "comrades". Third world dictators.terrorists.and youthful psychopaths are not part of OUR movement.

6. WE REJECT THE MYTH OF "MOVEMENT". This refers to the myth that all who oppose the social and political system of the United States are "comrades". Third World dictators, terrorists, and youthful psychopaths. are not part of OUR movement.

7. WE STAND FOR SOCIAL DEMOCRACY,. We fight for a democratic socialist society, which means not a government-dominated, but a democratic, non-sexist, un-racist, welfare state with a mixed economy in which the people and democratically-responsible representatives will have the last word in setting economic priorities.
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Social Democrats USA (SD USA) is the successor to the Socialist Party whose past and present leaders include labor, civil rights, and humanitarian leaders, such as Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas, A Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin. We think America needs a stronger voice for our kind of program. We are not for everybody. Maybe we are for you.

The Relevance of Socialism

The conventional wisdom these days is that the collapse of the Soviet empire represents the demise of Socialism. This is ridiculous. We never believed the identification of Stalinist totalitarianism with socialism during all of the decades which proclaimed by both Stalinists and right-wing reactionaries. Why should we believe it now? We should reclaim the socialist ideal-- a just society, a society not based on invidiousness and narrow-minded "individualism". This is not the time for us to become traitors and cowards. The basis of Socialism -- communism in its unfalsifiable sense -- remains as valid, even more valid, than ever. We want and needed a society of collective justice where everyone gets food, shelter, health care, education, and the ability to actualize his or herself. Why not? We're civilized, aren't we? We will win our most valuable support by asserting an ideal, not by ambiguity and misdirected "moderation". We need a cadre before we can aspire to mass influence and few people of character or intelligence have ever been able to get excited about moderation. I want to make a point about symbols. This is hardly something that would be taken up in an official document, but is important socially, I do not think we should give up the word "socialist, the term "comrade", the red flag, or the Internationale. They are symbols of a commitment and a brotherhood and sisterhood that is invaluable. There is no such thing as "only" a symbol. Our era has seen many outstanding champions equity and freedom not the least have been Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxembourg, Julius Martov, Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas, Max Shachtaman, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Michael Harrington, and the students of Tienanmen Square. I stand in their tradition.

 Dr.James T. Burnett, Ph.D

 

 

 

Why Do Americans Hate Socialism?

This is the answer I submitted to question posed above at Yahoo!Answers. The questioner chose it as the best answer.l Hopefully, this will bring some curious folk to our websites for more information, as I attached the URLs. Don, I made the corrections you suggested. Hopefully, this entry will go some distance in addressing your suggestion of explaining what we are for and what we are against! The questioner wondered why Americans disliked the welfare state policies of a country like Denmark. There were the usual defenses of capitalism as part an parcel of American democracy which most respondents found infinitely better than Stalinism. Most however failed to see the "Welfare State" as a part of capitalist society. I chose not to go in to depth in explaining that the welfare state socializes capital's cost in maintaining an able and non- rebellious workforce. I will leave that for another time.

There is some real confusion here. Socialism, communism, fascism and capitalism are models of economic organization. Democracy, monarchy, totalitarianism, and theocracy, are all models of political organization. Positing a struggle between democracy and communism is an apples and oranges comparison.

Socialism argues for worker and consumer control of the means of production. In the former Warsaw Pact states, the workers and consumers controlled nothing. Of course the Leninist oligarchs used and continue to use words like socialism and communism. They also use words like people's, democratic, and republic. Does anybody other than the most gullible believe these lies?

Most Americans do not hate socialism. Most Americans do not have enough information to hold an informed opinion, pro or con. In the proposing of the the question there is clearly a misunderstanding, or more precisely, a confabulation, of the Western European style "welfare state", which exists in nations like Denmark with socialism. The welfare state, while providing most Europeans with a better quality of life than most Americans, is not the economic or industrial democracy which is inseparable from true socialism.

Europeans and Canadians live longer than Americans, work less, and in general earn more for their labor. The welfare state attempts to ameliorate the inequities of capitalism. It has never been seen as road to socialism, but as a stop gap while a road to socialism was found.

The fall of the Soviet Union does not prove the unworkability of socialism, it proves the unworkability of monopoly capitalism. American and Soviet capitalism were like the fun house mirror reflection of each other. In the U. S. a small group of economic elites, because of their wealth, control the political system. Political campaigns rely on vast sums of money to influence voters. These elites have never been reluctant to use force when political slight of hand failed. In the former Soviet Union and its client states, a small group of economic elites controlled the economy by the use of state terror. George Bernard Shaw quipped in "The Intelligent Woman's Guide To Socialism" that:."Under communism man oppresses man, while under capitalism it is just the reverse".

It is impossible to argue that the American democratic experiment is tied to the development of industrial capitalism, as industrial capitalism would not begin for a half century after the founding of the the United States of America. The U.S is the world's remaining superpower only in munitions and the reasons for that have more to due with collapse of other capitalist economies than there being something special about American capitalism.

The socialist model of economic organization is a democratic one. It calls for workers to actually own the means of production, while consumers would form co-ops to purchase goods and services at low cost. This would be a true "ownership society" in which each worker would be heavily invested in the productiveness and profitability of the enterprise in which she or he worked. Socialism is not state ownership of industry.

Every attempt in history by an elite to control the national economy has brought domestic turmoil and then war as that elite sought to focus the attention of the polity toward a foreign menace, generally a contrived threat. Democracy is the only cure for intrinsic violence of coercive national policies that create both domestic tumult and external warfare. Socialism is not do good-ism! It is not charity. It is a through going democratic reform of economic life which provides citizens with the means for a democratic political life. The idea of people governing themselves in all areas of their lives will always terrorize some enough to kill to stop it. It remains however, the only way to realize what it is to be truly human

 

Programmatic Suggestions by Craig Miller Friday, April 25, 2008

Thank you all for spending the time to consider what a revived Social Democrat agenda would look like for 21st century America. After listening to many conversations and reading the forums on the website, I wish to post some principles on a PUBLIC arena so they can be read and commented on.

The current process of conference calls and a website has produced very uneven results. From reading the website I do not have a real clue about what the SDP of A stands for or what it hopes to accomplish. In fact the organization's name changes on different parts of the site. Further, it seems to want to resurrect several dead organizations and create a connection for the Socialist International. It seems very intent on make sure the term socialism is interchangeable with social democracy. The site includes some pious confessions about rejecting exploitation and working for a democratic socialist society. What is missing is any clear idea of what social democracy means in today's world and fairly limited understanding about the politics of the SI.

Let me put a few propositions for consideration:

1) The natural ally of the SI in the US is the Democrat party. When the European Socialist group of the European Parliament visited the US they met with labor officials and Democratic legislators. The major think tank that takes social democracy seriously is the DLC. The policies of many SI member parties differ from the principles held by the US left. This includes Iraq, Afghanistan, nuclear power and business friendly policies and the rampant and repugnant anti-Israel sentiment infecting much of the progressive arena.

2) The current space occupied by the named socialist parties in the US is not the loony left but the totally irrelevant left.

3) The European social democratic and the more recent examples of social democracy in Latin America, Asia and other places demonstrate that a workable and viable alternative to market capitalism exists. Yet these policy alternatives must exist with today's interconnected world. Actual social democratic, socialist and labour parties have decades of experience testing the limits of providing economic justice and social benefit in a difficult market economy. These parties experience electoral pressure and thus must respond to political reality. Here are links to policy documents from the Party of European Socialists which attempt to explore a realistic social democratic agenda. Look at the New Social Europe document which is a short summary of the PES 10 basic principles, the others are quite worthwhile.

http://manifesto2009.pes.org/en/documents/

4) The organization certainly does not have the resources to, with a straight face, call itself a party.

5) Already there is a motion to expel people -- not yet an organization and the purges have begun!!

With these points let me propose the following:

1) Abandon the irrelevant left and seek to work on a social democratic center. Just as the NDP of Canada emphasizes the practical benefits of social democracy, a USA SD group should do the same. This can be started by adopting the PES 10 principles (modified for the US) as a programmatic statement. The SI and PES can reached out on this basis. A claim of the mantle of SDUSA makes sense for this purpose.

2) Instead of a party lets become the clearing house for social democratic ideas. This is what SDUSA was in its final years. If somebody wishes to run for office on these ideas -- great.

3) Let the dead bury the dead -- what's the purpose of trying to revive dead organizations such as Yipsel -- is the goal to create a political Jurassic Park --are the Whigs next?

4) A title such as Social Democracy USA for the 21st Century while not clever, is quite serviceable.

5) The site should concentrate on domestic economic policy but highlight the progressive role of religion and the lessons of the world's most successful democratic experiment, the USA.

6) Acknowledge that practical and effective social democratic change will most likely come via the Democrat Party, unlikely from the Republican Party and not at all from the SP and Greens.

7) I have requested that we change the May 4 call to another time where potential participants have been polled on their availability.

To quote Marx at the end of his Critique of the Gotha Program:
Dixi et Salvavi animam meam (I have spoken and saved my soul)

In Response to question " Was Jesus a Socialist?" at Yahoo Questions Thursday, October 23, 2008

Thursday, October 23, 2008

In Response to question " Was Jesus a Socialist?" at Yahoo Questions

Socialism is a political theory which postulates that society functions best when all people have equal access to the wealth of the society. The political parties of Jesus' day were concerned with adherence to Jewish tradition (the Pharisees and Essenes), the resurrection of the body (the Pharisees and Sadducees), and relations with Judea's Roman conquerors (Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes). There were no Social Democratic parties in the first century of the common era, nor would there be any for seventeen hundred years. We must, therefore, evaluate the teachings of Rabbi Yeshua ben-Jospeh, as Jesus would have been known to his contemporaries, in political terms that did not exist while he lived.

Jesus did not live in a vacuum. The Jewish society into which he was born had a great many laws concerning wealth accumulation and duties owed to the poor by the affluent. Everyone engaged in agriculture was enjoined to leave a portion of all fields for the feeding of the needy and the traveler. The keepers of orchards were not permitted to gather fruit that fell to the ground. This also went to the poor and the wayfarer. These were not helpful suggestions;these were laws with serious punishments for transgression. At the end of each seven years, all slaves had to be offered freedom and all land had to be returned to its original owner, regardless of that person or his family's ability to repay the cost. A duty to be charitable was added to all of this within Judaism.

It was on top of these laws and customs that Jesus laid his new commands. In Matthew, chapter 25, verses 31-42, Jesus says that he will judge the nations according to their treatment of the "least of his brethren". Karl Marx didn't care much for the rich, but he never promised them eternal perdition as Jesus did. When Jesus says it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, He is referring to gates in the Jerusalem city wall. These gates were so constructed that after the main entrances to the city were closed for the night, a traveler might enter on foot. A fully grown camel could not pass through these eye-of-a-needle gates. A young camel, stripped of its burden, including saddle, might be able to crawl on its belly through the opening. It was possible, but highly unlikely. That is how unlikely Jesus saw anyone laden with wealth entering heaven. Jesus never utters a kind word about the wealthy as a group and demands the renunciation of all possessions of his followers to prepare for the"kingdom of God".

There is nothing in the Bible, nor in the early writings of the Church, that suggest that selling all of one's wealth and living communally was optional for Christians. Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead by Almighty God for being motivated by greed to lie to the Apostles about what they received for the sale of their property (Acts 5:2-11). The previous chapter of the Acts of the Apostles closes with a statement that all wealth was held in common (Acts 4:31-33). This echoes the statement the second chapter of Acts, verses 44-45: "And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need". It was on this passage that Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels based the line in the Communist Manifesto, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".

It must be seen that the early Church was highly coercive in wresting all property from its members. St John Chrysostom ( lived 347-407 C.E;.Archbishop of Constantinople) said "Property is theft", 12 centuries before French anarchist Pierre Proudhon used the line as title for an essay on socialism in the mid-1800's. Until Christians fell out with each other during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, it was considered a sin to loan money at interest, a very grievous sin indeed. The loaning of money at interest is the very basis of Capitalism, yet for fifteen hundred years Christians were forbidden, by their Church, on pain of death, from engaging in this practice.

Again, relying on St. John Chrysostom, we have an excellent view of the Church's position on lending money at interest: "Nothing is baser, nothing is more cruel than the interest that comes from lending. For such a lender trades on other persons' calamities, draws profit from the distress of others, and demands wages for kindness, as though he were afraid to seem merciful. Under the mask of kindness he digs deeper their grave of poverty; when he stretches forth his hand to help, he pushes them down. . ." Truth never changes, as credit crisis and mortgage scandal show today.

While I believe it is possible to be a socialist and not be a Christian, I believe it impossible for a Christian not to be a socialist. On this scripture, which is God's law laid down for our salvation, is abundantly clear. How Christians work within a democratic society to put the message of our lord and savior into action remains a matter for study and debate. The faithful can reasonably dispute whether Christians should support social democratic parties or reject government entirely, but God's preference for the worker, the poor, and socially and physically disadvantaged is plain throughout His word.

-- Gabriel, acting executive director,
Social Democrats, USA--Socialist Party of America
http://socialdemocratsusa.org,
moderator, Christian Socialist Party USA ~ http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group....

• 1 day ago

Source(s):

Gospel of Matthew
Acts of the Apostles
Duetronomy
Leviticus
Psalms
The Communist Manifesto (a 160 years old this year!)
Traditional Values ~ http://www.anglocatholicsocialism.org/ac...
Wikipedia: Christian Socialism ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_S...
Jesus the Socialist ~ Dennis Hird ~ http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=n...
Various conversations with religious socialists like Rabbi Michael Lerner, Rev. Cornell West, Sister Diane Drufenbrock Tony Benn, Dorothy Day, and Frank Zeidler