Should Socialist Groups Unite?
(this is a supplement to Firebrand Communists and the Revolutionary Left https://medium.com/@sleigh1917/firebrand-communists-and-the-revolutionary-left-3edf7f704d6d. It goes into detail on specific differences between Firebrand and other socialist organizations)
The Importance of Political Clarity
“Without revolutionary theory, there is no revolutionary movement” Lenin
Marxists are historical materialists. Marx said “It is not consciousness that determines social being, but social being that determines consciousness.” However, the interaction between ideas and material reality is dialectical — i.e. the ideas people hold influence the actions they take. These actions in turn change material reality and hence the ideas people hold later. Language is one of the key distinguishing features of humanity. Virtually all action is organized with words.
In terms of our political practice, this means that a clarity of ideas is essential, not just for its own sake, but because it can lead to clarity of action. Different sets of ideas can lead to very different actions. When push comes to shove, these differences can be life or death for a revolutionary movement. Lenin said “Without revolutionary theory, there is no revolutionary movement”. Even in the short term, different analyses and understandings of Marxism can lead to different strategies and tactics, some of which will work, others of which will not.
This is why there are different organizations. From the outside, the fact that there are dozens of socialist groups can seem like silly sectarian hairsplitting. The common refrain “Why don’t all you socialists get together?” is based on an underestimation of the importance of clarity.
Of course, socialists who agree on fundamental politics and the key tasks of the day should unite. Exactly what differences are significant enough to warrant different groups is always open for discussion and debate. At some points, unification may move the struggle forward. At other times, staying apart or even splitting up may be necessary. Ultimately numbers are decisive — -but numbers without clarity will achieve little.
Another point is essential: Unity is NOT the same as a United Front. Marxists do two things at once: 1) build a clear Marxist organization to provide the best strategies and tactics today and to prepare for the revolution. 2) Form coalitions and United Fronts with all possible people around particular issues. This flows from the points above. We want material changes. We want struggles to succeed in winning reforms. These embolden people to further action, change consciousness, enhance organization and lay the basis for further changes. To do that we need to organize the maximum amount of people. Yet within the coalition, Marxists propose strategies and tactics that will be most effective at making the movement successful. Again — -clarity to develop effective action. Being very clear about our politics and even arguing hard when necessary is NOT the same as refusal to work with people we disagree with! We have and will continue to work with other socialists, anarchists, liberals, religious people etc.
Part of the quest for clarity in understanding the world and how to change it is understanding the political positions of other socialist groups. “ Firebrand Communists and the Revolutionary Left” does this in very broad strokes.
For maximum effectiveness, a Marxist group needs to be unified on a broad analysis of the world and national situation and the strategies and tactics that flow out of that analysis. The essential issues on which unity is needed will vary over time.
What Positions are Necessary for Unity Change Over Time
“Firebrand wants to regroup more of the Left into a larger and stronger organization. However, this must be done on the basis of firm principles. If it unifies with groups that don’t hold these principles it will be a house of cards which will lead to confusion and future splits.”
During the Cold War, it was vital that Marxists have a clear view of the conflict between the U.S. and Russia, between the Eastern and Western Bloc. The position of the tradition that Firebrand comes out of put forward the slogan “Neither Washington, Nor Moscow, but Workers’ Power and International Socialism”. This was unique among Trotskyists. Others from the Trotskyist tradition saw Russia as progressive against the West and supported the East in the Cold War. This led to clear differences on key points of international conflict. A merger of those in our tradition and dominant trend of Trotskyism would have led to confusion and would therefore not have been healthy.
Today, 33 years after the end of the Cold War, the key international disputes have shifted. Many traditional Trotskyist organizations now see the former Eastern Bloc countries as capitalist. They no longer support one side or the other in international disputes. On the other hand, some on the Left have been influenced by Stalinism. They are so opposed to U.S. Imperialism that they adopt the attitude “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
They are often soft on Putin and Russia and/or China and Assad in Syria. This leads them to downplay or deny the oppression that these states impose on their own population or neighbors. (Putin against Crimea and Ukraine; China against the Muslims in north west China, against Tibet, Hong Kong etc.)
When there is need for international working-class solidarity against oppression, siding with repressive governments against their own people is unconscionable! The Marxist slogan “Workers of the World Unite” is as appropriate as ever. Those that reject this principle and instead embrace one camp or the other in the conflict between the US and its enemies are called “campists”. Beyond the issue of international solidarity, campists who claim to be socialists undermine the meaning of socialism. They call oppressive states where workers have no power “socialist”. This simply confuses potential Marxists on what socialism actually is. Unity between campists and internationalists in one socialist organization would be confusing and untenable. Unity with those who see socialism as just another oppressive and exploitive system is impossible.
On the flip side of this international conflict are “Leftists” who actually embrace their own imperialism. There are many in the U.S. who claim to be socialists who actually support U.S. foreign policy — even if with reservations and criticisms. This is the bigger problem on the broad U.S. Left though anti-U.S. campism is a bigger problem among those who consider themselves revolutionary.
Examples of this abound. “Socialists” who support Bernie and AOC are willing to overlook their votes for U.S. military budgets. They overlook their position on Israel which while critical is ultimately supportive. Bernie for example calls on us to “tone down the rhetoric” on Palestine. These would-be socialists are in the broad sense campist because they support the Western Camp against the anti-US camp. No Marxist group can put forward a socialist alternative if it is soft on U.S. imperialism!
This issue feeds into a broader issue — the Democratic Party. The DP is not just an imperialist party, it is also a key party of big Capital. It pursues the interests of big business against those of workers and the oppressed. Revolution in the U.S. will come in opposition to the Democratic Party and bourgeois liberalism which seeks to get workers to collaborate with the bosses. Revolutionaries in the U.S. are those who reject the use of the Democratic Party. Revolutionaries understand that is impossible to reform the Democrats into a pro-working-class party. Revolutionaries want to weaken and finally abolish the police. Reformists often want to make the police more effective by improving police/community relations. A socialist organization has to take a clear stand on these issues. Including revolutionaries and reformists in one organization leads to domination by the reformists.
Those who support the Democratic Party often have a weak position on oppression. Marxists have always understood the necessity to take a vigorous stand against all forms of oppression. We see the need to integrate the fight against oppression into the fight against exploitation and vice versa. It is in the interest of workers of all backgrounds to fight it. A working class divided by oppression will be defeated. Unity can only be solidly created on the highest level — -not by ignoring it, but by confronting it head on. This means winning whites to support Black Liberation, men to support women’s liberation etc.
In contrast to this, some reformists adopt a strategy of class reductionism. They say that the oppressed can best have their conditions improved only by universal programs. They reject or downplay specific anti-oppression demands, such as affirmative action, reparations or Black Lives Matter.
On the opposite extreme, some anti-racist activists adopt separatist strategies. They despair of unified action by workers against oppression. Instead, they believe that only separate struggles by the oppressed can bring liberation.
Marxists reject both strategies, even while defending the RIGHT of oppressed groups to separate off if they feel the need to. A socialist organization that embraces class reductionism and/or separatism will create confusion on what an effective Marxist strategy is.
Marxists must also be united on the need for a revolutionary party. Those who want a revolution but do not want to organize for it will never be successful. We reject spontaneism. Workers and the oppressed will fight back, but success depends on organization. Lenin called for a revolutionary socialist vanguard party. For him, Marxists need to organize the vanguard of the working class, those who are leading struggles into a revolutionary party that can lead the working class to victory. This attitude requires realism. Marxists should not proclaim themselves THE vanguard party unless they really represent the actually existing vanguard of working class struggle. In the early 70’s many Maoist groups in the U.S. proclaimed themselves THE vanguard party. All came to naught.
Finally, Marxists support unions but take a rank-and-file approach. We see the need for ordinary workers to organize to influence their unions in a militant direction. The bureaucracy of unions has its own interests, in mediating conflict between workers and bosses. These interests are different from the interest of workers, hence the need for workers to organize to fight for more militant and radical positions.
Firebrand is the group on the U.S. Left that most consistently embodies all these principles . It opposes campism and the Democratic Party. It embraces the need for revolution and a revolutionary party but opposes premature proclamation of such a party. It opposes class reductionism and separatism while favoring the integration of the fight against exploitation and oppression. It supports unions but is for workers organizing to strengthen their unions. Firebrand wants to regroup more of the Left into a larger and stronger organization. However, this must be done on the basis of firm principles. If it unifies with groups that don’t hold these principles it will be a house of cards which will lead to confusion and future splits.
Analysis of Socialist Organizations
Below are some of the key political differences Firebrand has with other Left groups. These differences explain why Firebrand cannot simply unify with other groups that often use similar rhetoric on the Left:
DSA — -Contains people who want revolution but also reformists. It engages in struggles but is primarily oriented to elections. Most of this orientation is on using and for many changing the Democrats into a Social Democratic Party. Its overall stance is critically pro-US imperialism. Some of its members are anti-U.S. campists. It does not believe in building a revolutionary party. The dominant trend in this organization is class reductionism.
Within DSA there are several distinct caucuses. In Seattle one that came out of Socialist Alternative is the “Reform and Revolution “caucus. Its politics are like Socialist Alternative. Since joining DSA, they have moved to the Right. They now argue for the “Dirty Break” strategy — -running “socialists” on the Democratic Party ballot line. The supposed purpose of this is to build up leftist forces with the DP that can break out to form an independent party at a future time. In practice, the Dirty Break leads to more and more accommodation to the politics of the Democratic Party.
Communist Parties — During the late 20s and 30’s the Communist Party was Stalinized. It went from being a revolutionary party to being a supporter of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) under Stalin. It was ultra-left in the late 20s and early 30’s — rejecting participation in official unions. In the mid-30s it switched to the “Popular Front” an alliance with the Democratic Party. It backed the Hitler-Stalin Pact in 1939 but then allied with U.S. imperialism in WWII. After the war, a brief left turn was followed by consistent support of the Democratic Party. Its twists and turns followed the interests and demands of the USSR. Today it is virtually indistinguishable from the Democrats.
The recent offshoot of the CP, the Party of Communists USA seeks to go back to the period before “revisionism”. They believe that in 1956, the USSR under Khrushchev moved away from true Marxism. In effect they embrace the Stalin period of the CP with all its twists and turns. They reject the slightly more liberal Stalinism of the post-Stalin period which tried to have “peaceful coexistence” with the West. They support the system of State Capitalist exploitation of workers in the USSR from the late 20s to the early 50s as “socialism.”
Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) — Looks to China under Mao as a model of socialism. It thinks workers in the U.S. are “bought off” and cannot be the force for revolution. VERY moralistic. It sees Trump as Fascist. This led them to openly support a vote for Biden in the 2020 election. It set up their own front groups as a main strategy. Their most recent front group is Refuse Fascism.
US Socialist Workers Party (SWP) — Historically the main party of American Trotskyism. In the 80’s they moved away from Trotskyism, rejecting the theory of Permanent Revolution. Instead of calling for a worker’s state they call for a multi-class state as a transition to socialism. Lately they have gotten very conservative within the Left. They attack liberals from the right instead of the left because they see Liberals as middle class. They orient to workers who are right-wing. This included support for the “Freedom Convoy” against Covid vaccination in Canada. They reject Boycott Divestment and Sanctions against Israel because they see Israeli works as a revolutionary force. They supported the Dobbs decision. Their excuse for this was that it would be good to have a democratic debate about abortion rights at the state level. They believe that the fundamental rights of women should be up to a vote of women and men! They focus on running their own candidates with leftist demands mixed with support of Israel.
Socialist Alternative — -Came out of the Militant Tendency in Britain. The Militant Tendency entered the Labor Party in the late 40s and stayed in for over 4 decades. In the 90s, the Militant Tendency split. The CWI which left the Labor Party set up Socialist Alternative in the U.S.(SAlt). Recently, the CWI split again with SAlt becoming part of the International Socialist Alternative. Its fundamental politics persist from the Militant. It is not revolutionary. Instead, it believes in taking over the bourgeois state through an election and using that state to start the transition to socialism. It claims to believe in smashing the state, but only after first using the state. It does not think it is crucial to take the whole economy into public ownership, but wants to continue small property ownership, and hence a quasi-market economy. It supports police unions and sees police as workers. Instead of police abolition it calls for purging the police of bad apples. It has a quasi-pacifist position on the overthrow of capitalism. It does not clearly differentiate the nationalism of the oppressor from that of the oppressed. It does not see clearly that one can be progressive (the nationalism of the oppressed) and the other is reactionary. It downplays the fight against oppression in practice and tends toward class reductionism. Like the SWP it opposes BDS and sees the Israeli working class as an agent of revolutionary transformation.
Another offshoot of the Militant Tendency is the International Marxist Tendency. In the Spring of 2024, it renamed itself Revolutionary Communists of America It is not quite as conservative as SAlt but shares the same fundamental politics. It has argued strongly for its reactionary position on Palestine. During the Genocidal bombing of Gaza from Oct.7 2023 on, IMT condemned Hamas’ tactics rather than supporting Palestinian Liberation “ by any means necessary”.
Party of Socialism and Liberation — (PSL) — -VERY campist! Its ancestors were in the Trotskyist tradition. In 1956, they broke with most Trotskyists by opposing the Hungarian Revolution against Stalinism. Since then, this tendency has opposed the students in Tiananmen Square in 1989, bemoaned the overthrow of the Stalinist states in Eastern Europe, supported Assad against the Syrian Revolution, supported China against its oppressed minorities, opposed the movement in Hong Kong etc. It actually praises Kim Jung Un and North Korea as socialist! It is uncritical of the Maduro regime in Venezuela. Its strong support of Trans rights contradicts the position of regimes it supports. In the 2020 election it flirted with lesser evilism. It said that if Bernie were the Democratic nominee, they would adopt a “safe state” strategy, implicitly supporting Bernie in states that would have close votes. During the Palestine Liberation movement 2023–24 it supported people voting uncommitted in the Democratic primaries to pressure the Democrats, rather than fully breaking with the Democratic Party. Otherwise, its positions on domestic issues are mostly fine though its tactics are often questionable. It seems to vary in that regard from branch to branch.
PSL started as a breakaway from the Workers’ World Party which shares its fundamental politics.
Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) — Started as the Seattle branch of the SWP in the late 60’s. Its differences with the SWP were that it was more supportive of Mao’s China and more opposed to Black Nationalism. It did not see any progressive potential in Black Nationalism, instead supporting “revolutionary integrationism”. Firebrand does not see Black Nationalism as a solution to racism. However, as materialists, we look at struggles first on the basis of their potential material impact. We support struggles that will have a positive impact even if we disagree with the set of ideas motivating that struggle. When we disagree with the dominant ideas of a positive struggle, we would give the struggle critical support. — -Support in helping it win, criticism in seeing its ideas as limiting its impact. The FSP instead takes an approach purely on the basis of ideas. On the other issue, it still sees China as in transition between capitalism and socialism and rejects calling it an imperialist power. It therefore takes a soft campist position.
It has an extreme multi-issue approach to coalitions which is based on idealism, not materialism. It seems to believe that a coalition will be more radical and successful the more demands it has. The Marxist stand instead is that the key goal of a movement is to win material changes. The best demands for a movement are what can best motivate struggle in a progressive direction. As Engels said “one step forward in the movement is worth a dozen programs”. Because of this attachment to the “correct” program of demands, it often operates in a very bureaucratic way in coalitions. It has taken undemocratic actions within coalitions to ensure the “correct” program.
It also has a tendency to argue that Marxist politics are the only REAL politics of a movement. It seems to believe that only Marxists can be consistent Feminists, Ecology activists etc. In fact, these movements are broad politically and multi-class. Feminism, for example, started as Bourgeois Feminism, for the gender integration of the class structure, not for the overthrow of classes. The point should not be to argue about who the “real” Feminists are but to explain that only socialist revolution can bring women’s liberation. Marxists are Feminists in that we see women’s liberation as essential to socialism and only possible through socialist revolution. We are Marxist Feminists but understand that others who are Feminists see themselves as Feminists as much as we do. We need to win people to Marxist Feminism and hence Marxism, not to “real Feminism”.
During the Genocidal bombing of Gaza from Oct.7 2023 on, like the IMT and SAlt ,the FSP condemned Hamas’ tactics rather than supporting Palestinian Liberation “ by any means necessary”.
Finally, it is a bit separatist. It has maintained a theoretically separate but actually integral organization to FSP called Radical Women for 50 years. This is not just a caucus responding to sexism in the organization but a separatist strategy of permanent standing.
For more elaboration on Firebrand positions on various issues go to Firebrand.red !
