ABCs of Socialism, Part 2: Getting There from Here

For those who may have missed it, Part 1 is here.

Now that we understand, in very general terms, what socialism is, the most obvious question is how to get there. How do we set ourselves free?

It may be tempting to prescribe simple answers to this question: “Build an independent labor party!” “Organize inside the Democratic Party!” “Support labor unions!” are commonly heard slogans. The reality is that taking and holding power to affect major changes in the way economic life is organized, what socialists call the relations of production, is not so easy. Although these slogans may have their uses, they are not enough by themselves. The changes needed to establish worker sovereignty and bring about socialism are of a vast scope, requiring the organization of millions of people with focus and discipline while also maintaining flexibility and accountability via democratic principles, what socialists call democratic centralism. The old political parties, the Democratic Party, the various labor parties, etc., are not up to the task. Building socialism requires a party of a new type, a cadre party.

A cadre party is not like the parties we are used to in the US, which are almost exclusively voluntary, oligarchic organizations. Cadre parties are made up of the most dedicated and knowledgeable socialists, those that recognize the level of discipline and ‘blood, sweat, and tears’ needed to build a new society. It is not something you could fill out an online form to join! Cadre parties are not organized this way out of some misplaced sense of elitism, but from the enormity of the task they undertake.

By design, cadre parties are relatively small. Historically, some have had founding congresses of fewer than twenty people. However, successful cadre parties form deep connections with other organizations that can offer mutual support and a mass base, such as labor unions. A properly operating cadre party is focused and disciplined, while also being flexible, democratic, and above all connected to its base, the working class. It takes a great deal of knowledge and skill to strike the right balance between discipline and flexibility; too much discipline, and the party risks becoming ultra-left and isolated from the working class; too much flexibility, and the party loses focus on its final goal of winning worker sovereignty and socialism, becoming politically opportunist. Needless to say, the right mix depends on the overall political situation a cadre party is operating under, sometimes called the historical conditions or balance of forces. These can change, sometimes quickly. Successful cadres (the organizational units that make up a cadre party) must learn to anticipate and adapt to these changes and adjust their work accordingly.

How does a cadre party undertake its work? What kinds of political tasks does it focus on? The answer to these questions depends on the aforementioned historical conditions. Generally speaking, party work is divided into two components: strategy and tactics.

Strategy refers to the overall plan, in broad terms, a party adopts in order to achieve socialism. Usually this involves building up popular support for socialism and encouraging workers to adopt socialist thinking, or ideology; that is, the set of ideas on which we build our understanding of the world.

Tactics are the particular means used to achieve strategic goals. For example, a solid strategic goal for a socialist cadre party in the US would be to extend Constitutional rights into the workplace. To achieve that goal, the party might promote this idea among workers belonging to a labor union deemed potentially receptive to it, trying to get the union to adopt the struggle for Constitutional rights officially. Success means not only the full realization of Constitutional rights, but also a change in workers’ thinking, from ‘worker=servant’ to ‘worker=citizen’. Put another way, a quantitative change, the extension of existing Constitutional rights into the workplace, leads to a qualitative change in the relations of production.

Quantitative and qualitative changes lie at the heart of socialist thinking. Together, they form a mechanism called the dialectic, which governs how changes occur in society and the wider world. The simplest example of a dialectical process is a phase change in matter: add enough heat to water (quantitative change), and eventually the water will turn to steam (qualitative change). In society, the abolition of slavery in the US is another example of a dialectical process: Wage labor grew in quantity to challenge slave labor, leading to a contradiction between the interests of industrial capitalists (the beneficiaries of the wage labor system) and slaveholders. This contradiction was resolved in the Civil War, which meant the end of the slave system and the extension of industrial capitalism to the entire United States. One set of relations of production was replaced by another.

Why does understanding dialectics matter? Because socialists approach political problems the same way engineers approach physical ones; socialists apply known principles to understand the problem and craft a solution in a scientific way, then evaluate the real-world outcomes of the solution and adjust it as needed. It is this method which makes socialism, or, more precisely, scientific socialism, a new type of political thinking. Rather than base its political actions on vague appeals to an undefined and subjective ‘rightness’, scientific socialism interacts with the political world systematically to achieve defined goals.

Spain has a "Socialist" Prime Minister---The Left Responds

Socialist Party politician Pedro Sánchez has been sworn in as the country's new prime minister by King Felipe after the ousting of conservative Mariano Rajoy. The Socialist (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, or PSOE) advance came as Sánchez won the support of six other parties to remove Rajoy in the wake of a corruption scandal. Sanchez has said that he plans to serve the remaining two years of the parlimentary term, an optimistic forecast or plan. The Socialists will have to lean left and cooperate with Basque parties if they are going to hold a government together; the reactionary Popular Party (PP), which is Rajoy's main base, holds 134 seats in Parliament as a majority party, while the Socialists have 84 seats and are the largest opposition party in Parliament. The Socialist's parliamentary strength is bookended between right-wing parties and holding a government together under these conditions is not the same as making progress.

Liberal forces in Europe have been quick to support Sánchez, arguing that the Socialists can provide stability and manage the economy in much the same way that the current Portugese government is doing. These liberal forces also want a counterweight to the right-wing parties trying to form a government in Italy and evidently stumbling as they do so, causing some economic and political upsets. There is also a feeling that a united European response to Trump and to his trade and military threats is needed. The Socialists are unlikely to live up to these liberal goals, but continued governing by the right-wing in untenable and the liberals are seeking to contain class and national struggles.   

Sánchez has so far not disappointed his liberal backers. The Socialists have apparently accepted the present state budget without much dissent and have sent calming signals to the European Union. This is an interim government, but one capable of making changes if the Socialists break with their past and lean left and do the right thing in relation to Catalonia and to the Basque struggle for independence. One Basque politician put it well when he said to the Socialists that “Your government will be very complicated, weak and difficult.”

Sánchez did shake things up when he took the oath to protect Spain's constitution without a bible or crucifix. This was a first in Spain's history.

Some socialists in the U.S. will celebrate the Socialist advance in Spain and not look deeper. We want to urge our comrades to study the situation in Spain carefully and not not jump on the liberal bandwagon. To that end we are offering the following statement from the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) regarding the current situation there. The tone and content of the PCE's statement provides us with some guidelines on unity against the far-right which we would be wise to adopt in the U.S.

On the election of Pedro Sanchez as Prime Minister of Spain

The PCE has supported the vote of no confidence that has expelled the PP from the government of Spain after 7 years of budget cuts and corruption and has elected the PSOE's secretary general, Pedro Sánchez, as Prime Minister. We have done it for reasons that we think, are shared and understood by the majority of Spanish society: the need to expel the party of corruption and looting from the government.

The vote of no confidence has ended the situation we tried to avoid after the last general elections, working then to constitute a government of progress that prevented the PP to continue ruling Spain and ensure respect for democracy. Then it was not possible then, and Spain has paid a very high price: the increase in neoliberal measures that have worsened the living conditions of workers, a territorial crisis out of control and the backward step in fundamental freedoms and the increase in repression. We salute that now we have the opportunity to reverse the tragic consequences of the PP government, although Spain has lost two years ruled by the most corrupt party in Europe.

In the years of government of the PP corruption has been usual and structural - Gürtel, Punica, Barcenas, etc -, the looting of public funds to finance the party and to profit of its leaders, the manipulation of judges and prosecutors - to protect themselves and try to guarantee the impunity of the corrupt - and the manipulation of the public media to cover and distract attention, fortunately without fully achieving it.

It was necessary to expel the PP for all these corruptions and we have obtained them thanks to the work of denunciation and investigation of journalists, peoples’ prosecution, of many prosecutors and judges, of Police and Civil Guard officers. Thanks to his work, the truth is known, and we move forward so that justice is made for the crimes committed by the political elites of the country, causing damages that are now essential to repair.

The PP had to be expelled for its economic policies of budget cuts and dismantling of the Welfare State with tragic consequences for the working class and for its cuts and constant attack on democratic freedoms.

We have achieved it those who fill the streets and squares to fight against cutbacks in public services and labour and social rights, against precariousness and corruption, against sexist violence, in defence of public pensions, against evictions and for the right to the housing, who said "no" to this government on the streets, showing that society had said: enough is enough. Today we have achieved a victory, we must celebrate it.

We have succeeded thanks to the 67 seats of Unidos Podemos, largely the result of all these popular struggles, as are also the municipalities taken from the bipartisanship, the new institutions created from popular mobilization and since the confluence.

The deputies of Unidos Podemos have been key to the success of the vote of no confidence and are the guarantee that the new government undertakes the tasks that make it possible to call general elections in a climate of democratic normality.

We believe that the essential tasks that the new government must address are:

- Close this stage of corruption: end corrupt practices from the public powers, guarantee the conditions and means for justice to act impartially and guarantee that there is no impunity for crimes of corruption.

- Regenerate justice and guarantee the full enjoyment of civil and political rights. End limitations on freedom of expression and demonstration and ensure the impartiality of public media.

- Repeal PP reactionary measures such as the labour reform, the education reform, the pension reform and the gag law, guarantee access to housing and modify the mortgage legislation and implement emergency measures against unemployment and exploitation and increasing precariousness to recover part of the rights taken.

- Normalize the situation in Catalonia by initiating a broad dialogue to reach political agreements that reconstruct the coexistence in which we will defend a model of republican and federal state.

This government can be worth to repair what was destroyed by the PP. But we do not believe that a PSOE government is in any position to implement the new policies of change to build a fairer society, neither for its limited parliamentary support nor for its political program. It is a provisional government, perhaps useful to address the most urgent tasks that we have pointed out, but which can hardly address the great transformations that our country needs in the political, economic and social fields. Our support for PM Sánchez will depend on the adoption by his Government of the urgent measures we have outlined to regenerate the democracy and to improve substantially the living conditions of our people.

Pedro Sanchez must not forget, he is PM two years after the general elections, for his mistake in trusting Ciudadanos, a party that considers "terrible" to expel the corrupt government. "Terrible" comes from terror and it seems that Albert Rivera lets out through his mouth, unconsciously, the terror that democracy causes to the bankers and rich of our country, whom he represents so well; the terror of losing the status that these have fabricated him; the terror to follow the path that Rajoy has already taken. The fear over which fascism grows, which also develops from the ignorance promoted by the media behind which the bankers and employers hide.

Fear, in fact, is changing sides and with his words, Rivera shows fear of those "Spaniards" of whom he speaks so much. Citizens are afraid because they know that their Falangist and patriarchal speech, xenophobic and exclusive, their unconditional support for the most corrupt party in Europe, the PP, is becoming clearer. It is becoming clear that Ciudadanos is the same as the People’s Party, with a greater dose of opportunism if possible, a danger for Spain.

Likewise, we note that while the majority of the Spanish people celebrate the expulsion of the PP or in any case, accept it as a democratic act, the media, behind which the banks hide, speak of "chaos" and "catastrophe”. Others who are afraid of "the Spanish and the Spanish". In this new situation, we reaffirm ourselves in the need to strengthen the popular unity and the confluence of the forces of the left, to strengthen the organization people’s and of the working class to continue in the struggle, as the only guarantee to achieve the changes we aspire, that should open the constituent process towards the Third Republic of the workers of all the Peoples of Spain. Our imminent challenge will be the upcoming municipal and regional elections and especially the upcoming legislative elections that the PCE understands should be held as soon as possible, once decontaminated institutions of the immense damage caused by the Popular Party.

Today we celebrate having expelled the PP with the struggle and with the votes.