>>482725https://www.cpusa.org/article/not-one-step-back-vote-against-fascism-2024/In order to advance socialism, we must advance democracy and democratic reforms.
If some find me too “liberal” let us consult our wise teacher, the venerable Vladimir Lenin. From his 1905 treatise Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, chapter II; What Can We Learn From the Resolution of the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. on a Provisional Revolutionary Government?
“In answer to the anarchist objections that we are putting off the socialist revolution, we say: we are not putting it off, but we are taking the first step towards it in the only possible way, along the only correct road, namely, the road of a democratic republic. Whoever wants to reach Socialism by a different road, other than that of political democracy, will inevitably arrive at conclusions that are absurd and reactionary both in the economic and the political sense. If any workers ask us at the given moment why we should not go ahead and carry out our maximum program, we shall answer by pointing out how far the masses of the democratically-minded people still are from Socialism, how undeveloped class antagonisms still are, how unorganized the proletarians still are. Organize hundreds of thousands of workers all over Russia; enlist the sympathy of millions for our program! Try to do this without confining yourselves to high-sounding but hollow anarchist phrases—and you will see at once that in order to achieve this organization, in order to spread this socialist enlightenment, we must achieve the fullest possible measure of democratic reforms.”
I have discovered that Lenin becomes more relevant every year, not less, to the current conditions of the United States. Lenin said socialism is about people’s power. How can you have a working class state, where the workers are in charge, without the workers being properly organized, politically, economically, and socially, to even reach a point where that is possible or gaining the knowledge of their own true power and the experience of making their own decisions? A worker cannot run the state if they do not even understand or participate in basic democratic elections and civic affairs. Ultra leftists have attempted to turn Lenin into a mascot of their immature fanaticism while ignoring the brilliant Marxist and enlightened small-d democrat he actually was. This is something we must correct. Only by defeating fascism and preserving our democratic republic will we press ahead on the road to socialism. It is our party’s detractors who do the most harm to advancing communism, by allowing liberals to lead political struggles, rather than communists. If you cannot organize voter turnouts, then forget about your revolution.
Ironically, our enemies see this clearly. “Famous Chinese leaders like Mao Zedong and Mikhail Gorbachev loved democracy because democracy is a step toward socialism, which is a step towards communism,” said Loren Culp, failed GOP candidate for governor of Washington state. At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC),during a panel moderated by Steve Bannon, fascist Jack Posobiec told a crowd “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it’.” And let us not forget that GOP congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene swore at a 2022 event hosted by the NY Young Republicans, that if she had organized the Jan 6th coup, along with Steven Bannon, that the insurrection would have won and would have been “armed.” At this same event, the President of the NY Young Republican Club, Political operative Gavin Wax, told the crowd, that “we want total war.” Echoing the language of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Gobbels, who asked assembled Nazis in 1943, as the tide of war turned against Germany, if they desired totalen krieg, total war. Wax said “We must be prepared to do battle in every arena.” “In the media, in the courtroom, at the ballot box. And in the streets.”. As communists, we must be prepared to answer in kind, on each and every front.