A perspective on the task of working-class unity

What are the burning tasks of our movement today? Before we can discuss this question we need to understand the current situation through the lens of historical and dialectical materialism.

In a previous article series at workers.org, this writer stated:

“There is no denying that the future of proletarian struggle is a multinational one. Unity between persons of different backgrounds is essential to the struggle for the socialist future — and ultimately survival. Unity requires solidarity and a sharing of the tasks of dismantling the systems of domination and oppression which have harmed us for generations.

“Today many understand that the U.S. ruling class is imperialist and relies on white supremacy, cis-hetero-patriarchy and ableism to maintain capitalist dominion. What is less often acknowledged is the way in which the U.S. ruling class required — [and still requires] — the exploitation of land, resources and people on Turtle Island to take advantage of specific historical circumstances and [terrorize] and exploit large sections of the world. … 

“[Nowadays] the oppressed are fighting against U.S. imperialist aggression and making significant wins. The ruling class is once again relying on its control over the resources, land and labor on Turtle Island [and a few regional neo-colonies] to secure and defend its position and shorten its supply lines.

“[The enslavement, brutal displacement and superexploitation of Afro descended and Indigenous people] jumpstart[ed] the primitive accumulation of capital as outlined by Marx [in Capital] and [helped capitalism develop].

“In a settler colony [like the U.S. and Canada], the role of primitive accumulation goes deeper, and many of the features of a colony described by Fanon become part of the [particular strain of ruling-class ideology in that country].  [Born in Martinique, Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist, joined the Algerian National Liberation Front and wrote the world-renowned anti-colonial book, “The Wretched of the Earth.”]

“The contradiction of national oppression through the theft of land, resources and superexploitation of labor are all structural [elements] which [secure] the long-term superprofits of the big capitalists who rule it. This leads to the [necessary development of] a faux national identity — a form of patriotic chauvinism — in order to keep the manipulation and division of the working class in place. [This also serves to assist the holding back of the completion of the bourgeois democratic revolution which founded the capitalist state in question].”

The unfinished bourgeois democratic revolution

All of this leads to the context of the situation in the U.S. today. The U.S. bourgeois democratic revolution was never completed, and the state forces of oppression which are descended from slave catchers, strikebreakers and colonial frontiersmen are today enhanced with new bourgeois ideological “trimmings” and military “hand-me-downs.” 

The use of militarized police and government forces to terrorize communities like what we saw in Minneapolis is not new, but the openness and intensity of the violence is certainly new for many alive today — especially new for those who are not a Black, Brown or Indigenous worker who is terrorized daily regardless of what bourgeois party is in control.

The prison-industrial complex has been expanding alongside the military-industrial complex for decades. Given the failures of U.S.-led imperialism, its struggle to reaffirm neocolonialism in the Americas, and the increase in consciousness we are seeing in the wake of a whole slew of horrifying global events, it makes sense that the ruling class would be interested in increasing investment in prisons and other forms of detention centers. 

Of course, artificial intelligence is playing a key role in the continued development of the military and prison industries. It is also playing a role as a tool that displaces entire sections of laborers from their jobs as well as automating management decisions and other systems of control.

There is much more here to analyze, and we must continue this analysis. Suffice it to say that Sam Marcy, [former chairperson of Workers World Party], and later [WWP First Secretary] Larry Holmes, summed this up by saying “class is primary, nationality is not secondary” (and we could also add gender oppression to this equation). We are seeing the contradictions boiling here in the imperial core. Class struggle is alive, and the capitalists have set the stage for their own demise.

All of the developments on the global stage can seem fuzzy with the complex nature of the struggles between working classes and ruling classes globally. This ranges from the struggle against revisionism in socialist-oriented states to the presence of a national bourgeoisie or sometimes a neo-feudal clerical (theocratic) class in many anti-imperialist states. 

We are also seeing large capitalist powers like Russia, in which its ruling class has its own imperialist ambitions, playing a generally progressive historical role through its opposition to NATO and support of BRICS+ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and other countries). Of course, while we are in historically new territory, there were some developments in the leadup to and aftermath of previous imperialist world wars which we can use to help us gain context. 

As U.S.-led imperialism falls apart and a new world order emerges, we must remain aware of the class contradictions at play and the way in which material interests can sometimes push opposing class forces into a generally progressive bloc against a bigger enemy like the United States.

What does all of this mean here in the imperial core?

It means that every dedicated revolutionary has a responsibility to fight against capitalism in the imperialist stage we are in and against white supremacy and patriotic chauvinism, gender and sexuality-based oppression and ableism. We must fight both the prison- and military-industrial complexes. We must fight for liberation, self-determination and land back. These things are necessary components of the fight for socialism and will at times require us to be fighting alongside the reformist elements of the progressive movement.

Build a united front!

Under current material conditions, we require tactical unity — a united front of revolutionaries and progressives. Our movement must learn to apply the principles of democratic centralism to the building of a new kind of organization, something with characteristics of a mass party, a mass organization and a coalition rolled into one entity. Something that will allow us to have line struggle and cross-tendency political discussions in a healthy and controlled way and which allows us to simultaneously fight for our class. Something that allows us to have dialectical synthesis as we work towards our shared goal of ending class society and building socialism.

Regardless of how we do it, if our forces are not coordinating our efforts on a local, regional and national level and are not doing so on a consistent basis, then we are increasing the difficulty of our shared task of fighting for self-determination for the oppressed, justice for the workers of the world and ultimately socialism. We have examples from history of revolutionaries coming together to fight the ruling class under a shared banner. Perhaps the best example we can study for our context is that of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party — but that is a conversation for later.

Naturally, this united front entity will be a living project which will need to evolve as our material conditions change, but it must be built from a core of revolutionary organizations coming together and ratifying points of unity and basic protocols. If needed, we can tie its early organizing into historical events such as the dates various organizations are setting for a general strike or the 250th anniversary of the birth of the U.S. empire.

Our movement has produced many wonderful organizations to fight on issues ranging from imperialist wars to poverty. These things are crucial, but they alone are not suited to pushing the struggle to this higher phase.

These remarks are intended as the beginning of a longer conversation that a revolutionary movement needs to be having at every level of our organizing.

Victory to the workers and oppressed of the world, and death to this prison house of oppressed nations!