I believe it will help us focus on the primary issues in dispute (at least what is disputed on my end) if I offer a few thoughts about the following from Gant R., in a letter responding to me:
Building revolutionary socialist consciousness means that it is necessary, at some point, to conceive of a generalizable political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and to communicate it widely. For this we are charged with ‘schematicism,’ and so be it.1
I have no disagreement with Gant’s formulation about what is necessary. Indeed, it sums up my perspective quite nicely: “It is necessary, at some point, to conceive of a generalizable political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and to communicate it widely” (emphasis added). So no, it is not because of this that I raise the issue of schematism. The schema I have identified in MUG’s approach lies elsewhere: in the insistence that this must be the first point, not only programmatically but also in a temporal sense, the point that precedes all other points and which then allows those other points to unfold. This assessment leads MUG to elevate its conception of “a generalizable political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat” to the central focus of revolutionary activity in the US in the year 2024, the issue around which all other issues revolve. We will agitate for this “democratic socialist republic,” MUG insists, at the present moment in US history, through a direct struggle for a new constitution, and in this way we will unlock the door to the entire process of socialist revolution.
Can anyone dispute that I fairly state MUG’s collective orientation with this description of it? I hope not, because then our disagreement becomes clear enough. If some do dispute it, however, I will simply ask that they reflect on the reality that this is how I, as an outside observer, understand MUG’s orientation. So even if my formulation reflects a misunderstanding, some problem would seem to remain with the way MUG has been presenting its political perspective since that is what has allowed me to reach this mistaken appreciation.
Such a conception of how revolution in the US will come about is a schema. It’s a schema because we actually have no way to determine in advance the explicit pathway which revolution in the US will take. It’s the struggles by masses of people that will define this pathway and reveal it to us only as the process unfolds. Our theory must be developed in a way that allows us to prepare for a phenomenon of this kind: the organic growth, in ways that we cannot possibly foresee, of revolutionary potential out of what are, at first, less-than-revolutionary mass struggles.
If, instead, we develop a theory that already knows (or imagines that it knows) in advance what the process of revolution in the US is going to look like there is a strong danger that since the actual revolution, when it comes, is unlikely to look like the vision we have of it at the present moment we will render ourselves incapable of recognizing that the revolution has in fact begun—soon enough to respond with the necessary urgency—and, as a result, in all likelihood lose a rare opportunity. I will only add that if this happens to us we will not be the first revolutionaries in history who failed to act in a revolutionary way at some decisive historical moment because we were trapped, theoretically, by our own schema.
So yes, MUG has adopted a schema (a theoretical model of how revolution is expected to unfold), and then you have turned that schema into the central programmatic element defining who you are. The schema actually constitutes a theoretical negation of what Gant writes in the paragraph quoted above: about the democratic republic as the central issue “at some point.” Instead you have decided that the point at which this becomes the central issue is now. If nothing else, it seems to me, at the very least you need to acknowledge that the approach you have taken erases Gant’s “at some point,” causing it to simply disappear from your collective theory.
Please note, as you are considering my last thought: MUG’s insistence on raising the call for a new constitution to first rank in your programmatic documents—as the key task at the present moment—is not based on any assessment of the present moment. It is, instead, based on a timeless statement about what the US constitution represents, a statement which is true at the present moment because it is, has been, and always will be true so long as the current constitution represents the legal basis for government. I would like to suggest that any political orientation regarding what to do now which is based solely on a timeless abstraction, and which therefore offers little or nothing by way of a concrete analysis of what is specifically true at the present moment, is likely to be a schema. If an effective revolutionary strategy could be derived directly from our theoretical abstractions then great revolutionary strategists would not be quite as rare as they have in fact been in the history of the last century and a quarter. What makes our task so difficult is, precisely, the need to articulate the theoretical abstractions—which remain absolutely essential, I would be the last to dispute it—with the concrete reality of a living, chaotic, unpredictable, and constantly shifting class struggle that is unique to each individual nation and then, even within each individual nation, unique to a particular historical moment.
A more dialectical view understands, instead, that most likely the establishment of a workers democratic republic in the sense we are discussing (a generalizable political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat)—or even just “popularizing” it in an agitational sense—is not the first stage of a socialist revolutionary process in the US. It is, instead, a somewhat later consolidation of that process. The socialist revolution in this country is far more likely to start with a mass struggle of some kind against immediate injustice or a series of injustices rather than as a struggle focused directly on political forms. It is when such a struggle against injustice rises to a level that begins (at least) to cripple the bourgeois state that millions of people will actually be able to understand and respond positively to our call for a new constitution. So propaganda for a new constitution can remain important, but it cannot, in my opinion, become the lynchpin of political agitation by a revolutionary current in the US in the year 2024.
I also want to stress the importance of the division within MUG over the class nature of the “democratic republic” we are struggling for as expressed in exchanges that have taken place in the pages of this journal. Gant gets this right, in my judgment, when he refers to “a generalizable political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Others, however, clearly do not get it right, and for anyone outside of MUG who hasn’t followed the group’s internal debates there will be a distinct ambiguity about whether we might, instead, be talking about a mere extension of bourgeois democracy. Clearly this difficulty presents itself for readers of your book, Fight the Constitution: For a Democratic Socialist Republic. While the title refers to a “socialist republic,” the actual content of the essays in this book strongly reflect the ambiguity that I have just identified—about what the class nature of the democratic republic we are calling for will be. It’s an ambiguity the book sets up, and then does nothing whatsoever to resolve.2
I would like to suggest that the resolution of our dispute lies, therefore, in an acknowledgment of two essential truths:
- Whether we use the term “democratic republic” or “democratic socialist republic” we are talking about “a generalizable political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat,” not a mere extension of bourgeois democracy.
- While it is conceivable in the abstract that a socialist revolution in the US might begin as a direct struggle for such a “democratic republic” (for a new constitution), the history of the twentieth century strongly suggests that mass consciousness about the need for such a republic is far more likely to arise at a later moment, after one or more specific social protest movements has already had the effect of radicalizing millions of people, moving them into action to demand redress and thereby confronting—and in a best-case actually paralyzing—the bourgeois state. A process of this kind is needed in order to both (a) open up the possibility for ordinary people to begin imagining an alternative to the “democratic” state that has existed all their lives, normalized by every educational and cultural institution they have ever come in contact with; and (b) create the power void that will subsequently be filled (“at some point”) through the establishment of “a generalizable political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
I deeply appreciate all the comradely discussion from members of MUG—in the pages of Cosmonaut and more informally—which has helped me to arrive at what I believe to be this more precise understanding of our disagreement. I hope, stated in the form of these two points, others will also comprehend my viewpoint better so that future replies will be able to focus on whatever issues may genuinely be in dispute.
-Steve Bloom
- cosmonautmag.com/2024/03/letter-democratic-revolution-and-the-dictatorship-of-the-proletariat-a-response-to-steve-bloom/
- I will argue that one reason the ambiguity remains, despite the title of the book, is that the word “socialism” itself projects the same dual meaning, from a class point of view, as the word “democracy.” Viewpoints that identify with “socialism” are, in the USA today, actually dominated by a vision of “socialism” that is, in fact, a reformed capitalism, a mere extension of bourgeois democracy and not at all consistent with the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is why the tradition that calls for a “workers’ government” or “workers’ and farmers’ government” communicates a clearer popularization of the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat in my judgment than the call MUG has adopted for a “democratic republic” or even a “democratic socialist republic.” I am open to a discussion about whether the call for a “democratic socialist republic” has other advantages and is, therefore, a better popularization of the proletarian dictatorship than the call for a “workers’ government”—but only if we all agree, and find a way to make it clear, that this is not a call for the extension of bourgeois democracy but for a revolutionary transformation of the present state power.