In recent months, Cosmonaut has published several articles on the centrality of the fight for a new Constitution. These articles have seen their fair share of online engagement, which has brought to the forefront some weak points. I offer this letter as a comradely criticism of these articles, as well as the associated resolutions that Marxist Unity Slate has proposed in the Democratic Socialists of America, in the hope that it contributes to heighten the level of debate.
First of all, I have read some opinions expressing the feeling that constitutional disloyalty is another form of reformism. I disagree with this, and I think that pointing the finger at the constitution is a good step to distance yourself from mere reformism and from the established order. Articles such as Jonah Martell’s or Mike Macnair’s in the Weekly Worker convincingly show that the US Constitution and the form of government that derives from it is the prime obstacle to any meaningful change in American Society. And I do not think that Bernie Sanders, or the Squad, or any associated politicians have done enough to distance themselves from the established order. Calls for a “political revolution” mean next to nothing if the institutions remain intact. In this sense, I applaud the project for pointing the finger at the correct place.
Further support for this is given by the fact that, in my opinion, constitutional overhaul is a key measure of to what extent the Pink Tide governments have actually transformed society and made gains irreversible. Venezuela and Bolivia, which are still far from becoming socialist, have progressed along this track much more than their counterparts in Brazil, who accepted the status quo. One can discuss to what degree Venezuela and Bolivia have succeeded in demolishing the bourgeois state, and socialists from these countries are acutely aware that their struggle is ongoing, but looking at Bolsonaro’s rise, it is hard to make the case that the “legalist” Pink Tide governments ended up in a better place.1
The Venezuelan and Bolivian constitutions have opened a much greater space for anti-systemic politics, and have allowed indigenous people to have a much larger voice. It’s important to acknowledge that Bolivia has gone quite far in decolonization with the declaration of the plurinational state. I do not think that Martell’s articles have been sufficiently clear on how calls for a new constitution are compatible with decolonization and land back, and it is not difficult to imagine (as some online critiques do) a certain level of continuity between the current slaveholders’ Constitution and a new one that doesn’t sufficiently address settler colonialism. However, looking at the Latin American experience, it does seem like a relatively easy problem to address, especially when one looks at the experience of Elisa Loncón, an Independent Mapuche politician who will lead Chile’s constitutional convention. I recommend further articles on the new constitution take this point seriously and give it more space than the three sentences in the article “Fight the Constitution!”. One could even take this in the direction of questioning if US-centric politics makes sense, fighting for a US/Canada decolonized federation, or a long list of alternatives that open up. Acknowledging indigenous scholarship here would be necessary.
My, relatively, larger concern is the way the path to constitutional reform is expressed. What is necessary, and I think the authors agree with this, is to fight for a political majority that desires a new constitution and is willing to infuse it with a radical character (this latter point is also not explicitly laid out, which has led to some critiques). If this political majority never materializes, then attempts to forge a new constitution will fall very flat, even if it does become possible to obtain political power before this fact. This dilemma is currently playing out in Peru. It remains to be seen what Pedro Castillo will achieve in Peru, but he is very far from having the political majority required to develop a new constitution, despite the fact he will soon hold executive power.
In this sense, I see the call for a new constitutional convention is compatible with a wide variety of tendencies. For example, We could frame it in terms of completing a “national-democratic” revolution, keeping in mind that the endpoint for the Nepalese People’s War was also a Constitutional Convention even if their Constitutional Assembly failed to write a new constitution. While the political terrain in the US is very different from Nepal, cross-comparisons open the door to learning from the successes and failures of other revolutionary attempts. This is not the place to give a post-mortem of Nepal, but it does seem to me that the failure of the Maoists to win a political majority was first reflected in the right-opportunist turn and later in the failure to consolidate a new constitution.
So, my question is: if we rule out immediate armed struggle and follow the radical Pink Tide, will the call for a new constitution be raised through an oppositional assembly? Or is the hope to win a large enough majority in a national body, such as the House of Representatives, and then call for this assembly, as is outlined in the articles? What if this never happens? How do we reckon with the State’s response?
This segues into my second concern: Martell and other authors do not pay sufficient attention to the diversity of the US political landscape and do not clearly lay out a plan for what is to happen if wide majorities are available in certain parts but not others. While we can dream about seeing a socialist majority in New York in the near future, it is even wilder to think the same is possible in Montana or Wyoming. This is also related to Martell’s relative dismissal of the fight at the state level in his article “Twelve Steps”. I agree that a national political fight is necessary and is bound to politically activate a lot of people. However, solely targeting the House of Representatives ignores gerrymandering, voter suppression, and other obstacles present in many areas of the country, and which are completely in the hands of state legislatures. The struggle will be, by its own nature, uneven, and the articles up to now completely fail to discuss this. Either one fights for a political majority in every state (which might not be possible due to their class and racial compositions), or you resign yourself to Reconstruction governments and suppression.
I offer these thoughts in the hope that further clarification of this project can be brought forward, as it is interesting and worth engaging with. However, I think that the two concerns I express here merit serious consideration for this project as they seem to me to be quite serious gaps.
Comradely,
Renato Flores
- The only negative note of anti-constitutionalism is Ecuador, where a new constitution was passed in 2008 and today the right governs. However, Ecuador is an outlier in that the Pink Tide party was subverted from within by a struggle bordering on a coup, and the party’s failure to properly link with indigenous bases.