How Revolutionaries Use Elections
https://socialistaction.org/2020/07/31/how-revolutionaries-use-elections/
July 31, 2020
By LAZARO MONTEVERDE
A review of The Ballot or the Streets, or Both? by August Nimtz.
Chicago, IL: Haymarket Press, 2019.
As I write this review the protests over the murder of George Floyd in
Minneapolis continue while the liberal and progressive forces in this
country call for support of “Uncle Joe” Biden to save us from Trump.
These events occur within a larger social context that includes the
Covid-19 pandemic, a racial caste system built on violence against
Blacks and other Peoples of Color, and a looming climate catastrophe. At
this moment in history, August Nimtz’s The Ballot or the Streets, or
Both? has never been more needed for those of us who want to build a
better world.
How do we bring about fundamental social change? I am not talking about
this reform or that, but deep thorough-going change. This is the
question of political strategy for revolutionaries. Every generation of
radicals struggles with this question. Before us, three of the greatest
revolutionaries of the last 300 years also struggled with these same
questions: Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Now political scientist and
revolutionary socialist August Nimtz has explored their thinking and
made it available to a new generation of revolutionaries. Nimtz’s book
is a manual for today’s revolutionaries both here in the U.S. and in all
corners of the world.
Nimtz prioritizes the voices of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. We hear them
speak and learn what they said. They argued that real change comes only
through independent working-class mass action. Furthermore, they did not
believe the working class could merely take control of the existing
state apparatus, which serves the interests of the ruling class — the
working class had to smash the state and rebuild it.
So, did Marx, Engels, and Lenin reject elections and voting rights?
No—absolutely not! They were strong defenders of universal
suffrage—meaning the vote for all men and women, of all races and
religions. But this defense of democracy and voting was not an end in
itself; voting was a tactic to strengthen the independent working-class
movement, not a strategy of revolutionary change.
As Nimtz shows, they were also aware of the dangers of elections. These
dangers were summarized in the label “parliamentary cretinism” used by
Engels and later by Lenin. Parliamentary cretinism is the set of
beliefs that what happens in congress or in an election is more
important than what happens in the streets, that real change comes from
legislation, not mass action. Parliamentary cretinism is a form of
opportunism, a willingness to compromise with the ruling class for
short-term gains at the expense of long-term objectives. Ultimately,
parliamentary cretinism abandons socialism as a goal for reforms that
might perhaps bring about a kinder, gentler capitalism.
The alternative to this opportunism and abandonment of socialism is to
use elections to build the independent working-class movement. This is
done through revolutionaries running their own candidates independent of
the capitalist parties. These candidates are selected by a revolutionary
party or group and present the positions of the group, not their
personal views. It is not important that they win. What is important is
that they use the campaign to educate the masses and strengthen the
independent organization of the working class. The number of votes the
candidate earns is an indication of the mood and consciousness of the
working class, just as statistics on strike activity are. If the
candidates are elected, they remain under party control and use their
positions to strengthen the struggles of working people and the
oppressed. This revolutionary use of elections is known as revolutionary
parliamentarianism, the very opposite of parliamentary cretinism.
While these revolutionary legislators do support specific reforms that
benefit and strengthen the working class and oppressed, they do not
compromise with the oppressors. For instance, they oppose imperialist
war and police oppression. Revolutionary legislators can expose the
class nature of government structures and policies from within. They
have greater access to the media and greater opportunities to promote
independent mass action in the streets. They can use their positions to
educate, agitate, and build independent working-class political power.
In this brief review I have not prioritized the voices of Marx, Engels,
and Lenin, as Nimtz does. Nimtz’s book is almost a master class in how
to use elections for revolutionary purposes taught by Marx, Engels, and
Lenin themselves. As such it is detailed and dense, but also worth every
hour, indeed every minute, you spend reading it.
This book was originally published as an expensive two volume hardcover
by Palgrave MacMillan. Haymarket Press has reissued the book as an
affordable ($28) one volume paperback. The new edition preserves the
two-part organization of the original, including several important
historical documents contained in the appendices. Volume 1 covers the
development of revolutionary parliamentarism from Marx and Engels
through the Russian revolution of 1905. Volume 2 covers Lenin’s
political activity and thinking from 1907 to the October Revolution of
1917. The genesis of Nimtz’s book was a pamphlet by Doug Jenness in 1971
entitled Lenin as Election Campaign Manager, that Nimtz had read many
years ago. In Nimtz’s words the pamphlet is “still the best introduction
to the topic, and thus, to this book” (p. X). Lenin as Election Campaign
Manager is still available from Pathfinder Press for $5.
Together the two parts of the book conclusively demonstrate that Lenin’s
revolutionary parliamentarianism was rooted in a profound understanding
of Marx and Engels, that Lenin devoted extensive time and thought to the
use of elections as a way to build revolutionary working class power,
and that revolutionary parliamentarianism was crucial to the success of
the October Revolution.
As Nimtz shows, the thinking of Marx, Engels, and Lenin is still
relevant today. Calls by social democrats to elect progressives to
congress exemplify parliamentary cretinism, to use Engels’ favorite
term. Calls to support “Uncle Joe” Biden to defeat Trump exemplify the
lesser-evil politics of opportunism, the urge to sacrifice the long-term
goals of independent working-class political power and socialism for
short term electoral gains and minor reforms.
In the U.S. context, only the political groups that came out of the
Trotskyist tradition of revolutionary socialism, formerly embodied in
the old Socialist Workers Party, understood and used Lenin’s electoral
approach. Groups that came out of social democracy, such as the
Democratic Socialists of America, or the Stalinized left, such as the
Communist Party, abandoned the Approach of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.
Socialist Action continues to employ Marx, Engels, and Lenin’s approach.
Exhibit A: The candidacy of Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action candidate for
President. Socialist Action still uses the revolutionary
parliamentarianism. [For an introduction to this approach in real life,
see the recent debate between Mackler, Howie Hawkins, a leading
candidate for the Green Party presidential nomination, and Michael
Albert, a staff writer and editor of Z Magazine, who advocates a safe
state strategy of voting for third party candidates only in states where
Biden is sure to win at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryWNdUvXf_Q].
Nimtz concludes his extremely valuable exposition of the revolutionary
legacy of Marx, Engels, and Lenin with a clear summary of the book’s
relevance:
“For most of the twentieth century, the center of world revolutionary
process was in the so-called Third World. The unprecedented and still
unfolding crisis of global capitalism has shifted the axis of politics
to the advanced capitalist world, where there are far more opportunities
in the electoral and parliamentary arenas—making Lenin’s strategy of
revolutionary parliamentarianism more relevant now than ever. But to
realize its potential, it has to be used. This [book] is a contribution
toward that end for those who are truly anticapitalist and who not only
seek but are willing to fight for a working class alternative” (p. 412).
Read this book. Use voting and elections to build independent
working-class power. Overthrow the capitalist world system.
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___
Richard Dawkins
“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all
decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this
sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running
for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from
within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation,
thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this
very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the
natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons
and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people
are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find
any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has
precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no
purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
― Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
