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For the liberals in the walls : a party isn't an opinion, or even an ideology. A party is an organisation that seek to hold power.
Inside any party on earth there is divergence in ideologies, and all liberal parties under liberal democracy are expected to have an internal democracy. So if there is democracy and plurality inside of parties, why should there necessarily be multiple parties fighting for power?
The building blocks of liberal democracy are justified by the same myth as the "free market" economics : that competition drive humanity to the best outcome in every domain. This is a capitalist lie. Politics are just like marketing, the more money you pour in the more you sell.
If you want cooperation, why putting people against each other for power by having multiple organisations trying to get it? Why not putting people in responsibility according to the wisdom of the people that are inside one power organisation? Why not having people's representation done by local elections to build an assembly of trusted people rather than marketed people?
If you truly say you are for the proletariat you have to ground yourself to materialist analysis. If you think your theory has more potential that speaks for the people better, then its better that you cooperate with the party that understood the dialectics and led the revolution instead of useless chantings that the one party isn't the way. There's a reason their revolution was successful. Do material analysis first and realize why, than focusing on ideological thinking that "there are always differences". if there are differences then there are ways to solve those differences within the party.
I wouldn't call myself a lib, but this explanation for a one party state makes way more sense than anything else I've seen.
Our explanations can help new socialists too :)
Stick around, maybe you'll learn some more
I'm an anarcho-syndicalist, but I always want to know more about other socialist ideologies. I was never able to understand the one party state of ML, and tbh it was a major friction point for me before now. It makes a lot of sense actually to have struggle-unity-struggle within the party instead of dividing the proles among multiple parties
That’s great to hear!
Out of curiosity, communists would like to see a classless stateless society too, but how do you propose we get there?
Personally I think it will need to be a political revolution rather than a violent revolution, and it has to happen within the imperial core, ideally in the US. I'd say this even if I weren't a US citizen. Modern imperialist powers have military strength far beyond the capabilities of any ground-up proletarian army, and our bourgeois democracy is much more comfortable with extreme action towards leftists. I think a violent leftist revolution in the US would see nuclear weapons being utilized, so for that reason we'd need to have political capture.
To get to that point, we need to start locally and use plain language to explain leftist concepts to people, because the academic jargon can be dense and has a lot of anti-communist propaganda surrounding it. By starting locally, we create the groundwork to move immediately to a classless society rather than a slow transition via socdem. I think it would be best to continue the push for ranked choice voting, but until we get that win, we should use local efforts to radicalize the democratic party from the ground up. The democratic party is very poor at mobilizing local democrats, so local capture should be relatively easy. We will need patience, expecting a socialist president within 8 years is extremely optimistic to say the least and only sets us up for disappointment.
Personally I think it will need to be a political revolution
How are you going to get the bourgeoisie to peacefully relinquish their dominance when they rig primaries against people like Sanders and eliminate threats like the Black Panther Party?
I like to think of it like a union campaign that was found out before filing with the nlrb. It will be challenging, but it's still possible to win with a well organized committee. Their union busting tactics will be backed by their monopoly on violence (alwayshasbeen.jpg), but to me it's better to be arrested 20 times than to be turned into nuclear ash. By focusing locally, we'll have the groundwork to capture the democratic primaries. Above all else, the democratic party wants to win elections, so they'll move left too in the process. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to focus on local elections. Start in small towns, then cities, then counties, then states, and finally federally. The presidency will likely be the very last political position to have a socialist elected.
Above all else, the democratic party wants to win elections
No they don’t, if they did, they’d do something for their constituents instead of deferring to the Republicans even when they had a supermajority
The evidence for me lays in the states of Minnesota and Michigan. In states like New York and California, they have successfully captured the legislature. The democratic party doesn't do shit in those states and seems to be regressing.
However, MN is a solid purple state despite their voting record, and MI has been contested back and forth for decades. Both states got a democratic majority in all branches of government, and they both got hard at work passing year's worth of progressive policies in the last year. In typical liberal fashion they only went after policies that had a supermajority of support, but they likely succeeded in securing the next election because of it.
This is a great explanation, thanks!