11-16-07, 9:41 am

The Great October revolution lives. It remains an inspiration to millions of workers and oppressed, spanning the generations. Its legacy endures across the globe. Try as they might, imperialism cannot eliminate it.

The revolutionary socialist flame has weathered many a storm, flickered at times, but today burns brighter than ever.

It burns brighter because socialism is more necessary now than ever. It's more necessary and more possible to win. The inner contradictions of the capitalist system are engulfing it in deeper crises on all fronts that it has absolutely no solutions for.

Socialism is more necessary and more possible because the drive for maximum corporate profits is the prime factor force-marching the world toward environmental catastrophe. As more people realize this, the deepening climate change crisis can accelerate the development of socialist consciousness.

Socialism is more necessary and more possible because the imperialist drive for domination for natural resources and ever-expanding markets has lead to war and preparations for war.

The US economy is increasingly driven by war spending, compelled by the parasitism of the giant military corporations through armaments production and the profit orgy gained from privatization of the Iraq war.

But the war spending is also bankrupting our states and cities, forcing cuts in health care, schools, mass transit, affordable public housing and other vital services.

Socialism is more necessary because the danger has grown for nuclear confrontation, proliferation and annihilation.


Socialism is more necessary and more possible because of the deepening gulf between rich and poor, within the US and globally, the poles of concentrating wealth and expanding poverty, of pandemic diseases, starvation, etc.

As communists we know global capitalism is totally incapable of marshalling society's political will and economic and natural resources to combat these crises.

We have all learned much from the experience of socialism in the 20th century. We continue to draw the lessons from the rich experience, both positive and negative. And we are drawing many lessons and inspiration from the building of socialism today, its variety of paths and forms.

Time allows us to share only a few concepts we see as vital for our experience and for winning socialism in the US.

First, Lenin shapes our view – there are no models for attaining socialism and for developing it. Each working class and people comes to socialism by its own path and constructs it based on its own national history, needs and realities.

There are universal aspects for sure. However, for too long we underplayed the national path and characteristics. The vision of socialism in the US, our concept of 'Bill of Rights Socialism' has deep roots that go back to the 1800s, and has been shaped by our entire history.

Secondly, the path to socialism must take the road of democracy, the struggle for democratic rights, and thereby the expansion of democratic participation at every turn. Without participation in every democratic struggle conceivable, our Party would be sidelined.

The US working class is accumulating great experience in the day-to-day democratic struggles against racism and for full equality, for health care, protection of pension income, public education, against spreading gentrification of cities and for other vital human services.

All these struggles draw in growing sections of the people, deepening their experience, understanding, unity and helping them to draw basic conclusions about the nature of capitalism.

We view the main arena in the struggle for democracy in the US today as the fight against the politically extreme right. Its main form will be a massive mobilization to defeat of the Republican Party candidates in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections.

While the Democrats and Republicans are both fundamentally capitalist parties, our tactical approach doesn't end there. The parties are far different in terms of what sections of monopoly capital dominate them and the social composition at their base. Labor, the African American and Latino communities, the women's movement and others see the Democratic Party as the only viable vehicle for advancing their interests and exert a large influence.

There is no viable third party today that will not split the labor-led people's coalition and that is capable of contending for power. If we didn't work with these forces within the framework of the Democratic Party, we would be politically isolated.

Our goal is to defeat the extreme right as we work simultaneously to strengthen and build mass political independence.

The Republican Party suffered a historic defeat in the 2006 Congressional elections. This was a great victory for the labor-led people's coalition. But it was also only a partial one. A Republican defeat in the 2008 elections would extend this victory, shift the political balance of forces further and open a new stage of struggle to end the Iraq War and for democratic rights.

The Republicans have lost ground on nearly every issue since they suffered defeat in 2006. 70% of the American people want an end to the Iraq war, large majorities believe in universal health insurance, and for the right to organize into unions.

At the heart of the struggle for democracy is the fight for full equality for African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and other nationally and racially oppressed and women. The struggle for equality is also a struggle for multi-racial class unity. Without large numbers of white workers won to the struggle against racism, social progress is not possible.

The struggle for democracy is one to expand the rights of workers, particularly the right to organize trade unions.

The struggle for democracy unfolds in democratic participation in the electoral arena, broadening the right to vote, reforming the electoral laws to allow the creation of a labor-led third party and other politically independent movements.

Thirdly, the struggle for socialism will be a majority movement. Therefore, it requires mobilization at the grassroots of tens of millions of active, conscious participants.

Because the struggle for socialism is a majority movement, it will take a broad people's coalition led by labor to achieve it. We will not be alone. The seeds of the coalition for socialism are seen today in our broad alliances against the extreme rightwing and on many issues.

The heart of this coalition is the core force of the multi-racial working class, the nationally and racially oppressed, women and youth. We do not believe a socialist movement will be successful in the US without the participation of all these core forces. We believe a broad coalition; a majority movement will make it possible to achieve socialism peacefully.

Fourthly, we believe the struggle to win workers power will pass through many stages, and it will be a more protracted and complicated process that we previously thought. Each stage will be marked by different balance of class and social forces, different alliances and democratic tasks.

The current stage of struggle is to defeat the political extreme right wing representing in the forces around the Bush administration and its allies in the US Congress. They include the giant transnational corporations of the oil and energy, military and pharmaceutical industries and the extreme right wing ideologues and social movements.

The alliance against the ultra right is a multi-class alliance, includes some sections of the capitalist class who are not in agreement over the direction of the extreme right. The struggle against the extreme right is a basic struggle for democracy because extreme right is so intent on destroying it.

Once the labor-led people's movement has delivered a decisive defeat to the extreme rightwing, the working class and its allies can then take aim at the capitalist class as a whole. More basic fundamental measures to curb the power of the transnational corporations will be the order of the day. However, the danger from the right will exist so long as the economic and social forces that make it up continue to exist.

Fifthly, we envision that the consolidation of the victory of working class power and the building of socialism will also entail many stages.

Sixthly, we believe the construction of US socialism must be guided by sustainable development. The crisis of the environment is a social crisis for humanity. The window of opportunity to begin to reverse the damage will not stay open indefinitely. This crisis is so severe it requires action now even without the attainment of a system of global socialism.

Even under the best of scenarios, the impact will be deep and long lasting. The recent conference on climate change by the UN suggested that humanity must begin to prepare now for inevitable large-scale environmental and social crises caused by global warming, desertification, melting of the glaciers, polar ice caps, etc. Humanity will have to be marshaled and the communists will be in the forefront of this.

Ultimately, socialist reorganization, global collective action, will be required for fully sustainable development and to clean up the mess.

Lastly, socialist construction must be geared to involving conscious millions in grassroots democratic forms and a socialist political culture.

Let me conclude with the following. The Internet has made communication much easier and cheaper for us all. Had John Reed had the power of the Internet during the Great October Revolution he would have blogged 'Ten Days that Shook the World.'

It is a tool we can use more effectively. Shortly, we will begin publication of an on-line daily version of our newspaper, reaching hundreds of thousands of new readers. The Internet not only allows for communication of Marxist ideas to billions, it also opens up the possibilities for collective global action for mobilizing billions into action to save the earth, to win peace, to struggle for democratic rights and to win and build socialism.

--Edited and Abridged version of a speech delivered at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, 2007, Minsk, Belarus.