How do we go from where we are to socialism? Not an easy question and there is more than one contradictory approach on the left and even in and around our Party. There is much in Marxist theory and methodology to help give us a general approach, while the actual course of development and struggle will demand concrete answers.

Lenin's analysis of Marxism is that it consists of three interdependent aspects – its philosophy of dialectical and historical materialism, its political economy of capitalism, and its theory of socialist revolution. The first aspect provides both its methodology and its laws and theory of social development. The second focuses on relations of people to each other in the process of production and the laws and theory of the development of the mode of production. The heart of the theory of socialist revolution is the Marxist theory of strategy and tactics. Strategy deals with the qualitative turns in the balance of forces that it is necessary to seek and the class and social forces and political trends and social movements that can be won for that qualitative turn, and the main opponent in relation to that turn. Tactics deals with the most useful issues, demands, forms of struggle and forms of organization to achieve the alignment of class and social forces, in the first place, necessary to win the strategic objective or qualitative turn in the balance of forces. Tactics should serve the objective of realizing the strategy.

The whole of the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin dealing with advancing the struggle for progress and socialism center on defining what would constitute a qualitative turn in the relationship of class and social forces that moves forward, and then defining the class and social forces for those goals and against them. Beginning in The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels call on the developing German working class movement to ally with the German Democratic Party. This was the party of the rising German capitalist class, for the purpose of replacing feudalism. Already we see the concept of alliance of the working class with a temporary ally which will certainly later become its main opponent. This is the same idea that Lenin puts forward in Left Wing Communism of alliances no matter how temporary or partial with other class and social forces. Beginning in 1897, the 27 year old Lenin began to define a strategic stage before that of proletarian socialist revolution, the democratic stage of the struggle against absolutist Czarism. This two stage strategy is what Lenin put forward in his famous work on strategy and tactics, Two Tactics of Russian Social Democracy. He defined the class alignment sought for the democratic stage, and the class alignment sought for the proletarian socialist stage.

In 1935, the world Communist movement at the 7th World Congress, including the CPUSA, agreed there was a necessary stage prior to the socialist revolution and that was the defeat of world fascism and its threat around the world including within the US, that would require a united front of the working class on the basis of the anti-fascist struggle and a popular front of all other class and social forces with the working class, including the democratic section of the capitalist class, to defeat the fascist section of the capitalist class and open the road for further progress.

In 1952-54 the CPUSA concluded in its then new basic program that there was a necessary strategic stage defined as radically curbing the power of the monopolies necessary to open the way to working class political power and the construction of socialism. This was based on the recognition that capitalism was dominated completely by its monopoly capital sector but there were other sectors of capitalism that need not always line up with the monopolies.

In 1980, on the initiative of Gus Hall, the Party called attention to a differentiation in the ranks of the monopoly capitalists between an ultra right sector and a more moderate sector. He projected the building of an all people's front to defeat the ultra right. This position was developed further over the years and codified in the new basic program adopted in 2005 at the 28th Convention. This included the concept that we sought a coalition of class forces led by the working class and labor movement in which there were core allies of the working class consisting of the racially and nationally oppressed, women and youth, allied with additional forces such as the LGBT community, seniors, family farmers, small business, professionals, intellectuals, and self-employed, and even the more moderate and reasonable monopoly capitalist sector to defeat reaction (the ultra right) led by a sector of monopoly capital based in the military-industrial complex; pharmaceuticals, a section of finance capital, etc.

We thus concluded there would need to be three stages of struggle to socialism, (1) that of defeating the ultra right; (2) the radical curbing of the power of monopoly as a whole and (3) the stage of seeking and winning working class led political power in alignment with the other core forces and additional allies for the purpose of constructing a socialist society. The victory at each of these stages would shift the relationship of forces in favor of the interests of the working class and other core forces and would make it substantially easier to move on to the next stage. The stage of defeating the ultra right was not an arbitrary creation of subjective desires. It reflected objective changes in the further development of state monopoly capitalism as a result of internationalization of economic life and the dominance of transnational monopolies ("globalization") and "financialization" of US and world capitalism, which resulted in development of different political trends among sectors of monopoly capital, which had substantial influence on non-monopoly sectors of the population.

In 1952 when the anti-monopoly coalition concept was put forward as a stage before that of working class power and socialist construction, there were those who argued this would slow down rather than speed up reaching the fight for socialism. Why bother with anything prior to winning socialism? Its supporters were called revisionists and social democrats for slowing down the struggle to reach socialism. Some even argued the struggle to reach socialism was simply a matter of the fight of the working class against the capitalist class and nothing else really mattered or was actually a diversion. But this line of reasoning was actually a departure from Marx, Engels and Lenin.

It was based on several wrong concepts. One was a negative attitude toward the fight for reforms that if won could somewhat and for a while ameliorate the lives of working people. This was considered "reformism" that would necessarily give rise to illusions among masses of working people and slow down the development of "revolutionary consciousness". What was needed was exposure of all the evils of capitalism and of the politicians, public figures and organizations that supported it. The logic of this is that fights are waged to "expose" capitalism, not to win anything; "the worse the better" serves best such exposure. What needed to be mastered is the most persuasive propaganda and agitation and the techniques of its delivery to an ever-growing number of people. Learning how most skillfully to make arguments against capitalism and to conduct these exposures and deliver the message in the most attractive manner, that was the entire business of revolutionaries. This propaganda and agitation was the heart of a revolutionary path to winning socialism.

But Lenin argued many times that propaganda and agitation were needed but alone would never win socialism. He argued that the millions learned through their own experience in struggle which required a mass action level based on what masses were willing currently to undertake. This means that the struggle for reforms, no matter how small, were necessary to being able to engage the millions in the experience they needed in struggle to advance their consciousness and activity. The path to revolution was impossible except through the struggle for reforms. The struggle for reforms and "reformism" were different things. The reformist views reforms as completing all that is necessary, as completely satisfying the needs of the working class and thus bringing the struggle to an end in themselves. And Lenin pointed out the working class needed victories, alongside of the inevitable defeats of struggle, to learn their own strength and to develop full class consciousness. Agitation was important when combined with the current level of struggle to prepare to draw the lessons needed to go on to amore advanced levels of struggle. The purpose of putting forward intermediate strategic goals and stages is to be able to involve the millions in struggle at the level for which they are prepared to act and in doing so win a victory which shifts the balance of class and social forces and makes possible millions struggling for the next possible qualitative shift in the relationship of forces, each of which moves the struggle ahead toward socialism and makes the advance easier and more certain because of the prior shifts in relationship of forces achieved in previous stages. Thus the defining of intermediate strategic goals and the struggle for these reforms is the only possible road to socialism. A policy of no fight for reforms, no intermediate strategic goals is tantamount to a policy of only propaganda and agitation and the worse the better. These approaches pose to the masses of working people what one's aims really are, whether they are really on the side of the working people.

Propaganda Lenin defined as being for the ultimate goals, for socialism, relating it to the present level of mass struggle, but not expecting it to become the cause of the millions as yet, but rather something to be seriously considered by the most advanced and thereby to be important to building the organizations of the advanced forces, the Communist Party, etc. Thus it is important but on its own will not win socialism or be the basis of masses entering into and learning from their own experience in struggle. In a certain sense, today when the millions are not ready to follow the lead of the Communists, even when the Party circulates material widely that deals only with immediate issues of struggle and does not discuss socialism, it is still propaganda in its relation to masses and therefore, while being an important part of the work of a Communist Party, it is not the central aspect of participating among mass organizations and masses on the issues on which they are currently ready to move and recognizing that consciousness will go through stages corresponding to the strategic stages of the struggle the Party has outlined. The Party of course wants to increase its own visibility and agitation and propaganda but even more important is to increase its involvement with masses in struggle through the forms of struggle and organization and on the issues with the demands they currently support. In such participation, the central role of the Party is to build unity at that level, help defeat all efforts to break up that unity such as with racism, help activate the broadest masses, and help prepare the ground for the next level of mass action.

Those who do not see the necessity for and possibility of intermediate strategic goals and struggles tend to limit themselves to propaganda and agitation which is an approach of middle strata intellectuals who spend all their time on perfecting their written and oral messages in their many forms and try to "revolutionize" and rope off a tiny sector of people under their "hegemony", and continually add to this group, all the way to socialism. But such hegemony does not last as their isolation off on the side from mass struggle becomes obvious to the people they temporarily roped off.

Lenin not only placed the question of temporary, partial allies but also of long lasting basic allies for the working class. In Two Tactics he saw the poor and middle peasants as allies of the working class in the first, democratic, stage of the Russian revolution and the poor peasants as the ally of the working class in the proletarian stage of the revolution for socialism. In 1922 at the Second Congress of the Peoples of the East, Lenin amended the final words of The Communist Manifesto to read, "Workers and Nationally Oppressed of the World Unite!" He always rejected as a distortion of Marx the idea of "the working class" alone against the "capitalist class." The stage of the struggle determined the possibility of allies for the working class and how temporary or long lasting.

In our basic program we warned that the transition from stage to stage would not be a simple, neat process. On one day we would be in stage one and the next we would be in stage two, etc. The qualitative change from the anti-ultra right stage to the anti-monopoly stage would be a complex process with victories and losses even while on a whole the change moved ahead and was consolidated. Now we would add, it is a more easily reversible process than would be going back from constructing socialism to restoring capitalism. Thus a transitional process from the full domination of the ultra right to full domination of anti-monopoly forces was and is the only way it can take place. We also know the electoral victory of the Obama Administration replacing the domination of the ultra right could only be achieved by a coalition of class and social forces and of political trends that was internally contradictory and was bound to have differences of positions on virtually every issue of importance. The winning coalition consisted of labor, the African American, Mexican American and other Latino peoples, Asians, Native Americans and other oppressed peoples, women, youth, LGBT community and others, including the more reasonable, flexible section of monopoly. In relation to political trends it had a substantial block of progressives who were generally anti-monopoly as a whole and an even larger block of moderates who were not anti-monopoly but only anti the ultra right. These were not only the more moderate monopoly capitalists themselves but much of the mass following that supported Hillary Clinton.

This coalition in which our first African American President plays the leading role was necessary to beat the ultra right in 2008 and remains necessary in order to defeat the sharp counterattack of the ultra right we are experiencing and to complete a decisive victory over it, reflected in a sufficient majority in the Senate as well as the House to pass legislation that moves forward and to remove the ultra right from its last bastions of control such as the Supreme Court. This coalition while holding together as a whole needs labor, the nationally oppressed and the other core forces to play an increasingly big role and for the progressive trend to gain strength, without pushing the moderates over to siding with the ultra right. And it should be kept in mind that there will be some shifting of forces according to the issue and the particular interests affected, so that at moments when the interests of moderate monopoly sectors are being confronted they will tend to shift to the right.

The difficulty is how to keep such a range of forces together, while increasingly meeting the needs of the core forces on issues like jobs and housing and not unnecessarily push moderate "independents" into the arms of the ultra right. How to bring the progressive trend forward increasingly with more of general anti-monopoly demands and issues without pushing moderate sections into the arms of the ultra right. One answer to this is for progressives to support proposals for more aid and concessions for small business and other middle strata in return for their support of the main demands of labor and the nationally oppressed.

Whatever criticisms one may have of the Obama Administration it is clear that the direction of the Bush Administration for the country has been radically changed and moves in the opposite direction. One may say, not fast enough, not with advanced enough alternatives and in a few cases like Afghanistan, not at all. One may also say the Obama appointees are a mixed bag. But given the character of the winning coalition as discussed and the fact that Obama himself is not for socialism and is not opposed to monopoly interests on all issues or to a full extent, it was to be expected the appointees would be well-divided among progressives and moderates. It was expected the moderates would control the economy, on grounds experienced knowledgeable well-respected figures were needed given the crisis and the same in foreign and defense policy and management. And the chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is from that grouping.

On almost no issue did Obama pursue the full demands of the progressives and in a manner the progressives fully desired. That is also to be expected given the character of the coalition that is facing the ultra right. Then, how do we judge the actions taken and how do we ensure the coalition as a whole moves forward rather than stalling out or even moving backward? How can the coalition be consolidated and steadily advance as a result of an internal process of differences on issues and tactics within a framework of consolidating unity?

The first thing is the necessity of recognizing who is the enemy and the strength and danger of that enemy. That enemy is clearly the ultra right dominated by that sector of monopoly and finance capital, which has great resources and still has powerful positions in government, the media and many aspects of US society. It has the Republican Party and most of its internal divisions, including the so-called populist extreme right of tea baggers and other assorted racists and fanatical groups. Its concentration is on the person of President Obama but it uses a range of demagogic positions against "big government", "deficit spending" and for untrammeled competition, etc. These have strong overtones of racism, also. These are the real alternatives to the Obama Administration and the present Congressional majority for the 2010 and 2012 elections. Therefore, no one has a free ride to attack President Obama and his Administration from the left without taking this into account.

Progressives include a left sector with a socialist and Communist component. We do not and should not judge things only by what is needed to completely fix a given social problem. In fact in many cases not even socialism will completely solve every problem immediately. So failing to propose or fight for "what is necessary" can not be the only criteria of judgment. The actual relationship of forces must also be assessed to judge whether the actions stand the test of the times. And some room must be given for knowledge of the concrete situation in Congress that the progressive forces may not have, in terms of why specific members of the House and Senate take the positions they do and to what extent they will respond to mass pressure and to arm twisting by denial of Congressional largess, etc.

The decisive question is the buildup of mass activism, mass movements, mass action to higher and higher levels and in doing that to counter discouragement and loss of confidence. Differences within the coalition can and should and will be expressed, and there will be various pushes and pulls but all must be aware of not helping the enemy and for the need to keep the coalition together including with the Obama Administration, or all the inner differences come to nothing. This sets a framework of how differences are expressed. The right wing and the media will take every difference and try to enlarge it and pose it as a break from the coalition and especially from the President. In any kind of a coalition, whether neighborhood, city-wide or national, differences are inevitable and the same basic rules apply as to how to handle them if one values the existence of the coalition and sees others as the main enemy. The basis of the coalition can not be the maximum position of the most left forces It will vary from issue to issue but can not be too far ahead of the moderates or too far behind the moderates, to be able to hold together, and advance.

It is only with such an approach that we can defeat the counterattack of the ultra right, complete the defeat of the ultra right (they will never be completely defeated during capitalism) and complete the transition fully into the general anti-monopoly stage of struggle. Because of its Marxist outlook and character as a Communist Party, we have been able to establish these strategic stages, strategy for this transition period, and tactics to accomplish it, in a way that is exemplary for all the other democratic forces. The bigger and stronger the Party is the more it will be able to contribute to assuring this direction of development, which is the only possible road to socialism.