BUILDING CLASS INDEPENDENCE IN DEEDS, NOT WORDS

Discussion of ‘the party’ and ‘class independence’ are not academic or far off concerns: they are central preoccupations in the history of the socialist movement. We do not see this upcoming convention solving these questions definitively. Nor do we think that calls for a new party (or suggestions we stay within the precincts of the Democratic Party) adequately address the big questions facing our members, our movement, and how we want to do politics in a period of both retrenchment and more confident class struggle. We have tried to stay humble, focus on the immediate strategic questions at hand, and think through the calls to build a party and facilitate class independence with all the warranted sobriety. 

ON CLASS INDEPENDENCE

We see class independence as a consequence of strong mass organizations rather than a consequence of line-struggle over one policy plank or another. Building class independence in deeds, not words, means building up a fighting working class that does not defer to professionals, politicians, nonprofits or advocates to solve problems for them, but a working class that is willing and able to do politics in the first person; it means not only–or even primarily–an independent ballot line but a suite of organizations where we fight and think for ourselves. Therefore building class independence requires that we grow deep roots within the working class communities that we’re living and working in.