PARTISAN!

Conor, Melbourne

Since June, the United States has been beset by a series of violent political spasms. From Los Angeles to New York, the Bonapartist Trump regime has been beset by a new campaign of the United States left and its allies. This campaign has not been confined to the halls of parliament, but has violently erupted into the streets across the country, throwing the old lies of the Cold War asunder in revolutionary ferocity. But there is still much to be done along the path revealed by these events. What can we learn, and what can’t we?

When I use the term “revolutionary ferocity”, I use it earnestly. The outpouring of violence that engulfed Los Angeles in June was not dissimilar from the violence of the Arab Spring or Colour Revolutions. But there was one ingredient missing from the ferment in LA; when ICE entered Los Angeles in May, they met only with disorganised resistance. Dozens of social and political groups strained in their own directions, and in doing so, rendered themselves unable to drive towards their goals. The workers rose to the occasion – to the best of their means – but the activist cliques proved unable to lead.

The non-performance of the leadership in organising the masses as a revolutionary force spelled the failure of the protests. In the absence of a single mass body to mobilize and organise the class, the united struggle quickly dissolved into individualistic rioting, and, eventually, the faux-mass crusade of the No Kings Movement. Far from revolutionary, No Kings rallied to “defend the constitution” and “uphold the republic”. Compounded by their reformist and pacifist orientation, No Kings and their associated groups represent an internal conflict within the ruling class; between high finance and extractive capital, both fighting to impose themselves upon the working class. This broad movement of bourgeois parliamentarism and radical-liberalism stamped out the fires of LA that had been lit by the workers.

The parliamentarian front of this struggle reached its climax in New York; 4,000 kilometers across the country from where the battle had begun. Here, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) took the field. It would be unjust to frame the DSA as a monolithic organisation – they represent a broad grouping from the Marxist Unity Group to the Socialist Workers’ Caucus (SWC) – but the latter holds the plurality in New York City, and, with their anti-revolutionary comrades in Groundwork and the DSA Right, form a majority. With this context in mind, we can begin to understand the qualities of Mamdani’s campaign. While it has been a hallmark instance of a successful socialist electoral campaign, mobilizing mass support and effective strategy, it has failed to mobilize on a legitimately revolutionary platform, or, realistically, with any revolutionary goals whatsoever. His policies, much reflecting those of the DSA Right, instead amount to a laundry-list of reforms that, while they meet the welfare interests of the besieged working class in New York City, hardly threaten the capitalist hegemonies of Wall Street high finance, who Mamdani cannot seem to break from. We must be cautious not to fall back upon “left populism”, the watchword of Mamdani’s most vehement supporters, joining the ranks of Bernie-bros in the abandonment of their revolutionary program in their effort to “appeal to the masses”. Mamdani’s success is our success, but it is also our peril. 

So, with the sum of this summer taken into account, what is the moral for the American Left? Undoubtedly, there are many…

The failure of the LA protests were a symptom of our epoch – the age of the sectarian left – and history has blazed out one clear remedy to these ills; the Mass Party. Only a party that can count on the support of the working class can unite such a protest, and avenge the failures of the sectarian leadership. Only through a certain, revolutionary party can the proletariat be confident in the nature of their goals, and certain in their struggle. Only true democracy – the revolutionary democracy of the socialist workers – can ensure the cadre of this party is of its highest quality, and of its greatest effectiveness. 

No Kings is, too, a reality of our sectarian epoch. Where the socialists proved unable to lead, the bourgeois apparatus took hold, and substituted their own interests for the interests of the working class. It is for this reason that this broad front could not affect change – it was not in their interest. The change that would remove Trump from power would be the same that challenged their hegemony. But, until we build a party of our own, we cannot hope to challenge these ruling interests. Our liberation must be our own project, because it is our interest, and our interest alone.

Mamdani’s campaign foretells our party in utero. The demonstration of the successes and popularity of an openly socialist campaign, compounded by the successes of the DSA Left at the 2025 convention, and the hairs-breadth failure of the Florence Program represent the birthing pains of a mass party in America, only slightly marred by Mamdani’s lackluster program. Regardless of this, the unstoppable birthing pains of the mass party have, without a doubt, begun, upheld by the mandate of tens of thousands of DSA members, and thousands more Americans, who have declared themselves in favor of the party.  Comrades everywhere must now throw off their illusions of “left populism” and Red Scare deceptions, and prepare themselves for the toil of the nativity of the mass party.

With summer coming to an end, our path has been blazed clearly by revolutionary fires. It opens up before us, leading on to liberation, or backwards to the insidious reformism that lays waste our party and our class. Our red autumn is approaching quickly, and we must be prepared to take the harvest.