Fight Every Front, Support Every Front
Spend enough time in leftist spaces and you will without a doubt encounter an age old argument: What works best — revolution? Direct action? Mutual Aid? Dual Power? Electoralism?
While many will argue that the solution is either one or a couple of the above, the answer is: all of them.
If you step back for a moment and look through the struggle of the working class not as an organizational challenge but rather a full scale war, you begin to see that there are multiple battle fields and fronts in which this war is waged. It is waged in the workplace, via anti-unionism. It is waged in our neighborhoods, through over-policing. It is waged in our society through fascism and hate. It is waged in the halls of government and the apparatus of party politics. It is waged on the airwaves and visual and textual mediums of the day.
Simply put, there is no single answer to the cause of the working class struggle against capitalism. There are only various battlefields on which to wage war on. Those who not only insist that certain battle-lines are not worthy, and worse, who actively seek to undermine those efforts are not allies of the working class. They are individuals who seek influence and power, and to wall themselves around a particular set of ideological beliefs.
If we were a truly working class movement, and if we truly practiced rather than just discussed the concept of solidarity, we would see comrades who take up the proverbial arms on a different battle-line than we individually prioritize as a benefit to the movement. If we attack on all fronts, our enemy cannot muster resources to defend and deflect them all. It is only when we erroneously concentrate our efforts into one ideologically motivated front do we create a situation where our enemy can funnel resources and manpower against.
So we must take up the cause of fighting capitalism in any way we see and can muster resources, and we must do all of the things at once, preferably together and with some level of synchronicity. Direct action must work hand-in-hand with mutual aid and dual power, which both in turn work hand-in-hand with revolutionary struggle. We must be and do all of the things simultaneously, and we must lift one another up and not engage in the petty blocking of one another's efforts.
What Do These Efforts Look Like?
The single greatest challenge we have is moving from rhetorical discussions of ideology and theory into coherent organizing and collaboration. Above all, this has to move beyond just immediate thoughts of “mutual benefit” to individuals and organizations, but rather instead toward combined and coordinated efforts.
Mutual Aid in US leftist spaces has taken on the form simply providing for each others immediate needs, rather than building permanent systems of self-reliance in place and in practice. Or, in other words, instead of providing small dollar donations to help someone cover costs, we’re not building Peoples’ Clinics, Peoples’ Veternarians, Community Garages to actually allow people to come together to achieve mutual aid on a permanent basis. Giving money or. goods in-kind as needed is a temporary stop-gap toward building a socialist future. It meets some immediate needs, but only those willing or able to ask, and usually in a lopsided manner that is unsustainable.
Dual Power is rarely discussed or practiced in the United States as very few people really have thought about the concept beyond term. However, if we’re to build a fully functioning socialist society we must begin building local coalitions that are able to practice and funnel resources and money toward mutual aid and community protection. It must be willing to take risks and directly challenge governmental oversight.
Revolutionary Struggle has not begun to be practiced in the US as leftists are committed to either an ideology of non-violence, or, are taking a “you first” approach, afraid of the carcereal state coming down on them. However, while those looking to engage in revolutionary struggle do not have to be violent, they should be prepared for violence and organize and muster themselves accordingly, constantly reaching out and building up capacity. This should take the form of community defense councils, community rifle and disaster aid associations, and armed leftist patrols that can exact a level of control over a physical space. But if that is not uniformed, disciplined, and organized, it is merely LARPing and adventurism, which is dangerous.
Direct Action in the United States tends to be in the form of mass protests, anger and outrage at politicians for failing to do something, or in support of something. Direct Action in this manner merely asks for politicians to make the change we wish to have. It is largely performative and symbolic, and while occasionally can be helpful, cannot be helpful if planners and organizers do not structure the operations in a way that is that of a larger operation, focusing on the safety, security, and logistics of the event. What ends up happening is hundreds or thousands of people engage in a protest, many leave when the police show up threatening violence, and those who remain risk injury or arrest. Many say the purpose of these actions is to show the inhumanity of the police state. My response to that is we already know: yet another video of a cop shooting a protester isn’t going to shed light on something we’re not already aware of. Protest can be an effective form of Direct Action, but it must be tied to other activities and must be prepared for sustained action.
Other forms of direct action aren’t even yet on the radar of most American leftists. The seizing of and occupation of buildings, infrastructure, or property is not a common thread yet, it is a fringe portion of the population who is “willing to go that far”.
Electoralism is practiced on a variety of ways across the US, most commonly in terms of getting people to show up to vote for specific candidates or ballot measures. It has not widely taken the form of seeking to take control of the Democratic Party from the inside out: for many leftists, they prefer to keep this particular pillar of power at an arms length. However, it presents itself as a clear and possible inroad for people to gain direct power and control over the means of political production.
When socialists take up residency in offices of the Democratic Party at all levels, that removes one more neoliberal from the decision-making ranks. That, however, has not been tried by any coordinated efforts. What is worse, is many well-intentioned leftists who either ‘do not believe’ in electoral politics as a battleground, or have decided that going third-party is the way to go, actually undermine any efforts toward shifting the political discourse in this country. Whether we like to admit it or not, the political apparatus that is the Democratic Party is a dominant force within the US, and one that will likely not be upended by the efforts of third-parties like the Green Party of the US.
No one is asking you to love the party or pledge allegiance to it, we are asking that you help comrades who have taken up the electoral fight. If all that means is you show up and be a vote for them and a vote on the public ballot, then you are practicing solidarity.
The more we see the question of how to fight capitalism as not having an ‘either-or’ answer but a series of ‘and’s, the better we will be equipped to fight it.
In the end, it will take all of us working together on shared goals to achieve socialism in our lifetimes. That means ending the rigidity of most ‘purity tests’ and ending ideological fights. There is no ‘correct’ way to fight capitalism. There are many battle lines and many fights to be had. If we all take up our proverbial arms and fight where we can engage the best in, we will succeed. When mutual aid, dual power, direct action, revolutionary struggle, and electoralism work hand-in-hand with one another, we become an unstoppable force. The wealthy and powerful cannot fight all of the battles at once, they will be forced to divide their resources and dilute their own power while we only grow stronger.
It is our choice how we fight and how organized and disciplined we are. If we choose to continue to operate in a hap-hazard manner without direction, and worse, when we purposefully work to frustrate or sabotage the efforts of our comrades, we inevitably help capitalists in both the near and long term.
If we truly start engaging in in the fight, together, then we will ultimately win the day. Your comrades are your brothers and sisters: you don’t need to like them, but you do need to love them, lift them up, and support them. While I am a libertarian socialist myself, and have plenty of arguments to have with authoritarian socialists, they are still my siblings. They are mine to squabble with, and we will disagree. However, we will have to work out our differences another time, as there are fascists to destroy and capitalism to tear down.
Solidarity isn’t just a word, it is an action. Try actually doing it sometime.
