Why We Need Communist Collectivity, Not Voting
LOS ANGELES (USA)—“At least we won the House of Representatives,” commented a college teacher who likes Red Flag.
“The Democrats won, but we didn’t,” a teacher comrade replied. “They are another capitalist party.”
“That’s true,” the first teacher admitted. She added, “Voters in the US are mainly motivated by fear.”
“That’s true, too,” replied the comrade. “The Republicans mobilized their base by pushing fear of immigrants and black people. The Democrats mobilized their base with fear of the Republicans.
“And that’s part of the reason why working on elections isn’t a good way to get conversations going about the society we really need,” she continued, handing her friend a copy of the new issue of Red Flag.
The most open racism was the Republican campaign attack on the refugee caravan from Central America. Black, latino/a, Muslim and indigenous candidates – especially women – were ridiculed and insulted. Voter suppression unapologetically targeted black and indigenous neighborhoods—and swung key elections.
The bad news is that far too many white workers did not see racism for what it is: an attack on the whole working class. On the other hand, black and latino/a candidates did win races in many mainly-white districts.
The other bad news is what the capitalist media is promoting as the good news: almost half of possible voters actually voted, in spite of the racist suppression. This was the highest turnout for a non-Presidential election since at least 1966. In some places – like Native turnout in North Dakota – attempts at suppression backfired and voting increased.
Why do we say this is bad news? Because voting can’t end racism. Racism is rooted in capitalism’s need to divide and conquer the masses of workers while piling up huge profits from super-exploitation.
The Democrats want us to fear the Republicans but what they fear more is the revolutionary potential of the masses to destroy racist capitalism. Voting is at best a diversion from the real anti-racist work of mobilizing for communism.
The good news is that many people of all ages already see that US capitalism’s two-party system can’t and won’t “fix” what’s wrong with the world today. They want an alternative—and we have it.
A young adult was happy to take Red Flag from a comrade at a post-election meeting of “progressive Democrats.” She’d seen the paper before.
“What do you think about it?” the comrade asked.
“I’m down with it,” she replied, and contact information was exchanged.
There’s more.
Beyond voter suppression lies a bigger issue. The US electoral system was never designed to represent the masses or to let the masses decide anything.
From the start, it was set up to represent states. That meant (and still means) the groups of capitalists who run the states. Even back when fewer than 10% of all US adults could vote, the Constitution took pains to prevent them from having a direct say. Money ruled—not “the people.”
“Progressive Democrats” say they want to “get corporate money out of politics.” The only way to do that is to get rid of the corporations and the whole capitalist money system. And we will – with communist revolution, not by voting!
And more.
Liberal anti-communists make a big deal about communists not believing in “democracy” (voting). That’s true. Voting isn’t the best way to make decisions, even when we are in a position to decide things for ourselves.
The teacher comrade quoted above explained this at a committee meeting at work. “Why would we think that the way to make the best decision for a group is to ask each person what they personally want for themselves as an individual? We should all be thinking about what’s best for the group.”
That’s how communism works now and will work in the future. We try hard to get as many people as possible to participate in communist collectives. In these collectives, we start by asking what the working-class masses most need. We discuss how we can work together most effectively to accomplish that.
Today, we might be deciding how to improve Red Flag or how we can advance the Party industrial work internationally. When we are building communist power in the future, we might be deciding what to produce or how to extend the revolution. Always we need to discuss how to bring more comrades into the Party collectives.
Help us: How can we get you and your friends to join the ICWP? Because that would be a really good thing!
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