For a United Front of Caucuses,

or for a Convention United Front;

How can a Local Labor Party be Built?

The question has been posed more concretely, given acceptance of our proposal, how can a local Labor Party be established? Can DSA’s National Convention inaugurate, or build, such a Party, locally? It can not.

The creation of a Labor Party in name, does not entail it’s creation in fact. Otherwise, the US would already have several Labor Parties. The foundation of any Labor Party, in fact, is the elected representation of the organized working class. This process must first begin on a local level, by the rank and file, if it has any hope of moving on to the creation of a National Party. Since, the foundation of our party rests on organized workers, on their hegemony, it can be only their rightfully elected representatives that can inaugurate such a National Party. If we were to start a Worker’s Party for them, from our national convention, and then petition unions to vote in representatives, and affiliate to the National Party, preemptively defined by us, we would be making the same mistake as the two other dominant urban-parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. The Worker’s Party distinguishes itself from other merely urban parties, in that it is the creation of the organized working class alone. This act can only be done by it’s own elected political representatives, not those which are chosen for it, in our classes name, only.

We can see, now, that there is a distinction between those Parties existing, floating, from above, on a National level, based upon their urban-affiliates, and a Party belonging exclusively to (and determined by) the working class, in it’s organized rank and file formations, from below. History can show us, as well, the unfolding of the process whereby the one type transforms (or rather decays) into the other. We've seen this in the British Labor party, the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the Australian Labor Party, and even the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, which was to eventually to become the Soviet Union. In all these Parties, we see their formation being initiated by the rank and file of the organized working class, but then, after Party formation, a bureaucratic disconnect begins to form between the rank and file. National representatives seize hegemony, above, and at the expense of, the agency of the organized rank and file. This takes place through a myriad of methods, most commonly through an alliance of local affiliates to the National organization, through private agreements and correspondence. These local-national affiliates, then, acquire hegemony at a local level, for the national representatives. The rank and file loses it’s capacity for agency, even if not on a strictly formal level, through increasing identification with the National agency, at expense of it’s capacity for elective initiative, recall and criticism, term limits, and democratic regulation, as increasingly arcane rules, codes, and conventions emerge. In short, accountability for the National becomes increasingly impossible as the rank and file becomes depoliticized by the hopelessness of the situation.

This depoliticization, then, brings about gradually a new process, whereby the National representatives and affiliates begin to deconstitute, through austerity measures, political and economic gains won by the rank and file organization. From the perspective of the National, the ‘resources’ (in reality, the capacity of workers for agency) at their hand begin to increasingly diminish, and so their new situation must be managed. This, to them, constitutes ‘effective’ and ‘skillful’ organization! This ‘skill’ is their prime qualification, against the average worker, for their position! Workers become even more hopeless in their depoliticization, as they become drowned in ‘trainings’ for any hope of political engagement with an apparatus that becomes increasingly foreign and alien to them in its purpose and functioning.

As the situation becomes increasingly desperate, and certain sections of the rank and file become antagonistic towards the status quo hegemony, the National affiliates adopt new tactics to manage the situation of decline. Everything possible is done to reform the Party structure into ‘sections of membership’ with unique, and incompatible (because of the narrowness of the National’s own political vision and capacity) interests, cultures, and programs. Because of the National's hegemony, these new understandings of the situation become established fact, and rank and file agents of the organized working class with accountable political representatives, become sectional members of a purely National affiliation, with their political representatives increasingly becoming ‘organizers’ of their own trained, ‘competing interests.’ As a consequence, workers find themselves without any (actually qualified, as accountable representatives) political leadership whatsoever. The concept of the worker’s party is either abandoned entirely for purely national organizations, or hollowed out and made practically impossible.

So we come back to the question, how can a local Worker’s Party be built? We must re-empower the organized working class, by permanently instituting their right for their election of political representatives. Our role as Socialist intellectuals is not only to institute this democratic right, but to safeguard and protect it with our lives. The local rank and file of all established worker’s organizations must be given the right, and facilitation, to elect political representatives in open elections. Once elected, Socialists must facilitate the regional, public conference of these representatives, given financial compensation with average wages, as well as supporting and documenting decisions made at said conferences, ensuring accountability and transparency to rank and file workers. This task can only begin by a local United Front of Caucuses, both of the rank and file organized workers, and of local Socialists, to ensure the fair and proper functioning of elections for political representation. Once established, a model will be formed for other, regional DSA locals to reflect, forming new regional, local sections of laborer's party representation. The meeting of these political locals creates the only, functional possibility for the movement of workers onto the National, and even International, arenas. To establish such a Party the other way around (via a National convention) turns the process on it’s head, and implicitly and functionally transfers representative hegemony to the National leadership and initiators, above any other ‘parties’ invited into affiliation subsequently; such parties are relegated into a passive and ‘supporting’ role.

And some parties may say, “well, I acknowledge your opinion, but I maintain my vision of what is and is not a labor party, and what I’m doing is building towards one.” And to them, all one can really say is that they have abandoned the Class to the Party of another. As is, of course, their right; one which we maintain the need of, and fight with our lives and bodies to defend. Their ultimate gain from our labor? That they can be more clear-minded in their administration of Capitalism, as while they may speak of worker’s parties, in the end, the affect of their national projects merely maintains the status quo of the urban elites, and builds foundations for new ones, at the expense of the possibility of their contribution to functional political representation for the working class.

DSA United Front proposal letters;

to our major caucuses..