Around two years ago, I met with a couple of men from a small Trotskyist organization called The International Bolshevik Tendency. Mainly based in the Northeast and California, this small group of orthodox Trotskyites has very radical goals for a group of their size. One of the men, a guy I was regularly in touch with for about a year, talked about their organization, explaining why they weren't a "party" persay, rather a propagandist group waiting for conditions to ripen here in the U.S. in order for a revolution to commence. Fair enough, however if you look on the group's website, you shall notice that they spend a great deal of their time bashing other Trotskyist and Socialist/Communist groups, mainly the International Communist League, formely known as the Spartcist League from Rosa Luxenburg's famous group, who they split with over 25 years ago after a member was expelled for alleged sexual misconduct, something of which the IBT disagrees with. Now my issue is, how do they expect to do anything about spreading propaganda among the working masses, much less foamenting revolution, when they spend so much energy fighting with people who essential say and believe the same thing?
This is the story of America's Left, warring factions of dogmatic socialists and communists over who's right or wrong, whether they should try to work within major parties (Democratic Socialists of America and to some degree the Communist Party USA) or sit around waiting for society to digress to the point where revolution occurs and then seize power (almost every existing Trotskyist), or form a separate party to contest elections (SPUSA and the Party for Socialism and Liberation). It is like Monty Python's "Life of Brian", where the anti-Roman imperialist groups fought over who were the most correct. Only the anarchists seem to have their act together. Although they are similar in numbers to those of the Socialist Party USA and DSA, they are essentially united because of their non-hierarchical ideology. However, they are not without fault as well, for they are just as unorganized over essential demands as much as socialists. I refer to the recent G-20 protests, where interviewed anarchists told reporters they are essentially protesting capitalism, along with their own personal political issues. Now I support actions against globalization, but we need to understand that as good as protesting may be, we need to do more.
What the left needs, more than ever, is a unite front. And I understand that group like the Communist Party will argue "there's no point, united fronts only lead to more harm than good", but unfortunately, with the current situation of the Left, we are going NOWHERE unless we organize, put aside our egotistical and dogmatic ideological differences, and realize that we are all unite by common themes: anti-globalization, anti-capitalism, international solidarity, LGBT rights, immigrant rights, and labor rights. We are all socialists in some form, whether we follow Debs, Berstein, Marx, Lenin, Kropotkin, we all strive to improve society by going against the rampant free market. Not only that, but we need to campaign in the most conservative places of the country, in order to educate the youth about the dangers of globalization and the necessity for a socialist society. Unless we recognize that we are different and accept those differences to unite, the Left will never make a significant dent in American politics or society, and we can expect the elite of this nation to continue to rise at the expense of common Americans and the poor of the world.
