We wish to lay out here in broad terms our political line and purpose. These lines are a few months late, but the struggle against police brutality over the summer required our immediate attention and an explanation of our politics and goals was left unaddressed.

In the early days of the pandemic, rapidly changing social conditions caused many people to question a society that threw millions out of work, threatened to evict them from their homes in the midst of the pandemic, and struggled to provide any serious relief while the very wealthy saw their net worth increase. Despite this, as increasingly desperate people looked for understanding and solutions, the broad left was able only to muster statements and slogans which, fair to say, did not find an audience among the working class or offer an explanation for the current state of the world.

We began our project from the perspective that, owing to the intensely fragmented nature of the left, there is no socialist movement of any significance. The severely weakened labor movement, its capture by the Democratic party, and the increasingly atomized nature of the working class led us further to the conclusion that there is no independent working class movement. As Lenin argued in “The Urgent Tasks of Our Movement”, the socialist movement without a working class movement leads to the isolation and neutralization of intellectuals and activists, leaving the workers engaged in solely economic (i.e., trade union) struggle. On the other hand, the labor movement separated from socialism leads the workers away from the ultimate aims and necessary tasks of the labor movement. In the absence of both elements, workers and socialist activists can only appeal to the State for partial concessions. In our view, the most pressing need is to raise the political and class consciousness of the workers and clarify the political and economic tasks that lay ahead for the newly developing workers movement.

As part of this program we must acknowledge the existence of numerous socialist and communist micro-sects. In our view, the isolation of these micro-sects, not only from the working class but from each other, has led to a sterile and ineffective intellectual and theoretical environment. Largely absent are polemical articles and debates about the questions facing the working class and socialist movements. Instead, these questions are decided internally and presented to the working class to accept or deny. Discussions are held largely behind closed doors rather than fought out openly and often lead to splits.

Here again we take our cues from Lenin. In his “Draft Declaration of the Editorial Board of Iskra and Zarya”, while discussing the tasks necessary for Russian Marxists to found the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party on a firm basis, he said, “In the first place, it is necessary to develop a common Party literature…it must discuss the questions of the movement as a whole…it must express all shades of opinion and views prevailing among Russian Social-Democrats, not as isolated workers but as comrades united in the ranks of a single organization by a common program and a common struggle…”

We recognize that important political differences exist between Russia in 1900 and the US in 2020. Russian Marxists at the time were organizing into a single organization with a common program, while today the socialist movement in the US comprises multiple micro-organizations with individual political programs and little motive to work together. We must also state that in the same document Lenin warned against the limitation of specifically local Party literature, a limitation that we are aware of in our own work.

Despite the differences, however, there are similarities. The Russian movement was divided into local reading or propaganda circles. Lenin and his collaborators were attempting to unite these local organizations into a single unified party. Today, there is a need in the US for the emergence of a Socialist movement that unites the various micro-sects into a unified party.

While we are certainly not Lenin, we share his view that various opinions must be represented in order build a unified movement. And though we, as the Editorial Board, maintain a distinct political line, we also believe that the growth of the left in theory, practice, and influence among the working class is through serious, but cordial, public polemics between the various tendencies within the Socialist movement and the broader left.

The growth of the left in Lancaster over the summer is a positive step, but as a movement we still face urgent questions. In our view these questions can only be answered through spirited discussion among the various groups in the movement. These conversations also serve to build connections among the groups and even contribute some level of tactical unity for the movement. Our primary goal, however, is to clarify in concert with comrades and potential comrades the political aims and tasks of the left. This project cannot be an end in itself, but rather a step toward the development of an all-US Socialist project. This is the task we must set for ourselves.