Eleven Theses for the Campaign for a Socialist Party in the U.S.

1.) We are exploring interest in starting a mass socialist political party in the U.S.

2.) Mass = more than a sect (small or large); Socialist = more than merely democratic or liberal; Political = going beyond social and economic actions, including but not primarily or limited to holding political office; Party = more than a movement or organization.

3.) This will be an unprecedented undertaking, and in many respects the first real political party in the U.S. — The only precedents are the old pre-World War I Socialist Party of America and, before that, the Republican Party of the mid-19th century.

4.) We want to include as much of the present avowed Left as possible, from liberals to anarchists; we find the existing Left to consist of talented organizers and thinkers, but they need a new and different context to be effective; now they are condemned to ineffectiveness — or to more or less support the Democrats.

5.) We are looking ahead to a decades-long, painstaking and patient but deliberate and serious process; the building of a mass socialist political party will fundamentally alter the political but also the social landscape in the U.S. and internationally — globally.

6.) The aim is to take governing power in the U.S. — This does not preclude and indeed aims at doing so in direct political cooperation with similar parties taking power in other countries.

7.) Now, in 2016, is a good time to begin this project, because of the disarray of the existing parties as well as of society. There is a window of opportunity with a new generation to embark on a political task and possibility that has been avoided since the 1960s New Left and also avoided since the 1930s Old Left — both of which were conditioned and distorted by the gravitational attraction of the Democratic Party as well as the dynamics of anti-Communism and the Cold War. We are past this now and so can proceed to build socialist politics free of such pressures.

8.) The Sanders campaign is a distraction from this task because it is a desperate attempt to reform the Democrats which will not happen; and even if it did, would not lead to socialism in any way.

9.) All existing Left social, economic, civic, legal and political activism — of all kinds — should be conducted under the political banner of the struggle for socialism. We need to make all these disparate struggles coherent for any of them to be effective. Such struggles should take place in and through a socialist party.

10.) In the immediate future, the goal is to reconfigure U.S. politics in terms amenable to a socialist Left: the Republicans should be the capitalist party; the Democrats should be the party of middle-class democracy. A socialist party should be for the working class in its struggle for socialism.

11.) Socialism will be the realization of the social potential made possible — but held back — by capitalism. We need a party to pursue the politics of this task. — Join us!

February 28, 2016