This article was originally published in English on the Left Voice site, part of the La Izquierda Diario International Network in the United States.
The same day Zohran Mamdani met with Donald Trump at the White House, 86 Democrats joined Republicans of the House of Representatives to approve a resolution that “denounces the horrors of socialism”. Among those who voted in favor was the leader of the Democratic minority, Hakeem Jeffries, who has just been supported by Mamdani himself who claims to be a democratic socialist.
This bipartisan condemnation it doesn’t come out of nowhere. It occurs after the “Mamdani phenomenon”where millions of workers, especially young people, saw their aspirations for a fairer future reflected in the flag of “democratic socialism“In fact, behind this lies an entire generation shaped by the pandemic and the anti-racist Black Lives Matter movementwhich has exposed the deep contradictions of the capitalist system. While workers were exploited and attacked, the rich benefited immensely. Now, in the face of continuing wars and the rising cost of living, many see that the fight for affordability involves making the billionaire class pay for the crises that they themselves generate.
The timing of this vote in Congress is revealing. A recent NBC poll shows that less than 50% of Americans registered to vote hold a vision favorable of capitalismwhile many lean towards socialism. These figures are older among the youngwith a 62% of people between 18 and 29 years old who have a favorable view of socialism. Faced with these changes, the bipartisan political establishment—both Republicans and Democrats—is closing ranks. They observe these changes in consciousness and recognize that The threat does not lie only in Mamdani, but in the growth of a new political consciousness among the working class and youth. His denunciation of socialism is part of his desperate attempt to overcome any challenge to this two-party system and prevent the emergence of new political formations that challenge the imperialist and capitalist system, and that, in fact, put on the table the fight for a socialist future.
Given this, the response of some members of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party was particularly revealing. When asked about it, Mamdani did not condemn the resolution and attributed it to simple ideological differences. For her part, in a publication in X, the representative Rashida Tlaib, who voted against the resolution, declared that the establishment feels “threatened by democratic socialists like me, who have not sold out and are willing to take on the billionaire class,” and praised the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a party that supported his candidacy like Mamdani’s within the Democratic Party.
This highlights an important tension. During the Last decade, tens of thousands of people have turned to the DSA in search of political space in their fight for socialism. These activists, organizers and workers deserve a fighting chance. But that opportunity Can’t be found trusting the Democratic Partythe same party whose leadership has just officially denounced our struggles and ideals. The path forward requires breaking with this dead-end strategy and fighting to build a party that truly defends our fight for socialism.
In the face of the lies and alarmism of the political establishment, dWe must defend the flags of the socialist left. His legacy is not the caricature presented in Congress; It is the legacy of millions of workers and oppressed who fought to end capitalist exploitation.
We defend the legacy of the workers and peasants of Russia who, a century ago, overthrew the tsarist regime and formed their own organs of power: the soviets. They defended their revolution from both the right and the reactionary White Army, backed by the imperialist powers, which attempted to crush them. Led by revolutionaries such as Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, the Bolsheviks fought for the self-organization of the working class and the expansion of dual power. They were the struggles that generations of Bolsheviks waged (like today’s young people who try to conceive a different society) alongside the country’s working class. They managed to institute policies such as the Family Codes, which sought to address patriarchy by secularizing marriage, establishing no-fault divorce, and decriminalizing homosexuality—early attempts to reorganize social life based on human needs, not profit.
We defend the legacy of the workers and peasants of China and Cubawho understood that the fight against imperialism was intrinsically linked to the fight against capitalism. It was his aspirations that They forced the leaders to expropriate the capitalists and landowners. These were monumental achievements snatched from the clutches of capitalist exploitation, even when they later degenerated into Stalinist and bureaucratic regimes.
Es it is legacy—the legacy of class struggle, of the self-emancipation of the working class and of the fight for a non-profit world—that we must defend and fight for today. Congress’ bipartisan resolution shows us precisely why We cannot trust the political caste that defends Wall Street. His denunciation of socialism is an attempt to absolve capitalism in general, and American imperialism in particular, of the blood that stains its hands, from the endless cycles of economic crises, imperialist interventions and wars to the daily violence of poverty and oppression.
The anti-socialist resolution of Congress demonstrates that the fight for our own organizations cannot wait. To honor the legacy of those before us and secure our future, to give all those who wish to fight for socialism a true fighting chance, we must denounce these attempts to channel our hopes back toward two-party imperialist rule. We must fight for build an organization that openly fights for the end of capitalist misery and for socialism. We need a working-class socialist party that not only defends our heritage with words, but fights for a new world with deeds: a world run by and for working people: not for profit, but based on human needs.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
