Under the Free Bus: A Response to Eric Blanc’s "Critique is Easy: What’s Your Plan For Power?"

Comrade BRG

No longer does the White Left support the ultimate cause of the working class and its historical revolutionary role. Instead, the White Left subsumes its hunger for White bourgeois legitimacy behind Marxist rhetoric and intellectual masturbation. The White Left and its major organizations support only "safe," tame, reformist struggles, labelling all who would go further in developing revolutionary contradictions as "adventurists." The racist character of the White Left is concealed behind a progressive pretense only one step- removed from White bourgeois liberalism. Seldom, if ever, does the White Left support the right of Black people to national self-determination, and their right to organize an armed capacity to resist the aggression of the Euro-Amerikan Capitalist State. - An Open Letter to the White Left

Eric Blanc’s recent piece Critique is Easy: What’s Your Plan for Power raises several important questions that I personally believe are necessary for DSA and the movement as a whole to struggle with. One of the benefits of DSA is that it allows open and comradely struggle over key questions, such as: What is the correct behavior of a social-democratic elected official, particularly in an executive position? (Zohran isn’t a socialist, to be a socialist in the Maoist sense means being a Communist, aka a firm partisan of the principle that this system will not end with anything except an overthrow of what currently exists and its replacement by a dictatorship of the proletariat). Another question: How do we secure real power over the police, and is this even possible while we live under fascism? History has shown that social democratic projects, particularly in the imperial core, inevitably end up embracing rapprochement with capitalism, imperialism, and the ruling class. This is because, ultimately, the rubber band of capitalism will stretch to accommodate these reforms to preserve itself - see the New Deal. The primary contradiction in this country remains stolen land worked by stolen people - everything that happens in this country revolves around the mountains of bones and rivers of blood upon which this country sits. Applying a tiny bandaid in the form of free public transit does not mean that the police cease to be the police, or Black people cease to be oppressed. I’m confident that comrade Blanc would agree with me on this point. 

It is important for us to have a working definition of power. I and most Maoists personally adhere to Huey P. Newton’s definition: the ability to define a phenomenon and make it act in the desired manner. Basically, power is the ability to make something happen that would not otherwise happen if not for your intervention. For example, a movement can be said to have power if it is able to successfully, physically, stop evictions - the CPUSA’s squads that literally moved evicted people’s furniture back into their apartments during the Great Depression can be said to have had power. Black people's power during our 500 year long struggle for freedom in this country hasn't come from begging the white power structure, it's come from us scaring the shit out of this structure. This people’s power, mass power, power that does not compromise and that does not yield to the enemy, power that is capable of exacting a consequence if it is not yielded to – this is the power that must be built. The enemy has its weapons, we must have ours, otherwise we cease to be real political actors. An elected that knuckles under the demands and dictats of the likes of Trump, Hochul, Jeffries, and Lander is not a powerful "socialist" elected, and if he feels free to disregard the democratic will of his own organization, what type of message does that send to the masses? More importantly, what type of message does that send to the enemy?

Many comrades speak endlessly of building power (without knowing what power is!), yet they oppose things such as mutual aid involvement, coalition building with militant organizations, and militant tenant organizing that can actually build real power. A lot of comrades in DSA remain enchained and enthralled by the trappings of bourgeois power. A city council seat flipped here, a democratic socialist that loses by a 10% margin there - many comrades seem to think, even if they deny it, that these are the only legitimate ways that power can be exercised. They see tenant rights’ organizing as being the exclusive purview of lawyers and “professionals”, chaining the tenant masses to the rules of the class that seeks to evict them - they see the struggle against ICE as an endless parade of know your rights training (which are good, attend one!) - if the ruling class doesn’t give a shit about your rights, you may have to do a bit more than simply know them, though. Reforms are extracted through militant struggle, not doled out from on high, and as the recent machinations of the Trump Administration, his Congress, and his Supreme Court have demonstrated, they are always at risk. My people are only able to vote because thousands of Black people were willing to fight and die for this right. We have to consistently broaden our horizons and remain fixed on the Communist necessity. Reformism is not simply the fight for reforms, which all Communists see as worthy of engagement, and electoralism is not simply participating tactically in the electoral process. Reformism and electoralism are rightist errors that come when one sees reforms and elections as the sum total of the revolutionary movement, in practice or in theory or both. This is a bourgeois sentiment in the ranks of the socialist movement. In the United States, this line carried to its logical conclusion results in rapprochement with and eventual liquidation into the Democratic Party, which will never be under the control of any socialists, no matter how much some of our comrades lie to themselves. 

Marxism is the ruthless criticism of all that exists. Ourselves, our organization, our electeds. Nothing is above critique. Criticizing the very concept of critique as many comrades do is a demonstration of lack of familiarity with the ABCs of Marxism and a manifestation of liberalism. Mao wrote: Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism. People who are liberals look upon the principles of Marxism as abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism with Marxism. These people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as well--they talk Marxism but practice liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kinds of goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work. Liberalism is a manifestation of opportunism and conflicts fundamentally with Marxism. It is negative and objectively has the effect of helping the enemy; that is why the enemy welcomes its preservation in our midst. Such being its nature, there should be no place for it in the ranks of the revolution.

There is, of course, a difference between unprincipled critique, or even outright hurling of demonstrably untrue insults (DSA IS HALF ZIONIST!!!), but there is a trend to affiliate any criticism whatsoever of DSA electeds that capitulate and make bad/unnecessary concessions (as Zohran has) as being wholeheartedly bad faith, or even conducive to wrecking our organization’s electoral work. There is no basis for this. Comrade Blanc, thankfully, acknowledges that Tisch is worthy of critique (a low bar), and also acknowledges that Zohran (and electeds in general) should be criticized - this is good. However, his analysis is straitjacketed by continued adherence to strategic electoralism and reformism, which are in and of themselves anti-revolutionary, if we define revolution in the Marxist sense. The job of the socialist, the Communist, is to expose contradictions, and bring the intermediate (the majority of the people that, say, voted for Zohran), up to the level of the advanced (the people who, say, signed the WOL letter). It is a travesty to acknowledge in theory the right to criticize, yet never use it, instead choosing to make excuses and do spin doctoring for free. Criticism must be issued against every betrayal and everything that is anti-people. Jessica Tisch is anti-people. There is no reason for one who calls himself a socialist to keep her in his administration. To refuse to expose this would be liberalism and betrayal. The role of a socialist elected is to be a tribune of the people, a servant of the people, and, to use the Black Panther Party term, an “ox to be ridden by the people”. Ridden by, not ridden over. The role of a socialist elected is not to fly over the democratically expressed will of his local Party/organization branch and play kingmaker. This is a manifestation of bourgeois politics. 

To get to the meat of the article: Blanc asks a question: “How much power do we have to confront the NYPD?” The fact that Blanc asked such a question demonstrates further his reformist and electoralist line: the question should be worded: “How much power do we have, within the constraints of this system, to confront the NYPD?” If you rely on the enemy’s system, you will not have any power, and will be forever restrained. Why would we limit our imagination and our work to constraints set by a system that has produced Rikers Island, the murder of countless Black and Brown people, and the torture and kidnapping of our undocumented class siblings? The masses of Minneapolis, LA, STL, Chicago, and countless other cities where the people have risen up and organized in righteous anger and rage show how to confront the NYPD. The Black Panther Party showed how to confront the police - with antagonism. They are the enemy. Seizing upon the primary contradiction with regards to the police - the fact that they exist as a domestic, armed wing of our enemies, the capitalist class, joining the people in struggle instead of lecturing them, and learning from the people instead of trying to use them as tools - that is how you build a movement with actual power to confront the NYPD and other pigs. When you chain yourself to the enemy’s tools, you remain a slave in the enemy’s house, and you will, again, never have any power. Imagine if my enslaved ancestors relied exclusively on courts and the conscience of an apathetic or hostile white system, one developed by and used to uphold the whims and wishes of slaveowners, to secure their freedom! Power is not given, it’s not built - it’s conquered. We must remember the war aspect of the term class war - these people are not going to give us anything, especially when we come as beggars to their door. We cannot limit ourselves to the enemy’s rules - the house will win, every time, even if you think the people have won. The police, ultimately, have to be broken up and abolished. This is basic.

Blanc says: “More specifically, the intensity of our criticism of left elected leaders on a given issue should correlate with our degree of power.” Does objective right and objective wrong not exist? Criticism should be made of wrong things, things that harm the people, and things that betray our movement and our allies. What was the purpose of the Within Our Lifetime statement, correctly criticizing the pig Tisch and calling on Zohran to uphold the principles of the movement he invoked in his campaign and has claimed to live by, one of which is some form of abolition? Do we reject opportunities to politically educate the masses, expose contradictions, form coalitions with like minded comrades, and push the envelope further?

What type of Marxists would we be? Furthermore, why do we consistently demand that our Palestinian comrades sit back and patiently acquiesce to being thrown under the bus for more social democratic reforms (that may or may not ever come) here at home? These same types of concessions to (white people’s) power were foisted upon my people during the Black Liberation Movement, and comrades in SNCC and the BPP rightfully rejected them, being uncompromising in the struggle for our liberation, because nobody will free us but us. What happened? They built real power. The Palestinian comrades have the right to this same rejection. You cannot use and invoke a people’s struggle to win an election, and then throw them under the bus. Playing games with people never comes to a good end. Blanc asks us several questions for us to keep in mind when we are analyzing whether or not we should support a policy: 

• How much does the public support that policy?
• Do we currently have enough power to overcome concerted ruling-class opposition to instituting that policy?
• How strong are the mass organizations and movements supporting that policy? How strongly do they support it?
• How much institutional power does the left politician have to implement the policy?
• Will passing the policy make it much harder to pass other urgent agenda points? Is the trade-off worth it?
• Was that policy part of the left politician’s campaign platform?
• How strong would the popular backlash likely be if the left politician supports that policy? Will it doom their reelection? How damaging would that be for left organizations and movements?

Essentially, Blanc (and the rest of the DSA right) wants us to think like bourgeois campaign managers and staffers. His analysis ignores the masses who do not engage with polls, elections and the like, because they have a more advanced view of the system. Particularly strange is the question regarding “urgent agenda points” - what agenda point is more urgent than standing in the firmest solidarity, in practice, not just in words, with the Palestinian people who are enduring genocide? Should they sit back and wait for the right moment in a city halfway across the world? Should they fear the backlash of the American public? Mass organizations are brought up. Mass organization of Palestinian people and their allies, several whole DSA/YDSA branches, several abolition/Black liberation organizations, and a variety of other organizations of the masses are signatories to the letter. Furthermore, the masses are diverse - the Black lumpen/proletarian masses tend to think radically differently from middle aged Black churchgoers or college educated, second generation Chinese-Americans. Before we do mass work, we ask ourselves: which masses do we want to organize? Do we want to organize the masses of liberal Zionists? Gentrifying transplants? For whom do we work? Whom must we organize in the service of building the only type of power that matters: the power to topple this Empire? This is akin to social democrats appealing to the mythical “normie” - who usually always ends up agreeing with, living in the same area as, and looking like - them and their friends, while ignoring everybody else as either existing solely online or as being too small to matter. I’m interested in the masses that tore up Minneapolis for George Floyd, those who are chasing ICE pigs off their streets, and I’m interested in getting as many people to think and act like them as possible, and in organizing them. Blanc claims that mass protests died out after 2020 – what happened in LA this spring? What is happening in Chicago, in New Orleans, in Minneapolis, in NYC? The people themselves, without a social democrat hovering over their shoulder, are doing what has always been done, they are exercising their power and fighting back. Those are the people I want to see in DSA. These are the advanced masses, the people who know that this shit is fucked up. We orient toward and unite the advanced. We don’t orient ourselves to the intermediate, and certainly not the backwards. This is a call for tailism (falling behind the consciousness of the advanced masses) and right opportunism (incrementalism, gradualism, and eventual cessation of any true socialist agitation at all), which is the default position of the white left, and the reason why it has little to no power. We bring the people up to our level, we never sink to the level of the ideologically and politically backward, unless we want to end up sitting between Jessica Tisch and Benjamin Netanyahu when he goes to New York City and inevitably leaves without ever having felt handcuffs. In What is to Be Done, Lenin tells us: "Attention, must be devoted principally to raising the workers to the level of revolutionaries; it is not at all our task to descend to the level of the “working masses."

Building power against the NYPD means recruiting, empowering, and applying the tactics of those who have been abused by and are in the frontlines of the struggle against the NYPD. The NYPD is not scared of Zohran or reformism, they are afraid of the militant masses who spit out reformist tripe and refuse to engage with it, because these comrades have seen that shit before and know it leads nowhere. Comrades from WOL have been in the forefront of building solidarity among colonized people and keeping the militant struggle of the Palestinian people on the agenda, and we should unite and learn from them. 

Blanc writes off police reform as “not a winning issue”, as if the struggle against the police didn’t lead to the most important socialist formation in American history, the Black Panther Party, and every uprising over the past 70 years hasn’t been triggered by the police and their slavecatcher activity. This is an insult to the memory of Mike Brown, Breonna Taylor, Vonderrit Myers, and the thousands of my people who have paved the streets of this country with our blood, and those who rebelled in their name. Videos of ICE snatching people off the streets, arousing the ire and rage of the masses - but police reform is not a winning issue! In working class Black communities around the country, in Black music and cinema, the struggle against the police is front and center! This could only have been produced from within a white academic bubble, devoid of practice or experience with the masses. Should we wait for Jessica Tisch to harm and brutalize more of our comrades before we denounce Zohran’s cooperation with her? Should we wait for Brad Lander to dump more of NYC’s money into Elbit Systems before we denounce Zohran’s endorsement of him, ratfucking his chapter in the process? Should our elders have waited until the majority of white Americans supported viewing Black people as human beings to struggle for our rights? This “wait and see, don’t go too hard!” approach is the surest road to the grave. Socialist leadership means doing what is right, uniting the people who stand in the vanguard of these struggles, and winning over the intermediate through principled, uncompromising leadership. Compromises should be to the benefit of the people, not ourselves. That is how we begin to organize deeper and harder. Learn from Huey, not from Bernie.