What Road to Socialism? Road to What a workers world anthology Confronts the burning questions what and key contradictions during this deadly pandemic and global capitalist meltdown. Workers can road to win socialism through collective struggle. Long time and new activists discuss winning strategies in organizing against capitalism. socialism? a workers world anthology • COVID19 and the Deepening Crisis of Capitalism • Reform or Revolution larry holmes Workers World Workers makasi motema • The State and Building for Revolution teresa gutierrez • The Centrality of Fighting Racism monica moorehead • The working Class Will Make History sara flounders • Fighting All Forms of Oppression: deirdre griswold Gender, Sexuality, Disability & Age scott williams • Socialist Countries Lead the Way to the Future and others • What is Socialism? World World View Forum View workers.org/books Forum What Road to Socialism: An Anthology of Workers World Articles Copyright 2020 World View Forum, New York, NY We want to make the ideas in this book available as widely as possible. Any properly attributed selection, chapter or part of a chapter within “fair-use” guidelines may be used without permission. ISBN 978-0-89567-194-3 Production Coordinator: Raymond Tyler Cover Design: Ted Kelly Cartoons: Tony Murphy Book Production Team: Raymond Tyler.Ted Kelly, Makasi Motema, Scott Williams, Sara Flounders World View Forum 147 West 24th St, New York, NY 10011 Workers.org ii Table of Contents Article Page Socialist Demands for the Covid-19 Crisis 1 Section 1 COVID-19 and the Deepening Crisis of Capitalism Pandemic Has Hastened Capitalism’s End Stage; the Rest is Up to Us! 3 By Larry Holmes (May 12, 2020) Covid-19 and Basic Facts of Marxist Economics 11 By Deirdre Griswold (April 24, 2020) Cartoon 13 By Tony Murphy Growing Signs of Deepening Global Capitalist Crisis 14 By Ben Carroll (July 9, 2019) How Profits Drive the Capitalist Crisis 19 By Deirdre Griswold (March 22, 2020) Section 2 Reform or Revolution? What Road to Revolution? 22 By Larry Holmes (January 31, 2020) What Road to Socialism? 27 By Scott Williams (January 31, 2020) What Kind of Socialism? 32 WWP Editorial (February 19, 2020) ‘The Socialist Manifesto’ and The Rise of Social Democracy 34 By Scott Williams (September 10, 2019) A Revolutionary View of The Sanders Campaign 40 By Scott Williams (February 22, 2020) Which Road to Socialism: Bernie Sanders and Voting in a Pandemic 46 By Teresa Gutierrez (April 16, 2020) iii Section 3 The State & Building for a Revolution Mass Organizing to Win Revolutionary Socialism 51 By Makasi Motema (March 12, 2020) Lenin’s April Theses 55 By Deirdre Griswold (April 26, 2020) Return to Leninism: Centennial Anniversary of the Comintern 60 By Larry Holmes (April 26, 2020) Why We Say Free Them All! 69 By Monica Moorehead (April 14, 2020) Organizing Against the State 71 By John Catalinotto (2017) Section 4 Centrality of Fighting Racism Racism, Covid-19 and Black People - WW Commentary 75 By Monica Moorehead (April 6, 2020) A Revolutionary Understanding of The National Question 78 By Monica Moorehead (August 14, 2019) The Lies About Racism Are the Same at Home and Abroad 83 By Makasi Motema (December 27, 2019) Refugee Humanitarian Crisis 88 By Teresa Gutierrez (July 5, 2016) Section 5 The Working Class Will Make History Marx’s View of The Working Class Includes All Struggles 93 By Larry Holmes (June 8, 2018) A New Generation of Socialists is Coming 96 By Makasi Motema (March 16, 2019) The Coming Decade of Revolution 98 By Makasi Motema and Vincent Tacceta (January 11, 2020) A Road to Revolution 102 By Loan Tran (January 31, 2020) Working-Class Youth Want Socialism! 107 WWP Editorial (May 9, 2020) iv Cartoon 109 By Tony Murphy Section 6 Fighting Oppression! Gender, Sexuality, Disability & Age Task of a Party: Building Class Solidarity 111 By Monica Moorehead (November 24, 2009) Trans Lives, Revolutionary Lives 114 WWP Editorial (April 2, 2019) Zero Tolerance! Abusers Out! 116 WWP Editorial (February 7, 2020) Transgender Warrior Leslie Feinberg United All Struggles for Liberation 118 By Minnie Bruce Pratt (April 1, 2015) Together in Solidarity and Towards Socialism 122 By Kathy Durkin (January 16, 2020) Disability Rights: A Rich Theater of the Class Struggle 125 By Brian Shea (July 12, 2014) Covid-19 and the Crisis of the Elderly 128 By Teresa Guttierrez (April 22, 2020) Cartoon 131 By Tony Murphy Section 7 International Solidarity : Defending our Global Class Organizing Workers to Fight for Solidarity 133 By Larry Holmes (June 14, 2018) Coronavirus Highlights Gap Between Socialist and Capitalist Responses 136 By Joshua Hanks (March 22, 2020) China’s Socialist Planning and Covid-19 139 By Sara Flounders (April 4, 2020) Lesson from Cuba: Disaster Capitalism and Socialist Planning 144 By Nathaniel Chase U.S. Uses ‘Drug’ Lies to Menace Venezuela 149 By Raymond Tyler (April 28, 2020) Why the U.S. Threatens China—as a New Superpower 151 By Sara Flounders (December 27, 2019) v Cartoon 156 By Tony Murphy Cuba, Reforestation and the Climate Crisis 157 By Stephanie Hedgecoke (February 23, 2020) Section 8 What Is Socialism? What is Socialism? Part 1: Denmark, Imperialism and Social Democracy 165 By Deirdre Griswold (August 22, 2018) What is Socialism? Part 2: Lessons of an Early Socialist Experiment 168 By Deirdre Griswold (September 7, 2018) What is Socialism? Part 3: Lessons of the Paris and Shanghai Communes 173 By Deirdre Griswold (October 16, 2018) Sources 178 Subscribe 181 Apply to Join 182 vi Socialist Demands for the Covid-19 Crisis As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread, the government’s response to the crisis has been criminally negligent, while capitalists would rather risk workers’ health than stop production for profit. As the ruling class shows itself to be incapable of addressing the crisis, how can we, as working class and oppressed people, organize to meet our needs? What demands can we put forward in response? Workers World Party proposes the following 10 demands – which are a work in progress based on the fluidity of the crisis – as an initial socialist response to Covid-19: • Free healthcare for all • Nationalize the healthcare system under community control. Build emergency hospitals • Full pay, benefits and guaranteed income for all • Food, housing, medical supplies, and utilities including internet for all • Suspend rent, evictions, mortgages, utility shutoffs and ALL debt • Prioritize resources for communities of color, migrants, LGBTQ2+ people, seniors, youth, people with disabilities • Empty prisons and detention centers. Shut down ICE. End racist attacks • Community control. No cops. No military • $2 Trillion to the workers, not the banks • End U.S. wars, sanctions, and environmental destruction ♦ 1 Section 1 COVID-19 and the Deepening Crisis of Capitalism 2 Pandemic Has Hastened Capitalism’s End Stage; the Rest is Up to Us! By Larry Holmes (May 12, 2020) Last week workers celebrated International Workers’ Day 2020. There has been no other time in our lives when the message of May Day— global workers’ solidarity in the struggle against capitalism—has been more urgent. We have entered a decisive period. The scope of the world class struggle heading toward us will require more than solidarity from the working-class movement. It will require a level of coordination among organizations and movements around the world in the struggle against capitalism that didn’t even exist in the early years of the Third International under the leadership of V.I. Lenin. Conditions and technology have made what was not possible, possible. But first, those of us in the United States, the center of world imperialism, have our work cut out for us. The world capitalist economy, led by the U.S., is tumbling very quickly into a depression. It is likely to be more severe than any previous depression in the history of capitalism, because what is occurring now is the implosion of a system at its end stage. As staggering as the Covid-19 pandemic is on its own, in truth it has catalyzed a colossal world capitalist crisis that has been in the making for a long time. After being revived 75 years ago by World War II, U.S capitalism has for the last half century been sliding into its end stage. Globalization and the development of generations of technology, combined with a relentless assault on the living standards of the working class, have failed to stop the system’s decline. Capitalism has never recovered from the 2008 crash of the financial markets. Since then, financial markets have been on life support because central banks have pumped trillions of dollars into them. When U.S stocks nearly collapsed two months ago, the Federal Reserve did something extraordinary. Within a matter of days, it funneled about $5 trillion into U.S. financial markets — about one-quarter of the U.S. annual gross domestic product. Wall Street is now on what amounts to a financial respirator. Before the pandemic, the global economy had been stagnant in the U.S. and contracting elsewhere. Now, everywhere the economy is contracting at a rate faster than during the Great Depression. Those of us who have been anxiously awaiting the collapse of capitalism should restrain any inclination to rejoice. The Covid-19 pandemic and its 3 impact on the capitalist economy have unleashed a living hell on the workers and oppressed everywhere. Workers are dying from the pandemic, and they are losing their jobs at the same time. The rate of suicides is growing— and will continue to grow in direct correlation to the rising rate of joblessness, evictions, hunger, in addition to more sickness and death. The real number of workers who have just lost their jobs in the U.S.