Black politics and the challenges for the left

Monthly Review, April, 1990 by Manning Marable

But the left must establish an independent identity, organizationally and programmatically. An inside-outside strategy which supports progressive Democrats must also be prepared to run candidates for public office against both Democrats and Republicans, especially in municipal and congressional races. The left must establish a network bringing together progressive local constituencies around projects which define politics as a struggle for empowerment, not just in electoral terms. It must recruit the thousands of young people who were politically developed through the anti-apartheid mobilizations of the mid-1980s and involved in the Jackson campaign. At a minimum, such a network would require a statement of principles for operational unity, a national publication, and the local autonomy necessary for groups to engage in independent nonelectoral, community-based struggles.

Along with the development of institutions, the left and the black movement must reassess the potential weaknesses and strengths of mounting yet another national presidential campaign behind Jackson. We need to be clear that Jackson will never be awarded the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, even if he wins every primary and caucus. The rules will be changed to deny him victory--or even more drastic measures will be taken. Moreover, the Democratic Party will never be transformed into a left social democratic, much less socialist, formation. There is too much history, ideological baggage, and domination by sectors of the ruling class for progressives to achieve a transformation from within. More than channelling our meager resources into a costly, labor-intensive national campaign, we desperately need to reinforce our organizational capacity for nonelectoral as well as electoral struggles at grassroots levels. Socialism and black liberation cannot be achieved merely by electing a socialist president. It requires the careful and difficult construction of a thousand black, Latino, and progressive formations and local movements in cities, towns, and rural areas.

A socialist labor party in the traditional sense would be premature, at least at this point, but an effective network or loose progressive confederation could accomplish much. But we cannot build consensus for social justice and fundamental, structural changes within the political economy simply by continuing to tail liberals, even those like Jackson. We must demand a greater political price from such politicians for our critical support; and if it is not forthcoming, we must be prepared to employ our resources elsewhere. The selection of the "lesser evil" election after election is in the long run self-defeating. We should engage in a "war of position," the building of the political culture and structures of radical democracy, not advocating traditional Keynesian liberalism. There will never be a distant "war of maneuver" against capital so long as American Marxists act like liberals, because liberals will inevitably act like Republicans in order to get elected. A radical, democratic vision of social change, socialism-from-below, but in a popular discourse which the majority of blacks, Latinos, feminists, and the American working people readily understand, must inform our political practice and strategic decisions for the 1990s.