Manifest Destiny

 The Mexican-American War

Each year tens of thousands of Irish-Americans proudly celebrate their heritage on St Patrick Day, yet few are aware of the fate of the Irish in the St Patrick’s Battalion, el Batallón de San Patricio, who chose to fight under their green flag for Mexico against the aggression of the United States in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48 .

How many Americans are fully aware of their country’s land-grab and the illegal annexation of what was Mexican territory. Hollywood glorifies the Texas rebellion but fails to shine a light on the later American invasion of Mexico, a war opposed by many Northerners such as Abraham Lincoln even though some Northern merchants did believe it would open up the Pacific Coast ports as gateways to China. As with Texas, the plantation-owning Southern elite coveted the vast stretches of northern Mexico where they could expand their slave economy. The conquest of what is now south-west United States became their objective. It was sparsely settled and still remained mostly populated by Native Americans. The ideological justification for this expansionism was the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny”.
As early as 1825, President John Quincy Adams attempted to purchase the Texas province from Mexico. When Mexico refused, other means were employed. The southern plantation owners encouraged the settling of Texas by Anglo-Americans with the hope that they would outnumber the small Mexican population and create enough difficulties for Mexico so that it would relinquish control to the United States. The main issue of the presidential campaign of 1844 was the annexation of Texas, with the Democratic Party running James Polk in favor. The victory of the Democrats, who represented the southern planters, guaranteed annexation. The Anglo-American Texans, who were legally Mexican citizens, refused to submit to the authority of the Mexican government and maintained slavery. They set up the Independent Republic of Texas in 1836. This led to the Alamo and the subsequent defeat of Santa Anna by the army of Sam Houston. The slavocracy of the South looked forward to immediately annexing Texas to the United States but divisions within the U.S. ruling class delayed annexation until 1845, as the northern capitalists opposed adding Texas as another slave state, fearing the enhanced political weight of a strengthened South.
But plans and desires went far beyond Texas. President Polk was intent on provoking Mexico into a war which would end in the conquest of all of Mexico. The immediate cause of the war was a dispute over the border between Texas and Mexico. The area involved about 150 square miles of territory. Before the dispute could be resolved through negotiations, the president ordered U.S. troops under Zachary Taylor to cross the River Nueces and hold the disputed area. When the Mexican army sought to eject the U.S. army from its territory, the United States used this as its pretext to declare war on Mexico.

The annexation nature of the war was obvious. Ulysses S. Grant, who fought as an officer in the war would write:
“We were sent to provoke a fight, but it was essential that Mexico should commence it…The occupation, separation, and annexation were, from the inception of the movement to its final consummation, a conspiracy to acquire territory out of which slave states might be formed for the American union. Even if annexation itself could be justified, the manner in which the subsequent war was forced on Mexico cannot.”

The outcome of the war was almost a foregone conclusion. The Mexican army was badly led and poorly equipped. The U.S. military advanced into Mexican territory and began conducting a campaign of brutality and engaging in numerous acts of wanton violence and destruction against civilians. Commanding General Winfield Scott admitted his U.S. troops had “committed atrocities to make Heaven weep and every American of Christian morals blush for his country. Murder, robbery and rape of mothers and daughters in the presence of tied up males of the families have been common all along the Rio Grande.”

So barbaric were the actions of the American army that some 250 Irish deserted and went over to the side of the Mexicans.

American armies attacked the Mexicans in northern and southern California as well as throughout New Mexico and Arizona. The United States defeated Mexican armies and went on to occupy Mexico City. The United States captured almost 50% of Mexico’s territory.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

On Feb. 2,1848, Mexico agreed to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico accepted the Rio Grande as the Texas border and ceded the Southwest (which incorporates the present day states of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado), an area larger than France and Germany combined, to the U.S. for $15 million. The Democratic administration favored taking all of Mexico, but was opposed in Congress.
This treaty was also important because the Mexican negotiators were more deeply concerned to ensure the protection of the democratic rights of Mexicans remaining in the Southwest and it should not be forgotten that, with the exception of the Native Americans, Mexicans are the only minority whose rights were specifically legally safeguarded by a formal treaty. It contained provisions concerning the treatment of the Mexicans remaining in the Southwest. The U.S. agreed to safeguard the property rights of the Mexicans and guaranteed their civil and religious rights. Their culture as well as their land grants were to be respected. The Mexicans were to receive full U.S. citizenship within one year. Article VIII stated:

“Mexicans now established in territories previously belonging to Mexico, and which remain for the future within the limits of the United States, as defined by the present treaty, shall be free to continue where they now reside, or to remove at any time to the Mexican Republic, retaining the property which they possess in the said territories…In the said territories, property of every kind, now belonging to Mexicans not established there, shall be inviolably respected. The present owners, the heirs of these, and all Mexicans who may hereafter acquire said property by contract, shall enjoy with respect to it guarantees equally ample as if the same belonged to citizens of the United States.”

Article IX guaranteed to those who became citizens (automatic one year from the date of the treaty, unless an individual specifically chose to remain a Mexican citizen)

“…enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States, according to the principles of the Constitution… [and also] …the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secure in the free exercise of their religion without restriction.”

The U.S., however, never lived up to its promises and almost systematically violated the guarantees given to the Mexican people in the Southwest.

Nor were any of the Mexican signers of the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty aware of the fact that nine days before its signing, gold had been discovered in California. Not only had half of the national territory of Mexico been outright stolen at the point of a cannon, but now lands unbelievably rich in gold and silver, had been ceded away.

“Juan Crow”

Following annexation, the United States set out to impose its rule over the newly conquered territory and begin to economically exploit it. The tremendous wealth derived from the mines and lands stolen from Mexico began to play an important part in the financing of capitalist industrial expansion.

Very soon the subjugated of the Mexican people began. It was not possible to accomplish this all at once throughout the entire Southwest region so the consolidation of the region happened in stages. California quickly became a state in 1851, while New Mexico and Arizona remained colonies and were not admitted into the Union until 1912, a full 64 years after they were stolen from Mexico. The ensuing Civil War then hampered efforts to promote development in the Southwest.

The new Anglo rulers unleashed a campaign of terror and thousands of Mexican farmers and laborers were shot or lynched. Between 1850 and 1930, more Mexicans were lynched in this area than Blacks in the South during the same period. In Los Angeles, in the one year of 1854 alone, an estimated 360 Mexicans were murdered .

Big ranchers set up groups like the Texas and Arizona Rangers to “legally” terrorize and subdue the conquered population, expropriating the Tejano (Mexican-Texan) landowners. The Texas Rangers and other vigilante groups simply shot hundreds of Mexicans and took over their property. Not a single white American, however, was ever convicted of killing a Mexican in Texas in the 50 years immediately following annexation.

The ranchers and merchants hoped that this terrorism, which now is described as ethnic cleansing would drive those of Mexican origin across the border to Mexico. Anglo-American migration into the Southwest quickly changed the character of the area and the overall population of Texas and California became predominantly white, (although the southern parts of both states along the border remained mainly Mexican inhabited.) The new settlers reneged on the treaty obligations and began deprived the Mexicans of political rights and power. By 1880 in California no Mexican served in public office where previously they held legislative, judicial and executive positions throughout the state. Originally designated to be a bilingual state (Spanish and English), by as early as 1855. the California state government required all schools to teach exclusively in English and then the 1878 State constitution completely eliminated Spanish as an official language. Special taxes and restrictions were levied on the Mexicans in California as well, such as the “Foreign Miners’ Tax,” to drive non-white miners out of the gold fields. The Mexicans from Sonora were expert miners who introduced such innovative mining techniques as panning and the dry-wash separation of gold. There were also laws prohibiting or restricting traditional fiestas. Similar curtailments spread throughout the Southwest. From 1850 to 1900, the Anglo settlers, expropriated almost the entire propertied class of Californios. Those who did not lose their lands were reduced to small holdings.

Mexican-Americans were transformed into foreign “aliens”. The persecution of the Mexican people went hand-in-hand with the theft of their lands. In many cases, the objective of the murder and violence against them was to take over their property, regardless of the promises of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This great land grab was second only to the massive theft of Native American land. All in all, it is estimated they lost 20 million acres of land in Texas alone. In California and New Mexico the original inhabitants lost much of their land through legal manoeuvres, squatting, claim-jumping and exorbitant taxes. In 1851 California passed a “Land Act” which required that Mexicans go through a complex process to prove title to their land. This was very difficult in many cases since the lands often were owned in common or accurate records were never kept. In New Mexico, 80% of them lost their property, most of these small farmers and herders. An infamous conspiracy of merchants, lawyers, bankers and politicians known as the Santa Fe Ring controlled the territory’s courts and government and awarded themselves millions of acres through swindles. The Surveyor of General Claims Office of the New Mexico Territory could take up to fifty years to process a claim, meanwhile, the lands were being squatted upon by the Anglo newcomers who often sold the land to land speculators for huge profits.

The federal government in 1891 eventually established a Court of Private Land Claims to settle land “disputes” in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. In its 13 years of existence the court, heard cases involving 35.5 million acres. The court upheld the original claims of less than two million acres. All the rest were denied and the claimants lost their land. The court, in actuality, legalized the land grab. And the federal authorities itself was not above getting involved in this property theft, especially in New Mexico. Between 1850 and 1900 the federal government accumulated 14.5 million acres of land, the majority of this from individual or communal Mexicans’ lands. The courts, being an instrument of class rule, were used to legitimize the theft of the Mexican people of their land. For sure, it was often the ownership of changing from Mexican feudal grandee to an American capitalist. The huge haciendas of landlord class of Mexico gave way to the vast ranches of Bonanza fame. The economy of the Southwest, geared to small-scale trade and production to satisfy local needs, where much of the land was held in common by communities represented an obstacle to the greedy commerce of the encroaching capitalists who sought to maximize the productive forces. Peasant plots and sheep pastures were converted into grazing land for the new capitalist cattle barons, with Mexicans forced to sell their labor power to their new patróns. The pauperizing the peoples of the Southwest enabled the new owners to freely exploit the land and labor of the region.

Organised resistance on the part of the Mexican people developed to try to halt Anglo incursions. The most famous were seen as Robin Hood figures. Courageous banditos waged a guerilla struggle against the American whites; men such as Tiburcio Vasquez and Joaquin Murietta. In Texas, there was Juan Cortina, who became a folk-hero; and in New Mexico was the “Las Gorras Blancas” (“The White Caps”), direct-actionists who cut the fences and burned the barns of ranchers enclosing the Las Vegas Land Grant commons They destroyed railroad tracks and burned bridges seen as the foundation of commercial development. “Las Gorras Blancas” sought to develop a class-based consciousness among local people through the everyday tactics of resistance to the economic and social order confronting common property land grant communities.

In a manifesto, Las Gorras Blancas explained their actions as efforts “to protect the rights of the people in general; and especially those of the helpless classes…We want the Las Vegas Grant settled to the benefit of all concerned and this we hold is the entire community within the grant… will fight any scheme that tends to monopolize the supply of water courses to the detriment of residents…” Las Gorras Blancas received popular support from small grazers who had watched the common lands slowly disappear behind barbed-wire fences defending the dubious property claims of wealthy newcomers. Las Gorras Blancas became El Partido del Pueblo, the Peoples Party, and entered the State legislature but found reformism to be a dead-end.

As for the fate of the St Patrick Battalion volunteers, at their court-martial none of the men were legally represented nor were transcripts made of the proceedings. Contrary to the Articles of War, which stipulated that the penalty for desertion or defecting to the enemy in a time of war was death by firing squad, only members of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion were executed by hanging as common criminals.

The executions took place at three separate locations on three separate dates; 16 were executed on 10 September 1847 at San Ángel, four were executed the following day at the village of Mixcoac on 11 September, and 30 were hanged at Chapultepec on 13 September. One soldier was hanged even though he had had both legs amputated the previous day. When the army surgeon informed the colonel that the absent soldier had lost both his legs in battle, Colonel Harney retorted: “Bring the damned son of a bitch out! My order was to hang 30 and by God I’ll do it!” The prisoners spared the gallows were flogged and branded on their cheeks with the letter D to signify deserter.
The San Patricios continue to be honored as heroes in Mexico. Their role in the Mexican-American war has long been acknowledged. They have been remembered as a symbol of international solidarity by the Zapatistas. But as to be expected, in the USA, the memory of the battalion was very different and the American army long denied even the existence of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion until 1915 when it finally conceded it existed.

“Manifest Destiny” and the Spanish-American War

The Spanish-American war is often explained by the hysteria drummed by the popular press of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, fanning the fire and inflaming the passion of public opinion until every lie was believed as the truth that the American government were acting from no selfish motives, other than altruism
While in the Mexican-American war, it was the Southern Democrats who spoke of the historic necessity of the United States to dominate whatever lands or peoples it so desired as an integral part of the country’s foreign policy,
at its convention of 1896, it was the Republican Party which announced itself to be the party of “Manifest Destiny” to bring civilization to the inferior peoples. The victory in the election was interpreted as carte blanche to go implement an aggressive foreign policy. American business interests had been casting its greedy gaze for many years at the islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific with a dream of a global American empire.

Like all the European powers Spanish rule was ruthless and cruel; based upon the exploitation of its resources and people. Revolutionary stirrings in its colonies had long been in existence,  Cuba broke out into open revolt in 1895. The Spanish authorities responded brutally setting up de facto concentration camps, herding the families of the rebels and all those suspected of disloyalty into them.

American businesses owned a wide range of investments in Cuba. Those vested interests were in favor of taking control of Cuba’s chaotic conditions and ejecting Spain from Cuba was seen as the first step. The Republican Party platform of 1897 had already declared that Spain was unable “to protect the property and lives of resident American citizens.” The “Manifest Destiny” Republicans launched their interventionist campaign with the newspapers of Hearst and Pulitzer reporting lurid tales of atrocities, clamoring for war to fight on behalf of a defenseless people – the same “humanitarian” war lie we hear so often today. Astute industrialist recognized that war with Spain would increase the business and earnings of American commerce, it would increase the output of every American factory, it would stimulate a stagnant economy.

In January, 1898, the battleship Maine went to Havana on a “good-will” visit. But on February 15, 1898, the battleship mysteriously exploded at anchor. An investigation could not determine the actual cause of the explosion which took the lives of 258 crew and it may have happened in a number of different ways. Today there is still no real definitive explanation of its cause.

Regardless, the navy concluded that the Maine had been blown up by a mine. The pro-war faction embarked upon a great war-mongering campaign led by Teddy Roosevelt as President McKinley and the Spanish Government tried to resolve the issues peacefully.

In their zeal to avoid a conflict with America the Spanish accepted all the American proposals but America’s plutocrat and oligarchs were not to be cheated out of their war. On April 19, the United States declared war.
The ostensible purpose for entering the war was to free Cuba. Yet, when it came to the peace terms, America demanded included the acquisition of Puerto Rico, the islands now known as the Marianas, Guam and the Philippines. The Peace of Paris, December 10, 1898, liquidated the colonial empire of Spain for $20,000,000 compensation. Cuba was not even represented at the conference table. And upon its evacuation by Spain it was to be occupied by the United States. The Cuban people thought the war was for Cuba’s independence but those who had fought and suffered to win their freedom were betrayed.

Many Americans today are well aware of the US military base at Guantánamo Bay and it was from this period of history America acquired the 28,000 acres with its buildings, airfields, docks and a notorious prison camp purposefully placed outside the reach of any legal system. The US pays Cuba $3,386 dollars and 25 cents annually for this occupied territory The presence of American troops in Guantánamo are against the wishes of the Cuban people and it remains Cuba’s occupied territory.

Under the influence of war-fever, the annexation of Hawaii was also quickly accomplished. McKinley declared that “We need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California. It is manifest destiny” and the compliant press raised exaggerated stories of the threat to the islands from the Japanese and the Germans.
Secretly, Theodore Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, had already deployed Admiral Dewey’s Pacific fleet to the Far East to attack the Spanish in the Philippines, two months before the outbreak of the war. The Spanish navy was routed and American troops later arrived and occupied the Philippines with the aid of Filipino rebels.
The people of the Philippines sincerely believed that the Americans were there to deliver them from the tyrannical yoke of Spain so that they may be a free and independent nation. The Filipino politicians were already setting up a Republic. But the Americans falsely described the situation as being one of “disorder” and required the American military to take command. When the Filipinos finally realized what had happened to them, they turned their guns on the American occupying force who proceeded to teach them all about America’s style of establishing democracy. In the three year war against the Filipinos 60,000 US troops infected with racism committed numerous atrocities and strict censorship silenced the tales of massacres and torture. Estimates of the death-toll vary but it was in the hundreds of thousands. A puppet Philippine government was established in 1907 by a restricted election in which only property holders — about 100,000 — could vote. An American Governor-General ruled with veto power.
The US was not in business of freeing people, its objective was merely to exchange Spanish domination with Washington’s. America had commenced the Spanish war to emancipate “little” Cuba and concluded it with the bloody subjugation of the Philippines.

Conclusion

When one risks life and limb, a rational person needs a good reason for the possible sacrifice. To make somebody even more wealthier is not a very good motivation.

The Irish Catholics of the St Patrick Battalion understood first-hand foreign oppression and religious repression. They witnessed the deceit of the the United States in launching its invasion of Mexico. They believed they possessed a worthy cause greater than themselves as individuals to fight and die for.

But others require something much more to go to war and face death. Countries will try to instil a national identity, loyalty and patriotism. When that may not be enough, an appeal to God may be called for, with government declaring they hold a divine mission to conduct a “Holy Crusade” and this what Americans meant by their doctrine of “manifest destiny”, or what is more commonly called American “exceptionalism” these days. It offers a cloak of respectability for what can only be described as inhuman, brutal behavior. It is imperialism by another name and the aim remains the same – economic, military and political domination of the world.

There are two Americas. One is the America of the capitalist clique who threaten the world’s security. This is the America the people of the world has learned to detest and fear.

Then there is the other America — the America of working people with a revered record of sympathy for people of other lands in their struggles against kings and despots.

This is the America that has held out the hand of comradely friendship to the oppressed people in the world and at one time offered security and sanctuary to the persecuted. This is the America that must take the power from the exploiters and parasites. The American working class can open up the way to a new world. They have the power in America. All that is necessary is for them to understand it — and to use it. We believe they will do so. We believe the real America — the America of the working people — will help save the world by saving itself. This is America’s true “manifest destiny”.

Postscript

In Europe, the Fraternal Democrats, a radical wing of the Chartist movement, issued a condemnation of the American war against Mexico, endorsing the view that “the war was unjust to Mexico, disgraceful to the United States and a war for the extension of slavery.”

Following their policy of supporting the development of nascent capitalism, Marx and Engels took the opposite opinion and condoned the American aggression of the Mexican invasion. Engels writes:

“We have witnessed the conquest of Mexico and have rejoiced in it…[and]… that splendid California has been taken away from the lazy Mexican…[and]…for the first time really open the Pacific Ocean to civilization”

Engels suggests that “The ‘independence’ of a few Spanish Californians and Texans may suffer because of it…” was an acceptable price to pay for the growth of American capitalism.

A lesson there for all Marxists – sometimes Marx and Engels were wrong.

Time for a New Revolution - Part Two

 What Could Happen

Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia formally designate themselves in their state constitutions as “commonwealths” — a traditional term for a community founded for the common good. This is still the aim of the World Socialist Movement — to create a worldwide cooperative commonwealth.

It should be easy enough to set up a genuine popular democracy in the United States. Libertarian municipalism, as advocated by Murray Bookchin, inspired by New England town-hall meetings, proposes to do so by simply establishing sufficient numbers of general assemblies. There are over 16,000 townships in the United States. Could such a style of democracy meet the needs of Americans? The number of school districts in the United States is approximately 13,000. What if each school district had an assembly that debated and voted on local regional and global issues? Or increasing the sphere of the 3,143 counties of the United States?

The basic building-block can be the community or neighborhood assembly where citizens meet to discuss and vote on the issues of the day. These assemblies elect mandated and recallable delegates who then link up with other assemblies forming a confederated council, a “community of communities”.

The difference between this form of delegate democracy and representative democracy is that in a representative democracy decision-making power is given without pre-conditions to representatives who are then free to act on their own initiative. In a delegated democracy the electing body possesses the power; the delegate follows instructions and can be recalled at any time should the electing body feel that their mandate is not being met. Thus power remains with the people.
These self-governing communities, based on principles of direct democracy, would come together across national borders. This will generate a system of multi-tiered levels of organisation – local, regional and global – polycentric society-wide planning with a greater preponderance of decision-making and planning at the local level where the bulk of issues impacting on our lives tend to arise. More localised control, however, does not equate with local communities taking local resources into local ownership. In fact, if anything, the very notion of “ownership” would die out completely. In de facto terms, there would be no “ultimate control” and that term itself would also be rendered meaningless. Universal common ownership of the productive resources of society means that nobody owns them at all. The means of production cannot be monopolised by any one person or group and we will have a genuine global democracy, a co-operative economy, and the dissolution of the nation-state. In ancient Athens citizens governed themselves. That is democracy in action.

We can only present examples of what is possible as there are many variations of models to choose from to best fit requirements. We are not preparing a blueprint but to demonstrate what is practical and pragmatic by adapting and adjusting what we already have. As in the nickname of Missouri, the “show me state”, we are attempting to show the possibilities that exist in the flexibility of administrative structures. The Industrial Workers of the World, for instance, bases its future administration on industrial unionism, a democracy which concentrates upon workplaces rather than geographic constituencies. Other parts of the world possess their own possibilities such as parish councils in England, panchayats in India. In Mexico, there are the municipal authorities but in the more remote indigenous communities remote far from the formal seat of formal government there are “presidentes auxiliares”, directly elected by local voters without political party participation, responsible for agrarian issues, such as the communal land.

“We have our forms of organizing ourselves that are deeply rooted, and what the law says on paper is one thing, but here everything has to go through the assembly, and we will continue living this way because it has worked well for us,” explained a commissioner of communal resources in a Zapotec community. The land in these towns and villages is communal; it belongs to everyone. There is no private property, not even small plots are sold. The transference of land is done through a transfer of land rights. A father can transfer his land to his children, for example. Everything must go through the assembly. No one can sell the land and no one can buy it.

On the other hand, leaving the decision-making process to a system of elected committees could be seen as going against the principle of fully participatory democracy. If socialism is going to maintain the practice of inclusive decision making which does not put big decisions in the hands of small groups but without generating a crisis of choice, then a solution is required, and it seems that the computer industry may have produced one in the form of ‘collaborative filtering’ (CF) software.

This technology is currently used on the internet where people are faced with a super-abundance of products and services, CF helps consumers choose what to buy and navigate the huge numbers of options. It starts off by collecting data on an individual’s preferences, extrapolates patterns from this and then produces recommendations based on that person’s likes and dislikes. With suitable modification, this technology could be of use to socialism – not to help people decide what to consume, but which matters of policy to get involved in. A person’s tastes, interests, skills, and academic achievements, rather than their shopping traits, could be put through the CF process and matched to appropriate areas of policy in the resulting list of recommendations. A farmer, for example, may be recommended to vote upon matters which affect him/her, and members of the local community, directly, or of which s/he is likely to have some knowledge, such as increasing yields of a particular crop, the use of GM technology, or the responsible use of land by ramblers.

The technology (or a more modern version that has no doubt been developed already) would also put them in touch with other people of similar interests so that issues can be thrashed out more fully, and may even inform them that “People who voted on this issue also voted on…” The question is, would a person be free to ignore the recommendations and vote on matters s/he has little knowledge of, or indeed not vote at all? Technology cannot resolve issues of responsibility, but any system, computer software or not, which helps reduce the potential burden of decision making to manageable levels would facilitate democracy.

Socialism will not be a one-size-fits-all type of society but will reflect the rich tapestry of local regional life-styles, customs and traditions of the world. We acknowledge that working people will determine their own means and methods of self-emancipation and that there will be a variety of ways of organizing the actual implementation of socialist administration. Although it is not always emphasized enough, we accept that there will be a large degree of diversity in the manner this is done and that we only lay down guidelines that apply to political and social and cultural conditions that we face here. Other places and other communities will have there own approaches, depending on local customs and traditions. As the socialist message grows and begins to incorporate more peoples, it will change its outward form to meet and fit specific conditions while still retaining its inner core tenets. We cannot think of imposing a Euro-American-centric cultural view of politics and society. As world socialists we too must take notice of the planet’s diversity.

Rather than vote on November the 3rd for the lesser evil candidate, fellow-workers can initiate a new revolution. Only half the public is registered to vote, and only half of registered voters vote. “Of, by and for the people”, is sadly not the reality. Americans are apathetic because of the failure of the system to serve the people and they are also angry because no one is held responsible for their misdeeds.

The present White House incumbent and the challenger remain indifferent to the concept of accountability to the majority. Trump and Biden are complicit in the camouflage of plutocracy by creating the form and appearance of popular government with only a minimum of substance. The role of the people is limited to choosing from among the political elite the representatives who would rule over them.

Article V of the Constitution, in effect, legalizes revolution — the right to alter or abolish the social system and the present form of government.

And according to the Declaration of Independence:

whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness… when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

This is the time for a new revolution for a new type of independence.

Time for a New Revolution - Part One

 Part 1: What Happened

As the presidential election draws near both contestants make fatuous appeals to America’s near-sainted Founding Fathers and that almost sacred scroll known as the Constitution. History has seen more than its share of distortion. Myths and misconceptions have sprung up that many people now take as fact. However, historical interpretation must be based on evidence, which in many cases is either lacking or contradictory. Myths are powerful because they say things people want to believe. History does matter, which is why people in power put so much energy into controlling it. To talk of elitist power today as something new and forget its roots and actually praise the oppressors as spokesmen for liberty and treat their imposed laws under the constitution as admirable achievements is to forget actual real history and fall victim to ruling class propaganda and ideology. When people are asked the question “What is democracy” many will respond with the example of the American republic, its institutions permitting supreme power to be in the hands of the people. But democracy implies something very much more than the widest possible franchise and equal voting rights. It means that the people should have complete control over the administration of social life. It presupposes at the very outset the ownership by the people of all the means of life. If people do not have control of the production of the social wealth then contrary to popular conviction existing republics no more encapsulates democracy than did monarchies.

Hailed as the birthplace of democracy, the 1787 Philadelphia Convention was nothing short of a coup to ensure a “revolution of gentlemen, by gentlemen, and for gentlemen” as one historian described it. The Philadelphia Convention was little more than the the capture of political power by the rich section of colonial society and the Constitution designed to protect private property, to prevent interference with its ownership by the majority of the people. In short, the Constitution was designed to perpetuate the rule of the rich minority. The proceedings of the Convention in Philadelphia were conducted in secret. The general public was not privy to the debates and discussions, as it was for their social betters to decide and determine the new nation’s future.

The ensuing war of independence did not establish a truly democratic government. It did not significantly change the structure of American society but rather, it reinforced the political, economic, and social divisions between classes in the Americas. Despite the pretensions of being “enlightened” – sweeping aside monarchy, aristocracy and the established church – the new republic was never designed to be anything other than an oligarchic state. The Constitution constructed an array of political institutions of checks and balances, motivated by a paranoid fear of populism and suspicion of central government power. Ensuring a suffrage of only white, property-owning men, the new United States of America was controlled by an economic elite possessing considerable wealth. The founders of America held an estimated net worth (in today’s dollars) ranging from $20 million to $500 million. Probably they were all in the top 0.1 percent of the wealth distribution. Much of their wealth (as in the cases of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison) was in the form of slaves. So the political system reflected the interests of property-holding white men such as themselves. Slavery was permitted to flourish for 77 years after the Constitution was ratified and a substantial majority of the population was denied suffrage for over a century. They kept in place a system that was, by any reasonable definition, never a democracy.

It is an inconvenient truth for “libertarians” that the proposals for a minimalist government grew out of the South’s need for human bondage and from the desire of slave-holders to keep the federal government so constricted as to be unable to abolish slavery. That is why many Founding Fathers icons – the likes of Patrick Henry, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson and the later incarnation of James Madison – were slave owners who understood the threat to slavery posed by democratic ideals.

Fifty-five men — landed gentry, ne’er-do-well merchants and prosperous lawyers — defined the government under which Americans live. Extending political power to the people was never on their agenda. The Founding Fathers substituted the abstract principles that “all men are created equal” and that power is derived from “the will of the people” by adopting the practice where “the people”, non-property owners, women and, of course, slaves were excluded. Those architects of the Declaration of Independence built a system of government based on the division of power that would guard against any excesses of popular democracy.

As they were not themselves in the majority, the rich feared that the less well-off could vote to take away their property, so arrangements restricting the franchise and indirect election were incorporated into the Constitution to keep power out of the hands of the majority. The president was to be an elected monarch. Having two different chambers of Congress, a Senate and a House of Representatives, placed an obstacle to simple majority rule. There are 435 Representatives and 100 Senators. 51 Senators can block the majority rule. Moreover, Senators were elected for six years instead of the two for which Representatives are elected. The electoral college to elect the president operates intentionally in opposition to majority rule in this same way. In a system of electing the President by mere simple majority, a candidate or party could win by appealing to 51% of the voters. The electoral college serves as a partial safeguard against those who might be able to win the national popular vote.

Those who argue that the Founding Fathers were motivated by high-minded ideals ignore the fact that it was they themselves who repeatedly stated their intention to create a government strong enough to protect the “haves” from the “have-nots”. They gave voice to the crassest class prejudices, never hiding their concern was to thwart popular control and resist all tendencies toward class “leveling”. Their “checks and balances” were chiefly concerned with restraining the peoples’ power and maintaining their own. The true genius of the Founding Fathers was their promise to all Americans that – if they would support the revolution – then they, their social betters, would agree to create an entirely new social order.

Most of the population consisted of poor freeholders, tenants, and indentured hands (the latter trapped in servitude for many years). In order to survive, a typical family often had to borrow money at high interest rates and was caught in that cycle of rural indebtedness which today is still the common fate of agrarian peoples in many developing and undeveloped countries. It tends to cause a community-oriented culture to arise on farms or in small towns. Their concept of independence was associated with inter-dependence and cooperation, all for the common good. Women worked with men, families traded labor and livestock. In this culture of mutual concern and shared obligation working people took care of one another. They held common standards, completely different from the values of a market-driven, commercial approach to life.

The wealthy class of merchants, lawyers, bankers, and plantation farmers followed a completely different way of life — every person for him or herself. In the capitalist world-view of the wealthy class, the community was merely a system of exchange between producers and consumers, the moneyed and the toilers. The holy of holies for the merchant was the market. Government was to be controlled by elites or “social superiors” who decide what is best for the “common” people. Its role was to protect private ownership and ensure that the market system runs smoothly. This requires that the government use force if necessary to protect private property and the rights of capitalists over workers.

The fourth president, James Madison, warned of the perils of democracy, saying that too much of it would jeopardize the property of the landed aristocracy. “In England,” he observed, “if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure.” Land would be redistributed to the landless, he cautioned. Without the rich exercising monopoly privileges over the commons, the masses would be less dependent on elites like them.

Edmund Randolph, America’s first attorney general, said, “Our chief danger arises from the democratic parts of our constitution.”

Alexander Hamilton derided “pure democracy.” At the Constitutional Convention he declared: “All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government.”

James Madison, “father” of the Constitution, wrote in The Federalist Papers 10: “Democracies have ever been … incompatible with … the rights of property…[because they threaten] the unequal distribution of property.”

The new Constitution put property rights ahead of human rights. It established a republic in which the courts protected the privileges of the minority. It need not have been that way. Other voices were silenced.

James Cannon, Christopher Marshall, Timothy Matlack, and Thomas Paine (author of The Rights of Man and the only one of these men who is well known) formed a group dedicated to gaining political participation for landless laborers, artisans, tenant farmers and others whom the upper class wished barred from involvement in government. To the radicals, independence looked like a chance to make their ideals into realities so that for the first time those without affluence would finally have influence in government.

A Council of Safety drew up the interim Pennsylvania Constitution. Adopted on September 28, 1776, this document established Pennsylvania’s official title, the “Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It provided for annual parliaments in which neither voting nor holding office would be subject to any property qualification. Politicians would be limited to four terms and judges appointed by the legislature for seven-year terms and removable at any time.

The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 excluded all of the characteristics of British rule, replacing the position of governor with an executive council of twelve members who were to be elected directly by the people. It also rejected a bicameral legislature (a legislature with two houses), because it resembled the British Parliament’s House of Lords and House of Commons: “Just as there was no need for a representative of a King, for we have none, so could there be no need of senates to represent the House of Lords, for we have not, and hope we never shall have, a hereditary nobility.”

Many wealthy property owners reacted with horror to the Pennsylvania Constitution. They described it as an “absurd Constitution,” “a mob government” where the enfranchisement of the poor would lead to a situation where the “rabble… will vote away the Money of those that have Estates.”

Some, such as Thomas Young, did try to push for a provision in the state constitution limiting how much property any one person could own, leading to a redistribution of wealth. In the new and free Pennsylvania, declared teacher and mathematician James Cannon, “over-grown rich Men will be improper to be trusted.”

“An enormous Proportion of Property vested in a few Individuals is dangerous to the Rights, and destructive to the Common Happiness, of Mankind,” read one proposed passage for the new constitution, “and therefore every State hath a Right by its Laws to discourage the Possession of such Property.”

These radical measures, however, were narrowly defeated and removed by the more conservative members of the drafting body.

Similar progressive constitutions were adopted in some other states.

Upon the founding of the Vermont Republic in July 1777, a constitution, modelled upon Pennsylvania’s, was adopted that gave all freemen the vote even if they owned no property. Slavery was banned outright, and by a further provision existing male slaves became free at the age of 21 and female slaves at the age of 18. Not only did Vermont’s legislature agree to abolish slavery entirely, it also gave full voting rights to African-American males.

The first article declared that “all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and unalienable rights, amongst which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety,” echoing the phrases in the Declaration of Independence. The article went on to declare that because of these principles, “no male person, born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be holden by law, to serve any person, as a servant, slave or apprentice, after he arrives to the age of twenty-one Years, nor female, in like manner, after she arrives to the age of eighteen years, unless they are bound by their own consent.”

The second article declared that private property ought to be subservient to public use. This established the basic principle of social property prevailing over private individual property in Vermont.

The primary legislative authority was to be exercised by a single assembly with members elected for one term. A twelve-member Supreme Executive Council would administer the government. Judges would be appointed by the legislature for seven-year terms and removable at any time. All approved legislation would take effect only at the next session of the Assembly, so that the people of the state could assess the utility of the new law. The President was to be elected by the Assembly and Council together. The Continental Congress, however, refused to recognize the independence of Vermont or even allow it to be represented.

The revolution of the small farmers and artisans re-surfaced soon after the War of Independence with Shays’ Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion. And then the real class nature of the new America was revealed in its stark brutality. 


Daniel Shays was from Massachusetts and had joined the Continental Army. When he went home in 1780, he found himself in court for non-payment of debts. He was not alone in being unable to pay off debts, and began organizing for debt relief. In 1786 people joined together and marched on the Worcester courthouse to block the foreclosure of mortgages. The Shays’ Rebellion was put down by a mercenary army, paid for by well-to-do citizens.

As described by a historian, “the uprising was the climax of a series of events of the 1780s that convinced a powerful group of Americans that the national government needed to be stronger so that it could create uniform economic policies and protect property owners from infringements on their rights by local majorities… These ideas stemmed from the fear that a private liberty, such as the secure enjoyment of property rights, could be threatened by public liberty — unrestrained power in the hands of the people.”
 The Whiskey Rebellion of 1791-94 was a response to a federal tax on whiskey that closed down small producers. It was crushed by a militia led in person by two Founding Fathers, President George Washington and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Washington later went into the whiskey-distilling business himself and became one of the largest producers in the nation.

The first emancipation

 Dramatic news spreads among the slaves. Their masters are at war! They are told that their masters’ enemies are also theirs. But some doubt whether that is true. Might not their masters’ enemies be their friends? Soon it is rumored that any slave who crosses the lines into enemy-held territory goes free.

A scene from the Civil War, right?

Wrong.

The Civil War was the second enactment of this scene. The first enactment – the first emancipation – came 80 years earlier, during the War of Independence. And – this may come as a shock if you were raised on the ‘patriotic’ version of American history – the ‘good guys’ – the emancipators – were the British.

Many people know of later American slave revolts such as that of Nat Turner, but the massive slave rebellion during the War of Independence is often ignored. It is inconsistent with the conventional interpretation of the American rebellion against Britain as a struggle for liberty. Most Americans are unaware that slaves fought for their freedom on the side of the British. 

In November 1775, Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, promised freedom to any slave who deserted a rebel master and joined the British Army. In 1779, the British commander-in-chief, Sir Henry Clinton, extended the offer to any slave who crossed over into British-held territory. The promise was no longer only freedom but ‘freedom and a farm.’

The British ruling class were not at this time opposed to slavery in principle. British merchants were active in the transatlantic slave trade and British owners of plantations in the Caribbean exploited slave labor. The emancipation was a tactic to weaken the American side in the war. Freedom was therefore offered only to slaves of rebel masters, not to slaves of masters who had remained loyal to Britain. 

Nearly 100,000 slaves came over to the British side. They risked their lives for a chance of freedom as slave-owners vowed to execute any who were recaptured. Several regiments were formed of the Black Loyalists. One was the so-called ‘Royal Ethiopian Regiment,’ which put to rout an American militia at Kemp’s Landing. They wore sashes inscribed with the words Liberty to Slaves. There was also a ‘Black Brigade’ with a celebrated guerrilla commander known as Colonel Tye. Many ex-slaves also served as blacksmiths, coopers, tailors, carpenters, cooks, and guides.

One American ‘lover of liberty’ commented on this development in a letter:

Hell itself could not have vomited anything more black than this design of emancipating our slaves. 

Lincoln — the emancipator?

Decades later, in 1861, early in the Civil War, northern General John C. Fremont declared that slaves of those resisting the United States were free. That proclamation sent a shock-wave through the Union. To placate his slave-owning supporters, Abraham Lincoln swiftly acted to countermand Fremont’s order and then replaced him.

Karl Marx observed at the time that the Union should

take cognizance of slavery as a military weapon… [and] slaves should be declared free… A single Negro regiment would have a remarkable effect on Southern nerves.

It wasn’t until 1863 that Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. This was no stirring declaration of liberty but – like the earlier British proclamations — merely a tactic to undermine the secessionists. It did not offer freedom to slaves of masters who were loyal to the Union. It ‘freed’ only slaves in the Confederacy, not slaves in the other five slave states (Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and Tennessee). As Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward, explained:

We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free. 

After the War of Independence

What happened to the slaves freed by the British when the War of Independence was over? 

Some were left behind, recaptured, and re-enslaved. Nearly 20,000 were evacuated together with the British troops from New York and Charleston; once in England, some found employment as liveried servants, but many fell into destitution. Some found jobs on Royal Navy or merchant ships. Yet others were sent to the Caribbean, where many were re-enslaved. A large group, some 3,000 strong, were stranded in New York, still under British occupation. 

The future of the ex-slaves in New York was a point on the agenda of the British-American peace talks that began in Paris in late 1782. The Americans demanded that ‘the British troops should carry off no negroes or other American property’ – and this provision was duly written into the text of the Treaty of Paris signed early in the next year. In May 1783, however, at follow-up talks at Washington’s headquarters in Orangetown, the British commander, General Sir Guy Carleton, insisted that ‘his conscience as an officer’ required him to respect the promise of freedom made to the ex-slaves. It was a matter of personal and national honor. He added that he was not violating the terms of the treaty, because the ‘negroes’ had already been freed and therefore were no longer ‘American property.’ 

All slaves who escaped and fought for the British before the end of November 1782 were to be given their freedom. Their names, ages, and dates of escape was recorded in The Book of Negroes and they received certificates of freedom. 

To Nova Scotia and back to West Africa 

In New York, meanwhile, ex-slaves and other loyalist refugees were living in miserable conditions in a settlement of makeshift huts with roofs of sailcloth. Masters came looking for ‘their’ slaves and tried to drag them back with them. Carleton tried to stop the raids, but clearly the ex-slaves had to be taken to a safer place. He decided to ship them to Nova Scotia in Canada – the nearest convenient territory still under British rule. There they formed the largest community of free blacks in the Americas. 

Nevertheless, life in cold and rainy Nova Scotia was very hard. As a result of the machinations of their white fellow loyalists, the ex-slaves received little of the land they had been promised. Many ended up as hired laborers and share-croppers. In this respect the first emancipation resembled the second: some freedmen in the 1860s were given ‘forty acres and a mule’ but the land was soon restored to its old owners. Freedom without right of access to the means of life is a very limited kind of freedom. 

Some of the ex-slaves remained in Nova Scotia or settled in other maritime provinces of eastern Canada such as New Brunswick. Most, however, did not remain in Canada but were persuaded to participate in a resettlement scheme thought up by some British abolitionists and implemented with the help of the British government. They were taken to a site on the coast of West Africa, in what is now Sierra Leone. Many of the poor blacks in England were also persuaded to go. A similar scheme on a larger scale a generation later would lead to the creation of the state of Liberia.  

The resettlement scheme was poorly designed, the abolitionists being impractical eccentrics without necessary knowledge of the area. A corrupt British official stole a large part of the supplies. Many participants perished, but some did eventually establish themselves as self-sufficient farmers. The Krio (Creole) people of present-day Sierra Leone are their descendants.  

The settlement was in an area where some of the ex-slaves had originally lived before being kidnapped and enslaved. And the slave trade was still going on around them! So they had to take care to avoid re-enslavement. One settler spotted her own mother in a column of slaves being marched in chains to the coast and was able to buy her release. 

No saviors 

The historical record shows that while slaves have received help from enemies of their masters – the British authorities in the War of Independence, the North in the Civil War, the organisers of ‘Back to Africa’ schemes – the result has fallen well short of full emancipation. The fate of the ex-slaves remained largely in others’ hands: at best, new masters had replaced the old ones. The struggle for full emancipation continues in new forms today.

As the workers’ anthem, The Internationale, says:

There are no supreme saviours, 
No god, no Caesar, no tribune. 
Workers, let us save ourselves! 

Or as the great American socialist Eugene Debs put it:

I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, someone else would lead you out.

This article was co-authored by Alan Johnstone (SPGB) and Stephen Shenfield.

Elections

 "I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want, and get it." - Eugene V. Debs

"Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers' candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled." - Karl Marx

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." - John Quincy Adams

Democracy under capitalism is reduced to people voting for competing groups of professional politicians, to giving the thumbs-up or the thumbs-down to the governing or opposition party (or parties).

Political analysts call this the "elite theory of democracy" since under it all that the people get to choose is which elite should exercise government power.

This contrasts with the original theory of democracy which envisages popular participation in the running of affairs and which political analysts call "participatory democracy".
This is the sort of democracy Socialists favour but we know it's never going to exist under capitalism. The most we will get under capitalism is the right to vote, under more-or-less fair conditions, for who shall control political power—a minimalist form of democracy but not to be dismissed for that since it at least provides a mechanism whereby a socialist majority could vote in socialist delegates instead of capitalist politicians.

The originally Marxist Social Democratic parties had in addition to the “maximum” programme of socialism what they called a “minimum programme” of immediate reforms to capitalism. What happened is that they attracted votes on the basis of their miniumum, not their maximum, programme, i.e. reformist votes, and so became the prisoners of these voters. In parliament, and later in office, they found themselves with no freedom of action other than to compromise with capitalism. Had they been the mandated delegates of those who voted for them (rather than leaders) this could be expressed by saying that they had no mandate for socialism, only to try to reform capitalism. It was not a case of being corrupted by the mere fact of going into national parliaments but was due to the basis on which they went there and how this restricted what they could do. In short, it is not power as such that corrupts. It is power obtained on the basis of followers voting for leaders to implement reforms that, if you want to put it that way, “corrupts”.

We advocate only socialism and nothing but (the so-called “maximum programme”)

We are not advocating that the State be used to create socialism , but that the State is used to abolish capitalism and used to abolish itself. To prevent the use of the State in the suppression of socialism by capturing it and emasculating it .

As for reformism to fight for present existing life , to resist capital's encroachment and to improve our economic condition does not delay the overthrow of the present social system.
When the worker acquires revolutionary consciousness he is still compelled to make the non-revolutionary struggle of every-day life . It is the propagating of the idea that THROUGH a policy or programme of reforms that the workers' situation can somehow be intrinsically improved or that it can progress towards the establishment of a socialist society that the SPGB adamantly refuses to recognise .

The conditions of existence of the wage-workers depends upon their wages. It is not determined by the legal law, but by the economic law of supply and demand.

The condition of existence of the wage-workers is determined by the progress of the development of machinery, the concentration of capital, the proportion of the unemployed industrial reserve army.

Social realities are outside of parliaments.

Although the bettering of the conditions of existence by way of political reform is impossible, it is not the same as regards the conditions of fighting. To distinguish between the conditions of fighting and the conditions of existence is not to split hairs. The difference is real. Some reforms would render the attacks of the proletariat more powerful, those of capitalism weaker- the right to strike , the right to picket , for instance . The class struggle is, therefore, both industrial and political but the SPGB consider the latter as being its ultimate form and its revolutionary form .

 William Morris said:

"The palliatives over which many worthy people are busying themselves now are useless because they are but unorganised partial revolts against a vast, wide-spreading, grasping organisation which will, with the unconscious instinct of a plant, meet every attempt at bettering the conditions of the people with an attack on a fresh side."

"I believe that the Socialists will certainly send members to Parliament when they are strong enough to do so; in itself I see no harm in that, so long as it is understood that they go there as rebels, and not as members of the governing body prepared to pass palliative measures to keep Society alive."

 We reject ALL forms of minority action to attempt to establish socialism, which can only be established by the working class when the immense majority have come to want and understand it. Without a socialist working class, there can be no socialism. The establishment of socialism can only be the conscious majority, and therefore democratic, act of a socialist-minded working class.

Whereas you can make people do what they do not wish to do, you cannot make them adopt a set of social relations which require their voluntary co-operation if they do not voluntarily co-operate .

In these circumstances the easiest and surest way for such a socialist majority to gain control of political power in order to establish socialism is to use the existing electoral machinery to send a majority of mandated socialist delegates to the various parliaments of the world. This is why we advocate using Parliament. Not to try to reform capitalism (the only way Parliaments have been used up till now), but for the single revolutionary purpose of abolishing capitalism and establishing socialism by converting the means of production and distribution into the common property of the whole of society.

No doubt, at the same time, the working class will also have organised itself, at the various places of work, in order to keep production going, but nothing can be done here until the machinery of coercion which is the state has been taken out of the hands of the capitalist class by political action.

Naive reformism, if you wish to claim that, but who offers alternative strategies that are not flawed.

The vote is not a gift to the masses from the Government out of the beneficence of its heart. We don't advocate de facto disenfranchisement of the worker by promoting political abstention. The right to vote can become a powerful instrument to end our servitude and to achieve genuine democracy and freedom. Working people with an understanding of socialism can utilise their vote to signify that the overwhelming majority demand change and to bring about social revolution.

The first object of a socialist organisation is the development of the desire for socialism among the working class and the preparation of the political party to give expression to that desire. What our capitalist opponents consequently do when the majority wish to prevail will determine our subsequent actions. If they accept defeat, well and good. If they choose not to accept the verdict of the majority which is given through the medium of their own institutions and contest that verdict by physical force, then the workers will respond in kind , with the legitimacy and the authority of a democratic mandate.

The important thing is for the workers to gain control of the political machinery, because the political machine is the real centre of social control - not made so by capitalist rulers but developed and evolved over centuries and through struggles .

The power over the means of life which the capitalist class has, is vested in its control of the political machinery. Ownership of the world's economic resources is certainly an economic factor, but that ownership, if challenged, will find its means of enforcement by and through the State political machine, which, as everybody should know, includes the armed forces.

Of course, an elaborate legal machinery exists whereby claims on private property are settled among the capitalists themselves, but behind the Judicature and the Legislature stands the means of enforcing the decrees. The political arm of capitalism rules the economic body of the system in the final analysis: which reveals the chief reason why the capitalist class concern themselves so much about political action; they realise that in this field their economic interest finds its ultimate, if not immediate, protection. Thus, the political organisation of the workers for Socialist purposes is thrust upon us as a primary and imperative necessity. The SPGB, in aiming for the control of the State, is a political party in the immediate sense.

The workers' political organisation must precede the economic, since, apart from the essential need of the conquest of the powers of government, it is on the political field that the widest and most comprehensive propaganda can be deliberately maintained. It is here that the workers can be deliberately and independently organised on the basis of Socialist thought and action. In other words, Socialist organisation can proceed untrammelled by ideas other than those connected with its revolutionary objective.

The SPGB claims to be Marxist .

"The irony of history turns everything topsy-turvy. We, the ‘revolutionists’, thrive better by the use of constitutional means than by unconstitutional and revolutionary methods. The parties of law and order, as they term themselves, are being destroyed by the constitutional implements which they themselves have fashioned.” - Engels.

To paraphrase, our "reformist" parliamentarianism transforms elections from a means of deceit into a means of emancipation

"...the more the proletariat matures towards its self-emancipation, the more does it constitute itself as a separate class and elect its own representatives in place of the capitalists. Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It can and never will be that in the modern State. But that is sufficient. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage reaches its boiling point among the labourers, they as well as the capitalists will know what to do.” - Engels.

The SPGB position is consistent with Marx's presuppositions to recognise parliament as an institution geared to the needs of capitalism, and therefore inappropriate as the vehicle for a fundamental transformation of society, but yet to regard its connected electoral practices as coinciding with the principles involved in that transformation that adds the possibility of a peaceful transition to a new society.

Having agreed that the socialist revolution requires the endorsement of the majority, the most obvious riposte is that anarchists present no way of how, without counting individuals’ preferences as in a ballot, a majority is determined .

Firstly, we would take issue with some historic examples that the general will of the majority are always thwarted by the capitalist class.

There has been much analysis of the Nazi’s and the one thing that is clear is that Hitler rejected putschism after 1923 and concentrated on the constitutional methods of achieving political power and became the largest party within the Reichstag, albeit not a party with a overall majority, although he did achieve the necessary two-thirds majority vote required to suspend the German constitution and pass the “Enabling Act “ ...that supposedly was meant to delegate just temporary power to him. It was through the capture of political power by the vote that the Nazi’s could impose and exercise their dictatorship and regardless of any attempt to re-write history , …The overwhelming majority of Germans did not seem to mind that their personal freedom had been taken away…The Nazi terror in the early years affected the lives of relatively few Germans…On the contrary , they supported it with genuine enthusiasm…” [The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer]. 

Many other citations can be offered to demonstrate that the Nazis held power because that did have the support (granted perhaps in cases passive support) of the majority.

Spain and Franco is often offered up as a evidence of the might of the military in the pay of the capitalist class but the first blood spilled was the summary execution of 200 senior officers who would not go against the Republic. ( as an aside ,  just how many of Franco’s Moorish troops would have obeyed Franco’s orders if the Spanish Republic had promised Moroccan independence).

Also contrary to what many now think that Spain was a hot bed of anarchists.

"Not only did the CNT lack the support of a majority of the Spanish people, they argued, but it lacked the support of the majority of the Spanish working class. Anarchosyndicalists were a minority within a minority. Even within the CNT membership, a large number of workers and peasants shared only a nominal allegiance to libertarian ideals. They were members of the CNT because the union was strong in their localities and work places. If these people, and the Spaniards generally, were not educated in Anarchist principles, warned the moderates, the revolution would simply degenerate into an abhorrent dictatorship of ideologues" [The Spanish Anarchists. The Heroic years - Murray Bookchin ]

Not the big majority of support which is a pre -requisite for socialism.

According to Wiki, “… Mussolini thus legally reached power, in accordance with the Statuto Albertino , the Italian Constitution. The March on Rome was not the conquest of power which Fascism celebrated but rather a transfer of power within the framework of the constitution…”

But, of course, it is argued that it was a “ …a transfer made possible by the surrender of public authorities in the face of fascist intimidation and the complicity of the bourgeoisie, who thought it would be possible to manipulate Mussolini…”

In Chile’s case and Allende, if you deny Hitler the right as the majority party with minority vote then Allende must be denied his right to power too since his was 36.2 percent of the vote to 34.9 percent for Alessandri and with 27.8 percent going to a Tomic.

For every coup , we can easily counter tenfold where the military stood passive or even actually provided support to the popular will .

The  alternate strategies general strikes and massed actions and “ARMING “ of the masses are naive tactics

 James Connolly believed that street-fighting was the best tactic because the capitalist class would not destroy its own buildings being private property, their own bricks and mortar, and was then confronted by the British State which subsequently subjected him to artillery and cannon fire.

 Bookchin also wrote along the lines that you can only stay on the barricades for so long, after all, even revolutionaries need to eat. 

There is an underlying assumption that those in the military are more immune to socialist propaganda, that they are divorced from civilian society, that they do not possess family and friends outside the military and therefore will be suffering from some type of ideological uneven development and that the social ideas of the general population will not be adopted by those in the armed forces. Surely, that is all up for debate .

But to repeat once more the SPGB case, the institution of parliament is not at fault . It is just that people's ideas have not yet developed beyond belief in leaders and dependence on a political elite.

Control of parliament by representatives of a conscious revolutionary movement will enable the bureaucratic-military apparatus to be dismantled and the oppressive forces of the state to be neutralised, so that socialism may be introduced with the least possible violence and disruption. Parliament and local councils , to the extent that their functions are administrative and not governmental, can and will be used to co-ordinate the emergency immediate measures to transform society when socialism is established .

If Bookchin can favour a political a party, operating at local level, organising itself on democratic, non-hierarchical lines to participate in local elections why can't a party contesting national elections do so? Why can’t local "libertarian municipalist" parties form a federation based on the principles of delegated democracy to win control of central state power without becoming a statist party?

And if they could, why not do it? 

Surely this would be a better strategy than working to win control of local councils in the hope that when a majority of them had been won the nation-state's power would be sufficiently diminished that people would withdraw their support from it, and it would collapse like a house of cards?

Far better, is it not, if only to minimise the risk of violence, to also organise to win a majority in parliament too, not to form a government, but to end capitalism and dismantle the state. 

Political democracy is not just, a trick whereby the capitalist class get the working class to endorse their rule; it is a potential instrument that the working class can turn into a weapon to use in ending capitalism and class rule. Bookchin’s mistake was in being inconsistent in not realising that the principles of democratic organisation he recommends for his local municipalist organisations could equally applied on the broader political field, to the workers self-organised politically for socialism, i. e. to a workers' socialist party in the fullest sense.

Socialists qualify their endorsement of parliamentarianism , criticising bourgeois democacy as the best we can hope for under capitalism but not the ideal model possible for the revolutionary. Capitalist democracy is not a participatory democracy, which a genuine democracy has to be. In practice the people generally elect to central legislative assemblies and local councils professional politicians who they merely vote for and then let them get on with the job. In other words, the electors abdicate their responsibility to keep any eye on their representatives, giving them a free hand to do what the operation of capitalism demands. But that’s as much the fault of the electors as of their representatives, or rather it is a reflection of their low level of democratic consciousness.
It can’t be blamed on the principle of representation as such. 

There is no reason in principle why, with a heightened democratic consciousness (such as would accompany the spread of socialist ideas), even representatives sent to state bodies could not be subject – while the state lasts – to democratic control by those who sent them there. The argument that anarchists usually put against this is that “power corrupts”. But if power inevitability corrupts why does this not apply also in non-parliamentary elected bodies such as syndicalist union committees or workers councils?

Certainly alternate strategies such as the General Strike are ones we also could employ in certain specific particular scenarios and therefore do not necessarily exclude them as tactics. What we do not do is to raise them to a point of political principle.

Having earlier criticised James Connolly we'd agree  with this:
"...I am inclined to ask all and sundry amongst our comrades if there is any necessity for this presumption of antagonism between the industrialist and the political advocate of socialism. I cannot see any. I believe that such supposed necessity only exists in the minds of the mere theorists or doctrinaires. The practical fighter in the work-a-day world makes no such distinction. He fights, and he votes; he votes and he fights. He may not always, he does not always, vote right; nor yet does he always fight when and as he should. But I do not see that his failure to vote right is to be construed into a reason for advising him not to vote at all; nor yet why a failure to strike properly should be used as a gibe at the strike weapon, and a reason for advising him to place his whole reliance upon votes..."

Diversity (music video)

Wallace Shawn - Why i call myself a socialist (video)