Communists have two main reasons for engaging in capitalist elections. The first is that elections create a heightened state of political awareness in society. Many workers are not normally interested in politics but are more open to talking with us around election time. The second reason is that communists can use participation in the electoral system to expose the system. During a campaign, we can show concretely how elections are rigged against the working class.
Nope. -> "By running for President, I would only contribute to reinforcing the illusion that all this could, somehow, be “reformed away” or “changed by changing the people who rule in this system.” But, as also made clear in message Seventy-Six:
"This can only be changed with a revolution—to overthrow and abolish this system, and replace it with a fundamentally different and much better system, which does not rest on, does not require, and aims to fully do away with ruthless exploitation and monstrous mass murder and destruction."
In “Theses on the Communist Parties and Parliamentarianism” Lenin explained that participation in bourgeois elections was an essential tactic in the struggle to win the masses to communism:
< How will you reveal the true nature of parliament to the really backward masses deceived by the bourgeoisie if you do not enter it? How will you expose this or that parliamentary maneuver, the attitude of this or that party, if you are not in parliament? If you are Marxists you must recognize that the relation between the classes in a bourgeois society and the relationship between the parties are closely connected. I repeat, how will you show all that if you are not members of parliament, if you reject parliamentary action? The history of the Russian revolution has clearly proved that the great masses of the working class, of the peasant class and of the petty clerks would not have been convinced by any arguments if they had not made their own experiences>
What you’re suggesting is an ultra-left approach out of line with the Bolshevik experience.
This is both a dogmatic AND a reformist argument. It's not 1920! And the US capitalist-imperialist system isn't the same as it was then (and how Lenin viewed playing a role in bourgeois government changed as circumstances changed.) Listen to this message again, and listen to the next two, including Revolution #83 "Voting by 'the people' is not the basic way things are decided under this capitalist system." Get more deeply into the new communism which has made breakthroughs in recognizing communism is a SCIENCE, not a set of static precepts.
Communists have two main reasons for engaging in capitalist elections. The first is that elections create a heightened state of political awareness in society. Many workers are not normally interested in politics but are more open to talking with us around election time. The second reason is that communists can use participation in the electoral system to expose the system. During a campaign, we can show concretely how elections are rigged against the working class.
Nope. -> "By running for President, I would only contribute to reinforcing the illusion that all this could, somehow, be “reformed away” or “changed by changing the people who rule in this system.” But, as also made clear in message Seventy-Six:
"This can only be changed with a revolution—to overthrow and abolish this system, and replace it with a fundamentally different and much better system, which does not rest on, does not require, and aims to fully do away with ruthless exploitation and monstrous mass murder and destruction."
In “Theses on the Communist Parties and Parliamentarianism” Lenin explained that participation in bourgeois elections was an essential tactic in the struggle to win the masses to communism:
< How will you reveal the true nature of parliament to the really backward masses deceived by the bourgeoisie if you do not enter it? How will you expose this or that parliamentary maneuver, the attitude of this or that party, if you are not in parliament? If you are Marxists you must recognize that the relation between the classes in a bourgeois society and the relationship between the parties are closely connected. I repeat, how will you show all that if you are not members of parliament, if you reject parliamentary action? The history of the Russian revolution has clearly proved that the great masses of the working class, of the peasant class and of the petty clerks would not have been convinced by any arguments if they had not made their own experiences>
What you’re suggesting is an ultra-left approach out of line with the Bolshevik experience.
This is both a dogmatic AND a reformist argument. It's not 1920! And the US capitalist-imperialist system isn't the same as it was then (and how Lenin viewed playing a role in bourgeois government changed as circumstances changed.) Listen to this message again, and listen to the next two, including Revolution #83 "Voting by 'the people' is not the basic way things are decided under this capitalist system." Get more deeply into the new communism which has made breakthroughs in recognizing communism is a SCIENCE, not a set of static precepts.
A clear statement as to what IS needed. Break with the BEB! Follow Bob Avakian!