Socialism and Electoralism
The recent successes for democratic socialist candidates like Zohran Mamdani in New York and Omar Fateh in Minneapolis have reinvigorated discussions on what revolutionary potential might be found in bourgeois elections. However, communists, organizers, activists, revolutionaries, and workers must be clear-sighted when it comes to engaging in bourgeois electoralism.
Socialists and democratic socialists running in bourgeois elections are misleading the working class. They’re draining it of the revolutionary potential required to construct the dictatorship of the proletariat — the true resolution to the contradictions facing society.
Without the dictatorship of the proletariat, we can’t resolve the current contradiction between capital and labor. Without resolving this contradiction, we can’t liberate ourselves, our communities, or our futures.
Overview
The irreconcilable contradiction between capital and labor
The bourgeois state
Bourgeois elections
Dictatorship of the proletariat
Terms used
Works cited
The Irreconcilable Contradiction Between Capital and the Working Class
To understand the deception of the social democrats, let’s first define the irreconcilable contradiction between “capital” and the “working class”.
Capital: wealth that is invested for the purpose of creating profits.
Working class: those of us who do not own capital and must sell our labor power — our ability to work — in order to survive.
Under the capitalist mode of production, a capitalist takes their money and uses it to buy two specific commodities — labor power and the means of production. It’s the use of money to purchase labor power and the means of production which marks the difference between money as money and money as capital.
Workers use the means of production to produce more commodities, which are then sold for money. Think of a cook transforming ingredients into a meal, or a factory worker transforming metal, plastic, and electronics to make a car. Capitalists take these finalized commodities and sell them. But in order to survive, capitalists have to make a profit for the commodities sold. This profit is achieved by increasing the amount of labor time workers put into production while investing in more efficient productive technology, decreasing the wages paid out and lowering working conditions.
It’s here we come to why the contradiction between capital and the working class is irreconcilable:
workers need higher wages and better working conditions to survive
capitalists need lower wages and more efficient productive technology to grow capital, profit, and wealth
Therefore, workers and capitalists both can’t get what they need. Workers can’t have their wages lowered AND raised. Workers can’t have better working conditions AND worse working conditions. Workers can’t be treated with respect at their job AND disrespected by their bosses and managers. So what happens is that capitalists get what they need in order to facilitate the exploitation and degradation of workers.
How do capitalists get what they need? They lower wages, they lower working conditions — while ramping up exploitation and disrespect. They pump money into the police, into ICE to threaten workers into silence. They buy politicians. They rig elections. They invest in technologies whose purpose is to make vast sections of the working class irrelevant. Where there’s no need for a worker’s labor power, the worker has no recourse, nothing to protect them from the predominance of capital over labor.
The Bourgeois State
“It [the theory of “pure” democracy] was brought into being for the purpose of concealing the ulcers of capitalism, of embellishing imperialism and lending it moral strength in the struggle against the exploited masses.”
Stalin (1924, 2020). Foundations of Leninism, p. 41.
When the above contradictions can’t be reconciled, or resolved, the state — the police, military, and courts — arises as a form of class rule (Lenin, 1917). A state is a tool of class oppression, of one class over the other. Under capitalism, the state is a tool of the capitalist class to oppress the working-class and oppressed peoples. Different elements of the capitalist state, things like the police, courts, government agencies, the military, elections, etc., all serve the primary function of oppressing the working-class. This is what Marx and Engels (1848) meant when they wrote in the Communist Manifesto that:
“The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.”
The bourgeois state is a tool of the bourgeoisie, for the bourgeoisie, for their common goals, in opposition to working-class interests. The bourgeois state therefore facilitates the creation of a dictatorship of capital.
This is why capitalists, bosses, and managers have more impact on the day-to-day lives of workers than elected officials. It’s why 90% of U.S. media is owned by just a handful of companies that force-feed workers pro-capitalist propaganda. It’s why the police work for businesses to advance gentrification and keep “undesirables” from areas where large amounts of capital have been invested into real estate. In our capitalist society, there aren’t any real liberties, save for the liberties of the exploiting class, the capitalists (Stalin, 1924).
Bourgeois Elections
Part of the bourgeois state’s function is to trick working-class people into believing that its role is to be a kind of neutral mediator. That we can, collectively, iron out the mistakes or flaws in the system via things like elections. It’s a grave mistake for workers to believe this lie. Elections, under a bourgeois state, only serve the common goals of the bourgeoisie. Bourgeois elections are tools of bourgeois rule.
“Well-meaning” socialist or democratic socialist candidates can’t redress the underlying contradictions between capital and labor. Under our current capitalist conditions, these candidates and politicians redirect the energy of the working-class away from the construction of the dictatorship of the proletariat towards the strengthening of the bourgeois state. They redirect workers away from organization and strikes and towards ritualized elections for unaccountable candidates. After all the volunteer door-knocking, fundraising, and message-spreading of an election is done, the workers are left with nothing tangible. Workers have no durable organizations connecting them, no means of exerting their collective power.
As we wrote in, "The Incorrect Tactics of Communists During the 2024 Presidential Election" (2024):
“Imagine an organizing drive at a firm with 100 workers. Competent organizers will want to have conversations with at least 75 of those workers. That’s a minimum of 75 hours of organizing conversations — more likely 150, 300, or even 600 hours — to organize just one shop [...]
[...] [T]here are millions of workers who could be unionized, and millions of union workers who could be radicalized. What’s more likely, convincing 1.5 million people to vote for a communist candidate (1 percent of total ballots cast in 2020) or convincing 1.5 million people to go on strike? In spite of the dearth of Marxist-Leninist agitation amongst the working class, 453,000 workers went on strike [in 2023] alone. Imagine what the working class could accomplish with strategic leadership.”
This is why capitalists are accepting of certain “leftist” politicians like Alexandria Occasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders. They distract and mislead workers from their revolutionary potential because they fear the dictatorship of the proletariat.
“The Mensheviks and the opportunists of all countries, who fear [the] dictatorship [of the proletariat], usually reduce the ‘conquest of power’ to a change of the ‘cabinet,’ to the accession to power of a new ministry made up of people like Scheidemann and Noske, McDonald and Henderson[1]” (Stalin, 1924, 2020, p. 39). While this fear signals to us that there are problems in the larger capitalist structure, “([...] the appearance of such governments is a symptom that ‘over there’ (i.e., the capitalist camp) all is not quite ‘at the Shipka Pass’[2]),” Stalin reminds us that “[...] the government of a MacDonald or a Scheidamann is as far removed from the conquest of power by the proletariat as the sky from the earth [...]” (Stalin, 1924, 2020, p. 40).
Dictatorship of the Proletariat
“The dictatorship of the proletariat is the instrument of the proletarian revolution, its organ, [...], brought into being for the purpose of, firstly, crushing the resistance of the overthrown exploiters and consolidating the achievements of the proletarian revolution, [...]”
Stalin (1924, 2020, p. 35).
History has shown that the bourgeois state is incapable in resolving the contradiction between capital and labor. This resolution won’t come through “greater” democracy. This resolution can only be achieved through the construction of the dictatorship of the proletariat which overturns the dictatorship of capital. Workers have but one revolutionary responsibility — to organize working-class power for this dictatorship. It’s the proletariat, the working-class, that has the size, job training, education, and therefore, the revolutionary potential to smash the bourgeois state (Lenin, 1917).
As Lenin shows us in The State and Revolution,
“[...] capitalist democracy—inevitably narrow, tacitly repelling the poor, and therefore hypocritical and false to the core—forward development does not proceed simply, directly and smoothly to ‘greater and greater democracy,’ as the liberal professors and petty-bourgeois opportunists would have us believe. No, forward development, i.e., towards Communism, proceeds through the dictatorship of the proletariat, and cannot do otherwise, for the resistance of the capitalist exploiters cannot be broken by anyone else or in any other way” (Lenin, 1917, 1947, p. 201).
Any communist or revolutionary presenting so-called socialist or social democratic candidates as pathways to an (eventual) dictatorship of the proletariat is engaged in serious misleadership of workers. Engagement with the bourgeois electoral process should be done only through revolutionary communist parties, to expose the limitations of bourgeois parliamentarism and to operate where workers are (Lenin 1920). Again from The Incorrect Tactics of Communists During the 2024 Presidential Election:
“They [social democrats” argue that it is necessary to take part in bourgeois elections because that is where the masses have focused their political attention, and it is in this arena where they must be reached. [...]
They forget — or choose to ignore — that our responsibility is not just to reach the masses, but to organize them. If there are no alternative centers of political life, then it is incumbent upon Marxists to construct those centers. The development of proletarian organizations, and the politicization of already existing organizations is the fundamental task of building a socialist revolution. [...]
It should never be forgotten that communist participation in bourgeois elections must always serve the purpose of exposing the anti-democratic nature of the bourgeois political system. It is to put forward candidates [...] delegated representatives of popular working class organizations who will press the interests of the working class against obstructionism of the bourgeoisie. It is this frustrated process — the destruction of indisputably popular policies, the blocking of the democratic will of the masses — which proves to the working class beyond any doubt that the political system has been captured by the interests of capital. When the masses understand that this capture occurred, and that no rescue is possible, they will be ready to replace the bourgeois political system with proletarian democracy.”
Incorrect ideas, however, can be transformed into correct ones. To do that, workers must begin the effort of organizing local workplaces to build revolutionary democratic control. They must help workers develop the strength to go on strike as it is the most powerful tool we have. Without a strong base of working-class power, engagement in bourgeois elections is foolhardy at best. But, through successive work stoppages, actions, and strikes, workers will lay the foundation for the dictatorship of the proletariat, a true workers’ state.
It’s now the responsibility of communists, workers, organizers, activists, and like-minded individuals to direct the working-class back to their revolutionary responsibility. We must reject the misdirection delivered by socialist and social democratic candidates and engage in the real work — the dictatorship of the proletariat. Say no to opportunist bourgeois electoralism! Say yes to revolutionary democratic control by the working class!
Notes
[1] Reference to Philip Scheidemann (1865-1939) & Gustav Noske (1868-1946), members of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) during WWI and the post-war period and Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937) & Arthur Henderson (1863-1935), leaders of the British Labour Party.
[2] A Russian saying from the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878). During the war there was heavy fighting at the Shipka Pass, but tsarist communiques would only communicate, “All quiet at the Shipka Pass”.
Terms used
Bourgeoisie (see, bourgeois, capitalist, etc.)
(noun)
The class of people in bourgeois society who own the means of production as private property.
Capital
(noun)
Money when it is in the process of being invested, in means of production or labor power, for the purpose of acquiring more money (in the form of profit).
Commodity
(noun)
A good or service produced by human labor for exchange on a marketplace.
Dictatorship of capital
(noun)
Rule by and for the proliferation of capital.
Dictatorship of the proletariat
(noun)
Rule by the proletariat during the socialist transitional phase.
Irreconcilable
(adjective)
Incapable of being brought into harmony or adjustment; incompatible.
Labor
(noun)
Work; the physical or mental application of effort into the means of production in order to produce something.
Labour power
(noun)
The capacity of workers to work.
Means of production
(noun)
The elements needed to produce commodities, like land, labor, and capital.
Menshevik
(noun)
Russian, lit. “Minority”
Faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) who split from Lenin’s Bolshevik (lit. “Majority”) faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903.
Mode of production
(noun)
The distinctive economic system of a society that encompasses social relations, dominant technologies, and organizational structures that are used to produce and distribute goods throughout society.
State
(noun)
An organ of class rule, for the oppression of one class by another.
Works cited
Lenin, V. I. (1947). The State and Revolution. In The Essentials of Lenin (Vol. 2, pp. 143-225). London: Lawrence & Wishart. (Original work published 1917). https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.17568/mode/2up
Lenin, V. I. (1966). “Left-Wing” Communism—An Infantile Disorder. In Collected Works (Vol. 31 - 17-118). Moscow: Progress Publishers. (Original Work published 1920). https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/cw/pdf/lenin-cw-vol-31.pdf#page=23
Marx, K. & Engels, F. (2008). The Communist Manifesto. London; Chicago, IL.: Pluto Press. (Original work published 1848). https://zelalemkibret.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/the-communist-manifesto.pdf#page=38
Multinational Communist Party (2024). The Incorrect Tactics of Communists During the 2024 Presidential Election. Multinational Communist Party. https://www.multinationalcp.org/home/the-incorrect-tactics-of-communists-during-the-2024-presidential-election
Stalin, J. (2020). Foundations of Leninism. Foreign Languages Press. (Original work published 1924). https://foreignlanguages.press/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/C01-Foundations-of-Leninism-6th-Printing.pdf