The Changing Face of U.S. Politics - Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions is theme of upcoming regional socialist educational conferences in the United States. This book, which contains the central strategic lessons that the communist movement has drawn over the last 20 years, is a handbook for revolutionary workers and young socialists today. (See ad on page 7) The excerpt below is from "Prospects for Socialism in America," the main political resolution adopted by the 27th National Convention of the Socialist Workers Party. The entire resolution appears in The Changing Face of U.S. Politics. The book is copyright by Pathfinder, reprinted with permission.

The breakdowns and cyclical fluctuations of the American economy are rooted in the contradictions of world capitalist production and trade. The very ascent of American capitalism to world supremacy has paved the way for a cataclysmic explosion on its home grounds.

In America, a country that has never been carpet-bombed, invaded, occupied, or made to pay war indemnities, capitalism for all its achievements has not been able to assure liberty, justice, and a decent standard of living for all of its people. As the mightiest and wealthiest capitalist power celebrates the 200th birthday of its revolutionary origin, growing numbers of Americans are beginning to ask, "If not here, then where?" If capitalism can't make good in the United States, maybe something is decidedly wrong.

The end of the long postwar boom, and the rise of unrest and social struggles in the United States, once again call attention to the fact that the victory of the European socialist revolution is not a necessary prerequisite for the development of a revolutionary situation in the United States.

Just as the first workers and peasants revolution could succeed in Russia, where the operation of the law of uneven and combined development thrust the most backward of the major capitalist countries in Europe to the forefront of the world revolution, so those same laws can produce severe shocks in the coming period within the heartland of the most advanced imperialist power.

But even the most devastating breakdowns of American capitalism cannot automatically produce a victory for the socialist revolution. As Lenin pointed out, there is no absolutely hopeless situation for capitalism. However deep the crisis, if enough commodities can be destroyed or devalued through war, depression, and bankruptcy, and the standard of living of the working class can be driven low enough, capitalism can recover for the moment.

While powerful world forces are laying powder kegs under American imperialism, only forces inside the United States can take power away from the American capitalists and disarm them....

Questions of perspective, program, and party building cannot be postponed with the expectation that they will be resolved by the colossal objective forces of a revolutionary upsurge. On the contrary, even a small propaganda nucleus that intends to become a mass party must be armed with a clear revolutionary perspective that puts the construction of the revolutionary party in first place....

The two-party system of American capitalism remains the greatest shock absorber of social protest. The single biggest anomaly in the American political scene is the absence of a political party of the working class and the lack of a tradition of independent working-class political organizations in the American labor movement. To transcend this political backwardness remains the single greatest leap to be taken in the politicalization of the American working class.

There is, of course, an advantageous side to the political inexperience of the American working class. The class-struggle minded socialist workers confront no powerful traditional reformist party to which the working class remains stubbornly loyal. The workers are not weighed down with the conservatizing force of the class-collaborationist political routinism ingrained in the European proletariat by the mass social democratic and Stalinist parties. Although the American union bureaucracy is far stronger than in the 1930s and acts as a formidable surrogate for a mass reformist party, it is less of an obstacle to socialist revolution than the reformist workers parties in the advanced capitalist countries of Europe.

The political education of the American working class does not necessarily have to pass through a reformist labor party or come under the domination of Stalinist or social democratic misleadership. Explosive developments, propelling events at extraordinary speed, could bring about a rapid transition to revolutionary class consciousness. A mass revolutionary socialist party could emerge during such a revolutionary upsurge - but only if its cadres are prepared beforehand with a clear perspective and program and only if they are conscious that a revolutionary party is the historical key to victory.

As Trotsky explained in the Transitional Program, "The building of national revolutionary parties as sections of the Fourth International is the central task of the transitional epoch."

The Socialist Workers Party is internationalist to its core. Not only are world developments shaping the coming struggles at home, but the American workers' enemies are the exploiters on a world scale. The perspective of the Communist Manifesto - "Workers of the world, unite" - remains our fundamental goal....

At the heart of the Socialist Workers Party's revolutionary program and internationalist perspective is its proletarian orientation. Only a party that has deep roots in the working class, that is composed primarily of workers, and enjoys the respect and confidence of the workers, can lead the American working class and its allies to power.

The proletarian orientation means concerted, systematic work to root the party in all sectors of the mass movement and to recruit the most capable fighters to the party. It means participation in labor organizations, in industry and among the unemployed, in the organizations of the oppressed minorities, in the struggles for women's liberation, and in the student movement....

Our proletarian orientation means functioning as a homogeneous campaign party capable of choosing realistic objectives and concentrating our striking power and resources with maximum effectiveness. It means professionalizing our work and adjusting ourselves to the demands and direction of the mass movement in order to help lead that movement forward.

The need to integrate the party into all aspects of the mass movement shapes every activity we undertake. The deepening crises of the American capitalist system and its reactionary interventions abroad do not imply any esoteric new "tactics" for building the party. They only reinforce the need to deepen our proletarian orientation and to take advantage of the new opportunities opening on all sides.

The perspective of increasing class struggle and class polarization indicates more than ever the need for a disciplined combat party of the working class. The revolutionary party that seeks to lead the socialist revolution is a voluntary organization. Without a common bond of mutual confidence, experience, and loyalty to the program and goals on which it is founded, it will never accomplish the immense tasks before it. Thus, for us the concept of loyalty to the party we are building, pride and confidence in our collective efforts - what Trotsky referred to as party patriotism - is simply the proletarian orientation and internationalist perspective applied to the construction of the revolutionary instrument necessary to realize our program.  
 
 
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