PSL is not a vote for class independence

Young people across the United States have protested the genocide in Gaza, and many understand that both Democrats and Republicans are fundamentally in agreement when it comes to Zionism. Genocide Joe has provided the weapons the IDF needs to commit mass murder, and on the debate stage Trump and Harris tried to outdo each other in support of Israel.

Many of these protesters refuse to vote for genocide – so how about some sort of third party? At first glance, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) looks like a socialist alternative. PSL candidates Claudia de la Cruz and Karina Garcia, who are on the ballot in over a dozen states, are calling on people to “end capitalism before it ends us.” Unlike Trump and Harris, both billionaire friends, de la Cruz and Garcia are working-class women who want to “seize big pharma, seize big tech, seize the big banks.”

Who is the PSL and will voting for the party help give working people a voice? Before formulating our criticism of the PSL, we must emphasize our support for their democratic right to participate in American elections. We reject any attempt to keep them off the ballot. We demand that they be allowed to participate in presidential debates so that millions of viewers can see politicians who are not from the ruling class.

The anti-imperialism of fools

The Party for Socialism and Liberation was founded in 2004 and, as the main force behind the ANSWER coalition, has organized numerous anti-war protests, particularly against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The PSL presents itself as a radical alternative to the Democratic Socialists of America: Instead of phone banking Democratic Party candidates, the PSL seeks to build a “revolutionary labor party” based on Marxism.

Yet the PSL’s politics can best be described as “campist”: they offer their support to virtually any government that conflicts with US imperialism. They align with the “camp” that opposes US hegemony.

We believe that socialists must be anti-imperialist and oppose every maneuver by the US government, spy agencies and corporations. The “main enemy is at home,” as German Communist leader Karl Liebknecht put it. But this does not make the enemy of our enemy our friend.

Our anti-imperialism is based on class struggle. We do not believe that the bourgeoisie in an oppressed nation can lead the struggle against imperialist domination. Only the working class, armed with an anti-capitalist program, can end international exploitation. Yet the PSL believes that the main task of workers in the United States is to support other capitalist governments in their disputes with US imperialism.

The PSL supports a wide range of governments. First, it includes what we call Stalinist states, where a bureaucratic caste runs over a planned economy while crushing all forms of workers’ democracy. As socialists, we defend the non-capitalist economic structures of Cuba and North Korea while opposing government oppression of the working class.

The PSL further supports former Stalinist countries that have long since restored capitalism, such as China or Vietnam. China today is a country with an authoritarian government that oppresses the working class and rules in the interests of the billionaires, but the PSL maintains that it is “to build a socialist society.” The PSL press writes about Chinese investments in Africa and Latin America, which have all the hallmarks of imperialist exploitation. as a Chinese public relations agency: Instead of super-exploitation of workers in other countries, PSL assures readers that the Chinese citizenry is striving for “modernization” and progress.”

The PSL’s support is not limited to states that were once planned economies or are ruled by supposedly communist parties, but also to supposedly progressive capitalist governments. As Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has cracked down on the labor movement and used crude tricks to claim victory in the recent presidential election, the PSL has served as cheerleaders for this authoritarian government that defends “Venezuelan democracy.”

The PSL’s press does not give a hint that Maduro’s government has implemented massive austerity in the interest of imperialism. Working class and socialist candidates were kicked off. The truth is that Venezuela was never socialist, and socialists in Venezuela have fought for the political independence of the working class from the state.

Finally, the PSL even offers political support to bourgeois regimes that do not claim to be socialist, left-wing or progressive. PSL, e.g. stops The Houthi movement in Yemen as political allies. It has that too argued that Syria’s “secular and independent state remains far more democratic and progressive than any of its opposition forces.” (The indication that Bashar Al-Assad deserves support as “the lesser evil” is remarkable from a group opposed to the lesser evil in the US!) PSL likewise claimedregarding Iran’s clerical regime, that “its interests are aligned with the interests of organic anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist movements throughout the region.” This regime, which arose after a workers’ revolution was crushed, not only oppresses workers in Iran, but is no friend of Palestine.

Again, it is perfectly correct for socialists in the United States to oppose any military intervention by our government. Yet it is the anti-imperialism of fools to call upon workers in the United States to support reactionary, bourgeois, anti-worker governments in other countries.

The PSL does not believe that workers should organize independently of capitalists – it advocates class cooperation with capitalists who are in conflict with US imperialism. But within the imperialist world order, no capitalist state is truly anti-imperialist. Iran’s government, which has been in conflict with the United States for over four decades, remains eager to make deals and exploit workers in Iran in the interest of multinational corporations.

This openness to class cooperation is not limited to foreign policy. When parts of the Democratic Party saw how deeply unpopular their support for genocide in Gaza was, they launched a campaign to vote “uncommitted” in the primaries. The goal of this campaign was to prevent voters from drifting away from Biden and Harris by seeing the illusion that these imperialist politicians could be made to change their policies via votes.

While this campaign was surprisingly successful, it has had absolutely no effect on Harris, who has doubled down on his support for Israel. The only result has been to draw some voters back to an imperialist party. The PSL, while claiming to be against the Democrats, is supported this campaign, which explicitly tells voters to “vote disengaged” in the Democratic Party primary. This was no exception: when they organized a march in Washington last November, they gave plenty of space to NGOs very closely linked to the Democratic Party. This kind of class cooperation is in line with the entire history of the PSL.

Where does PSL come from?

The PSL arose out of a split from the Workers World Party (WWP) in 2004. The WWP had been founded 45 years earlier by Sam Marcy after he split from the Trotskyist movement. As a local leader of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Marcy had supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 to put down a workers’ revolt. Marcy’s theory of “global class war” called for uncritical solidarity with any action by the oppressive Soviet bureaucracy. In other words, “campism” is in PSL’s DNA.

Marcy had previously disagreed with SWP leaders over Henry Wallace’s presidential campaign in 1948. Wallace had been vice president under Roosevelt and subsequently founded the Progressive Party in 1956. He was a non-socialist politician who called for some progressive reforms in the capitalist state. . The SWP correctly refused to support any bourgeois candidates, but Marcy believed that it would be useful for revolutionary militants to work with a progressive sector of the ruling class. Again, PSL has a long tradition of class cooperation.

While Marcy’s WWP initially considered themselves to be the real Trotskyists, both WWP and PSL are better described as Stalinist parties. Rather than representing the interests of a particular Stalinist bureaucracy, however, the PSL is one sui generis American form of Stalinism that tries to support all Stalinist regimes, and many bourgeois regimes as well.

As we have written elsewhere, the PSL has played an important role in the Palestinian solidarity movement, yet its Stalinist politics set important limits. Crucially, the PSL has not encouraged self-organization of the movement, with open assemblies and elected delegates making decisions. Instead, the party works with liberal figureheads to organize behind the scenes. Also internally, the PSL uses a Stalinist framework, where members are officially granted democratic rights, but critical debates and decision-making are limited to the top. The PSL’s Stalinism is thus not just a matter of historical balances over past revolutionary experiences – their Stalinism has a negative effect on protest movements today.

For all these reasons, the PSL does not represent a voice for working-class political independence, either in the United States or elsewhere. Building a real socialist alternative will require the political independence of the working class, rather than the combatism of the PSL.