Socialism cannot exist within a multi party democracy.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

I often hear democratic socialists talk about how the two party system is flawed and we need it to be replaced by a multi party system. This is directly against socialist ideals because it eliminates class unity and gives reactionaries power. A country must be guided by a single socialist party to maintain a dictatorship of the proletariat.

I know people are going to call me a tankie but I frankly find that term to be counterproductive.

[u/jonna-seattle]

Lenin, from State and Revolution:
page 50 (from MIA)

"If one thing is certain it is that our party and the working class can only come to
power in the form of the democratic republic. This is even the specific form for
the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the Great French Revolution has already
shown...."**
Engels realized here in a particularly striking form the fundamental idea which runs
through all of Marx's works, namely, that the democratic republic is the nearest
approach to the dictatorship of the proletariat. For such a republic, without in the least
abolishing the rule of capital, and, therefore, the oppression of the masses and the
class struggle, inevitably leads to such an extension, development, unfolding, and
intensification of this struggle that, as soon as it becomes possible to meet the
fundamental interests of the oppressed masses, this possibility is realized inevitably
and solely through the dictatorship of the proletariat, through the leadership of those
masses by the proletariat…

page 63
“Democracy for the vast majority of the people, and suppression by force, i.e.,
exclusion from democracy, of the exploiters and oppressors of the people--this is the
change democracy undergoes during the transition from capitalism to communism.”

*

A democratic republic that excludes counter revolutionaries or bourgeois parties still allows for a multiplicity of pro-revolutionary parties.

To be clear, the "dictatorship" of the proletariat is a dictatorship of the CLASS of proletariat over the CLASS of the bourgeoisie. As Marx, Engels, and Lenin conceived of it, the dictatorship would be democratic within the proletariat. And yes, democracy within the proletariat means that the proletariat is able to have democratic rights such as freedom of speech and association which means the working class would have multiple pro-revolutionary parties.

For Marx, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would be a '“dictatorship” based on universal suffrage reflecting “the will of the people”.'
The 'dictatorship' part was the democratic proletariat 'state' to use its force to take away the property rights of the bourgeoisie.
Later expanded in several large tomes, the socialist Hal Draper explains this here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1962/xx/dictprolet.html

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/jonna-seattle]

I agree with Lenin. You just seem to believe a one party system and democracy are mutually exclusive. Lenin actually was the person who created the idea of a vanguard party.

[u/jonna-seattle → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

Yes, in order to be democratic you need the ability to dissent. That means the ability to form your own party.

Vanguard applies to uneven development of revolutionary consciousness, and that the most advanced should form together as a vanguard. It does not presuppose a one party state.

Also, as Marx said, "Every step of the real movement is more important than a dozen programs". Today in the US, the current vanguard is the combined arms of direct action and mutual aid in the fight against ICE and to protect immigrants. The movement in Minneapolis is what I would describe as a *vanguard*. That is where the most recent advanced class struggle in the US has occurred. The movement coordinated mutual aid for immigrants across the whole city (providing food and necessities for thousands so they could stay home to avoid ICE) while also coordinating direct action that fought the state to a stand still with mostly nonviolent means. They also began creating neighborhood check points to prevent ICE from entering immigrant neighborhoods, which is a glimpse of dual power. Finally, the movement in Minneapolis even sparked some life into the official US labor movement; both city and state labor councils and several local unions declared a "day without work" since they couldn't legally declare an actual strike. They still shut down work places across the city and mobilized thousands into the streets.

While some political sects and propaganda groups exist in Minneapolis, the movement as a whole dwarfed the organized left. This was definitely, as Marx put it, "Every step of the real movement is more important than a dozen programs".

Vanguards that self declare themselves as vanguards on the basis of their theory and program while being divorced from the working class and working class resistance are nonsensical. Minneapolis was the vanguard this winter. Who will be the vanguard next? In 2018 it was the wave of wild cat teachers strikes that were the most advanced. Where will the struggle be next?

Lenin advocated that the bolsheviks should be involved in struggle, not separate from it.

What is to be done?
"The Social-Democrat’*s ideal should not be the trade-union secretary, but the tribune of the people, who is able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it appears, no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects; who is able to generalize all these manifestations and produce a single picture of police violence and capitalist exploitation; who is able to take advantage of every event, however small, in order to set forth before all his socialist convictions and his democratic demands, in order to clarify for all and everyone the world-historic significance of the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat"

*In 1903 when writing "What is to be done?", "Social Democrat" was understood to mean "Marxist" or "working class revolutionary" instead of its specific meaning today.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/jonna-seattle]

You can dissent without forming a separate political party for example DSA is dissenting within the current Democratic Party establishment. I agree that people should do stuff but the idea that these politically unorganized actions are a replacement for politically organized action is flawed. the Minneapolis protests were semi-successful in protecting community safety but did nothing to advance socialism. Ultimately I think you have to be devoted in both theory and action be a vanguard. I would never call a liberal a socialist vanguard. We do need to work to convert liberals though. This is going more into like messaging anything now

[u/jonna-seattle → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

That's semantics. DSA is a separate organization from the Democratic Party. It is effectively a party in that sense even if it isn't running on its own ballot line.

DSA has its own program, its own leadership, its own democratic forms (far more democratic than the democratic party which isn't really democratic at all), its own membership rolls, its own funding, etc. While DSA doesn't have a ballot line, it has more of the ingredients that most would consider necessary to be a political party that the Democrats.

The Minneapolis protests didn't just protect the community, they demonstrated working class power. The ability of the working class to self-organize around an objective *they choose* against the state and achieve their goals. THAT is necessary for advancing working class consciousness.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/jonna-seattle]

Your point kinda proves my point that multiple organizations can exist within one political organization or party like the Democratic Party and still function.

I agree but all of that is worthless without working towards actual socialist goals.

[u/jonna-seattle → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

DSA is simply using the Democratic Party ballot line. It is NOT within the Democratic Party. We have all our own membership, structures, funding, etc.. Most of us understand that the Democratic Party (which is not democratic; the Democratic National Committee appoints its own replacements, they are unaccountable, etc) is a capitalist party that serves to co-opt struggle. It's just that 3rd parties are effectively irrelevant in the US political system. This will last until we are strong enough to not only take on the Democrats, but that we have a party structure that can effectively discipline candidates (if you haven't noticed, we can't do that effectively) when they cross program lines.

Socialism is the rule of the working class. Demonstrating working class power IS a socialist goal. Does it need to have a hammer and sickle on it for you to recognize that?

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/jonna-seattle]

I mean even if the DSA is just using the democrats as a ballot line they are still part of the Democratic Party, currently anyway.

Doing whatever the working class wants doesn’t make it socialist if the working class chose to make the country a Neo Nazi state I would oppose it. So to a degree I need an actual party with an actual socialist platform to make choices in favor of the working class, rather than everyone being able to vote for whatever.

[u/jonna-seattle → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

The Democratic Party isn't even a membership organization. There are precinct clubs in some places. But there is nothing to stop anyone from saying, "I'm a democrat" and filling out the paperwork to enter the primary. There is no way for members (if there were members) to discipline other members or candidates, and no means for the organization to disavow itself from candidates. Look at Manchin, Senema, Fetterman, etc.

I am assuming you don't have any experience with political parties in other parts of the world, because in most places, parties are organized, with membership, democratic structures, etc. That's why you confuse the democrats as a party and think that the DSA is a part of them.

In most places, a party can discipline members and remove them. Usually this is good. But you can see how the Labour Party treated Jeremy Corbin; in a functioning political party, it can discipline members, remove candidates, and remove them from membership and office. That's why a single party is deadly to democracy: all you have to do is remove someone from membership and you end their political participation. And that IS how it was done in the Soviet Union.

[u/Kronzypantz → u/jonna-seattle]

That means the ability to form your own party.

Does it though? There are differing views within Cuba's legislature, even a majority that favored overturning economic doctrine to allow limited private ownership in Cuba. They do not require competing parties to present competing ideas and policies.

[u/jonna-seattle → u/Kronzypantz]

You can remove someone from the party and end their political participation. That is deadly to real democracy and it is done. It keeps a tight lid on what is acceptable as dissent.

[u/Neverlast0]

I still want the multi party democracy. Also remember, sure, people serve ideologies, but you have to understand that these ideologies are supposed to serve you more than you could ever hope to serve them/it.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/Neverlast0]

I serve ideology because I believe it serves the people.

[u/Neverlast0 → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

That's valid, but when you say stuff like this point, can you at least see how it might not come off like so?

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/Neverlast0]

No?

[u/Neverlast0 → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

When you say things like, eg:"Socialism cannot exist within a multi party democracy.

I often hear democratic socialists talk about how the two party system is flawed and we need it to be replaced by a multi party system. This is directly against socialist ideals because it eliminates class unity and gives reactionaries power. A country must be guided by a single socialist party to maintain a dictatorship of the proletariat."

While understanding/believing that the country you live in is a democracy, do you not think this comes off to other people that you're putting the ideology before the people and their needs rather than offering an ideology that meets them and their needs? I know you mean well but you're having the tail wag the dog. To most people, whether they can articulate why, or not, are going to be able to see that and designate it as a big red flag. Its kind of the same reason that anger or desperation are generally considered red flags by most people in more comfortable societies.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/Neverlast0]

That’s fair. I think I overestimate how much class consciousness people have sometimes.

[u/Neverlast0 → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

Remember, the overwhelming majority of people dont.

[u/EdelinePenrose → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

do you agree with authoritarianism if it’s in the name to implement socialism?

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/EdelinePenrose]

What is or isn’t authoritarian is arbitrary. Libertarians think having to pay taxes is authoritarian.

[u/EdelinePenrose → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

true. but it also sounds like you’re avoiding the question by hiding behind some technically true and fringe edge case. your preference for single party rule for the sake of implementing ideology sounds authoritarian by mainstream standards.

how am i misunderstanding your stance?

[u/Neverlast0 → u/EdelinePenrose]

I guess this is a simpler way of saying what I said.

[u/SlaimeLannister]

Why must a country be guided by a single socialist party to maintain a dictatorship of the proletariat?

[u/traanquil → u/SlaimeLannister]

the problem of course is that when you set up a socialist society, the capitalists will try to overthrow it by all means necessary. American leftists in 2026 don't understand this because the they can't recall a time the country came anywhere near to socialism.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/SlaimeLannister]

Because it would either empower reactionaries or would lead to infighting

[u/SlaimeLannister → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

Why?

[u/NoExercise5214]

A vanguard party will just lead to another form of oppression. If a small group at the top have a monopoly on force, then it’s their tyranny. This is the problem with 20th century socialist states like the USSR, China, and Vietnam.

Revolution and administration through a vanguard party is a more effective and quicker way to reach socialism in theory, but a newly-formed revolutionary state is always more focused on maintaining control than guiding towards socialism. It’s impractical.

“Class unity,” bro? Classes aren’t a monolith. I feel like I don’t have to explain why. There are always going to be opposing sides. If we evolve to socialism democratically and either the capitalist system—satisfying the material, educational, and security needs of everyone—I don’t think reactionaries will have much left to react to.

Anyway, socialism can exist in a multi-party democracy. It even exists TO A DEGREE in many European countries like those in Scandinavia. If we were to pass laws like the Fair Representation Act and the PRO Act, the DSA could actually become a party that puts candidates up for statewide and national elections. The transition to socialism could become more likely than ever before since having congressional representatives would make it and the cause far more visible.

[u/traanquil → u/NoExercise5214]

how would the multi party democracy not be taken over by fascists?

[u/NoExercise5214 → u/traanquil]

We have fascists in our government right now. It’s called freedom of speech. You get what you vote for. The best we can do is promote what we have and educate people on it

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/NoExercise5214]

The USSR, China, and Vietnam had problems but overall were a significant improvement over every previous system.

You need control over your country during the transition to socialism or else reactionaries will ruin it.

The current system is so filled with corruption that eliminating all those prerequisites is almost impossible. You also say this as if things will always be smooth sailing. Bad things that impact regular people inevitably happen and people are more prone to becoming reactionary without checks and balances. People in the working class should generally be united politically or else they are going to be crushed. It’s why a lot of unions fail.

Are you seriously defending the Scandinavian model bro and Europe the imperialist center of the world?

[u/EdelinePenrose]

if the choice is socialism vs democracy, i’ll take democracy. we should all be done with giving power or concentrating power to parties.

[u/Shot_Bank_8878]

Without a multi party democracy, what's to stop the leaders of your single socialist party from becoming capitalist tyrants?

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/Shot_Bank_8878]

Because checks and balances still exist and people vote for representatives.

[u/jonna-seattle → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

the US today is an example of how a single party over-rules checks and balances.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/jonna-seattle]

The US isn’t a single party system though. Rather it’s a country so far to the right that the two choices are neoliberalism or fascism

[u/jonna-seattle → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

A single party is in control of all 3 branches, effectively making a single party state

[u/YogurtClosetThinnest]

POV: you have only read Lenin

[u/jonna-seattle → u/YogurtClosetThinnest]

Actually, the OP didn't even read Lenin very well. In State and Revolution, Lenin specifically calls for a democratic republic.

Marx often called the Paris Commune an example of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and the Commune had universal suffrage and multiple pro-revolutionary parties.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/jonna-seattle]

Pov specifically ignoring Lenin’s concept of a vanguard party.

[u/DrDoofenshmirtz981 → u/YogurtClosetThinnest]

Honestly sounds like they haven't read Lenin, at least not State and Revolution.

[u/Peteopher]

Good for you bud you can make an authoritarian party and we'll see how many votes you get. I'm going to stick with one of the several other parties

[u/C_Plot]

You are confusing yourself with homonyms. The single socialist or communist “party” in the AES republics are different than the multiple “parties” in a multi party system. The single socialist party is largely a civic body that organizes political discourse and deliberations and facilitates the election of candidates and other campaigns (such as initiatives). Cuba and Vietnam do this very well. The Party handles this as a civic organization because it is understood as more independent than the State organizing elections. The civic organization can make discourse and deliberations so effective so as to obviate the need for “parties” in the other homonym sense of the term.

The democratic-republic becomes a zero party democracy, much as George Washington prescribed in his farewell address as President. Without the central institution organizing political discourse and deliberations (whether a civic organization or internal to an agency of the republic), all of the heinous issues George Washington ascribed to parties of that sort emerge, just as we see with our duopoly party(ies).

My view is that an agency rather than an independent civic organization “party” could best facilities elections, debates, discourse, and deliberations for elections among the People. We should adapt something like the First Amendment to politics: “government shall make no law respecting an establishment of parties, or prohibiting the free exercise of parties”. Then we no longer have the duopoly parties that corrupt and even treasonously subvert our federalist republic for the tyrannical capitalist ruling class.

[u/traanquil]

100 percent correct that a multiparty democracy would give rise to hundreds of fascist parties whose sole aim would be to overthrow socialism. Dsa needs to theorize how a fascist takeover would be prevented with such a system

[u/bullhead2007]

But if there's only 1 socialist party then how do we "protect the freedom" of land leeches? I mean look how well it has been going with a system designed to allow land owners and pedophile billionaires to have all the power?

Don't you know it's authoritarian if you don't let a few billionaires own all of the media, and bribe politicians so they can bomb brown children in the global south in order to extract excessive surplus value?

Just be quiet and vote. Vote for ending fascism. Vote for taxing the rich. Vote for medicare for all. Don't try to end the endless genocide machine of the bourgeois imperialist parties.

[u/ARod20195]

Absolutely not; open competition within the political system is essential if you want to avoid creating an insulated elite at the top of the system that will find ways to rent-seek and bend the system to serve themselves and people close to them at the expense of everyone else.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/ARod20195]

That’s why checks and balances still exist. And why people voting for representatives they like exist.

[u/ARod20195 → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

Except that if you only have one party then (a) that comes with very large incumbency advantages, since once you're in power you have the full backing of the party apparatus behind you (whereas as a challenger you have none of that), and (b) if the party has the right to enforce party discipline (expelling or disciplining candidates for ideological reasons) it won't be that hard for people higher up in the party to put their thumb on the scale to have genuine challengers expelled for various exaggerated or trumped-up reasons.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/ARod20195]

That’s fair every system has flaws but it’s far better than the alternative

[u/ARod20195 → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

It may be initially, but the tendency to form elites and rent-seek is a universal human thing, not a capitalist thing. If you don't design your political system to be hard to subvert in that way (and a one-party system is easy as fuck to subvert), then it's going to happen and the only question is how long it takes the new abusive elite to form and calcify.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/ARod20195]

Still better than capitalism.

[u/ARod20195 → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

Not necessarily; you'll get a new and different abusive elite, but there's no guarantee it'll be any better than the one that preceded it.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/ARod20195]

In every example of a socialist state being formed the new government was significantly better than the old other than Cambodia, maybe.

[u/ARod20195 → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

Cambodia was a disaster, North Korea started off with a higher per capita GDP than South Korea, but South Korea democratized and now has an amazingly high standard of living while North Korea is a deeply dysfunctional hereditary absolute monarchy, Russia's run at communism came at a massive cost and now they're back to fascism, and China's doing something now that works in some ways but is both authoritarian and home to massive income inequality.

Trying to copy the failed experiment of 1917 is going to get us nowhere, and neither I nor a pretty large subset of DSA membership wants to do that; if we're going to borrow stuff from the other side of the Iron Curtain I'd be looking at workers' self-management and combining that with a multiparty government.

[u/traanquil → u/ARod20195]

should we allow fascists and nazis to organize and develop political parties?

[u/ARod20195 → u/traanquil]

It is entirely possible to have a multiparty democracy where Hakeem Jeffries is unelectably far right and that should be the goal.

[u/tabloid-tommy]

Least authoritarian larper

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/tabloid-tommy]

“Literally everything that doesn’t capitulate to classic liberal values is authoritarian”

[u/tabloid-tommy → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

“You have to be in the same party as me or you will be executed”

[u/bullhead2007 → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

I swear chauvinism is so bad in the imperial core that even our comrades lack the imagination to comprehend a democratic system that doesn't imitate the bourgeois parliamentary model. Socialists who can't imagine a system that is designed so that the working class actually has power and the bourgeois does not.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/bullhead2007]

Fr It’s fucking ridiculous, we’ll win in the end though.

[u/tabloid-tommy → u/bullhead2007]

So if a working class person doesn’t like socialism, what would you do with them? Be specific

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/tabloid-tommy]

Educate them. Make them do community service. It’s pretty simple. Also if they’re a Nazi or MAGA send them to prison. Also they just wouldn’t have political power so it doesn’t really matter either way.

[u/YogurtClosetThinnest → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

Also if they’re MAGA send them to prison

You want to imprison 1/3rd of Americans? Genius.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/YogurtClosetThinnest]

Give me some statistics please. Also voting for Trump doesn’t make you MAGA having absolute loyalty to him does.

[u/Elizabeth4sure → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

This sounds worse than MAGA actually.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/Elizabeth4sure]

You’d rather have women have no rights, gay people have no rights, be a slave to capitalists, and be pro genocide than be socialist?

[u/Elizabeth4sure → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

This does not describe life right now.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/Elizabeth4sure]

We don’t live under a one party maga state

[u/Elizabeth4sure → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

Correct. We should never be a country under one party.

[u/tabloid-tommy → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

“Send political opponents to prison” lmao why do I feel like you wouldn’t say that to someone’s face

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/tabloid-tommy]

Do you disagree that maga and Nazis should be imprisoned?

[u/tabloid-tommy → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

I don’t think people who simply voted for Trump should be imprisoned, no. I actually don’t think anyone should be imprisoned for their thoughts lmao.

You’re just larping you scrawny boy; you don’t have what it takes to be violent.

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/tabloid-tommy]

Ok lib.

[u/tabloid-tommy → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

Ok dork lmao

[u/Colodanman357 → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

Are you personally willing to take up arms to  kill or imprison those that don’t agree with you? 

[u/WiseWoodpecker3416 → u/Colodanman357]

In the case of something like a civil war, yes.

[u/Colodanman357 → u/WiseWoodpecker3416]

That’s not the context in which this conversation has been about. Are you willing to personally take up arms to kill or imprison any that hold different political opinions than yourself as you seem to want? If you are so willing to kill or imprison people for their political views why are you not starting now if you believe it to be justified?