Dual Power: Elections Don’t Make Revolutions, They End Them
The reality of social change is that it cannot happen peacefully. Elections will cause downward spirals into coups, and the strength of bourgeois-democratic governments is determined not by the faith that the people have within them, but in the ability to murder anybody that has gotten in their way. The COINTELPRO program to watch and attack activist groups forming during the 1960’s and 70’s made clear one thing, and that thing has not changed: the oppressor classes will not cede power to peaceful actions. It will defuse dissent and attempt to restrain activist groups, if necessary resorting to murdering activists (Fred Hampton, and in documents, the FBI discusses fracturing Students for a Democratic Society and the Socialist Worker’s Party). Now we observe that the armed forces of the oppressing classes have once again been trotted out; white supremacists and neo-fascists march in the streets regularly now. At three recent events, the reactionaries have attempted to flex their muscle, at Pride in Detroit, a majority black city; at Dayton, where they were sent out of town in disgrace by a large segment of armed forces (notably the Huey P. Newton Gun Club); and at Boston, where there was a “Straight Pride” parade, organized by a man with ties to Proud Boys, Patriot Front, and other white nationalist organizations. We see that the bourgeois-imperialists have organized and supported white supremacy and acted not to stop, but to encourage these expressions of “free speech.”
The politics of the revolution are the politics of dual power. What is dual power, though? It’s a set of organizations that act as a government would, but is not necessarily legal, is not sanctioned by the bourgeoisie, and therefore lacks the legitimacy of an “elected government.” As we recognize that the elected government of the United States is incapable of producing the changes necessary to liberate the proletariat and colonized nationalities of the United States, we recognize that there is no use in its institutions at all. The power of these institutions is transitory, and could easily be abolished by the masses. However, instead of mobilizing the masses parallel to the elected government, liberal “leftists” proclaim that the revolution’s best chance is to reduce the harm done to the oppressed through elections. No revolution is built on the structures that preceded them, rather they are built on the resolution of its contradictions. Lenin noted that the power of the revolution is “not [that of] a law previously discussed and enacted by parliament, but the direct initiative of the people from below” (The Dual Power). Black Red Guard also puts it well, stating that “if the bourgeoisie are willing, somehow and for some reason, to nonviolently give up state power, liquidate themselves as a class and force, and surrender to the proletariat without us firing a single shot, there can certainly be a peaceful revolution, or a peaceful surrender of power from one class to another.” The bourgeoisie in the United States, because of their class motivations, are seeking only to pacify the masses, not to enact revolutionary change. Progressive candidates such as Bernard Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are political opportunists that use the masses to achieve power, and have shown that when it comes to realistic action, they are powerless.
The police have no interest in choosing to side with revolutionaries. It is not their purpose, and in the United States, our police system is notoriously right-wing and nationalist — it would never support the destruction of the American system because they have betrayed their class in favor of the nation and government which they believe to be legitimate. No police officer wants to get terribly paid and undergo severe psychological stress in the hope that someday they will overthrow the capitalist-imperialist system by joining with the revolutionary forces. That’s not why they joined the police. They did so with the intent of enforcing the law. They did so with either the implicit or explicit goal of reinforcing the current government superstructure. That’s it. White radicals of the non-violent persuasion will get shot while expecting the police to defend them because they are white and the police have always defended them. The police don’t want freedom of speech. The army doesn’t want freedom of speech. Those that enter both these institutions have betrayed their classes, and as such they are invested in the capitalist system of legitimate government. A revolutionary group must favor the eradication of both the police and the army as bodies established by the oppressor classes.
The revolution requires a mass base. This is not found in elections, where most people’s political commitments are extracted at best as a second thought, if indeed a person is willing to vote at all. The elected government has no interest in supporting the people. All governments are ruled by a particular class in the interests of that particular class. This is why we say that democracy under the bourgeoisie is a class dictatorship; the bourgeoisie control the ways in which the system changes and can sink or float reforms. The proletariat has no power. The lumpenproletariat has no power. The petit bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie proper have power, and only these groups, and neither have a vested interest in changing the American system.
Mao has said that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” We must grasp that the barrel of that gun is not currently pointed at the bourgeoisie, but at the oppressed, and that they are constantly under threat because of the democratically elected government. If this is the case, the only option is to dispose with the niceties of “official” government and remove the government that so threatens them. The power of the state is wielded only by one class or the other, it cannot be shared between the two, and the bourgeoisie are certainly not going to hand over state power, are they? As liberals continue to preach that we must win elections, more colonized people will be killed by police, and state and corporate power will crush more and more popular organizations.
And as these “radicals” continue to agitate for electoral change, they expend and waste their energy. The Communist Party went through this phase, and it was later decimated for it’s misguided attempts to build a popular front with the legitimate political parties. Its leaders were arrested, put on trial, and convicted of sedition, all while its front organizations were crushed by the democratic government they proclaimed to support. The liberals masquerading as radicals have not learned lessons from radical histories; the national government has repeatedly adopted trinket reforms to establish stability, and then resorted to naked force to restrain activist groups. State power has and will remain in the hands of the bourgeoisie until it is seized by force.
