During my campaign for the NPC, many have asked me how I identify politically, and my answer has often surprised people. I strongly believe that the primary task of socialists in the U.S. is to weaken imperialist domination of the Global South.

I argue that it is necessary to consider how revolutions have occurred over the last 100 years. My argument takes advantage of an analysis of 345 revolutionary episodes over the last 100 years by Mark Beissinger that provides key insights into how revolutionary contention has changed since the fall of the Soviet Union, what kinds of revolutions happen now, and what variables are predictive of revolution.

A key insight is that socialist revolutions (that aim to change the relationship to the means of production as opposed to just deposing a corrupt leader) have almost entirely taken place through rural uprisings, when armed socialist revolutionaries were able to avoid the repression of the state and build popular power in rural settings. Rather than seeing urban workers as the core revolutionary constituency and peasants as a backwards group that requires direction, this historical analysis suggests that urbanization and the increased capacity of the state to engage in repressive violence that comes with it precludes most forms of revolutionary organizing.

This is supported by the empirical observation that socialist revolutions, whether successful or not, happened far more often in underdeveloped, agrarian economies than in countries with advanced industrial economies. As the nature of economies around the world has shifted, we have seen a total absence of socialist revolutionary contention since the August Revolution in Burkina Faso that brought Thomas Sankara to power in 1983.

This analysis suggests that revolution is not simply a test of willpower on the part of organizers. Revolution is constrained by the conditions faced by organizers and by the potential constituencies of revolutionary organizing. These conditions can be used to build multivariate predictive models of revolution. In advanced capitalist countries, like the U.S., where the GDP per capita is very high relative to other countries in the world, where a formally democratic electoral system exists, and a variety of other variables, the likelihood of revolution is predicted to be close to zero.

This makes intuitive sense: while economic inequality and racial and gender-based oppression in this country ravages the working class, the presence of a formally democratic electoral system makes total rupture an unappealing choice to the majority of workers. Organizing for revolution would mean betting that a revolution would improve conditions beyond what can be offered through union organizing or left-wing electoral projects. This is not to suggest that left-wing electoral projects or union organizing will necessarily improve conditions in a lasting way, but instead that these options are much safer to American workers than a wholesale rejection of the existing political and economic system in favor of socialism.

If revolution is not likely in America, then what is our task as socialists? One of the last socialist revolutions was in Nicaragua, where the Sandinistas took power in 1978. This revolution was immediately followed by a counter-revolution spearheaded by the CIA and the American imperialist machine. The CIA funded the Contras, who formed brutal death squads and insurgencies against the Sandinistas, destabilizing the regime and threatening to end the gains won by the revolutionary government. The Contras would have likely been successful in overthrowing the Sandinistas, if not for a political movement within the U.S. that successfully ended military aid to the Sandinistas in 1988.

This movement was called the Neighbor-to-Neighbor campaign and was built out of the United Farm Workers. By applying many of the lessons learned from union organizing to political organizing, the campaign successfully organized in eighteen Congressional districts to win seats for House representatives who would vote against military aid to the Contras. This campaign, alongside a massive pressure campaign outside of Congress, enabled a 219-211 vote in 1988 that permanently cut off military aid to the Contras. That same year, the Contras entered into negotiations with the Sandinista government, ending the horrific atrocities by the armed death squads.

The Neighbor-to-Neighbor campaign did not win socialism in the U.S. While it retained a laser focus on fighting for good jobs at home and peace abroad, none of the representatives elected to Congress were self-identified socialists, and it is doubtful that any of them expressed solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution. This campaign, however, served the most important role that socialist organizing in the imperial core can serve – ending imperialist domination over revolutionary projects in the Third World. 

Unfortunately, this lack of commitment to a socialist party from the representatives elected by the Neighbor-to-Neighbor campaign meant that after voting to end military aid to the Contras, these representatives did not continue to fight against imperialist wars. We can do better – by building a strong party structure in DSA that can protect our candidates when they are attacked by the pro-war and Zionist lobbies, and by electing DSA members to office who are committed to anti-imperialism as a principle beyond specific campaigns. 

If elected to the NPC, my goal will be to build DSA into a party that can facilitate organizing for an end to imperialist domination all around the world in these terms. Our first priority must be to win an arms embargo against Israel.