The Eco-Socialist Party

27 Nov

Brief: Climate Vanguard, 27 November 2024

Introduction

The 21st century has witnessed numerous mass mobilisations around the world. Millions have risen up against war, racist police violence, economic austerity, soaring costs of living, climate inaction, and Israel’s genocide in Palestine. And yet, our movements have been unable to credibly challenge, let alone uproot, the responsible systems: capitalism and imperialism.

This brief argues that the failure of contemporary movements to bring about such revolutionary change stems from a need for more effective political organisation on the Left. We examine how the Left’s current state of disempowerment developed and present the case for revitalising the party as a crucial step towards eco-socialist transition.

when the party’s over

Unlike today, socialist and communist parties were once a force to be reckoned with around the world. From the late 19th to the mid-late-20th century, they built militant mass memberships and were key to winning social victories, such as the eight-hour workday, the New Deal in the US, civil rights for women and racialised minorities, and national liberation in China, Vietnam, Guinea-Bissau, and Cape Verde, among others [1].

So, what happened? How did we go from a global network of powerful left parties to a collection of mostly fringe, politically irrelevant leftist parties? To grasp this, we must look back to what happened to the Left during the 20th century.

The 20th Century Left

Although this history is complex and varies from place to place, we can point to three phenomena which offer a general (albeit incomplete) explanation for the collapse of mass left parties:

1. Social Democracy

The post-World War II consensus saw a wave of social-democratic parties come to power in several Western European countries [2]. These parties instituted a range of popular social reforms, such as the National Health Service in Britain, the establishment of universal healthcare and education in Sweden, and the creation of the welfare state in West Germany [3].

Although these reforms improved working people’s lives in important ways, their implementation also mitigated working-class discontent, reducing anti-capitalist militancy and, in turn, support for left parties [4].

2. The Imperial Global Division of Labour

These political concessions lowered the level of exploitation in the Global North, limiting the amount of surplus-value the ruling classes could extract from workers’ labour. For capitalism to survive, these lost profits had to be recouped. This was enabled through a shift in the global distribution of commodity production [5].

Previously, the global division of labour was a direct result of colonialism, wherein production in the underdeveloped Global South was largely directed toward exporting primary commodities and raw materials to the North [6]. This process was central for sustaining Northern manufacturing in urban industrial centres like Manchester and Detroit [7].

This dynamic shifted in the second half of the 20th century as foreign investment increasingly flowed into the Global South [8]. Corporations opened factories in countries across Asia and Latin America where production costs were comparatively low due to the large supply of unemployed workers, underdeveloped labour organisations, and weak environmental and labour regulations, allowing for an immense appropriation of value from the Global South [9].

The emergence of this imperial global division of labour also entailed deindustrialisation in the Global North, as factories closed and millions of manufacturing jobs were lost [10]. Northern economies became more service-based, with an increasing proportion of the population employed in industries like finance, healthcare, information technology, and real estate. By securing well-paying white-collar jobs, some Northern workers were able to ascend to the high-consumption ‘middle class,’ enabling them to partake in the material benefits of imperialist exploitation [11].

This process of class decomposition, exacerbated by the neoliberal crackdown on organised labour starting in the late 1970s, also contributed to the loss of working-class culture in the Global North, further decreasing the strength and appeal of left parties [12].

3. Anti-communism

Throughout the 20th century, the governments of the capitalist core, especially the US, strategically undermined leftist movements, parties, and states around the world [13]. Beginning after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and intensifying during the Cold War, the US targeted left-wing individuals (e.g. journalists, students, and labour organisers) through investigations, blacklists, and purges from public institutions and systematically sabotaged popular mass communist parties (e.g. the Italian Communist Party) [14]. Suspected communists were branded as threats to national security and the broader public was propagandised into believing that communism meant totalitarianism [15].

Extreme violence was also essential to the war on communism. Both abroad and at home, leftist leaders were assassinated by US security services, like Patrice Lumumba in 1961 and Fred Hampton in 1969 [16]. Meanwhile, the CIA engineered numerous coup d’états to oust democratically elected leftist leaders (e.g. Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Brazil in 1964, Indonesia in 1965, and Chile in 1973) [17].

In cases where leftist organisations were too deeply embedded in society, the US turned to mass murder programmes [18]. The most notable example took place in Indonesia from 1965 to 1966, where an estimated 500,000 to 1 million people were murdered in a violent campaign to eradicate the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) [19]. At the time, the PKI was the largest communist party in the world outside of China and the USSR. To this day it remains banned.

Our Conjuncture

The erosion of party-driven organising has contributed to a series of issues, many of which still harm our movements today. We highlight three in particular:

1. Movementism

In the 1960s, due largely to changes in the division of labour, mass civil society began collapsing (i.e. fewer and fewer people identified as workers and working-class institutions declined). This development marked a major evolution in political strategy: disciplined, mass organising to build enduring social power was overtaken by reactive mobilisations to express discontent and raise awareness about a problem [20].

Rather than aiming to win the state, this new approach revolved around symbolic appeals to those in power (e.g. via street protests) in the hopes of convincing them to make concessions on single issues (e.g. equal pay for women, climate action, or reproductive rights) [21].

While these are important struggles in their own right, this strategic shift towards getting as many people as possible to participate in one-off actions came at the expense of building lasting organisations that target the common root causes (i.e. capitalism and imperialism) of these seemingly separate issues [22].

More recently, the “mass protest decade” of the 2010s, in which more people took to the streets than at any other point in human history, failed to yield any real system change [23].

2. Structurelessness

The tendency for movements to disavow hierarchical and centralised organising has often manifested as a loss of sustainable organisational structure altogether [24]. Movements, in turn, have struggled to make efficient decisions, establish political lines, distribute labour, articulate demands, hold members to account, and onboard new ones [25].

The loss of these capacities not only undermines movements’ effectiveness but also their democratic character. As feminist organiser Jo Freeman discusses in The Tyranny of Structurelessness, informal power hierarchies tend to emerge when there are no formal leadership structures and clear roles, producing a group of elites that are not accountable to the rest of the movement [26]. At the same time, movements lack the necessary mechanisms to redress this oppressive organisational culture, diminishing both their liberatory potential and political efficacy [27].

3. Individualism

Disapproval of any form of centralised authority (even if democratic) in favour of individual self-expression eroded the collectivity that a party enables and the organisational accountability it requires [28].

It is vital that our movements take intersectional oppression seriously. The need for solidarity across identity groups must be uplifted and diversity openly celebrated. However, an individualistic politics of identity, especially when devoid of class analysis, hinders collective power by dividing working and oppressed people into different identity camps [29]. Ultimately, it impedes organisations’ capacity to build a unified struggle against common systems of oppression. As a result of these trends in our movements, we are currently incapable of building the necessary social power for both short-term reform and long-term eco-socialist transformation. How can we reverse these treacherous conditions?

Theorising the Eco-Socialist Party

The organisation that has historically enabled progressive forces to gain state power and initiate a transition away from capitalism and imperialism is the party. By “party,” we do not mean a bourgeois party, which is a ruling class institution focused on winning elections.

Rather, we mean a revolutionary party, a “political instrument” that coheres the struggles of working and oppressed people into a common eco-socialist project [30]. As we show, running in elections may well be part of the party’s tactical toolbox, but it is one of many and only used if it effectively advances its revolutionary objectives.

We now discuss the eco-socialist party’s functions, activities, and organisational structure.

Functions

1. Unity

The transition from capitalism and imperialism to eco-socialism is, by definition, a majoritarian process. That is, it fundamentally depends on the masses of oppressed and exploited people coming together, rising up, and collectively transforming society.

Many people are already engaged in resistance against capitalism and imperialism, such as trade unions combatting exploitative bosses, direct action groups targeting big oil, and mass movements pressuring genocidal politicians [31]. This is because the imperatives of capital (i.e. profit maximisation and accumulation) are in direct contrast with people’s interests (i.e. material needs and social aspirations) [32]. Much like gravity compels an apple to fall, this class antagonism breeds grassroots resistance.

However, these movements often struggle in isolation from each other, causing weakness and vulnerability to the “divide and conquer” tactics of the ruling classes. So, while capitalism and imperialism gives rise to resistance, it does not unify them into a coherent front. This is the job of the eco-socialist party.

It overcomes atomisation by forging an “organised collectivity,” or a people’s bloc, of social movements and communities that is united in the common objective to build eco-socialism [33].

2. Direction

More than just unifying a people’s bloc, the eco-socialist party provides direction to its struggle.

A new world cannot simply be wished into being. Nor can transition away from capitalism and imperialism be assumed based on the disjointed struggles of progressive political forces, even if they share a common goal. Eco-socialist transition is a conscious process that must be guided by a strategy to shift the balance of power, including state power, and transform the social relations of society at scale [34].

Such a strategy establishes a structural vision of a world transformed, an analysis of the dominant systems in the world today, and an assessment of the current conditions [35]. It determines situational objectives that enable the people’s bloc to defeat opposing forces, shift the balance of power, and advance the struggle towards liberation [36].

This does not invalidate the campaigns devised by social movements and unions to win more targeted, issue-specific reforms; these are crucial contributions that give life to the people’s bloc [37]. It is simply to say that all of these efforts must also be coordinated according to an explicit strategy for system change [38].

In this sense, the party is a compass for the people’s bloc, providing the necessary direction for it to navigate the turbulent, unpredictable path towards an eco-socialist north star.

3. Endurance

Eco-socialist transition is a process, not an event. It is a protracted struggle to overcome the social relations that have been constructed and maintained by centuries of capitalist domination. As such, the question of endurance becomes an essential part of revolutionary organising.

Anyone who has been part of a mass mobilisation feels the burning necessity of this question. How can the collective power conjured up during these moments be sustained? How can the people’s capacity to express their will be extended? How can the energy be carried forwards?

The eco-socialist party provides the infrastructure for this necessary endurance. Like lightning in a bottle, it absorbs the energy of demonstrations, nurtures it through sustained mass organising work, and re-deploys it at decisive moments [39].

What’s more, the party enables collective political memory [40]. It acts as a forum through which knowledge and experience can be passed down to new generations of organisers, who can pick up and extend the struggle for liberation.

Activities

Unity, direction, and endurance are borne out in the eco-socialist party’s activities. Here, we name four potential activities, although their exact shape depends on the conditions in which the party is operating.

1. Campaign Coordination

The party must engage in popular campaigns that align with its strategy and programme. This can take many forms.

In times of crisis (e.g. October 7th), the party could devise a coordinated response that triangulates and directs diverse social forces in a common trajectory. Campaign coordination could also be as simple as the party providing a physical meeting space where social movements can meet each other, cross-pollinate strategies and tactics, and commune in a shared atmosphere of possibility [41].

Effective coordination means respecting social movement autonomy [42]. All attempts at domination and manipulation must be avoided [43]. The party is not trying to claim ownership over every single struggle, but to help social movements synthesise and concentrate complementary efforts on decisive leverage points [44].

2. People’s Infrastructure

In the revolutionary process, the party must work to further the self-development of every person, i.e. their ability to reach their full potential [45]. This is achieved by building a people’s infrastructure that both meets immediate material needs and stimulates cultural horizons.

For example, the party could create survival programmes like a free food programme or mental health programme,as well as crisis response programmes, like spaces for survivors of gendered violence or rehabilitation initiatives for climate disaster-affected areas [46]. It could also create people’s theatres, music festivals, athletic associations, running clubs, cooking collectives, and drinking establishments, bringing diverse people together around shared cultural interests and passions [47].

By forging spaces for popular participation and human development, the eco-socialist party weakens the mental stranglehold of capitalism, raising the political consciousness of the people and igniting their desire to construct a world in their own image, not in that of their oppressors [48].

3. Political Education

To become protagonists of liberation, people require clarity about the systems driving their oppression and confidence in a new eco-socialist world [49]. This is only possible through political education that combines theory with practice.

On this basis, the party creates campaigns based on people’s motivations and needs, whether it be reducing the power of a racist police force, improving access to nutritious food, or seeking funding for an ailing local library [50].

In the process of advancing a specific campaign, people encounter the obstacles imposed on them by capitalism [51]. These experiences are political education in their own right, but they are also complemented and enriched by more formal methods offered by the party, whether it be a public seminar, a reading circle, a video, or a podcast [52].

Political education awakens people to the possibilities of another world and the generations of struggle to bring it to life.

4. Electoral Leverage

The party must run in, and win, elections. The electoral arena is not the party’s definitive organising focus, but rather a critical terrain of struggle that cannot be ceded to the opposition. By running in elections, the party can agitate against capitalism and imperialism and gauge support for eco-socialist ideas [53]. It can continue this within the halls of power, while also trying to triangulate campaign, provisioning, and cultural areas of work with legislative concessions.

Organisational Structure

The governance structure of a party has an immense impact on its efficacy. Here we outline two important features:

1. Mass Membership

To unify and coordinate a people’s bloc, the party must forge a mass membership structure adapted to varying capacity levels. Three general tiers can be identified. First, those with the most capacity form the stable core of the party [54]. Typically known as “cadre,” these are very active members responsible for orchestrating and implementing the party’s activities. Cadre are advanced organisers who receive training from the party. They often hail from social movements, an experience that furnished them with critical organising skills, but also an understanding of the clear limits of disjointed political work [55]. It is this consciousness that leads them to devote heir energies to a party dedicated to “permanent and positive changes” [56].

Cadre membership should also be complemented by less intensive forms, such as “campaign membership,” which is designed for people who feel more attracted to a specific community or area of work (e.g. healthcare, education, or culture) [57]. Campaign members are not full-time organisers, and as such, their level of political activity may fluctuate depending on their other life commitments. But members of this tier are regularly engaged in some aspect of party work.

Finally, those who only show up for big mobilisations, party-led events, or during election cycles can be designated as “support membership” [58]. This accounts for the broadest set of people who support the party but only have limited capacity to make active contributions.

2. Democratic Leadership

At annual gatherings, the party membership discusses strategic objectives and elects a leadership, who are equally subordinated and empowered to execute the majoritarian strategic direction [59]. Members, including those who hold a minority position, are then expected to follow the line of the leadership to the extent that it fulfils its democratic mandate [60]. More concretely, this resembles members at lower levels of the party creatively applying instructions from the leadership in a way that fits their local context [61].

Democratic leadership avoids the pitfalls of “ultra-democracy,” in which every course of action is scrutinised by the entire membership to the point of political paralysis, and “bureaucratic centralism,” in which a leadership disregards democratic input to the point of authoritarian ossification [62]. Instead, it strikes a healthy balance between extremes, the exact balance of which can be adjusted based on the organising context.

For example, in times of heightened struggle, where quick decision-making is required to coordinate a unified advance on a crisis-ridden terrain, the balance will tip in the direction of leadership. On the other hand, down periods afford more democratic discussion and critique, necessary components in sharpening and strengthening the party’s position.

It’s important to recognise the historical tendency for mass parties to become stale and devolve into bureaucratic centralism. This history does not invalidate the necessity of the party form, nor should it deter us from working to revitalise it. Instead we must learn the lessons of this history as we move forward, implementing checks and balances (e.g. term limits, mechanisms for recall, capping salaries at the average national income level, etc.) that enable the mitigation of such risks.

The 21st Century Party

With this theory of the eco-socialist party in mind, we turn to four contemporary examples of promising party formations. For each, we highlight specific strengths that align with features of the theoretical eco-socialist party, especially the previously identified activities.

The Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB)

In 2008, a process began of reviving the Workers’ Party of Belgium (Partie du Travail de Belgique, PTB) from a fringe party to what can now only be described as, “a locomotive” pulling Belgian politics to the left [63]. Indeed, in less than eight years, the PTB went from 800 members to 24,000 members, and in the most recent federal election, the PTB won 10.7% of the vote and 15 seats in Parliament [64].

The PTB’s rise can in large part be attributed to their rapprochement with the needs of working-class Belgians [65]. This shift inspired many changes, from the implementation of an accessible, tiered membership structure to a revised communications strategy. It also pushed the PTB to develop a strong presence in campaigns, social movements, strikes, and demonstrations – that is, where working people are already organising and expressing their interests and concerns [66].

This can be seen through the active role of PTB-affiliated organisations in various campaigns. For example, RedFox, the PTB youth wing, has been deeply involved in the anti-racist and climate justice mobilisations [67]. Similarly, Zelle, the PTB-affiliated socialist feminist organisation, has coordinated with other groups to revive International Women’s Rights Day in Belgium [68].

It is also evident in unions, where the PTB has “taken the trade union world by storm” [69]. This has involved winning over union sectors and influencing key decisions [70]. For example, the PTB was able to unite the two biggest trade unions in Belgium behind a call for “peace” in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion [71]. Crucially, this also involves partnering with unions and bolstering their demands. If you show up to a picket line in Belgium, there is “9 out of 10 chances of running into a PTB member” [72].

Finally, the PTB is responsible for launching a number of campaigns that have crowded in support from disparate forces on the Belgian Left. One example is the PTB’s longstanding campaign for a wealth tax on the richest 2%, which, after years of sustained work, has been adopted by the Socialist Party and the Greens, increasing the momentum behind this popular reform [73].

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)

In 1998, Hugo Chávez was elected president of Venezuela, marking the start of the Bolivarian Revolution. The objectives of the Revolution are laid out in the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution, which was passed by popular referendum.

The Constitution stresses the need to “develop the creative potential of each human being and the full enjoyment of his or her personality in a democratic society” [74]. It also states that “all men and women have the right to the free development of their personality” [75]. The Constitution asserts that the way to achieve these objectives is by enabling the “participation of the people in forming, carrying out and controlling the management of public affairs” [76].

To help realise this, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, or PSUV) was founded in 2007.

Shortly after its establishment, the PSUV signed up 7 million members across the country, most of whom were previously politically disengaged and non-organised [77]. For these millions of people, the party offers a tangible vehicle to influence the country’s direction of travel, both by exerting pressure on the inherited state and through means of autonomous self-management [78].

Indeed, the PSUV supported the establishment of local communes that are given autonomy over infrastructure and social projects, and held to account by citizen’s assemblies. The PSUV also encouraged the creation of worker cooperatives by offering training programmes, loans, and tax exemptions [79].

By facilitating popular participation in the process of building a new society, the PSUV was able to develop lasting social power that still sustains the Bolivarian Revolution today. Recalling Chávez, “hearts and minds are won in practice by creating opportunities for people to begin to understand the project while they are engaged in building it” [80].

France Unbowed (LFI)

Since 2017, France Unbowed (La France Insoumise, or LFI) has become the most powerful left force in France. Among a range of activities, LFI has a strong focus on political education.

This begins with Institut la Boétie – LFI’s affiliated think tank – which develops the ideas necessary to wage an ideological offensive against the right. For example, La Boétie was instrumental in popularising the term “ecological planning” – now on the lips of right-wing President Macron [81]. La Boétie has also published a piece titled, “France, Thanks to Immigration” and a report on the history of “gender fluidity and transness, from antiquity until today,” to combat widespread anti-immigrant and transphobic rhetoric [82].

But LFI doesn’t stop there, they also invest heavily in the means necessary to build a social majority that can rally behind these ideas. Such efforts include establishing local “action groups” that support existing struggles and campaigns that align with LFI’s programme, the creation of an affiliated TV channel, and an LFI summer school [83]. All of this is part of a carefully crafted strategy to popularise eco-socialist-aligned ideas and build popular consciousness through action.

The Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ)

Where the European Left has stalled (e.g. Syriza, Podemos, Corbyn’s Labour Party), the Communist Party of Austria (Kommunistische Partei Österreichs, or KPÖ) has risen. By triangulating direct material support, alliance work with other initiatives, and electoral leverage, the KPÖ has entered into the lives of everyday people, helped to meet their needs, politicised those needs, and in the process, engaged them in a unified left project [84].

One example of this model can be seen in the KPÖ’s tenants organising programme in Graz (Austria’s second largest city). This decade’s long programme has included a tenants hotline, legal counselling, and successful campaigns for rent controls. In addition, by successfully running in local elections, the KPÖ has supplemented these efforts through positions of institutional power. While in charge of the local council’s Department of Housing, the KPÖ was able to pass further housing reforms, like requiring that all public housing units have their own bathroom [85].

Through this model, the KPÖ has been able to gain increasing popular support, and translate it into further electoral victories. In 2021, the KPÖ won the local council election in Graz, and by applying a similar model in Salzburg, it won 11.7% of the vote in 2023 (up from 0.4% in 2018) [86]. These victories will, in turn, enable the KPÖ to further bolster their grassroots organising.

Conclusion

We are living in a world-historical moment.

The contradictions inherent to capitalism and imperialism have produced crisis so severe, so overwhelming, that they threaten the very habitability of our planet. Logically, addressing these crises requires uprooting their systemic drivers. But, the crucial question is “how?”

The answer does not lie in imposing a new world on the people, but in cultivating their desire for it. The people must be persuaded of eco-socialism, not just by its programmatic vision, but more importantly, through the worldview it prescribes.

Only when people make sense of the world differently – when the migrant becomes a comrade, the boss the enemy, and the planet our only home – will we break free of capitalist immiseration.

The party is the organisation that can build a new eco-socialist collectivity, and when the time comes, transmute accumulated social strength into enduring political power.

It is the protagonist of our collective liberation. And we are its authors.

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