Our Program: Where We Stand
Humanists for Revolutionary Socialism (HRS) is a revolutionary communist organization. We stand for revolutionary socialism because we base our program and policies on the dialectical materialist method, on the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, on the documents of the first four congresses of the Third (Communist) International, and on the Transitional Program of the Fourth International. We term ourselves “humanists” because in order for a socialist revolution to succeed, we as revolutionary workers must strive to transform ourselves and our psyches, transcending and overcoming the alienation we suffer under capitalism, at the same time that we attempt to transform our society.
We believe that capitalism is an anarchic and crisis-ridden economic system based on production for profit. We are for the expropriation of the capitalist class and the abolition of capitalism. We are for its replacement by socialist production planned to satisfy human needs. Only the victorious socialist revolution and the smashing of the capitalist state can abolish exploitation. Only the working class, led by a revolutionary vanguard workers’ party and organized into workers’ councils and workers’ militia, can lead such a revolution to victory and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and workers’ democracy. It has become apparent that only a socialist revolution and a planned economy can make the changes in our production and use of energy and resources that are essential to prevent, or at least mitigate, catastrophic climate change and other environmental degradation.
There is no peaceful, parliamentary road to socialism. Neither the Democratic Party nor any section of it is a genuine friend of labor. It is a bourgeois party through and through. It is never permissible to give the Democratic Party electoral support, even critically, no matter how “left” or “progressive” they strive to appear.
We support the struggle of Trotsky and the Left Opposition against Stalinism. The Communist Parties that existed during the Cold War era were really Stalinist parties, reformist in program and practice. The origin of their degeneration was the rise and consolidation of power by the bureaucracy that ruled after 1927 in the USSR, and its control and destruction of Lenin's Third International. Stalinism went through several stages, culminating in a strategy of alliance with the bourgeoisie (the popular front, détente) that inflicted terrible defeats on the working class worldwide, such as those in China in 1927, Germany in 1933, and Spain in 1936. The restoration of capitalism by the Stalinist bureaucracy was a logical conclusion of the Stalinist strategy.
Capitalism has been restored in the Soviet Union and most other countries that were workers’ states. In the few remaining workers’ states, such as Cuba, Stalinist bureaucracies rule over the working class. Capitalism has ceased to exist, but the workers do not hold political power. To open the road to socialism, a political revolution to sweep away bureaucratic tyranny is needed. Nevertheless, as revolutionary socialists, we unconditionally defend these states against the attacks of imperialism and against internal capitalist restoration in order to defend postcapitalist property relations.
The building of a fighting workers’ party is an urgent task for the American workers’ movement. Such a party must grow out of the struggles of US workers, and base itself firmly on a revitalized and democratized trade union movement and on other organizations of the working class and its oppressed sections. In helping to build such a party, revolutionaries must argue for it to adopt a transitional program based on Trotsky’s 1938 programmatic contribution and, even more importantly, on his dialectical method in approaching changing situations in the class struggle. Revolutionary socialists are committed to working with any genuinely independent working class party that develops, and will struggle for the adoption of a transitional program in all emerging workers’ parties and pre-party formations, such as the now-defunct Labor Party Advocates.
Within the trade unions, we fight for the rank and file to oust the reformist and pro-Democratic Party bureaucrats, and to democratize the unions and win them to a revolutionary action program based on a system of transitional demands which serve as a bridge between today’s struggles and the socialist revolution. Central to this is the fight for workers’ control of production. In order to fulfill these goals, we will fight for a rank-and-file movement based on the principle of breaking with the Democrats and building a labor party. We advocate for the unions to run independent labor candidates against the Democratic Party (and all other capitalist parties) as a part of this strategy. As revolutionary socialists, we take an active role in building fighting organizations of the working class: factory committees, industrial unions, councils of action, strike committees, and workers’ councils.
We fight against the oppression that capitalist society inflicts on people because of their race, age, gender, or sexual orientation. We fight racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and fascism. We are for the liberation of women by connecting working class women’s issues and struggles to workers’ struggles, not through an autonomous “cross-class” feminist movement. We are for the liberation of all of the oppressed, and recognize that only socialist revolution can bring about real, lasting liberation, by freeing all humans from the alienation, stress, poverty, and hardship imposed on us by capitalism. We oppose all immigration controls. We call upon the workers to give no quarter to racists and fascists, and to drive them out of our unions and communities. No platform for fascism! Revolutionary socialists are the first to form up workers’ self-defense guards and stand shoulder to shoulder with the oppressed whenever the fascist vermin emerge from the sewers.
We support the struggles of oppressed nations against imperialism. We unconditionally support the struggles of liberation movements in Latin America and elsewhere who fight the US and its agents. However, our support is critical and we politically oppose the nationalists (bourgeois and petty-bourgeois) who often lead the struggles of the oppressed nations. To their strategy we counterpose the method of dialectical materialism and the strategy of permanent revolution. That is, we believe the anti-imperialist struggle must be led by the working class with a program of socialist revolution and internationalism. In conflicts between imperialist countries and semi-colonial countries, we are for the defeat of the imperialist army and the victory of countries oppressed and exploited by imperialism. We fight against imperialist war, not with pacifist pleas, but with militant class struggle methods, including forcibly disarming the bosses’ army.
HRS is committed to an irreconciliable political struggle against the centrism, opportunism, and sectarianism of the degenerate fragments of the Fourth International. At the same time, we strive to overcome, within ourselves and in our dealings with others, the alienated psychology that often results in substituting egocentric competitiveness and personal animosity for objective discussion and debate among the left and in the workers’ movement. We combine the struggle for a reelaborated transitional program, adapted to the circumstances of the 21st century, with active involvement in the struggles of the working class, fighting for revolutionary leadership. If you are a class conscious fighter against capitalism … if you are an internationalist … if you are a humanist … join us!