Our Points of Unity

Adopted May 9, 2019

For Socialism, Against Capitalism

War, poverty, exploitation, oppression, white supremacy, institutional misogyny and worldwide environmental destruction are products of the capitalist system, a system in which a minority ruling class profits from the labor of the majority. Communists struggle for reforms which can improve the lives of workers, but reforms alone will never resolve the inherent contradictions of capitalism. The alternative is socialism, a society based on workers collectively owning and controlling the wealth their labor creates, paving the way to the abolition of class. We stand in the Marxist tradition of international worker action from below—organized, principled, and disciplined action, informed by an analysis of the state as an agent of the capitalist class, and armed with the ability to strike.  

Workers’ Power

Workers create society’s wealth, but have little control over its production and distribution. A socialist society can only be built when workers collectively take control of that wealth and democratically plan its production and distribution according to present and future human needs instead of profit. The working class, varied in its character, is the vast majority of society and is the key to the fight for socialism. Workers’ central role in production gives them a social power—by the use of the strike weapon—to paralyze the system like no other social force. Socialism is working-class self-emancipation. Only mass struggles of the workers themselves can put an end to the capitalist system of oppression and exploitation. Unions are most effective when the rank and file organize themselves independent of union officials. We support unions as essential to the fight for workers’ economic and political rights.  

Revolution

We actively support the struggle of workers and all oppressed people for economic, political and social reforms, both as a means to improve their conditions and to advance their confidence and fighting strength. But reforms within the capitalist system cannot put an end to oppression, exploitation or ecological devastation. Capitalism must be replaced. The structures of the present government (enforced by the police) grew up under capitalism and are designed to protect capitalist rule. The working class needs an entirely different kind of state—a democratic workers’ state based on councils of workers’ delegates. We do not support candidates of capitalist parties like the Democrats or the Republicans. We support genuine left wing candidates and political action that promotes independence from the corporate-dominated two-party system in the US.  

Internationalism

Capitalism is an international system, so the struggle for socialism must be international, uniting oppressed peoples of all countries. The international working class is the only force capable of solving global problems like war, hunger and environmental destruction. Communists oppose imperialism—the division of the globe based on economic and military might—and support the self-determination of all oppressed peoples. We oppose settler-colonialism and support the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples from the occupied Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute territories where we organize to occupied Palestine and everywhere in between. We support Indigenous struggle for control of their lands against the US and all other settler-colonial forces. We oppose all immigration controls, including and especially closed borders. We oppose US intervention everywhere and in every case. We are for self-determination for Puerto Rico and all US territories. We stand in the tradition of revolutionaries who resisted both social democracy and Stalinism, and we support the struggle for workers’ power and democracy against fascist states, capitalist hegemonies, and bureaucratic ruling classes in so-called socialist countries.  

Full Equality & Liberation

Capitalism divides the working class based on sexual, gender, racial, national, and other distinctions. The specially-oppressed groups within the working class suffer the most under capitalism. The liberation of the oppressed is essential to socialist revolution and impossible without it. We oppose white supremacy, misogyny, and all forms of oppression and acknowledge the compounding intersection of these oppressions. We support the struggle for immigrant rights, for Black and Indigenous liberation, and all the struggles of the oppressed. We fight for real social, economic, and political equality for women and seek an end to discrimination against LGBTQ+ people under cisheteropatriarchy. Believing survivors and standing with and among them in our fight for true emancipation is centered in our organizing.  

The Revolutionary Party 

To achieve socialism, the most militant workers must be organized into a revolutionary socialist party. The ruling class in capitalism is highly organized and disciplined – to effectively oppose it we need to meet it with our own discipline and organization designed to facilitate the mass mobilization of the working class. We are committed to playing a role in laying the foundations for such a party to emerge in the future. In our current period and context, this means studying and struggling together to develop and apply a coherent set of Marxist politics. We aim to build an independent socialist organization, rooted in workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods that, in fighting today’s struggles also wins larger numbers to the fight for socialism.