NEW YORK, LATE AUGUST 2004—Should the working class participate in the governing of the capitalist state? This is a question as old as organized labor itself.

"Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers' candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be duped. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body."

Capitalize the word “democrats” above, and the perspective advanced by Marx and Engels in 1850 sheds an interesting light on the “Anybody But Bush” campaign of 2004, which is intended to steer potential third party and independent voters to Democratic candidate John Kerry. How should US workers respond to a “choice” between two candidates put forward by parties representing interests of the big corporations and wealthy individuals?

Lenin described this choice between lesser evils: “....to decide once every few years which members of the ruling class are to repress and crush the people through parliament.” Decades later US Senator Wayne Morse described power in the US: “You don’t have two parties in this country. You’ve got a coalition of reactionary Republicans and reactionary Democrats who are running American politics, irrespective of what party label they wear.”

Examples include: the mass strikes of the 1890s until WWI (suppressed by the army and the Palmer Raids after the war), the strikes of the 1930s and 1940s (squelched and co-opted by Democrats, FDR and Truman), and the direct actions of African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s that formally ended segregation. In the 1960s and 1970s, the end of the war in Vietnam was the result of the resolve of the Vietnamese people, with help from worldwide peace protests.

Both capitalist parties persistently act in the interest of maintaining the power of their class. Even the “most liberal” president, FDR, called himself “the best friend the profit system ever had.” [See sidebar—The Lesser Evil, Then.] In fact, one of the reasons workers have been tied to the Democratic Party for so long is that the Communist Party, while leading many fierce workers’ battles, supported FDR in 1936. This was at the urging of the Communist International, in line with its policy of a united front against fascism.

How sweet this was for a capitalist class faced with the Great Depression, and a vastly unemployed working class, freshly steeled in struggles, and emboldened by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. The enduring result of the CPUSA’s alliance with social democrats and liberal sections of the bourgeoisie was an abandonment of militant opposition to capitalism and perpetual promotion of lesser evilism. An exception was the CP’s support of the last substantial progressive electoral campaign—that of Henry Wallace in 1948.

McCarthyism and the relative strength of U.S. capitalism through its Golden Age (after WWII until the crisis of the 1970s) combined repression and concessions to stifle any possibility of an independent labor party. Although the fortunes of the capitalist class became dicey after the rate of profit began to fall precipitously in 1965, the social contract forged between the capitalists and the upper echelons of the working class held during and after the subsequent economic crisis of the 1970s. The lack of a strong workers’ party and the collaboration of the leadership of the AFL-CIO with the capitalist parties contributed to the vulnerability of the working class to Reagan’s attacks in the neo-liberal 1980s. The attacks helped turn the tide of falling profits.

Latin American scholar James Petras puts the “choice” in a worldwide context: “...the real conflict is not between Bush and Kerry, but between Bush-and-Kerry, on the one hand, and Chavez-Castro- and the-Iraqi-people, on the other. The future of the world's oligarchs rides on the U.S. electoral outcome. The future of humanity, however, rests with successful resistance in Iraq, Cuba and Venezuela, and the rest of the Third World popular movements, against whichever of the two oligarchic candidates wins in November.”

Since the passage of NAFTA under Clinton, US workers have begun to form alliances with the international anti-WTO movement. The New Unity Partnership (NUP), a coalition of five major unions, is pushing for changes in the policies and structure of the AFL-CIO. Andy Stern, the president of SEIU, which is the AFL-CIO’s largest constituent union and part of the NUP, caused quite a stir this July when he said that the Democrats lacked an economic message, and that Kerry was not pro-worker enough. This was after SEIU had already tossed $65 million into the Democrats’ coffers. AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney quickly swooped down to insist Stern back Kerry over Bush, which he did, but the fragile peace is not likely to hold far past Election Day.

In fact, a coalition of organizations led by African American union leaders has already incurred Sweeny’s wrath for building the October 17 Million Worker March on Washington. Demands include the recovery of jobs and wages stolen by the corporations profiting from war, universal health care, and a national living wage. The MWM leadership is not intimidated by Sweeny’s demands to channel labor resources into Kerry’s campaign.

History has confirmed that changes beneficial to the working class come from neither the White House nor the Congress without the intensification of struggle against the ruling class by extra-electoral means. Voting is no substitute for strikes, demonstrations, and boycotts, that is, direct actions.

The electoral strategy of Marx and Engels (see above) referred to a workers’ party forged in direct actions such as the Million Worker March. As they recognized in 1848, “The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie,” not a level playing field where the interests of the working class can fairly compete.

And, as Roger Toussaint, president of TWU-Local 10 (NYC), in his recent endorsement of MWM, quoted Frederick Douglass: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will.”

NOW—Kerry himself is the richest U.S. Senator, valued at $525 million. His record confirms his credentials as a dutiful representative of the capitalist class. On Oct. 9, 2002, he supported Bush’s war proposal on the Senate floor. The next day, his running mate Edwards did the same, highlighting the “threat” Iraqi WMDs posed to Israel, particularly its desire to achieve nuclear capability. Any notions that the Kerry/Edwards war stance was due to misinformation as to Iraqi WMDs were dispelled on August 7, 2004, when Kerry said that even knowing what we know now, “I would have voted for the authority [to invade].”

Kerry, and all Senate Democrats but one (Feingold of Wisconsin), voted for the Patriot Act. Kerry has called for 40,000 additional troops in Iraq. In fact, the Bush administration has adopted part of Kerry’s program--now both call for expanding the role of NATO military forces in order to squelch the resistance to the occupation of Iraq. The two political parties also agree that “oil” is not a word to be uttered above a whisper, while they cover their oil-stained hands with the “war on terror.”

Even John Hulsman, a spokesman for the conservative Heritage Foundation, finds “the difference between the two on the war on terror is much less than people think.” At the same time, Kerry and the Democrats continue to support the terrorist and terrorist-inducing policies of Israeli aggression, including assassinations of resistance leaders, and the US policy of using Middle Eastern lands as a military springboard.

As for Kerry’s domestic policy intentions, Kerry has declared that he is “not a redistribution Democrat,” and told well-heeled supporters that he would start an aggressive campaign to define himself as a centrist, in the hopes of peeling moderate Republicans from President Bush. He has directly appealed to the ruling class with the assurance, “I’d be more effective for business [than Bush].”

Kerry voted for NAFTA, a disaster for workers here and abroad. He proposed cutting the corporate tax rate, “eager to rebut charges that he is a tax-and-spend Democrat.” Indeed, the Democratic Party platform (p. 20) promises, “Under John Kerry and John Edwards, 99 percent of American businesses will pay lower taxes than today.” Kerry proposed paying for the cuts by eliminating the tax incentives that encourage U.S. companies to shift jobs overseas. Such a “job proposal” neglects the major causes of the job flight, such as the miniscule wages paid in many foreign countries. Kerry also voted in favor the reactionary Welfare Reform Act of 1996 and Bush’s “No Child Left Behind Act.”