Why Abandoning Elections Isn't Revolutionary, It's Just Demoralized Inaction
In response to those pushing for the abandonment of elections and voting, I give you my analysis of our current conditions, following that logic to its terminus. When it comes to voting and non-electoral organizing of the workers, some argue that revolutionary organizing outside the electoral system offers communists better odds in the U.S. than pursuing elections, reasoning that the two-party structure, ballot access laws, and anti-communist stigma make elections a dead end while street-level organizing builds real power. The odds of major election success are low to nil, this is true. The problem is that this logic severs the two things Lenin explicitly held together: he didn't say avoid bourgeois institutions, he said use them, elections included, as a tool for raising class consciousness, recruiting cadre, and exposing the system's contradictions to the masses, while simultaneously building the organizational infrastructure for what comes next. Non-electoral organizing with...
