Socialism in the US

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many assumed that the word socialism would no longer be heard in world politics. Socialism in the US and the Communist Party will be a matter of history.

In 1992, Francis Fukuyama interpreted Karl Marx’s idea of ​​the end of communism differently. He authored a book, “The End of History and the Last Man”. In it, he said, the fall of the Soviet Union marked the end of the socialist movement. This is the end of history. Western liberal democracy and capitalism are the last political and economic system in human history.

The Western elites were happy with Fukuyama’s theory. They found a powerful theory to support their political and economic system. It was a time of great frustration among leftists around the world. Some of what they called the bourgeois party crowded into all the parties.

In countries like the Third World where the practice of knowledge regardless of right or left means Western Europe, America. At least trying to understand what the Asian intellectuals are saying, the situation of the leftists there is confusing. Left politics will survive in the world that very few leftists believed in 1992-93; Especially in countries of intellectual poverty like the Third World.

The situation of the left in the United States was much the same then. There has never been a strong left movement in the United States. The Communist Party, which was founded in 1919, has always had to go through various repressions.

Senator McCarthy proposed the infamous McCarthy Act in the late 1940s to prevent ​​socialism from developing in the United States under any circumstances. The law calls for the expulsion of many professors from colleges and universities in the United States, claiming to be free-thinking countries, under the guise of Marxism. It is also ensured that no one associated with the Left gets a government / private job.

The Communist Party has tried to keep their organization alive through various forms of repression, oppression, humiliation, imprisonment, oppression, etc. Despite adversity, they took part in consecutive presidential elections from 1924 to 1984, with two consecutive exceptions. Their highest electoral success was in 1924. In that election, the party’s candidate, William Foster, received 0.26% of the vote.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, more misfortunes befell the party. There was a breakdown in the team. A small part goes out of the team. The team’s vast collection of libraries was donated to a university because of the financial crisis. But even then, as a small group, they could survive by maintaining branches in various organs.

The American people have never had a good idea about the two suffixes of socialism and communism. That idea got worse after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Communist Party was thought to be working for the Soviet Union against the interests of the country. As a result, they were seen as agents or brokers of the Soviets. Understanding this will help you understand how the left is viewed in America.

So far it has been like this. Many assumed that this would always be the case. But Bernie Sanders, an 78-year-old independent senator elected from the state of Vermont, suddenly made a fuss. He introduced himself as a democratic socialist.

Like many European socialists, he uses the suffix democracy before the suffix socialism to imply that the idea of ​​dictatorship in the name of socialism in the Soviet Union or China is in fact contrary to the basic principles of socialism. This is how leftist thinker Noam Chomsky sees it.

In a country like America, Bernie continues to win consecutive elections by openly identifying himself as a socialist which is a surprise too many. Bernie was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1991. Excluding one term in the middle, he was a member of the House of Representatives for 16 consecutive years until 2007. He has been continuously elected to the Senate since 2007.

One thing Bernie understands, however, is that even if he were elected to the Senate as an independent, it would not be possible for him to win the presidential election as an independent candidate. Again, if elected from the platform of the Communist Party, there is a possibility of falling out of the political race. Though political thought, it has the most similarities with this party in terms of place of consciousness.

America’s political system is arranged in such a way that no third party can come up there. Mainstream print and electronic media are closely associated with this political system. There is no question of left parties; the media rarely publishes the news of any third party. They do not mention even the total number of candidates in the presidential election.

If a candidate from both parties gets less than 5% of the vote in the last election, his name is not on the ballot, nor is he called into the television debate. In fact, for this reason, Bernie has chosen the platform of the Democratic Party instead of being a candidate on the ticket of the Communist Party or any other left party.

Bernie has been saying for a long time that the policy, ideology, and program of the Communist Party of America. Bernie’s achievement is that he has popularized the socialism that America has been fighting for so long for a large section of the population.

What the Communist Party has not been able to do for a hundred years, Bernie has been able to do. He wants to radically change the system from within the system. To bring about the socialist transformation of capitalist America.

Bernie also wanted to be nominated in 2016. Then his religious beliefs were brought to the fore to stop him. Mainstream media, such as CNN, have highlighted Bernie’s belief in non-traditional religion.

Born in a Jewish family, Bernie, a student at the University of Chicago, was influenced by the ideas of Karl Marx, Trotsky, and the American socialist Eugene V. Debs.

Like Marx, Bernie does not believe in any established religion. But like Marx, he believed that every person should have the freedom to practice or not to practice his or her own religion. Like Marx, he dreamed of a world in which we would guarantee the freedom of every free development, in the free interest development of all.

Bernie does not identify himself as an atheist, most likely because of US political realities. As Christianity is influenced by the American political system rather than secular liberalism, it is almost impossible for an atheist in American political culture to win an election.

In this sense, the United States is not as liberal as India or Europe in terms of political culture. Because, in those places, they have elected many politicians with open atheist identity. We see many leftist politicians in India writing atheists in place of religion.

Bernie is an atheist or close to atheism in terms of religious beliefs. More than that, he is a socialist. When Bernie again sought nominations from the Democratic Party, party policymakers assumed that a person with such a profile could win the state but not rise in national politics.

They did not realize that Bernie’s appeal for socialism had already reached so deep into society. They assumed that former Vice[ Newly elected president ] President Joe Biden would come up easily. There were also wealthy heavyweight candidates like former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. Socialist Bernie should not be found beside them. But disaster struck in the Iowa Caucus. Note that whoever wins the Iowa Caucus is usually the presidential candidate.

When it was seen in the Iowa Caucus that Bernie could win, the results of the Undemocratic-style vote were blocked. It is almost impossible for this party to accept that a socialist like Bernie will be the candidate of the Democratic Party. This party has always been vocal against socialism. During the Cold War, the party played a strong role against the Soviet Union. So it became urgent for them to stop Bernie.

After the Caucus vote on Monday, February 3, when many thought Bernie could win, everyone was stunned and the vote count was postponed because of technical glitches in the app. Note that the votes of the whole Caucus are a little over two thousand.

The postponement of the vote has increased the pressure on the party’s policymakers. As a result, 9 pm announced the results of 62 percent of the vote on Tuesday. It shows that Bernie received or was given 25.1% and Peter Buttigieg 26.9%.

Fraud in party elections, all the irony that we see in the developing world, this time the Democratic Party of America showed its example. That is, the Democratic Party’s Iowa Caucus highlighted the undemocratic behavior of political parties, not only in third world countries but also in countries claiming to institutionalize democracy, such as the United States.

In the Iowa Caucus, Bernie was somehow stopped, but not in New Hampshire. There he overtook Buttigieg and emerged victoriously. He also won last Nevada, and that’s even more so. Buttigieg came down there in third place.

Bernie’s successive victories left the American capitalist establishment in a state of extreme discomfort. Bernie’s advancement created panic among the entrepreneurial class. It seemed to many that Bernie was going to be the Democratic candidate in the end. Various plans were started on how to stop the procession of his victory. As part of this, Russia has been accused of helping Bernie win elections.

Meanwhile, another obstacle was created to stop a socialist. Buttigieg is gay. In a Christian-influenced US state system, a homosexual is unlikely to win. That would give President Trump a chance to score in the open.

All in all, Trump was in a very win-win situation. If Bernie were a candidate in Buttigieg’s place, he would say Bernie was a communist. That’s it. And even if you can’t say anything else. Just like calling someone an atheist in the Muslim world is a lot like that.

And with the atheist declaration of the communists, America has been built as a religion-based state without being a secular state. As a result, there is no public holiday in the country for religious festivals other than Christianity, and all elected representatives, starting with the president, have to take an oath with their hands on the scriptures.

We have to take an oath of allegiance to this country in the name of God. Each dollar note is printed with the God that Americans believe in. Elected representatives at every level in the United States end their speeches with the name of God. And that’s why US leaders are so vocal about democracy and human rights around the world. They are so silent on the question of secularism.

It is in this place that Bernie’s achievement, challenging the religious capitalist system that has been established for so many years, emerges in the guise of secular socialism. Now the question is, is Bernie’s slogan of socialism a temporary emotion, or will this trend gradually become mainstream in America? In fact, at the moment it is a million-dollar question.

It did not take long for the global interest in a capitalist democracy that had developed after the collapse of the Soviet Union to fade, as the economic and political aspirations of the masses failed to materialize.

During this period many in the Muslim world also observed a tendency towards the politics of “Islamism”. But due to various reasons, this politics could not hold its appeal. It seems to the young society that this politics is incapable of including all religions, even Muslims, under its banner. For example, Shia “Islamists” are reluctant to give place to Sunnis and Sunnis to Shiites under their banner. Since Sunni “Islamism” is based on Wahhabi ideology, they are happy if they can’t call Sunnis of other sects Muslims if possible. Besides, in the atmosphere of religion, “Islamists” are willing to see women as second class citizens.

This has also given rise to a kind of negative attitude towards the aims, objectives, and ideals of the politics of “Islamism”. The failure of capitalism and the politics of “Islamism” is again creating interest in socialism anew. The principal reason of interest is that this political-economic doctrine seeks to establish an egalitarian society by including everyone under its banner irrespective of race, religion, caste, gender. This recent interest can be called the second stream of the socialist movement. To put it more clearly, it is the embryonic state of the second stream.

One of the major differences between the first wave and the second wave is the growing interest among the people of the United States itself. Bernie is the main artist to arouse this interest. With few exceptions in the first stream, the American people had a negative attitude towards socialism. Whether Bernie’s interest in awakening will be temporary or lasting depends on how the leftists in the second tier deal with the two important questions that arose in the first tide of socialism. In the first stream, socialism meant dictatorial/one-party rule, and management of bureaucrats, management of the economy under state control. If leftists understand that the old model of socialism, then it is certain that they have no future at present.

Bernie has already made it clear he is a Democrat. No one, of course, has any doubts about this, although he has not been able to clarify how he will establish socialism in a multi-party democracy. No conscientious person should disagree with his idea of ​​welfare economics. But even here, he could not clear how he would get the economy out of the hands of the bureaucrats and bring the economy under the control of the people.

In fact, the rational answer to these two questions depends on the ability of the second stream socialist movement to move forward. If we can get the right answers to these two questions free from the romanticism and emotions of the past, this century will be the century of the leftists like the middle of the last century. And in this second journey of socialism, the leftists will also get the Americans with them. But ignoring the present reality, trying to build a movement based solely on the past and passion, the interest in socialism that has been created in many countries of the world, including the United States, will not take long to disappear.

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