Why Talk With Socialists?

You don't need to be a socialist to care about democracy, so why include socialist history in our political agitation? By Luke Pickrell

About six months ago, a friend and I began drafting an article for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) discussing the English Chartist movement. As previous posts have mentioned, the Chartists were the largest, best-organized, and most radical political movement in 19th-century Britain. If fully realized, Friedrich Engels said their six-point charter would create a democracy, giving the working class state power. He and Marx identified as Chartists and, in the Communist Manifesto, urged other revolutionaries to do the same.

I recently reread the article and felt unsure about our approach. Several things happened since we’d drafted the article: DSA released its 2024 Program, calling in the preamble for a democratic constitution based on a unicameral legislature and one person, one equal vote; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the Supreme Court is “Captured and corrupted by money and extremism” and a threat to people's lives; Joe Biden presented his unrealizable though symbolically important court reforms; The Constitutional Bind was published, and its author, Aziz Rana, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that drew a response from Nancy Pelosi; most recently, Erin Chemerinsky’s No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States drew praise from the Times and ire from Elon Musk.

The Constitution is a mainstream talking point in a way it wasn’t only a year ago, and everything, as far as I’m aware, happened without referencing Marx, Engels, or the Chartists. Yes, DSA has passed meaningful resolutions. But it hasn’t taken the democratic constitution message to the public. Meanwhile, publications like Jacobin have published exactly one article on the Constitution in the past sixteen months.

The organized left still has little interest in the Constitution, leaving the discussion primarily to individual scholars and journalists like Rana, Chemerinsky, Michael Klarman, Robert Ovetz, and Daniel Lazare, some of whom are more left-of-center than others. It’s increasingly evident that one doesn’t need to be a socialist to critique the Constitution and push for a democratic alternative; the document’s profoundly undemocratic and dysfunctional features have become impossible for any honest person to ignore.

As Vladimir Lenin knew all too well, dyed-in-the-wool socialists can be downright uninterested in the “battle for democracy.” Lenin’s battle with (so-called) social democrats who downplayed agitation for the democratic republic produced What Is To Be Done? and Political Agitation and the Class Point of View, two of the most essential works in Marxist theory. Lenin’s commitment to democracy and disdain for anything less was so intense that in summarizing Lenin’s work, Lars T. Lih wrote, “If you were willing to fight for political freedom, you were Lenin's ally, even if you were hostile to socialism. If you downgraded the goal of political freedom in any way, you were Lenin's foe, even if you were a committed socialist.”

Lenin’s critique of democratic indifference in early 20th-century Russia is still relevant. Take DSA, the largest and only relevant socialist organization in the country. While a tiny democratic constitution movement exists within its eclectic combination of political ideas, most members are electoral reformists who can’t imagine being an alternative to the Democratic Party (and don’t pay much mind to the Constitution) or Marxists who want to build the power of the working class and realize a socialist revolution (and also don’t pay much mind to the Constitution).

Chemerinsky didn’t need to read the People's Charter to know the Constitution puts the country “in grave danger” and write a decent book about why we need a second convention. Klarman didn’t need John Frost or Zephaniah Williams to tell an honest history of the framers and note that Article V makes democratic amendments “virtually impossible.” Yes, Lazare writes for the Weekly Worker, but the arguments in his two most influential books do not rely on the history of Chartism or the socialist movement.

One doesn’t have to be a socialist to die for democracy, as the people who risked (and sometimes gave) their lives during the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights movement demonstrated. As Lenin knew, one can call themselves a socialist and not prioritize the fight for a democratic constitution and universal and equal rights. 

Given all the above, what’s the use of talking about the Chartists? In fact, why integrate any socialist history into one’s democratic agitation? Why engage with socialists at all?

Many socialists have three essential qualities that most Constitution critics don’t. First, they feel alienated from society, which results in intense skepticism of the existing state and a predisposition toward “the people,” including the working class. Second, they understand that politics concerns who has material power and ideological legitimacy. Third, they are damn good organizers and dedicated fighters. When directed toward the struggle for a new constitution, these qualities make socialists a democratic force to be reckoned with.

Chemerinsky is the perfect example of where constitutional criticism ends up when put forward by someone without the personal and political predilections of most socialists. His latest book is a powerful critique of the Constitution that thankfully avoids the hesitant conclusions put forward by most academics and unapologetically argues for a constitutional convention outside the state-centered (read: undemocratic) confines of Article V. The book also led to an equally powerful review in the New York Times that got widespread publicity thanks to its critics.

However, there’s a fatal flaw in Chemerinsky’s argument. Regarding the all-important question of who will lead the battle for a democratic constitution, he can't think beyond Congress and the President because of his fundamental trust in the state and comfortable social position. Having concluded that the U.S. is not a democracy and the Constitution is the obstacle to change, a socialist would be more likely than someone in Chemerinsky’s position to look toward the organized working class as a force for change.

Maybe using the history of the Chartists and their connection to Marx and Engels as partial justification for a contemporary democratic movement is a good idea. Or maybe going back to England in the 1840s will fall flat. Ultimately, it’s too soon to know how a movement will develop. Our task is to continue raising the issue of the Constitution. 

The struggle for a democratic constitution will be long and hard. Luckily, socialists are fighters who know the importance of winning state power; as long as that quality remains, it’s worth engaging with them and helping them rediscover their democratic republican roots.