Communists engage in bourgeois elections to raise political awareness among the working class and expose the limitations of the electoral system, which primarily serves the ruling class. Despite the challenges posed by capitalist structures, participation in elections allows communists to advocate for workers' interests and demonstrate the inherent flaws in bourgeois democracy. Historical examples, such as the Marxist-led Liverpool Council, illustrate how local governance can be used to challenge capitalist policies and educate the working class, though such efforts can be met with significant resistance from the ruling class.
People frequently ask communists: who are you running for office? This question is most common around election time—but in the US, it is almost always election time. There are federal elections every two years, with “off-year elections” for state and local positions in between. Presidential elections happen every four years, but campaigning usually begins a year or more before election day.
Our approach to bourgeois elections flows from the Marxist understanding of the state. Communists have studied the history of class society from its earliest foundations to the capitalist era. We are not naive. The state is always a tool for the ruling class to maintain its system of oppression and exploitation. Under bourgeois democracy, the population does not really decide how to run society. As Marx explained, bourgeois elections merely allow the people to choose which of the bosses’ representatives will rule over and repress them.
The fundamental basis of the state is armed force—the ruling class’s ability to kill or imprison anyone who gets out of line. / Image: Anthony Quintano, Wikimedia Commons
The fundamental basis of the state is armed force—the ruling class’s ability to kill or imprison anyone who gets out of line. But open repression is expensive and unpopular, so ruling classes throughout history have built many other institutions to help secure and maintain their rule. The American bourgeoisie is no exception. These include the three branches of government and the federal system of dividing power between Washington, DC and the states. The two-party system is another powerful weapon in their arsenal. The main capitalist parties, the Republicans and Democrats, share power, and the possibility of one party replacing the other through elections serves as a pressure valve for social discontent.
Engels said that in a democratic republic, “wealth exercises its power indirectly, but all the more surely.” What does this mean? The bourgeoisie have created a system where no matter who wins on election day, the working class always loses.
They have complete control over educational institutions (both public and private schools), and their ownership and control of the mass media (including “public” radio and television) creates and shapes so-called public opinion. The two main capitalist parties are linked directly with the state. In America, “joining” one of these parties is done by checking a box on a voter registration form. Democratic and Republican primary elections are almost always run by the state, not the parties themselves. Restrictive ballot access requirements make it difficult for other parties to get established.
The capitalists also have various rules to exclude voters or make it more difficult to vote, particularly for Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans. On top of that, the lack of “one person, one vote” in the Senate and Electoral College, along with gerrymandering of House districts, assures the ruling class can frustrate any popular mandate. Communists know from the study of history that even when the working class overcomes all these obstacles and attains a majority, the capitalists use violent and authoritarian means to stop the establishment of a workers’ government. The Chilean coup of 1973 is just one of many examples.
Despite this, constant capitalist propaganda about government “of, by, and for the people” creates illusions in American democracy. Communists cannot ignore millions of workers who still have faith that bourgeois elections can really change society. On the contrary, we must use elections, as well as any elected positions we win, to expose bourgeois democracy and show it for what it really is—democracy for the ruling class and dictatorship for the rest of us.
Constant capitalist propaganda about government “of, by, and for the people” creates illusions in American democracy. / Image: VOA, Wikimedia Commons
Expose the system
Communists have two main reasons for engaging in capitalist elections. The first is that elections create a heightened state of political awareness in society. Many workers are not normally interested in politics or government policy but are more open to talking with us around election time. We must use this to spread our Bolshevik-Leninist ideas among broader layers of the working class than we can normally reach.
The second reason is that communists can use participation in the electoral system to expose that very system. During a campaign, we can show concretely how elections are rigged against the working class. If a communist is elected to Congress or a state legislature, we can use that position to show how the bourgeois government cannot serve the interests of workers.
Lenin explained that participation in bourgeois elections and legislative bodies was an essential tactic in the struggle to win the masses to communism:
How will you reveal the true nature of parliament to the really backward masses deceived by the bourgeoisie if you do not enter it? How will you expose this or that parliamentary maneuver, the attitude of this or that party, if you are not in parliament? If you are Marxists you must recognize that the relation between the classes in a bourgeois society and the relationship between the parties are closely connected. I repeat, how will you show all that if you are not members of parliament, if you reject parliamentary action? The history of the Russian revolution has clearly proved that the great masses of the working class, of the peasant class and of the petty clerks would not have been convinced by any arguments if they had not made their own experiences. (Lenin from the Minutes of the Second Congress of the Comintern, discussion on the Theses on the Communist Parties and Parliamentarianism)
What happens if we win? A communist in Congress would introduce legislation to meet the real needs of the working class. They would advance measures designed to raise the question: who stands with the worker and who stands with big business?
They could put forward a law for a 20-hour work week with no loss in pay and a minimum weekly wage of $1,250. Naturally, the bourgeois parties would oppose our bill and whine about how the bosses can’t afford it. This would give us an opportunity to explain that the average American worker creates more than $3,270 of economic value per week (in 2023 figures), so it can be easily paid for. We could contrast this with the average income of only $723 per week (in 2022 figures). We would also explain how shifting workers from unproductive to socially useful work and increasing the use of idle industrial capacity will create even more wealth. An intense fight over this legislation would politically expose Congress before millions of workers.
Communists can use participation in the electoral system to expose that very system. / Image: RCA
Communists and municipal government
In their “Theses on the Communist Parties and Parliamentarianism,” the Second Congress of the Communist International wrote:
13. Should the communists have the majority in local government institutions, they should a) carry out revolutionary opposition to the bourgeois central power; b) do everything to be of service to the poorer population (economic measures, introduction or attempted introduction of an armed workers’ militia, etc.); c) at every opportunity show the limitations placed on really big changes by the bourgeois state power; d) on this basis develop the sharpest revolutionary propaganda without fearing the conflict with the power of the state; e) under certain circumstances replace the local administration by local workers’ councils. The whole activity of the Communists in the local administration must therefore be part of the general work of disrupting the capitalist system.
These guidelines show how communists could win a majority in a city government and use it to expose the limits of what can be achieved without a workers’ government established on a national level. Marxists have real life experience of this; our British comrades controlled the local government in Liverpool from 1983 to 1987.
It started in the early 1980s, when Marxists organized around the Militant newspaper won majority influence in the Liverpool District Labour Party (DLP). The Liverpool DLP not only led the local Labour Party, but also coordinated strikes and strike support in the city. In 1983, the Liverpool Labour Party, under Marxist leadership, gained a majority on the city council and took it in a bold, new direction.
The Marxist council wanted to stop layoffs of public sector workers, raise their minimum wage, and reduce their work week to 35 hours to create 1,000 new jobs. They also planned to build new council housing that people would be proud to live in and replace houses that were in very poor condition. This was not gentrification because all council housing was publicly owned, and the Marxists planned to cut rents in council housing, not raise them. Rebuilding would be concentrated in the poorest, most desperate parts of the city. This was an extremely important issue for Liverpool’s working class. In the 1980s, almost a third of the British population lived in council housing, unlike the US where public housing is less than 1% of overall housing stock.
The Marxist-led city council did not want to burden the working class with big increases in local taxes. Instead, they demanded that the money come from the central government, led by arch-reactionary Margaret Thatcher and her Tory Party. The idea was not just to fight for Liverpool. The Liverpool Council appealed to Labour councils in cities across Britain to follow their lead and launch a national fight against austerity.
The struggle won much needed reforms. The Marxist council built 5,000 new houses, canceled the layoffs of 1,200 public workers, and added 1,000 new jobs. Most importantly, the fight helped to educate the working class.
Militancy was particularly intense during the miners’ strike of 1984–85. Thatcher engaged in a violent battle to break the power of the miners’ union. Despite their heroic struggle against the class enemy’s brutal attacks, Thatcher was able to defeat the miners with help from the trade union bureaucrats and Labour Party leadership. Liverpool was the only city with a Marxist-led council, and they became isolated as other Labour councils gave in to Thatcher’s Tories.
For four years, Marxists led the Liverpool Council and enjoyed overwhelming support from the working masses. The Marxists did not lose their positions via elections. Instead, the “very democratic” British ruling class removed the Militant councilors without an election. They said Liverpool had submitted an “illegal budget,” fined the councilors, and removed them from office. In addition, Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock—a loyal servant of the bourgeoisie—”suspended” the Liverpool DLP. Kinnock knew he could not defeat the Marxists in internal party elections, so he used bureaucratic means to disband the whole DLP. When it comes to the capitalists and their reformist agents, so much for democracy!
The Marxists did not lose their positions via elections. Instead, the “very democratic” British ruling class removed the Militant councilors without an election. / Image: RCI
Important lessons
History is full of vital lessons for how communists can use elections and elected offices to further the working-class cause. Every communist must study both the positive and negative examples to raise their understanding of how to intervene in capitalist elections.
There are no shortcuts in electoral work. Look at the experience of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Their rush for electoral victory was not based on a firm Marxist theoretical foundation, but on expediency and the false doctrine of Social Democracy. They ran as Democrats, not as independent working-class candidates. They accepted all sorts of rotten bourgeois political ideas. What is the result? Today the DSA’s elected officials stand firmly behind Joe Biden’s government—the same one which supports imperialist slaughter in Ukraine and Gaza while squeezing workers with high inflation. Millions are enraged by Biden and his Democratic clique but will never look to the DSA to lead a struggle against them.
If American communists are not launching election campaigns today, it is only because we are still concentrating on important preliminary party-building work—establishing a core of hundreds of cadres. As long as we have the necessary Leninist political education, we will be able to take advantage of the many opportunities coming our way in the near future.