Socialism is something that cannot be understood in a box, in a freeze frame, in one moment in time, but has to be analyzed as a historical phenomenon that comes about after a people first and foremost throw off their oppressors, rid themselves of the subjugation they have endured since birth, and begin to struggle in order to build a new society where the people (the majority) hold true power. It is a process and a historical development where the population as a whole is taking part in the decision making and construction of the society, in agriculture, infrastructure, healthcare, education, policing, women's and LGBTQ+ struggles, arming of the people, food sovereignty/security, foreign affairs and international ties, among everything else. But how is it that we get to a point where people themselves - workers, oppressed nations, colonized peoples, women, trans folks, etc. - actually are in power, taking control, making decisions, and building a new world?
In the US, it is clear that this isn't going to be able to happen simply by willing it into being, by compromising with the ruling class, nor will it come into existence without reckoning with the extremely backwards and reactionary reality that is the USA. For example, one cannot expect a socialist world to come into being where Indigenous peoples are still under the boot of white "socialists", or where Mexico continues to have half it's land mass swallowed up as the "Western United States", or where African people (in the US and on the African continent) have to continue to be made into dehumanized, alienated, and impoverished people, still suffering the continued existence of slavery and colonialism today. It will not be one where women continue to be brutalized, marginalized, oppressed and repressed, or where LGBTQ+ folks are harmed and subjected to the norms and daily suffering we endure today. Socialism cannot exist side by side with the reactionary forces, education, social relations, economic systems, or political structure as what we have today, because it is contradictory to the overall goal we are fighting for.
All over the world struggles for liberation have taken place, for an end to things like slavery, colonialism, capitalism and imperialism, and what is interesting is that not a single one of them can truly be said to be the same as the others. In Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde the struggle is not the same, in Palestine and Lebanon the struggle is not the same, in Iran and Iraq the struggle is not the same, and in the former Soviet Union and People's Republic of China the struggle was and is not the same. Cuba looks different than Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, where different socialist projects are being developed and the organized people are coming into or are in power. How can this be so? Isn't Socialism a doctrine? A perfect point of resolution? An end to capitalism? No. Socialism is the process by which the conscious, organized people are coming together and building a new society for the chance at ending all inequality, privilege, and oppression of human by human. And a part of that process in colonial and imperial contexts includes as a pre-requisite the liberation of oppressed people. But one might expect this to take more than a few years, or even a few generations. How long does it take us simply to break a bad habit ourselves? Now imagine millions of people needing to not only break from the old society but be directly involved in the building of a new, revolutionary, progressive one.
In the US, the White "Left" has failed to take this reality into account in many different ways. They are constantly critiquing from their laptops and smart phones this or that actually existing socialist project from theory written in an entirely different time, context, reality, and nation, or simply from their own ideas, while having no revolutionary or socialist project of their own. They have left the African people to struggle alone many more times than once and consistently ditch them at the last moment for rudimentary reforms, the Indigenous people stranded in concentration camps known as "reservations" and across the land suffering without support in their struggle, and others can say the same for their lack of support from the White Proletariat. Yet folks are told to wait for the socialist revolution for things like Land Back, freeing all political prisoners, ending segregation and mass imprisonment, immigration reforms and putting political power in the hands of ALL people, not just some "socialists". They are distracting from the inevitable, which will be the time when oppressed people of all nations, not simply North America, hold power in their hands and use it not only to rid the world of the slave-masters, imperialists, capitalists and their like, but to bring into existence a new world, for all, built by all, and defended by all. Not some utopia, not some idealist hope, but where contradictions, fucked up realities, racism, homophobia, sexism, exploitation, inequality, and suffering are dealt squarely in the face with. Not ignored, not left to be dealt with "by those people" but by us, the united revolutionary forces, today, tomorrow, next week, and through to revolution and beyond.
But, the oppressed nations MUST be freed first! That means freeing the land, freeing the people, struggling to seize power from the settler-colonial empire, and struggling alongside, with the leadership of oppressed people themselves, so as to grow and develop as revolutionaries and the struggles we are all involved in.
What does this look like?
Building anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, anti-capitalist organizations, mass groups, parties, neighborhood committees, tenant and unhoused unions, worker unions, and to fight every single day to end this old society, now, today, and forever. All Power to the People!