Democrat members of Congress, including Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., participate in sit-in protest seeking a vote on gun control measures on the floor of the House on Capitol Hill on June 22. (Rep. Chellie Pingree via AP)

Communist Party USA Leader: ‘Socialists Must Vote Democrat’

News Analysis

Rick Nagin, the Ohio state organizer for the Communist Party USA, has made an urgent appeal for “progressives and socialists” to support only Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections. The Democratic Party, Nagin explains, is the “only electoral vehicle” that can beat Republicans in the short term.

In an article titled “Why Socialists Must Back Democrats in November Elections” published on the Communist Party website People’s World, Nagin wrote: “The immediate battle is the November elections in which left forces must accept the reality that the only electoral vehicle capable of defeating the extremists is the Democratic Party. Therefore, there is no question but that every effort must be made to elect the Democratic candidates.”

The “extremists” to which Nagin refers to are, of course, the Republican Party.

“Since the election in 1980 of Ronald Reagan and especially with the subsequent consolidation of control over the Republican Party by right-wing extremism, the main challenge for the progressive and socialist movement has been to build a broad democratic coalition to defeat this threat to living standards, democratic rights, peace, and the environment,” he wrote.

According to Nagin, it is the duty of every leftist to come to the polls and vote lock-step for the Democrats. Green Party supporters and other third-party voters are in effect endangering the “progressive” cause.

“Third-party candidates, especially the Greens, serve only to divert activists and siphon their votes and resources away from the main task of stopping the right,” he wrote.

Nagin acknowledges that not all Democrats are on board with the socialist agenda—that some are too closely allied to “corporate” interests and big-money donors.

In other words, some Democrats still believe in the American system of free enterprise.

According to Nagin, the Republicans are so dangerous that it is in the working class’s short-term interests to ally with even “corporate Democrats” to keep President Donald Trump’s party out of power. Nagin explains that such alliances are temporary matters of convenience.

To support his case, Nagin quotes former Communist Party USA leader Gus Hall, who said in 1969, “The fight against state monopoly capitalism, in general, must always be conducted from the viewpoint of strengthening the forces of the ultimately necessary socialist revolution, and never from the viewpoint of stabilizing the system.”

In other words, Nagin said: “While socialists and all Democrats agree for the moment on the need to defeat the Republicans in November, the aim of socialists is to weaken, not stabilize, corporate power [i.e., American business]. This means acting in a way that preserves the independent goals, aims, and organization of the movement for socialism and strengthens and builds the broad grassroots anti-monopoly alliance.”

So, while socialists and communists must “seek the best possible outcome for working people in any struggle, electoral or otherwise,” they must be guided by the Communist Manifesto, to “fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interest of the working class. … But in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.”

Translated from Marxist language, Nagin is instructing his comrades to work with the Democrats now to take advantage of their influence. Nagin knows that to win elections, the radical left must work with “corporate interests” in the short term. Eventually, the socialists will be strong enough to impose their own will on the Democratic Party and America’s free enterprise system.

Nagin knows the Democratic Party well. He has used it to serve communist objectives for decades.

Nagin supported Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich for years, including through his unsuccessful 2018 bid for the governorship of Ohio. Nagin has himself stood several times for public office on the Democratic ticket. Today, he serves as the Democratic leader in Cleveland Ward 14 and is on the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Executive Committee.

According to a report Nagin wrote for the Communist Party USA website in July, communists have thoroughly infiltrated the Cleveland Democratic Party. He writes:

“Several members are active in the Democratic Ward Club and County Central Committee. In this way the club will help mobilize voters to defeat right-wing extremist candidates in November. They will be canvassing their precincts, doing literature drops and processing data.”

The communist revolution in the West is not about bullets and bombs; it is about ballots. The strategy for achieving communist revolution is to mobilize the masses to vote for Democratic Party candidates in the short term.

The long-term goals, however, are the same. Nagin writes:

“So, the bottom line is: Yes, progressives and socialists must join with corporate liberals to elect the Democratic candidates this November, but they must have no illusions about the Democratic Party or promote the idea of a permanent alliance. The Democratic Party is not and has no intention to be the vehicle for the liberation of the working class from exploitation and oppression. That mission belongs to the Communist Party, the revolutionary party of the working class that is guided by the science of Marxism-Leninism.”

This November’s election is not about Democrats versus Republicans. It’s really about communists versus constitutionalists.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.