Left Voice Magazine: Special Issue on Our Congress

On July 14-16, Left Voice held its first congress. More than 50 comrades gathered in Manhattan. The largest group came from New York, where Left Voice was founded about eight years ago. A second nucleus was from Detroit, made up of activists who organized together during the Black Lives Matter uprisings and later joined Left Voice. Further members joined from Philadelphia, Los Angeles, El Paso, and other parts of the United States. Guests from our sister groups in the Trotskyist Fraction tuned in from Mexico City, Caracas, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Barcelona, Paris, Berlin, Munich, and other cities around the world.

We are in a political situation marked by the return of the “epoch of crisis, wars, and revolutions,” as shown by the proxy war in Ukraine and increasing tensions with China. The global situation is marked by climate change, which threatens to make the planet uninhabitable. In the United States, Biden’s period of stability is over, the Far Right on the rise. At the same time, the UAW strike shows a new militancy among the working class. Both the global and national situations may be subject to abrupt shifts, and at the congress, we tried to prepare ourselves for these. A strategic task for the Left is to break the Democratic Party’s stranglehold over the working class and the oppressed. We believe the time is right to open a discussion about building a working-class party that fights for socialism.

The main discussions at the congress were structured around two documents, which we publish here. The first one covers the world situation, marked by a decline of U.S. imperialist hegemony. The second deals with the situation in the United States, with a persistent organic crisis. Both of these documents were updated based on the discussions. Since we are releasing them after the summer, they are not completely up to date.

Since 2015, Left Voice has been building up a publication that can give a voice to workers and oppressed people in the United States, and to report on the class struggle around the world. We are part of the international La Izquierda Diario network of revolutionary socialist online newspapers, with sixteen different sites in seven languages. The congress marked an important step for Left Voice, as we organize ourselves so that we can contribute to the formation of an independent socialist party of the working class in the United States and globally.

In addition to the Congress documents, we are also publishing greetings sent by the Black socialist Leticia Parks from our sister organization in Brazil, a powerful articulation of the necessary link between Black struggle and socialism. We have also included an appeal for Climate Leninism, in debate with Andreas Malm. To complete the issue, the historian Wendy Z. Goldman presents her book about women’s liberation in revolutionary Russia.

This magazine is intended as a contribution to pressing debates on the Left. We welcome responses to any of the articles. If the ideas here resonate with you and you would like to join us in fighting for a working-class party that fights for socialism, you can sign up here.

Left Voice Magazine

Ideas & Debates