Michael Lebowitz on SYRIZA and us: Social democracy or revolutionary democracy

Michael Lebowitz on SYRIZA and us: Social democracy or revolutionary democracy.

Certainly, there is a lesson here for future governments (and perhaps even the current SYRIZA government) — the absolute necessity to learn to walk upon two legs. But there is also a lesson for us — those of us without the present luxury of government. A socialist party must also walk upon two legs. Of course, it must struggle to capture the existing state from capital so that state can serve the needs of the working class rather than capital. However, it also must “promote by all means possible new democratic institutions, new spaces in which people can develop their powers through their protagonism”. Through the development of communal councils and workers’ councils (essential cells of the new socialist state), the working class develops its capacities and the strength to challenge capital and the old state.

The lesson of SYRIZA should be to never forget the concept of revolutionary practice — the simultaneous changing of circumstances and human activity or self-change. It is never too late to remember and apply this… and never too soon.

Emphasis Mine

We must cease the reproduction of capitalist thinking and habits within ourselves, and struggle with the creation of socialist thinking and habits.