More unhinged slanders from the WSWS

In yet another unhinged attack on us that is featured prominently at the top of the World Socialist Web Site home page, an article titled, Oppose the Steiner-Tissot smear campaign! Defend Comrade Bogdan Syrotiuk!, claims that we launched a “provocation” that

… is a deliberate attempt to undermine the defense of Comrade Syrotiuk, the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists, and the International Committee as a whole.

This adds another slander to the list that the WSWS has already issued.  To those who have not been following this saga, what the article calls a “provocation” was our initial publication of a letter that alleged that the ICFI committed a serious lapse in security in their reporting about Ukrainian political prisoner Bogdan Syrotiuk.  We learned shortly after we published the letter that the information was false and immediately took it down, issuing a retraction titled, A correction and an apology. Shortly afterwards, the WSWS published an article accusing us of deliberately forging the letter in question. Our response, A scurrilous libel from the WSWS,  demonstrated that the WSWS deliberately slandered us in at least three instances. 

1.    The website claimed that we never gave the WSWS editorial board an opportunity to comment before we published the letter.

2.    It claimed that we knew the author of the letter was a provocateur who went by the handle of “Alexander Goldman”.

3.    It further claimed that in fact we never received a letter from a source that wished to remain anonymous but that we actually fabricated the letter.

We conclusively refuted each one of these defamatory statements.  We provided evidence that anyone can check showing that:

1.    We sent two emails to David North asking for a comment prior to our publication of the letter.

2.    We presented conclusive evidence that we received a letter from Anonymous, aka “Daniel Bukvasevic” and that we did not fabricate the letter.

3.    We provided conclusive evidence that the letter we received was sent to us some two weeks before the provocateur “Alexander Goldman” started broadcasting his tweets.   This established that our source of information was not connected to “Alexander Goldman”, of whose existence we were not aware. 

We also provided evidence showing that the ostensible author of the letter, “Daniel Bukvasevic” was a long-time ICFI member or close supporter named Dan Reznik.  It was only when we discovered the identity of the letter writer - who in the meantime had ceased to communicate with us - that we felt the allegations had sufficient credibility to warrant publication.  While we were mistaken in that belief, it was not an “irrational” decision on our part since the letter actually came from a long-time collaborator of the WSWS.

A recap of the evidence:

Screenshot #1: Our emails to David North asking for a comment prior to publication

.

Screenshot #2: Letter from "Daniel Bukvasevic/Anonymous" received on Dec. 17, 2024, two weeks prior to the emergence of the provocateur "Alexander Goldman".

               

 

Screenshot #3: End of email from "Daniel Bukvasevic/Anonymous" signed "Anonymous" 

Screenshot #4: The Reddit account showing that "Bukvasevic" and "Dan Reznik" is the same person.

On the basis of the evidence we presented, we insisted that the WSWS correct the record and retract their slanderous accusations.

What was the reaction of the WSWS to our demand?

Not only has the WSWS failed to respond to our takedown of their slanders, but the site has also not even acknowledged that we did in fact respond to them.  Instead of retracting their libelous allegations or, for that matter, challenging our refutation,  WSWS has doubled down on its slanders by engaging further and more extreme slanders.

That is the significance of their latest attack on us.

Let us examine some of their statements in detail

They write:

In its initial publication, Sam Tissot claimed that they decided to “hide” the real name of the source. But why conceal the author of a fabricated letter? The only logical explanation is that the publisher knew the author well and understood his political physiognomy. If the audience were aware of the author’s identity, they could examine his past statements, exposing his broader political agenda.

This argument makes no sense.  We posted the letter and attributed it to an anonymous author because that is how he wanted to be identified.  This was the basis of what the WSWS article represents as a sinister action on our part of “hiding”  and “concealing” the identity of the author.  Is it possible that these people have never heard that it is standard journalistic practice to attribute information to an anonymous source if the person providing that information does not wish to be identified?

When we published the letter, we were unaware that the author provided us with false information. Once we became aware that the information was false, we took down the letter and published our apology.  Furthermore, when we learned several days later that the author of the letter was an anti-communist provocateur, we no longer felt obligated to maintain his anonymity and published everything we knew about him, including the fact that he was, until very recently, a member or close supporter of the ICFI named Dan Reznik.   We explained all this in our article, A scurrilous libel from the WSWS, but the WSWS makes no reference to our explanation.

The WSWS article also repeats again the slander that we “fabricated” the letter. There is no acknowledgement that we published screenshots showing beyond any doubt that we did in fact receive a letter signed “Anonymous” from which the content of what we later published was taken.

The statement continues,

In fact, this individual also contacted a comrade of the YGBL in a clear attempt to sow confusion and discord among Bogdan’s comrades. At the time, we recognized it as a transparent provocation and assumed that this person was acting in coordination with the Ukrainian secret service (SBU). This was the only rational conclusion for anyone committed to Bogdan’s defense and even remotely familiar with the politics and history of the ICFI. Yet Alex Steiner chose to publish this letter. Why?

This was NOT the only rational conclusion. Our conclusion, even if it was mistaken, was not irrational but was the product of an extended investigation on our part as we explained in our article. Although our investigation was flawed, we took full responsibility for our error and published an apology. That is also a standard journalistic practice, one, I might add, that you cannot find in the pages of the WSWS as they have never, even once, published a retraction. On the other hand, in the very same paragraph of the WSWS article, we find the admission that someone from the YGBL also received the same letter with the same allegations.  Doesn’t  that fact blow up the WSWS conspiracy theory that we “fabricated” the letter?

The statement then goes on to raise the stakes in the slander campaign against us by accusing us of attempting to sabotage the defense campaign of Bogdan Syrotiuk.

Even if the accusations against the International Committee had been true—which they were not—publishing such a letter could only serve to undermine Bogdan’s defense. He is being persecuted by the Ukrainian state and faces a potential life sentence. Such actions violate not only the most fundamental principles of defending the democratic rights of those persecuted by the state but also basic political decency.

While our publication of the letter was a mistake how would it undermine Bogdan's defense? There was nothing in that letter that the prosecution did not already know. 

The statement continues,

Goldman’s abrupt disappearance from X on February 3 made clear that he was attempting to cover his tracks as the source of the smear campaign. Fortunately, international comrades preserved screenshots of his posts, allowing them to reconstruct a profile of the author and his role in orchestrating this provocation. His posts made it evident that the primary objective was to discredit the ICFI, particularly in relation to the struggle for Comrade Bogdan’s liberation. Yet, even after the International Committee exposed this fabrication, Steiner continued to defend his reckless provocation.

This is yet another slander.  What the WSWS labels  “Steiner’s…reckless provocation”, i.e. the letter that we published, was not “defended” but was immediately taken down with an apology when we learned its contents were false. Several days later, when the WSWS published its slanderous accusations against us, we responded through a meticulous exposure of their lies backed up with solid evidence. By way of a dishonest journalistic sleight of hand, the WSWS article conflates these two actions to make the case that we “defended” our publication of the letter.

The WSWS then goes on to deliver their ultimate accusation,

Only the International Committee and the YGBL have waged this struggle, which is why they now face the full force of state repression. Through their reckless and despicable provocation, Alex Steiner and his allies have exposed their political alignment—with the enemies of the Trotskyist movement and the democratic rights of the international working class.

What is despicable is the baseless accusation that we are connected to the state repression of the Zelensky regime that has victimized Bogdan Syrotiuk. In engaging in such filth, the ICFI has crossed a line.  Its smear campaign against us, now going on two decades, graduated into outright agent-baiting recently with the publication of the book, The Party is Always Right. [1]  They have now elevated their slander campaign to another level by accusing us of being accomplices of the Ukrainian secret service.

These unhinged denunciations are being tossed around to cover over the inconvenient truth that the WSWS cannot respond to our proof that they made false and defamatory statements against us.  To repeat them once more:

1.    They lied in claiming that we never attempted to contact the WSWS prior to the publication of the letter.

2.    They lied in claiming that we “fabricated” the letter.

3.    They lied in claiming that we knew that the author of the letter was the provocateur “Alexander Goldman”.

Up till now there has been no response to our documentation of these slanders.

To this list can now be added two new slanders:

1.    The slander that we “deliberately” tried to undermine the campaign to free Bogdan Syrotiuk.

2.    The slander that the letter contained information that could help the prosecution.

Finally, we have to ask, why is the WSWS remaining silent about our exposure that the author of the letter was actually a member or close supporter of the WSWS named Dan Reznik, an individual who was associated with the WSWS for a number of years?

What does it say about the ICFI that they harbored someone within their ranks for years who turned out to be a provocateur working, in their own words, “in coordination with the SBU”? 

 

---

[1] For a summary of North’s decades-long smear campaign against us see, The devil that never dies: Calumnies in the service of historical falsification, http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2023/11/the-devil-that-never-dies-calumnies-in.html. For our response to North’s agent-baiting, see, Agent baiting: A hysterical slander from David North, http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2024/09/agent-baiting-hysterical-slander-from.html.

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WSWS moderators spread slander and ban response to slander on r/Trotskyism subreddit

On Feb 15,  I posted an article responding to defamatory accusations against myself and Sam Tissot on the r/Trotskyism subreddit.  The slanderous material. reprinted from the WSWS,  A provocation that failed: On Alex Steiner’sattempt to discredit the ICFI’s defense of Ukrainian Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk, had been lurking there for 10 days.  I posted a response to the slanders that had been published in the permanent revolution website, Scurrilous libel from the WSWS. 

When I checked a couple of hours later my post had disappeared.  I then found a message from the moderators of that subreddit informing me that I am permanently banned.  The message read,

Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating in r/Trotskyism because your post violates this community's rules.

There was no explanation of what rule my post violated.  The rules posted for this subreddit state  “No slander, no death threats”.  But  my post was responding to a slander, whereas there seemed to be no problem posting the WSWS slanders against us as far as the moderators were concerned!

I tried to appeal this blatant act of censorship, writing to the moderators,

Please explain why you allowed an article to be published that contains defamatory and libelous statements against me, namely, "A provocation that failed: On Alex Steiner’s attempt to discredit the ICFI’s defense of Ukrainian Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk."

When I posted an article responding to these slanderous accusations, namely, "A scurrilous libel from the WSWS", you deleted the article without any explanation. You then banned me from the r/Trotskyism subreddit and again provided no explanation. I am demanding that you reinstate me in the Trotskyism subreddit and cease censoring content that is critical of the World Socialist Web Site.

 Alex Steiner

The moderators never responded. 

Considering that the WSWS has published many articles against censorship on the Internet,  this act of censorship by moderators who are spokesmen for the WSWS reveals an incredible level of cynicism and hypocrisy.   Here are just a sample of the WSWS protestations against Internet censorship:

 

Meta maintains censorship regime in Canada a year after passage of Online News Act

WSWS writer Evan Blake banned from “Badass Teachers Association” Facebook group

Meet the Censored: Andre Damon

YouTube censors David North’s lecture on the death of Aaron Bushnell

Oppose Facebook’s shutdown of the WSWS in Portuguese page, an act of political censorship!

And finally, how about being banned from a Reddit subreddit?

Why is the World Socialist Web Site banned from the subreddit r/coronavirus?

 

In the inverted word of the WSWS and its mouthpiece on Reddit, the r/Trotskyism subreddit, up is down and down is up. Slander is legitimate news and a reply to slander is, … well, slander.

One final piece of irony is the slogan of the WSWS apparatchik who posted the  WSWS slander against us.  It is signed by someone with the moniker, “JohnWilsonWSWS”. The slogan he associates with that name is:

Organizing resistance against Internet censorship.

You can’t make this stuff up.

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Marx’s Struggle against Defamation: A 150th Anniversary Tribute to Herr Vogt

We are reprinting an article that was first published in the online journal With Sober Senses on Dec. 23, 2010.  It is available at: https://marxisthumanistinitiative.org/philosophy-organization/marxs-struggle-against-defamation.html. 

 

The essay by Andrew Kliman is a reflection on the historical significance of a little-known work of Marx, his Herr Vogt.  It is an eloquent defense of Marx’s principled struggled against the cancer of libel and defamation that too often overtakes groups on the left.

 

Our time is a time of retreat and defensive maneuvers by the left in the face of an international offensive by the right.  It bears some similarity to the situation confronting Marx in the years following the defeat of the revolutions of 1848. Many of the participants of the 1848 revolutions, including Marx and Engels, were forced into exile and subject to political persecution.  Under conditions of increasing isolation, longstanding political and theoretical weaknesses of some of the generation of 1848 gestated into an “us vs. them” outlook.   Conspiracy theories replete with false accusations of treachery against political opponents thrived in this atmosphere.  That was the case with Carl Vogt in Marx’s day as Kliman’s essay explains. Marx did a masterful job in responding to Vogt's slanderous accusations. But he did not stop there. He went on to demonstrate that Vogt was acting in the service of Louis Bonaparte. Ten years after Marx wrote Herr Vogt irrefutable evidence that Vogt had been a paid agent of Louis Bonaparte’s government was made public.

As in the period of political exile following the failure of the 1848 revolutions, we see a similar turn to defamatory agent-baiting within the left in our own time.  This is the background behind the  increasingly unhinged defamatory accusations in the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) leveled against Alex Steiner and the permanent revolution website. 

Explosions of false accusations of agent-baiting within the left become especially destructive under conditions where the employment of genuine police provocateurs are growing.  This is what impels us to return to a consideration of Marx’s principled struggle against libel and defamation. The republication of Kliman’s essay on Herr Vogt is our contribution to that effort.

Also read: A scurrilous libel from the WSWS

A.S.

 

Marx’s Struggle against Defamation:

A 150th Anniversary Tribute to Herr Vogt

by Andrew Kliman

In 1857, Karl Marx resumed work on his critique of political economy, a process that culminated in the publication of Capital a decade later. He wrote a rough draft (the Grundrisse) in 1857 and 1858, parts of which he then reworked into the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, which was published in June 1859. Then, in 1861 through 1863, he wrote a revised draft of the whole of Capital, which was followed by a more polished draft written during 1864 and 1865. Finally, he revised the first volume yet again, during 1866 and 1867. It appeared in September, 1867.

The careful reader will have noticed a rather lengthy gap in this chronology. From the second half of 1859 through 1860, Marx was not working on his critique of political economy. What was he doing instead? What was so important, so much more of an urgent priority than his theoretical work?

The answer is that Marx was fighting back against Carl Vogt’s defamatory attack. He fought back in order to defend his reputation and that of his “party.” This month marks the 150^th anniversary of Herr Vogt, the book Marx wrote in order to set the record straight.

Vogt was a prominent radical German politician and materialist philosopher who had emigrated to Switzerland, where he served in parliament and was also a professor of geology. His position on the 1859 war over Italian unification had a pro-French tilt, which resulted in the publication of a newspaper article and an anonymous pamphlet that alleged­­–correctly–that Vogt was being paid by the French government. Vogt believed that Marx was the source of the allegation and that he had written the pamphlet. (The first belief was partly correct; the second was incorrect.)

Vogt fought back by attacking Marx. He published a short book that described Marx as the leader of a band of blackmailers who demanded payment in return for keeping quiet about their victims’ revolutionary histories. The book also contained other false and harmful allegations against Marx. “M[arx]’s future [was] at stake, since Vogt [went] all-out to destroy his reputation” (Draper 1985, p. 93).

Yet these personal attacks were not merely personal. When it comes to someone like Marx, the personal is political. And Vogt, who had come to repudiate the cause of social revolution,

resorted to falsification of the facts and to barefaced lies to libel the Communist League, portraying its members as conspirators in secret contact with the police and accusing Marx of personal motives. The libel was taken up by the European bourgeois press and also by a number of German papers published in the USA.”  [editors’ Preface 1985, p.  xxxiii]

Ferdinand Lassalle warned Marx that Vogt’s book “will do great harm to yourself and to the whole party, for it relies in a deceptive way upon half-truths,” and said that “something must be done” in response (quoted in Rubel 1980, p. 53). Frederick Engels also urged Marx to respond quickly, and he provided a good deal of assistance when Marx wrote Herr Vogt.

But the writing of Herr Vogt was only the last resort. At first, Marx tried to restore his reputation and that of his “party” by going to court. Two publications–the National-Zeitung of Berlin and the Daily Telegraph of London—had reprinted Vogt’s libelous accusations, so Marx sued them for defamation of character. In a February 23, 1860 letter to Ferdinand Freiligrath, he argued that these lawsuits were “crucial to the historical vindication of the party and its subsequent position in Germany” (emphasis in original).

When Marx referred to “the party,” he did not mean the Communist League, which was then defunct. In a follow-up letter of February 29 to Freiligrath, who refused to assist in the struggle against defamation on the grounds that he no longer belonged to the party, Marx explained that “by ‘party’ I [did not mean] a ‘League’ that expired eight years ago, or an editorial board that was disbanded twelve years ago. By party, I meant the party in the broad historical sense.”

Thus, Marx took legal action, and eventually wrote Herr Vogt, in order to vindicate the philosophical and theoretical perspectives for which the party stood. As Raya Dunayevskaya pointed out, these perspectives continued to guide Marx’s thought and activity, and thus “the party” lived on, even though a specific organizational expression of those perspectives was defunct:

Because … an independent proletarian organization, and one that would be both international and have the goal of revolution and a new society–was so central to his views, Marx kept referring to “the Party” when all that was involved was himself and Engels.

What Marx called “party in the eminent historical sense” (Letter to Freiligrath, 29 February 1860) was alive to Marx throughout the entire decade when no organization existed in the 1850s with which he could associate. [Dunayevskaya 1991, p. 155]

Unfortunately, Marx’s legal actions did not succeed. The Berlin court threw out the case against the National-Zeitung and its editor, citing “insufficient evidence” and stating that “no discernible public interest was involved” in the case. Marx appealed this decision multiple times, but the higher courts refused to reverse it.

A court’s declaration that Vogt’s accusations against Marx were false would have been more effective than his own protestations. It is simply to be expected that the victim of reputation-destroying charges will claim that they are false. It is a “dog bites man” story; who pays attention?  But when a disinterested body studies the evidence, deliberates, and then concludes that the charges are false, that is true vindication. It is a “man bites dog” story; people sit up and take notice.

But the bourgeoisie did not want to help Marx restore his reputation. On the contrary, as he noted in an April 24, 1860 letter to Engels, after the Berlin court stated that “no discernible public interest was involved” in the case, “It is, of course, ‘an issue of public importance’ to the Prussian government that we should be traduced [i.e., humiliated by means of malicious and false statements] to the utmost.” So, in order to try to set the record straight, Marx had only one option left–to write Herr Vogt. It came out on December 1, 1860.

Marx received a good deal of support in his battle against defamation. For instance, Engels helped defray his legal expenses and assisted him with Herr Vogt. The German Workers Educational Association “immediately supported him vigorously” (Mehring 1962, p. 297) and unanimously passed a resolution condemning Vogt’s libelous allegations. Charles Anderson Dana, editor-in-chief of the New York Daily Tribune, assisted Marx’s legal action against defamation by providing a testimonial letter. And Ernest Jones, the former Chartist leader, wrote a letter (included in an appendix to Herr Vogt) which stated,

I have read a series of infamous articles against you in the National-Zeitung and am utterly astonished at the falsehood and malignity of the writer. I really feel it a duty that every one who is acquainted with you, should, however unnecessary such a testimony must be, pay a tribute to the worth, honour and disinterestedness of your character. … Permit me to hope that you will severely punish your dastardly and unmanly libeler. [Jones, quoted in Marx 1981, p. 323]

In marked contrast to this, many intellectuals have evinced a shockingly hardhearted and dismissive attitude toward Herr Vogt and Marx’s struggle against defamation. Such intellectuals do not seem outraged by the fact that Vogt published untrue things about Marx, nor by the fact that his lies threatened the reputation of Marx and his “party.” Expressions of support for Marx’s actions in defense of himself and the “party,” or even signs of simple human sympathy, are rare.

For example, Francis Wheen (2000, p. 238), a recent biographer of Marx, refers to Marx’s struggle against defamation as “a spectacular, pointless feud against one Karl Vogt” and an “absurd interlude.” David McLellan (1977, p. 311), another biographer of Marx, calls it a “quarrel” and “a striking example both of Marx’s ability to expend tremendous labour on essentially trivial matters and also of his talent for vituperation.” And in his chronology of Marx’s life and works, Hal Draper (1985, p. 92) dismissed the controversy as a “time-consuming foofaraw”–i.e., a great disturbance over a very insignificant matter–even though he recognized that Vogt was engaged in “a massive campaign to discredit M[arx] personally,” and that “M[arx]’s future [was] at stake, since Vogt [went] all-out to destroy his reputation” (Draper 1985, p. 93). It is unclear why Draper regarded Marx’s future and reputation as insignificant.

Many of these intellectuals seem miffed that the struggle against defamation was a more urgent priority for Marx than was his theoretical work, and that this may have caused Capital to appear in late 1867 instead of in early 1866. Marcello Musto (2008, p. 394, p. 395), a political scientist, charges that the Vogt affair made Marx “neglect his economic studies” and “lose sight even of his project of critique of political economy”; Musto’s evidence seems to consist of the fact that Marx interrupted his work on that project. Wheen (2000, p. 254) alleges that Marx’s work on Capital was “catastrophically interrupted by the feud with Vogt,” but provides no evidence that the interruption led to any catastrophe.

Robin Fox (2004, p. 36), a Rutgers University anthropologist, cites the fact that Marx’s work on Capital was interrupted as evidence that “the future of Socialism was less important to Marx than the countering of heresy and libel.” Given that academics are supposed to be dedicated to the search for truth, Fox’s dismissive attitude toward the countering of libel is no small matter. But what is especially bizarre about his conclusion is the fact that he counterposes “the future of Socialism” to Marx’s struggle against Vogt’s libelous charges–as if the future of socialism depends only on theoretical works while the reputation of Marx’s “party,” and Marx himself, were irrelevant.

I do not at all mean to imply that Capital, or theoretical work generally, is unimportant, or unimportant to the future of socialism. I have spent a great deal of time studying and writing about Capital, and I have fought hard to help reclaim it from the myth that its value theory and law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit are internally inconsistent (see, e.g., Kliman 2007). But when crises arise, they take priority. And it makes no sense to me to treat Capital and Marx’s struggle against defamation as opposites. Marx was no “armchair radical.” Capital, and his “party,” and his personal reputation were all necessary and inseparable parts of the struggle for a new human society. After all, what would have been the fate of Capital, or the Marxian conception of socialism, if Vogt’s vile allegations had been accepted as true because Marx offered no defense against them?

The problem is not that intellectuals such as those quoted above dislike Marx.  Almost all of them like Marx. But one gets the sense that some of them like Marx in the way that people in certain Asian countries like dogs: not as friends and companions, but hacked into pieces and served to them as something to consume and digest. In contrast to Marx’s theoretical work, Herr Vogt offers them no benefits–Marx wrote it to benefit himself and “the party,” not readers–so they regard it as a worthless expenditure of his time and energy.

And one gets the sense that very few of them have any personal experience with libel. The fact that I am the victim of a libelous review recently published in the Review of Radical Political Economics–about which I hope to write more later–perhaps explains in part why I am more sympathetic to Marx’s struggle against defamation and less willing to second-guess his priorities.

Carl Vogt and the circumstances that gave rise to his defamatory attack against Marx and his “party” are dead and gone. But Herr Vogt and Marx’s battle against defamation remain living exemplars of how one responds in a genuinely Marx-ian way–i.e., the way of Marx. Do not separate theory from practice, or philosophy from organization. Do not retreat to the ivory tower or suffer attacks in silence; set the record straight. Use the bourgeois courts if necessary. Enlist the assistance of others.

References

Draper, Hal. 1985. The Marx-Engels Chronicle. Vol. 1 of the Marx-Engels Cyclopedia. New York: Schocken Books.

Dunayevskaya, Raya. 1991. Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution, 2nd ed. Urbana, IL and Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press.

Editors’ Preface, 1985. “Preface” to Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Collected Works, Vol. 41. New York: International Publishers.

Fox, Robin. 2004. “Sects and Evolution,” Society 41:6 (Sept./Oct.) 2004, pp. 36-46.

Kliman, Andrew. 2007. Reclaiming Marx’s “Capital”: A refutation of the myth of inconsistency. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

McLellan, David. 1977. Karl Marx: His life and thought. New York: Harper Colophon.

Marx, Karl. 1981. Herr Vogt. In Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Collected Works, Vol. 41, pp. 21-329. New York: International Publishers.

Mehring, Franz. 1962. Karl Marx: The story of his life. Ann Arbor, MI: Univ. of Michigan Press.

Musto, Marcello. 2008. “Marx in the Years of Herr Vogt: Notes toward an intellectual biography (1860-1861),” Science & Society 72:4 (Oct.), pp. 389-402.

Rubel, Maximilien. 1980. Marx: Life and works. London: Macmillan.

Wheen, Francis. 2000. Karl Marx: A life. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

 

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Defend democracy, not the Constitution

Daniel Lazare

02.03.25

 

The World Socialist Web Site has posted an article accusing Donald Trump of seeking to “overturn the Constitution and establish a dictatorship.”[1] The second part of the statement is correct.  The first is not.

 

The reason is simple: you can’t overturn something that is already in a state of collapse.  Rather than an enemy of the Constitution, Trump is the very constitutional product of an increasingly undemocratic structure rife with contradictions that are growing more explosive by the day.

 

Protest against Musk/DOGE

Not that the constitutional breakdown is the sole reason for Trump’s rise.  After all, capitalism is a multi-dimensional system whose crisis is multi-dimensional as well.  While the falling rate of profit is the ultimate driver, the global meltdown is taking on a multitude of forms involving imperialism, war, climate, disease, and so forth.  But this doesn’t make the constitutional aspect any less critical.  In fact, it makes it more so since the crisis is erupting in the heart of the global hegemon.

 

Behind the battle over the Constitution lurks a fundamental split over strategy within the American bourgeoisie.  This is the background behind the contentious struggle over the Constitution.

 

It’s basically a faction fight within the American bourgeoisie over how best to insure the global dominance of American capitalism that takes on the appearance, in a highly distorted form, of a struggle over the Constitution. 

 

 

We must analyze America’s ancient Constitution in order to understand why it is self-destructing so rapidly and what it means for international capitalism in general.

 

So how bad is it?  Plenty.  The US Constitution barely had a shred of democracy left before Trump entered the scene and now has even less.  Well into its mid-third century, the document dates from the age of silk knee britches and slavery, yet has never been subject to a comprehensive democratic overhaul.  Its most outstanding features include:

•  A senate based on equal state representation that allows the 54 percent of the country that    lives in just 10 states to be outvoted four-to-one by the minority in the other 40; 
• An Electoral College that more than triples the clout of  states like Wyoming and Vermont who have a tiny, mostly rural population, whose demographics in no way reflect that of the country as a whole.
• A gerrymandered House; 
• And a rightwing Supreme Court that is wholly unaccountable to the general public.   

What’s more, such features are growing worse.  Not only is the Senate  more unequal than at any point since the early 19^th century, it will grow even more so by the year 2050 according to population projections, when a majority of the population will be concentrated in just nine states instead of ten.[2]  The Electoral College is also growing more unequal over the same period while the portion of the population capable of blocking a constitutional amendment under Article V will continue shrinking below even today’s minuscule levels.[3] 

 

This is the system’s Catch-22.  Something must be done to reform an aging political structure that is long past its sell-by date.  Yet nothing can be done because a broken amending process blocks all efforts at constitutional reform before they can even get off the ground.  

 

Thus the older and more undemocratic the structure grows, the more change-averse it becomes.  Given such an immovable structure, is it any surprise that frustrated voters are turning to a strong man who promises to break the Washington logjam using force and intimidation?

 

Hardly.  Yet the Socialist Equality Party, publisher of WSWS, consistently plays down the problem of constitutional decline.  Instead of zeroing in on the document itself, it prefers to dwell on a Republican Party that has emerged as “the instrument of the most ruthless and anti-democratic sections of the ruling class,” as a recent article put it.[4]  It disparages the struggle for a democratic constitution in Chile on the grounds that the capitalist state cannot “be reformed, refounded, or ‘democratized,’ but “must be overthrown by the working class in the fight to establish a new state based on workers’ control” – as if workers in either Latin America or the US must not fight for democratic reforms while at the same time fighting for power.[5]

 

In yet another article, it speaks glibly of “constitutional rule, legality and democratic rights” as if they were one and the same; attacks the Supreme Court for undermining “the democratic rule-of-law traditions of American constitutionalism” as if the court were not the product of those same traditions, and blames “four administrations since 2000 ... [for] the disassembling of the Constitutional framework of government” as if the framework was not crumbling under its own weight.  It assails Democrats for “not fight[ing] to defend constitutional rule against fascist attacks” without asking how Dems can shore up constitutionalism at all when they are part and parcel of the same process of constitutional degeneration.[6]

 

For those who have eyes to see, the constitutional breakdown has been central to the growth of authoritarianism at least since the 1990s when infighting on Capitol Hill turned increasingly bitter.  But 2016 marked a turning point.  This is when the Constitution spat out a split decision, the second since 2000, with Trump winning the Electoral College and Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote.  Since the EC was growing more and more dangerous, the logical solution would have been to fix the Constitution so as to remove an increasingly dangerous provision.  But since America’s holy of holies is all but set in stone, Democrats didn’t bother.  Instead, they opted for what they thought was next best, an anti-Trump destabilization campaign based on the theme of Russian interference.  According to one campaign account:

 

“That strategy had been set within 24 hours of her [Hillary Clinton’s] concession speech.  [Campaign manager Robby] Mook and [campaign chairman John] Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up.  For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public.  Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.”[7]

 

Six months later, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe would secretly discuss wearing a wire when meeting with now-President Trump and using the 25^th Amendment to force him out of office.[8]  For the next two years, Russia, Russia, Russia would be virtually all Americans would hear about as the as the campaign intensified.

 

The result was akin to a constitutional cage fight in which the two sides wailed away at one another amid deteriorating conditions overall.  When Russiagate didn’t work – the conspiracy theory was as flimsy as any other – Democrats tried impeachment.      When that didn’t work, Trump struck back with a coup attempt on January 6, 2021.  Democrats countered with a second impeachment trial and then a “lawfare” campaign aimed at putting him behind bars.  One Democratic prosecutor charged him with fraud because he had hyped the dimensions of an apartment he was selling, while another charged him with federal election-law violations because he had paid hush money to a porn star.  But they backfired by making Trump seem like the victim of a weaponized criminal-justice system.   After a plurality voted him in, he paid Democrats back by pardoning some 1,500 “J6” defendants – thereby legalizing the original coup – and issuing a blitzkrieg of executive orders aimed at eliminating immigrant rights, abolishing birthright citizenship, pulling the plug on climate measures, withdrawing from the World Health Organization and wiping out DEI.                                                           

 

Trump was less a winning political candidate than a military leader bent on revenge.  His strategy was to “flood the zone,” as ultra-rightist Steve Bannon put it in 2018, by firing officials, dismantling entire offices, freezing trillions in federal grants and loans, starting trade wars, and sending in Elon Musk to virtually take over the government.

 

He embarked on such a strategy because he thought he could get away with it – and so far he’s been right.  As far as congressional Republicans are concerned, the man can walk on water since, with the exception of Bush II in 2004, he is the first GOP presidential candidate to win the popular vote in more than 30 years.  The courts lean in his favor thanks to the 234 federal judges he appointed during his first four years in office, twice as many as Barack Obama appointed in eight.  With its unbreakable 6-3 conservative majority, the Supreme Court leans in his favor as well.  As a New York Times piece notes, the Trump administration is counting on “the Supremes” to back his drive for a “unitary executive” in which all congressional restraints are removed.[9]  If they do, it will be a giant step toward rule by fiat.

 

But is all this unconstitutional as the SEP maintains?  Only if you believe in liberal fairy tales about a constitutionally-enforced “delicate balance” that keeps the three branches in perfect equipoise.  In reality, Congress is exhausted after three decades of gridlock and public opinion polls showing a disapproval rating of better than 2.5 to one.[10]  The legislative branch is filled with empty-headed show-offs preening for the TV cameras as the recent Tulsi Gabbard or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmation hearings make clear. The upshot is a power vacuum that Trump can’t help but fill.

 

Besides, if the Supreme Court backs Trump’s power grab, it means it’s constitutional after all.  This is the standard law-school view, so Congress will likely go along with it, as will the bourgeois press.  If so, Trump will have the field to himself.  By filling the federal bureaucracy with militant conservatives and placing rightwing loyalists like Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, and John Ratcliffe in key positions as heads of the Justice Department, Pentagon, FBI, and CIA respectively, he’ll be able to turn the entire executive into an ultra-right steamroller.  

 

The system is hurtling toward dictatorship as a consequence.  But it will not be despite the Constitution.  The sclerotic Constitution provides no brakes to the drives towards dictatorship which is being pushed by the realignment of class forces.  In fact the Constitution encourages it as it is itself a fundamentally anti-democratic document.  The only way to defend freedom is by overthrowing an 18^th-century government that is degenerating into one of the most obscene oligarchies in modern history and replacing it with a workers’ democracy.  But democracy is not something workers can put off until after the revolution, but something they must struggle for in the here-and-now in the process of seizing power.

 

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[1] “Trump’s first 7 days: The framework for presidential dictatorship,” Jan. 27, 2025, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/01/28/rlxj-j28.html.

[2] Frances E. Lee and Bruce I. Oppenheimer, Sizing Up the Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1999), 11; Demographics Research Group, Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, University of Virginia, https://www.coopercenter.org/national-population-projections. 

[3] Demographics Research Group, Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, University of Virginia, https://www.coopercenter.org/national-population-projections. 

[4] Patrick Martin, “As Trump assembles dictatorial regime, Biden offers ‘smoothest’ transition,” Nov. 14, 2024, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/11/14/hciq-n14.html.

[5] Mauricio Saavedra, Chile’s ruling right wing suffers crushing defeat in election of Constitutional Convention,” May 21, 2021, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/05/22/chil-m22.html.

[6] Richard Hoffman, “Trump putsch was the outcome of a two-decade attack on constitutional rule and legality,” Oct. 14, 2021, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/10/15/2fea-o15.html.

[7] Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign (New York: Crown, 2017), 395.

[8] Pamela Brown and Jeremy Herb, “The frantic scramble before Mueller got the job,” CNN, Dec. 7, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/06/politics/rosenstein-comey-firing-obstruction-probe/index.html.

[9] Charlie Savage, “Defying Legal Limits, trump Firings Set Up Tests That Could Expand His Power,” New York Times, Jan. 29, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/us/politics/trump-firings-officials-legal-test.html?searchResultPosition=1.

[10] “Latest Polls,” Jan. 31, 2025, https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/congress/.

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