The United States has gone so far to the right politically in the past 40 or 50 years that, except for its foreign policy, FDR’s administration – that went left to save capitalism and its ruling class – is still more radical than anything on offer today. And Bernie Sanders and up-and-coming members of the Democratic Socialists, who are reformists rather than seeking an entirely new system, are considered radical socialists.

True socialism is international, with workers of all countries working together to overthrow the rule of the capitalist bosses and refusing to fight each other in nationalist wars. Read your history to see how truly radical socialist and anarchist workers’ movements in the United States and Germany were suppressed and coopted prior to World War I. The mirror image of this was the 1917 Bolshevik revolution toward the end of that war that turned imperial Russia into the Soviet Union. Lenin used Marx’s supposedly temporary “dictatorship of the proletariat” to initiate a complete suppression of the worker democracy of the soviets, a dictatorship that Stalin made permanent.

True socialism has never been fully implemented on a country-wide scale, except perhaps in Spain in the 1930s – Russia, China, Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba all became dictatorships, partly because of the fierce opposition of capitalists within and globally. That doesn’t mean, however, that Marxism and socialism have nothing to offer in turning our emphasis from individualism to cooperation and looking at the importance of collective ownership of the means of production. All of this is being obscured, often intentionally, by the current powers-that-be and by the average American’s ignorance of history and social and political analysis (it isn’t taught in our schools or promoted by our media – you have to go looking for it).

One of the many places I look for it is the World Socialist website, wsws.org, where I found an article posted today by Joseph Kishore entitled “Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders praise McCain: An object lesson in the politics of the pseudo-left.” I preface the following quotes taken from this article by saying that, especially compared to Trump, I respected Republican senator John McCain, who died Saturday, as an honest and principled man, even though I disagreed with his politics and actions. The article says that amid “the outpouring of praise from all sections of the political establishment for McCain, two statements stand out. The first was from Vermont senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who tweeted: ‘John McCain was an American hero, a man of decency and honor and a friend of mine. He will be missed not just in the US Senate but by all Americans who respect integrity and independence.’ The second was from Democratic Socialists of America member and New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who tweeted, in part: ‘John McCain’s legacy represents an unparalleled example of human decency and American service.’ Ocasio-Cortez posted with her tweet the editorial from the Washington Post on McCain’s death, which praised him for his work on ‘national defense and deterrence of foreign aggression’ and for ‘[rising] above party politics to pursue what he honestly saw as the national interest.’

What, one is compelled to ask, are these two individuals, who present themselves as figures of the left and even socialists, talking about? What is McCain’s legacy of ‘human decency and American service?’ What made him an ‘American hero?’

Was his human decency on display when he was dropping bombs on the Vietnamese people, or when he was acting as one of the earliest supporters of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which led to the deaths of one million people? Was his heroism expressed in his call for the bombing of Iran, his visit with Islamic fundamentalist organizations spearheading the CIA-backed civil war in Syria, or his demands, up to his last day, for stepped-up aggression against Russia? The list of countries McCain advocated bombing is a long one, and there was no war launched by the US that he didn’t support. Political positions have consequences, and McCain had the blood of hundreds of thousands of people on his hands.”

Kishore believes “the praise for McCain by Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders is a calculated political decision that reveals the politics of the Democratic Party.

Sanders’ declaration of solidarity with McCain is in line with his Democratic Party election campaign in 2016, in which he supported the foreign policy of the Obama administration, including its wars in the Middle East, and said that a Sanders administration would utilize Special Forces and drone strikes – ‘all that and more.’ After losing the primaries, Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton, seeking to channel the social opposition reflected in support for his campaign behind the candidate of the military-intelligence establishment.

As for Ocasio-Cortez, in just two months since she defeated the incumbent Democrat in the primary election for the 14^th Congressional District of New York, she’s distanced herself from any association with socialism, backtracked on her previous criticisms of Israel, pledged her support for ‘border security,’ stood beside Sanders as the latter endorsed the Democrats’ anti-Russia campaign, and now heaps praise on one of the biggest warmongers in American politics. At the time of Ocasio-Cortez’s primary victory, the World Socialist Web Site wrote that ‘anyone who suggests that her victory marks a shift to the left in the Democratic Party should be told, in no uncertain terms: Curb your enthusiasm! The DSA isn’t fighting for socialism, but to strengthen the Democratic Party, one of the two main capitalist parties in the United States.’ Those who may have been attracted to the DSA based on the impression that it’s a socialist or anti-war organization should draw the necessary conclusions.

The Democratic Party is engaged in a ferociously right-wing campaign in its conflict with the Trump administration. Its focus isn’t on Trump’s fascistic policies or warmongering, but on the claim that he’s insufficiently committed to war in the Middle East and aggression against Russia. The Democrats have used the death of McCain as part of a calculated strategy, elevating him – along with figures such as former CIA Director John Brennan – as political heroes. They, along with the corporate media and the Republican Party establishment, are seeking to use McCain’s death as an opportunity to shift public opinion in favor of war and political reaction.

In the 2018 midterm elections, as the WSWS has documented, the Democrats are running an unprecedented number of former intelligence and military operatives as candidates. The promotion of groups such as the DSA is an integral part of this strategy. ‘The politics of the “CIA Democrats,”’ the Socialist Equality Party noted in the resolution passed at its Congress last month, ‘is not in conflict with, but rather corresponds to, the pseudo-left politics of the upper-middle class, as expressed in organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the International Socialist Organization (ISO).’ The role of Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, the DSA, and the ISO, is to give a ‘socialist’ label to politics entirely in line with the right-wing, militarist, and imperialist character of the Democratic Party.

The elevation of the DSA doesn’t represent a movement toward socialism, but rather a defensive reaction by the ruling class against what it perceives as an existential danger. The corporate-financial elite is well aware of polls that show growing support for socialism and opposition to capitalism among workers and particularly among young people. The DSA is therefore promoted by the media (the New York Times published yet another prominent article on Sunday boosting Ocasio-Cortez and the DSA) even as genuine left-wing and anti-war publications face ever more direct forms of internet censorship.

The politics of the DSA and the broader pseudo-left has far more in common with the politics of McCain than it does with genuine socialism. There can be no question as to what role these organizations would play if brought into positions of power. A similar path has already been trod by the Left Party in Germany, which has implemented austerity measures and promoted the anti-immigrant policies of the far-right AfD, and Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) in Greece, which since coming to power in 2015 has implemented the brutal austerity measures demanded by the European banks.

The Socialist Equality Party is fighting to organize workers and youth on the basis of a socialist program. This means not mild and insincere reformist demands to provide cover for the right-wing, militarist Democratic Party, but the mobilization of the working class, in the United States and internationally, for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. The building of such a movement must be based on the exposure of and struggle against figures such as Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders and the treacherous politics they espouse.”

Wikipedia says, “According to the party’s website [socialequality.com], the SEP “seeks not to reform capitalism, but to create a socialist, democratic, and egalitarian society through the establishment of a workers’ government and the revolutionary transformation of the world economy. We seek to unify workers in the United States and internationally in the common struggle for socialism – that is, for equality and the rational and democratic utilization of the wealth of the planet. The Socialist Equality Party fights for the unity of the working class and opposes ‘identity politics.’ According to the party, the ‘shift from class to identity has been at the expense of an understanding of the real causes, rooted in the capitalist system, of the hardships that confront all working people. At its worst, it’s promoted competition among different “identities” for access to educational institutions, jobs and other “opportunities” which, in a socialist society, would be freely available to all people without such demeaning, dehumanizing and arbitrary distinctions… The Socialist Equality Party fights for the unity of the working class and opposes “identity politics”. According to the party, the “shift from class to identity has been at the expense of an understanding of the real causes, rooted in the capitalist system, of the hardships that confront all working people. At its worst, it has promoted a competition among different “identities” for access to educational institutions, jobs and other “opportunities” which, in a socialist society, would be freely available to all people without such demeaning, dehumanizing and arbitrary distinctions.’ The party opposes all forms of discrimination and asserts that only a politically unified working class, composed of all races, religions and sexual orientations, can bring forth a free society…

Political equality is impossible without economic equality.’

The Socialist Equality Party asserts that capitalism leads inevitably to war as imperialist states seek geo-political dominance, spheres of influence, markets, control of vital resources, and access to cheap labor.”