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USA how can the working class end police terror

Marxist Theory · 2020-06-12

Core Argument

The article argues that the police cannot be abolished or meaningfully reformed within the framework of capitalism, because the police are not a malfunctioning institution but an essential component of class rule. The central thesis is that the demand to "defund" or "abolish" the police, while reflecting a genuine radicalisation among millions of protesters, remains politically ambiguous and vulnerable to co-optation by the Democratic Party unless it is linked to the broader question of working-class political power. The only way to end police terror is to replace the capitalist state itself with a workers' government, organised through democratically accountable neighbourhood self-defence committees and backed by the organised power of the labour movement. The article insists that racism is not a contingent feature of American capitalism but is structurally embedded in it, and therefore cannot be eliminated without abolishing the class system that requires it.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is grounded in the classical Marxist theory of the state, drawing directly on Engels' formulation in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State that the state is essentially "bodies of armed men" defending the property interests of the ruling class. This is deployed not as a dogmatic citation but as an analytical tool to explain why police reform within capitalism is necessarily limited: the capitalist class cannot surrender the means of repression without surrendering its economic power.

The article also draws on the Marxist understanding of racism as a deliberate ruling-class strategy of divide and rule, tracing this back to Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 and the "robber baron" era. This situates the analysis within the tradition of Marxist writings on race and class, particularly the understanding that capitalism generates and reproduces racial divisions as a mechanism of super-exploitation and political fragmentation.

The concept of dual power is introduced in embryonic form: the neighbourhood self-defence committees that have emerged organically in Minneapolis and Seattle are presented as anticipations of a future workers' power, parallel to and in opposition to the capitalist state. This is a direct application of the Leninist theory of the revolutionary situation, though the article does not use the term explicitly.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was written in June 2020, at the peak of the George Floyd uprising, and is acutely attuned to the specific conjuncture. It notes that nearly 1,400 cities, towns, and suburban areas saw protests, and that the movement reached "insurrectionary levels" in many cities. The article identifies three key features of the conjuncture:

First, the ruling class is deeply divided. Trump threatened military crackdown under the Insurrection Act, while the Democrats attempted to co-opt the movement through symbolic gestures and legalistic reforms. The article cites the Minneapolis City Council's declaration of intent to "dismantle" the police department as a classic "bait and switch" manoeuvre, noting that no legislation had actually been passed and that the Council praised the police chief in the same breath.

Second, the movement has generated organic radicalisation around the demand to "defund" or "abolish" the police, but this remains politically undefined. The article warns that the bourgeoisie is mobilising its media apparatus to reinterpret this demand as merely a "rethinking of public safety," stripping it of revolutionary content.

Third, the labour movement has been largely passive. The article notes that while individual union members and some local branches have taken action—bus drivers refusing to transport police or arrestees, longshore workers organising work stoppages—the national leadership of the AFL-CIO has done nothing beyond issuing "tepid proclamations of abstract solidarity." The article identifies this as a critical weakness, arguing that a general strike would pose the question of which class should rule.

Where the Argument Continues

The article leaves several questions open for further development. The relationship between the police unions and the broader labour movement is treated as a tactical question requiring further analysis: the article notes that police unions have played an overwhelmingly reactionary role but acknowledges that in revolutionary situations, the ranks of the police can fracture. This tension is not fully resolved and would benefit from further theoretical elaboration.

The article also does not develop in detail how the transition from neighbourhood self-defence committees to a workers' government would unfold organisationally. The committees are presented as the "embryo of a future workers' power," but the mechanics of linking them up nationally and coordinating with the trade union movement are sketched only in outline.

These questions are taken up in other IDOM articles from the same period, particularly those analysing the Minneapolis uprising and the role of the labour movement in the 2020 protests. The broader theoretical framework is developed in the IMT's (now RCI's) educational materials on the state and revolution, including the series on Engels' Origin of the Family and the Marxist analysis of race and class.

Connections

This article should be read alongside:

  • Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State — the theoretical foundation for the analysis of the state as "bodies of armed men."
  • Lenin, The State and Revolution — for the theory of dual power and the necessity of smashing the bourgeois state apparatus.
  • IDOM articles on the Minneapolis uprising (June 2020) — for concrete analysis of the neighbourhood committees and the role of the labour movement in that specific context.
  • IDOM articles on race and class — for the theoretical elaboration of how capitalism generates and reproduces racial divisions.
  • The RCI's programme on the transitional demand for a workers' government — for the strategic perspective linking immediate democratic demands to the socialist revolution.

Key Quotes

  1. "The capitalist class has two major parties. Most of the Republicans, and especially Donald J. Trump, cynically and cunningly lean on racism to achieve their political ends. They don't realize that pursuing their immediate political interests continues to weaken their system and its state apparatus as a whole. For their part, the Democrats are trying to get out ahead of the movement to co-opt it, injecting political confusion and raising illusions in legalistic solutions."

  2. "The law enforcement apparatus cannot be abolished while leaving the laws being enforced intact—and the class society which they were designed to uphold. Private appropriation of the socially produced surplus wealth—and the need to defend that wealth and the power it confers through overwhelming force, intimidation, incarceration, and the terrorization of entire populations—is the basis of capitalist rule."

  3. "In the final analysis, racism and the police are symptomatic ills of a deeper social disease: the historic impasse of the capitalist system, which has exhausted any potential for promoting general human progress. Private ownership of the key means of production has become incompatible with the wellbeing of the majority."

  4. "Neighborhood self-defense committees, made up of union workers, unorganized workers, the unemployed, and students would be an essential component of this struggle. These would mark the beginnings of what Marxists refer to as dual power—the embryo of a future workers' power in opposition to the state of the capitalists."

  5. "The main reason the labor leadership is playing such a cowardly and passive role is that they see no alternative to the capitalist system—and have absolutely no confidence in the working class winning political and economic power. The Marxists, on the other hand, are more filled with confidence than ever in the power of the working class to fundamentally change society."

  6. "A historic knot is being retied between the revolutionary traditions and mass struggles of the past, and the new generation of workers and youth, millions of whom are wide open to revolutionary ideas."