Bernie's Army and the Socialist Revolution: A Conversation with John Beacham of Mass Action

Bernie's Army and the Socialist Revolution

A Conversation with Jim Kavanagh

Feb. 11, 2020

John Beacham: As you know, I recently traveled to Iowa to report on, get a feel for and join the Bernie Sanders campaign. What I saw, the real mass support, especially from young people, for a program that is in broad terms socialistic in its demands was very, very encouraging. To say the least. The campaign is actually much more militant in tone than I expected. In a rally of over 3,500 people in Cedar Rapids, when Rep. Ilhan Omar made a call for the multi-national working class to unite and take on the ruling class, that crowd absolutely erupted. I have never seen, in the United States, such a spontaneous, large and unanimous response to a call like that. The speakers are not shying away from defending Socialism, albeit ill-defined as liberalism or social democracy. Bernie clearly has the supporting army to win and/or to take on the establishment.

Like me, you have decided to endorse Bernie Sanders. For me, it is the progressive and "socialist" movement of millions behind the campaign that has compelled me to join it. I am not even that big of a Bernie fan, honestly. My politics place me in opposition to him frequently enough (on Venezuela for example). I mean, I believe he is earnest, but to really take on the establishment and accomplish anything close to what we need right now, he will have to fully employ that backbone that he seems to own but hasn't wielded against the ruling class.

Jim Kavanagh: I agree that the Bernie Sanders’s most important achievement is the movement he inspired—the millions of people who have been mobilized to fight for real social democratic programs. These are different in kind than the means-tested and multi-tiered ameliorative program, designed to accommodate profit-making enterprises put forth by his Democratic opponents. Bernie’s are universal, publicly owned and managed programs that establish new social rights. So, they certainly don’t amount to what we would call “socialism,” but they would also significantly change working-class lives for the better and change the direction of US politics and social policy. That’s why I think, that, unlike any of the other campaigns that now exist or have previously appeared in the Democratic Party in decades, Bernie’s program is worthy of support.
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