Kshama Sawant

This speech was originally given on January 24, 2026

Comrades,

We are gathering at a time of this historic crisis of capitalism and also, unfortunately at a time of deep crisis of the left.

Working and young people are turning against capitalism. A majority are disgusted by both Democrats and Republicans and want a new party.

This is a time of monsters, as we can see in Trump and other right wing figures globally. But it is also a time in which the liberal parties of capitalism, like the Democratic Party, have bankrolled a holocaust of the 21st century, in Gaza.

You ask: what is socialism? I am a revolutionary socialist. I stand on the tradition of the Russian Revolution: the single most important event, thus far, in modern human history.

Socialism is NOT free buses or even free healthcare for all. We need to build militant mass movements to win these things but they are NOT enough.

Socialism is what comes after capitalism. After it’s overthrown through a socialist revolution. It means workers running society on a democratic and rationally planned basis in the interests of humanity as a whole. This can start in one country, but it cannot succeed in only one country — capitalism needs to be overthrown internationally. It means an end to capitalists as a class — it does not mean holding meetings with them — not even if you are the “democratic socialist” mayor of New York City. 

Capitalism cannot be reformed, and if allowed to it will obliterate human civilization and the environment.

But how do we get there?

I believe the Bolseheviks answered that question in 1917. And I believe we need a rebirth of Bolshevism today.

Because genuine Marxism is radically different from what we see on display today on the left. Genuine Marxism is not compromising with the bosses or their political servants. It is also fundamentally UN-sectarian. It relentlessly focuses on fighting for the interests of the working class and for a revolutionary program. It fights relentlessly to win over the wider working class to that program, and leading working people in struggle. This is how the Bolsheviks brought down czarism and capitalism in Russia.

Sadly, much of the left today, including the revolutionary left, is acting like so many small businesses in competition with each for finances and recruits. It is afraid to alienate the progressive establishment and labor leaders. It is all too often unable to put first the interests of the wider working class, or to provide real leadership in struggle. 

The sole organization on the US left today with anything approaching a mass following is the Democratic Socialists of America. It was an important step forward that DSA grew to nearly 100,000 members after Bernie Sanders’ campaign in 2016, which did raise the profile of the word “socialism” and of the idea of a working class platform. This was of course before Sanders completely betrayed the working class by abandoning his campaign, and endorsed Hilary Clinton — and the betrayals have only continued since.

I raise these points in comradely debate. 

Rank and file DSA members have done important work in their unions, and yet the DSA leadership is extremely hesitant to stand up to the labor leadership, and has failed to play the militant role needed to organize class struggle. This has allowed them to maintain good relations with the labor leaders, and for those leaders with the bosses. But it has failed working people.

Meanwhile, DSA electeds have one after another abandoned the programs they ran on — their loyalty was not to working people, but to the leadership of the Democratic Party. Most of the so-called squad voted to break the strike of railroad workers in 2022. Most of them endorse Biden and then Harris as they fully backed and funded a genocide in Gaza. AOC supported the iron dome, which in reality is funding the genocide in Gaza. And DSA continued to support almost all of them. 

Not surprisingly, there is mass excitement about Zohran Mamdani’s election to the mayorship of New York City. This is certainly a major objective development — and it shows the huge support that a working class program can win. At the same time Mamdani has shown every indication of going down the same road as AOC — making an unconditional early endorsement of genocide Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, reappointing arch Zionist and billionaire Jessica Tisch as police commissioner, and now abandoning the fight to tax the rich to fund one of his signature demands: free childcare.

None of this is an accident, because in reality, any idea of reforming capitalism and its parties — which is the politics of the current DSA leadership — is a dead certain road to betrayal. 

What should elected socialists and movements do instead? 

I’m going to speak from my own experience as an elected Marxist for a decade in Seattle.

I used my office to build militant movements to go to war against the political establishment and ruling class.

At a time when the working class was suffering one defeat after another, we won the highest minimum wage in the U.S. — the first big city $15 minimum wage, which then spread from Seattle around the country. It has been a lifeline for tens of millions of workers.

We won the Amazon Tax, which already has resulted in over a billion dollar transfer of wealth from the capitalist class to workers. We won free abortion in Seattle, unprecedented renters rights laws, and the list goes on.

I’m not saying this as self praise. What we did is NOT historically unique — it was nothing more than to consistently and relentlessly apply the basic principles of revolutionary socialism. We organized militant mass movements to fight all out for each of the demands in our program. We had zero illusions that we could morally persuade capitalist politicians. And every single thing we won was won by turning the screws on the political establishment with militant movements.

To win 15, we launched mass rallies, mass organizing conferences, neighborhood action groups, and finally launched a ballot initiative to threaten that if the Democrats didn’t pass a strong 15 we’d take it to voters. We had to stand up against the labor leaders who had told us not only to not campaign for $15 in the first place, and then later that we had to settle for $11 an hour or wouldn’t win anything. I told them if they attempted to betray working people in this way, I would hold a press conference the next day and I would name names. They backed off.

It took an all-out class battle. And it took a refusal to bend to gatekeepers inside the movement. 

A socialist elected representative must use their position to clearly explain socialist ideas, to raise consciousness, and to expose the capitalist politicians and parties. They MUST NOT mislead the working class by telling them the way to victory is for them to befriend powerful people, as Mamdani is doing.

Mamdani and the working people who supported his campaign COULD make a historic impact in the class struggle if they used our methods. But Mamdani is NOT doing any of this. Nor have the 250 elected officials of the DSA nationally. 

This is why revolutionary socialists make the best fighters for reforms under capitalism — because we are clear about the nature of this system and its class forces. However, we never stop there, because reforms are not our primary goal — which is to bring down this system.

Yesterday there were powerful mass protests in Minneapolis.

These were hugely important. They were not, however, a general strike.

A general strike means shutting down the profit machine by organized workers, not just mass protests or the closures of small businesses.

Trotskyist Teamsters in Minneapolis in 1934 carried out an all out general strike which terrified the capitalist class. It was the launching pad for the massive growth of a militant labor movement and the unionization of the auto industry.

This all became a historic threat to capitalism and forced FDR to pass the New Deal.

THAT IS what’s needed.

What has the labor leadership done in Minneapolis in response to Renee Good’s killing?  Refused to organize for even the mass protest that took place. What happened yesterday, happened despite them.

But worse, AFSCME leadership was circulating no strike clause language in their contract to their members urging them NOT to go on strike. They are tied at the hip to the Democratic party.

Today, another brutal killing took place in Minneapolis. We cannot allow this to continue, we urgently need a general strike in Minneapolis, with mass strikes across the country.

The left as a whole needs to do provide militant leadership in opposition to the rotten labor bureaucracy and the so-called progressive Democrats — and fight for a new party for working people.

We need unity on a principled basis. 

We must work together where we agree to build mass protests and prepare for mass strikes.

I would also appeal to you all to support my revolutionary campaign for Congress. 

WE’re fighting for an end all military aid to Israel, to shut down ICE and the detention centers, for free healthcare for all paid for by the rich, and national rent control. To elect the first ever revolutionary socialist to US Congress. This would be a political earthquake.

The basic principle of the united front is to march separately and to strike together, while not hiding our program or criticisms.

That is what we must do, because we have a responsibility to fight together for a socialist future.