The Climb to Power

I have often been asked to explain the ‘why’ of the Mountain Caucus lately, both in general and in particular contrast to various caucuses. There are, of course, a few things I could bring up, such as our fervent commitment to a democratic big tent. Ultimately, however, our theory of change is founded upon the Gramscian war of position. It is my intention to elaborate upon the necessity of this theory and explain where those caucuses in which we have meaningful commonalities fall short. For a variety of reasons, the primary practical expression of this is electoral. This is, however, all somewhat difficult to explain, as it rests upon several interlocking postulates. I am thus painfully aware that the need to be succinct has made me discard certain points of elaboration.

The War of Position - The Modern State

The core of political struggle is the war for hegemony, political and ideological leadership over classes and other groups.¹ To say that one class or organization trusts another’s political program is to say that they have hegemony over them. It is the goal of a political party to concentrate enough hegemony that it can either seize or maintain power.² This requires the articulation of a unifying vision, a moral and political philosophy for the organization of government, one which offers both explanation and relief to the material suffering of the masses. Thus, our goal is for DSA to win hegemony over the broader mass of workers by merging socialist politics with rudimentary class struggle. When this is accomplished, we will be capable of leading the workers in establishing proletarian democracy, expressed in the form of a truly democratic republic.

Unfortunately, the modern bourgeois state has become excellent at the maintenance of its hegemony, skillfully wielding tools of both force and consent.³ The former is embodied in the governing bodies of political society, such as our executive branch and its appendages. The latter in the social spaces of civil society, where one’s daily engagements with the world serve as a proverbial “school”.⁴ The schooling of civil society may look like an actual school, with direct instruction by trusted authorities praising the status quo. Or it may be the indirect lessons of experience which come from urban segregation, in which reactionary suspicion of the unknown and alien is engendered.

In either case, civil society’s schooling through practical experience constructs a worldview through which people understand various social or political phenomena. Through these logical lenses termed common sense, the vast majority of people interpret their material conditions.⁵ Such logic may be altered by big events, like a grand crisis, but these are increasingly managed. The ruling bourgeoisie are now prone to the “method of deception,” in which they make “concessions of the unessential while retaining the essential.”⁶ Just before such events should grow increasingly out of hand so as to concretely educate the masses on the nature of class struggle, one suddenly finds the calming reforms of the government. These reforms are then their own big event. All of this is to say the bourgeois state is flexible.

This approach of flexibility is that of passive revolution, partial reforms which exist to undermine the basis for growing political consciousness.⁷ The general formula of this may be found in something like the proceedings of the Great Depression. From such conditions came a rising tide of support for radical movements, which were able to use the lessons of miserable poverty as the basis for expanding their own leadership over the disillusioned masses. It is then this threat of popular initiative, of the masses even grasping the class struggle and its full political implications, that brought about the passive revolution of the New Deal. Thus, concrete experience validated trust in the bourgeoisie, and the core of common sense was kept intact.

Such a description might give the impression that we have, in fact, reached the end of history through passive revolution. But, “This is not to say that everything remains intact, but events do not unfold at lightning speed and with the definitive forward march expected by the strategists of political Cadornism.”⁸ Crises still happen, and the bourgeoisie only give up such concessions when they feel truly compelled.⁹ The imperfect elasticity of the bourgeois state gives us room to fight, but it is not so rigid anymore that the core features of common sense are blown apart by permanent crises. As such, the period of conflict is limited in both scope and time, a series of limited struggles between cycles of passive revolutions.

The War of Position - The Crisis of Consciousness

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born: in this interregnum, morbid phenomena of the most varied kind come to pass.”¹⁰ There is no need to elaborate as to why the old would be dying. It is the failure of the new to be born, which then summarizes our central problem, the crisis of consciousness. There will not be a great storm that blows away existing common sense. The implication of this is not limited to ensuring passive revolution is followed up by the disintegration of any crisis-born consciousness. It also means that the search of the disillusioned masses for new hegemons is generally constrained by what they have already learned from civil society.

We may observe that workers in both rural Ohio as well as urban Queens are each in rebellion against the status quo, and conceptually receptive to a new political philosophy.¹¹ Despite this fact, the rural Ohioan finds themselves under the hegemony of reactionary politics, and the urban New Yorker an anti-capitalist or even socialist form.¹² Because the experience of living in these different social environments makes it so. The former is a place of atomized drivers in towns both sparse and parochial. The latter is a place of renters taking public transit through dense and diverse neighborhoods. One could speak at length on these arrangements, but for now, it should seem obvious how contrary the ideological lessons of such lives would be on average.

This is not a problem resolvable by “comradely persuasion,” because “practical experience” is scarcely shared in these cases.¹³ It is an epistemological divide born from massive interlinking structures and must be respected as such. It is in resolving this problem that a pillar of the war of position is made clear. To change civil society to a sufficient degree and scale that it can widely reproduce a common sense which is at least amenable to socialist interventions. This is the significance of Gramsci’s call to seize the commanding heights.¹⁴ This is the objective we must pursue during these interregnums if we wish to break out of cyclical passive revolutions, if we wish to lead the working class in political revolution.

It has been de facto argued by some that the base building work we already do sufficiently matches this standard. Yet, as I will elaborate upon later, performing the survey of civil society, which Gramsci called for, reveals the essential nature of electoral work.¹⁵ It is not simply for the purposes of agitation and propaganda, but also for legislative reforms of civil society. For the multibillion or even trillion infrastructure projects we must undertake, for the universal propagation of good schooling, for open borders, and this is without even addressing the question of labor laws.

Gramscian Electoralism

The deficiency of electoral theory in response to these obstacles varies in both form and degree. The Mountain Caucus Points of Unity state: “Our electeds are thus presented with a dual task. Electeds are both prominent public figures with a responsibility to act as articulators of socialist politics, and legislators who need to pass vital reforms so as to improve our organizing conditions.”¹⁶ If one wishes to be flippant, they could say that the tendency of the DSA Right is to forget the former, and that of the DSA Left is to forget the latter. But the simple fact of the matter is that we need both, and we must recall which kind of reforms will actually bring us closer to proletarian democracy.

Gramscian Electoralism - The Left

There is no unified electoral theory of DSA’s left, but the most excellent and historied of these is the model put forward by Marxist Unity Group. In the classical social democratic fashion, they call for “Tribunes of the People. The essence of this role is principled agitation combined with deference to the party. Some members have also expressed to me that this is intertwined with cadre expectations, that these Tribunes should be active participants in chapter life. All of these are fundamentally agreeable aims for our electoral program, and yet incomplete when one recalls the challenges posed.

We may understand these expectations a little more clearly by turning to an old pamphlet by the SPD’s Wilhelm Liebknecht. Liebknecht reveals the core of this agitation, “the policy of the class struggle,” all other matters flow from this principle.¹⁷ This is certainly true; without the class struggle one cannot coherently organize the proletariat for their emancipation. If one compromises on the class struggle, then there is no clear reason that the workers should not be content with reformism by liberal progressives. The boundaries of compromise are not to be individually determined, though; they come from the party as expressed by its convention resolutions.¹⁸ I think fully achieving this is a more challenging process than our comrades in MUG tend to describe it, but nonetheless, it is again a fundamentally correct aim.

What one will also note in Liebknecht’s pamphlet, though, is the secondary matter ascribed to legislation.¹⁹ There is nothing inherently wrong with saying that electoralism is a means to an end, that we are doing it to build a militant workers’ movement capable of seizing power. Yet it is the nature of that means which requires interrogation, and where Liebknecht falls short. “Our power is not measured by the number of representatives, but by the total number of votes that are behind us.”²⁰ Electoralism is thus almost entirely based around the symbolic actions of politicians and campaigns; there is no concern with their actual ability to win seats and legislate.

This is not to accuse MUG of having no interest or value placed in reforms.²¹ However, this is a terribly vague relationship when compared to the time spent elsewhere in their points of unity to elaborate on discipline and independent messaging, or when one considers the specific request that electeds not participate in committees.²² This line of thinking only makes sense if one mistakenly expects immense fluidity for political consciousness, most likely because they are underestimating the powerful and deeply rooted nature of common sense, or perhaps because they are simply waiting for some cataclysmic crisis to violently shatter all logical errors.

The former is insulting, as if workers in Clearfield County were ultra nationalists solely because of verbally disputable propaganda. Forgetting that the same propaganda is found everywhere, and it is only in the more fertile ground of such a county that it actually takes root. They believe in that propaganda, that “comradely persuasion” by the likes of Doug Mastriano, because it aligns with their “practical experience.” The common sense of a parochial white town, of not having the book-learning to contest those impulses, etc. To fix this requires the overhaul of civil society to a degree only political society can do.²³ Otherwise, one might as well join the ranks of all previously failed revolutionaries in awaiting the biblical flood.

Gramscian Electoralism - The Right

Socialist Majority Caucus manages to totally invert these praises and criticisms. SMC correctly grasps that the workers come into this conflict out of desperation, of the feeling that the ruling class is failing to guard their material welfare. Thus, it is obligatory that we are actively fighting for reforms like Medicare for All, and that we are running viable campaigns which people believe can win.²⁴ Without both of those assurances, socialism becomes an object of abstract philosophical desire. One which shall quickly become subordinated to support for ‘progressivism’, which neatly fits into the historically developed image of how to approach misery under bourgeois democracy.

Unfortunately, however, SMC’s step forward on this matter is counterbalanced by two steps back. The defense of a ‘popular front’ reflects a trend in forgetting the full nature of the class struggle, of its political content.²⁵ Such is made evident by this year’s resolution on recruiting labor candidates, which neglects to consider the need for higher socialist politics.²⁶ To avoid saying it in an “identitarian” fashion, the invocation of the fighting oligarchy tour does not come with the notion of even proportional representation or the necessary call for legislative sovereignty over the courts, the need to be rid of the Senate, let alone the question of how the economy is actually organized and owned.

Regardless of this fact, though, what then is the eventual consequence of SMC fulfilling its useful electoral goals? As I explained earlier, the historical role of progressive liberals like FDR was to stabilize capitalism through reforms, primarily in the form of welfare. It should seem obvious, then, that a similar result will occur when DSA electeds do this in coordination with the Warrenites and Sanderistas. To do this is to place a timer on the active struggle for a new world. Frankly, it must be added that the ignorant rejection of political independence as a principle can only ease this process of passive revolution, thus reducing the scope of our intervention preceding such a point.²⁷ Yet we cannot avoid passive revolution at this time either. We are compelled to validate the initial trust given to us by addressing economic needs. Moreover, one must consider whether the installation of such programs is necessary to prove the possibility of collective work yielding a common good. One could elaborate on these minutiae endlessly. So it is not to say that we’d prefer to neglect these as an accelerationist approach, merely that reforms have complex results. But it is precisely this distinction that SMC fails to make; reforms which ultimately advance the conquest of power, and reforms which do not. Absent such clarity, we are simply retelling a story which the European left knows by heart.

Gramscian Electoralism - The Center

Whilst there are various critiques I might levy at Bread and Roses or Groundwork, they are largely unrelated to this topic. Instead, I believe that I must congratulate them for correctly grasping the need for a distinction in reforms. This emerges in the former’s “democratic road to socialism,” or the latter’s “transformative reforms.”²⁸ In either case, it is the correct recognition of the need for electoral work so as to pass reforms that can enable us to successfully organize the working class for socialism. The crude nature of this, however, lies in an over-fixation on trade unions. As if comrades are only rotely recalling the fact that organized labor is critical to power struggles and socialism.

It must also be remembered that the trade unions are “a school of communism” when organized correctly.²⁹ Whilst I am sure there are many comrades in these caucuses who recognize the educational aspect, they are still lacking perspective. Unions, and more specifically trade unions, are only one of many ideological schools in the encompassing category of civil society. In recognizing this, the need for a broader approach becomes clear. The crisis of consciousness cannot be solved exclusively through unions. Winning hegemony shall require the construction of a new common sense, emerging jointly from many ideological academies. Thus, the scientific correction of the war of position reveals itself. “Reforms are transformative when they favorably alter the terrain in which we fight for hegemony, when they give us a better basis for intervention in arenas of civil society toward the end of gaining trust and establishing socialist leadership.”³⁰ That might be through dispelling reactionary explanations for crises, as is the tendency from even well-done bourgeois schooling, or it may be by creating spaces in which socialists can believably make political interventions, which is indeed the realm of a democratically run union.

Pyramid Electoralism

It is best then to wrap up these remarks with something more purely additive, an explanation of what we mean by pyramid electoralism, of which the first basic principle is the convergent nature of political campaigns and offices. The living organs of civil society, bodies like the media, unions, community groups, and so on, are intractably drawn to such endeavors. The nature of this attachment is quite simple: The offering of vital campaign resources in exchange for adopting or continuing certain policies.³¹ In making such arrangements, politicians or parties then endeavor to assert hegemony over such groups: To make them stable allies, and to draw them into a broader political project based on their trust of such institutions or individuals.

The nature of the US system is that the hegemonic role of parties is divided. There is the divide between layers of federal structures, and the divide of the party itself into individual politicians.³² At a later date, it will be of value to review the full nature of these issues, but for now, it is enough to understand that the previously described relationships interact in two forms. One way is vertically, such as between a congressional district and the state or local offices within it. The other way is horizontally, such as between two congresspeople within a given state. In these relationships, we see that various forms of resource exchanges are enabled by obtaining hegemony. Thus, each layer of the pyramid is upheld by several blocks below it, and those directly below any individual section are intimately connected.

Such campaigns are, however, herculean investments, and so it is best to begin with smaller constituencies in the most favorable terrain. There are various basic benefits to this, such as developing a bench of qualified candidates for higher office, or the generally lower resource needs. However, the most important aspect of this is the development of resource networks. By developing multiple horizontal links, such as municipal officials within a state house seat, we can then cooperatively produce the concentrated resources necessary to win a higher office. Those in higher offices can then return the favor, using their position as a nexus for most or all ‘lower’ offices in the area to push resources into campaigns on more difficult terrain. Though we mustn’t forget the importance of pushing DSA’s hegemony, of base building and independent messaging so that we may make our proto-party the most powerful of these nexuses.

Our specific strategic approach, the war of position, introduces a Gramscian twist to these basic premises. Whilst every campaign for DSA is good anywhere, we require the power to alter civil society so as to ultimately win the battle for hegemony. Thus, when it comes to the investment of our collective resources, we must structure them around state and federal districts. Any local election or base-building effort is most valuable when placed in this context. Consequently, our foremost task is to solidify control over potential socialist strongholds. This, of course, begs the question, what makes such a stronghold?

It is here that Zohran’s campaign is invaluable, revealing strongholds like Astoria where multiple factors have converged, and contestable terrain where one or two aspects are present. We won educated workers, and so we shall need politicians dedicated to well-funded schools and affordable universities. We won over those in diverse neighborhoods, and so we shall need electeds dedicated to tearing down both internal and external borders. We won those attached to public transit, and so we shall need electeds dedicated to collective projects which bring working people together. We won over many renters, the full success of which requires DSA to organize them into tenant unions. We won over many labor unions, but the full success of this depends on DSA’s peer-to-peer organizing for openly political goals.

In the short run, when we max out these “socialist strongholds”, we get the most efficient return on investment: The most members recruited, the most seats, strengthening our muscles so that we can reach out into tougher terrain, such as the most impoverished communities of Black and Latino New Yorkers, where Cuomo was often able to dominate. In the long run, it will allow us to expand the number of strongholds outright. Each crisis offers us this opportunity to fight for a better position, until at last we have seized the commanding heights, and can lead the working class in the conquest of power. Thus, the Mountain caucus gladly joins in the call of Zohrans for everyone, but for this, we shall also need Queens for everywhere.

Footnotes

1. Sylus S., “Gramsci Primer & Modern Reflections,” The Rose Garden. August, 2025. ↩

2. Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks Vol. 1, trans. Joseph Buttigieg. (Columbia University Press, 1992,) p. 137 “There can and there must be a ‘political hegemony’ even before assuming government power, and in order to exercise political leadership or hegemony one must not count solely on the power and material force that is given by government.” ↩

3. V1/N48/P155-56 ↩

4. Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks Vol. 2, trans. Joseph Buttigieg. (Columbia University Press, 1996,) p. 53 ““Everything that directly or indirectly influences or could influence public opinion belongs to it: libraries, schools, associations and clubs of various kinds, even architecture, the layout of streets and their names.” ↩

5. Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks Vol. 3, trans. Joseph Buttigieg. (Columbia University Press, 2007,) p. 333 “-in other words, the conception of the world acritically absorbed from the various social environments in which the moral individuality of the average person is developed.” ↩

6. Vladimir Lenin, “The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution,” marxists.org, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/tasks/index.htm ↩

7. V3/N25/P252 This is the summary of essentially the entire note. ↩

8. V3/N10/P162 By political Cadornism, Gramsci essentially means a war of maneuver with a clear progression toward revolutionary consciousness as a result of rapid and expansive struggle. ↩

9. V1/N44/P147 “The old classes do not want to give up anything, and if they do give up something they do it with the intention of gaining time and preparing the counteroffensive;” ↩

10. V2/N34/P33 ↩

11. In reality there are many permutations of civil society’s structures, and of the degree to which it produces a class amenable/resistant to socialist hegemony. But for this explanation, it seems best to emphasize truly parallel structures. ↩

12. Sylus S., “Gramsci Primer,” This is elaborated upon further throughout sections one and two. ↩

13. Lenin, “Tasks of the Proletariat” ↩

14. V3/N88/P285 ↩

15. V3/N16/P169 “Needless to say, the configuration varied from state to state, which is precisely why an accurate reconnaissance on a national scale was needed.” ↩

16. https://mountaindsa.org/pou ↩

17. Wilhelm Liebknecht, No Compromise - No Political Trading, trans. A. M. Simons and Marcus Hitch. (Chicago: Kerr & Company, 1919) p. 6 ↩

18. Liebknecht, No Compromise, p. 37 ↩

19. Liebknecht, No Compromise, p. 37 ↩

20. Liebknecht, No Compromise, p. 46 ↩

21. https://www.marxistunity.com/ “We will always embrace the struggle for reforms,” ↩

22. Connel H & Amy W, “Principles of Independence,” Light and Air. July, 2025. https://www.marxistunity.com/light-and-air/principles-of-independence ↩

23. V3/N18/P170 “In politics—the relation between the state and civil society, that is, the intervention of the state (centralized will) to educate the educator, the social milieu in general.” ↩

24. https://www.socialistmajority.com/pointsofunity/#2 ↩

25. https://www.socialistmajority.com/pointsofunity/#7 ↩

26. I refer to Resolution 18 at the 2025 DSA Convention ↩

27. Genevieve R., “No One Is ‘Politically Independent,’” The Agitator. April, 2025, https://www.socialistmajority.com/theagitator/no-one-is-politically-independent; and my reply, Sylus S., “DSA Doesn’t Need Empty Rhetoric,” Cosmonaut. April, 2025, https://cosmonautmag.com/2025/04/letter-dsa-doesnt-need-empty-rhetoric/ ↩

28. Bread and Roses ; Groundwork ↩

29. Vladimir L., “The Trade Unions, the Present Situation and Trotsky’s Mistakes,” marxists.org, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm ↩

30. Sylus S., “Gramsci Primer” ↩

31. One could speak at length about the different types of resources, and how different bodies of civil society tend to offer different variants of them. Capital, labor power, attention, lists, data, etc. ↩

32. A full accounting of the problem of competing and semi-autonomous hegemony shall have to wait for later. For now it is enough to simply understand that the division of say the Democratic Party as a hegemonic entity exists both in state/local committees, as well as in the form of people like AOC or Slotkin. A fact which is reified both by general laws and the primary system itself. ↩