Openings and Closures: Socialist Strategy at a Crossroads

Since the 2016 upsurge in enthusiasm for electoral organizing and party-building, the terrain has shifted. It was not so long ago that a new wave of democratic socialist organizing exploded onto the scene. Quickly, the defeat of candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn had a deflating effect. This followed on the crumbling of the “new parties” in Europe: In Greece, Syriza buckled in the face of the iron straitjacket imposed by EU institutions; in Spain, Podemos fractured under the weight of its ideological and institutional weaknesses; and Bloco fared no better in Portugal. Meanwhile, the Chavez-inspired Bolivarian revolutions in Latin America hit an impasse, barely stumbling along. We find socialist strategy again at a crossroads, pressed by the urgent need to find new directions forward amidst mounting crises.

Some on the left searching for new paths forward saw little alternative but to support authoritarian neoliberal states in their coercive response to a rising tide of hard-right forces, as if the repressive and bloody campaigns launched by powerful states could constitute junior components of anti-fascist ‘popular fronts’. Others in the left turned to the workplace, taking new approaches to union organizing, seeking to build a working-class base for radical politics—whose absence seemed directly responsible for another round of defeats. At this new conjuncture, what was left of the strategy, tactics, and organizations that had seemed so promising? Was the ‘new socialist’ left starting over, or moving on? This year’s Socialist Register 2025 engages with the openings and closures of at the crossroads of Socialist strategy, with case studies from Britain, US, Pakistan, Argentina, Germany, Bolivia, Barcelona, and Turkey, engaging with topics such as social struggles over climate change, Palestine solidarity, public banks, re-municipalization of utilities, and unions.