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Socialists Without Borders is an internationalist organization fighting for a society free from economic exploitation and social oppression of any kind: we fight for a socialist society. This struggle extends to every country in the world. We fight to totally dismantle the global capitalist-imperialist economic and social system that is the world and its people. Only a mass international revolutionary organization can achieve this task. We are committed to building this organization.
Socialists Without Borders asserts that the primary threat to humanity is the climate crisis, caused by human exploitation and destruction of nature under capitalism. The trajectory is clear: the Earth is becoming uninhabitable. Revolutionaries worldwide must mobilize workers and the oppressed against the destruction of the planet and towards a social system based on workers’ power. Our task is to empower those most affected by the ravages of environmental destruction in their fight for survival.
Socialists Without Borders upholds the historical experience of revolutionary Marxism made concrete through the lessons of the Paris Commune and clarified by the Third International. We believe the highest point in the socialist struggle of the exploited and oppressed worldwide was the Russian Revolution in 1917, under the political leadership of Lenin and Trotsky. We repudiate Stalinism and its legacy, which tarnishes the revolutionary Marxist movement to this day. We adhere to the theses of the Third International: any struggle for personal power is incompatible with membership in a revolutionary organization.
Socialists Without Borders is building an international revolutionary organization. The political program of this organization can only be developed by revolutionaries worldwide contributing their political, theoretical, and practical experiences to achieve an objective understanding of our reality and our tasks. Global capitalist-imperialism can only be defeated by a global revolutionary organization; our theory must be developed on this basis. This document is our starting point.
Socialists Without Borders affirms that a revolutionary organization must adhere absolutely to the highest ethical standards of respect among its members, in their interactions with workers and the oppressed, and in their relationships with other revolutionary organizations. Such an organization must have a truly democratic structure, not merely a formal one, in which all members are effective agents in all aspects of party life, from its strategic and tactical political orientation to its organizational tasks.
Socialists Without Borders seeks political and programmatic agreements, both tactical and strategic, with other organizations that share our program and methodology. We participate in the struggles of workers and the oppressed in all arenas of class struggle, including in the use of electoral platforms. We present this document to develop political and programmatic agreements with other individuals and organizations committed to the fight for the liberation of workers and oppressed people everywhere.
Socialists Without Borders places all its resources in service of the struggles of workers and the oppressed. We commit to maintaining relationships of respect and solidarity with organizations dedicated to these same tasks – to struggle arm-in-arm to end capitalism and build a socialist world.
OUR PROGRAM
I. For the construction of a global revolutionary movement to mitigate the climate catastrophes already underway and to reverse imperialism’s centuries of world-scale environmental destruction.
II. Against imperialist military intervention anywhere in the world. For the disarmament of all imperialist countries–especially the U.S.–and the dismantling of the arms industry.
III. For the inalienable right to food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education, and freedom of expression under a government of workers and the oppressed.
IV. Against all forms of oppression and their violent manifestations.
V. For the self-organizing, self-determination, and self-defense of workers and all oppressed groups and peoples.
VI. For the principle of workers’ democracy in the liberation struggle of workers, the oppressed, the dispossessed masses, and revolutionary organizations.
VII. For an end to the interference of religion and churches in public life, in healthcare, and in education.
VIII. For the political independence of the working class.
IX. For the abolition of the police, immigration enforcement, and all repressive state apparatuses.
X. For a socialist, ecologically sustainable, and egalitarian society.
I
For the construction of a global revolutionary movement to mitigate the climate catastrophes already underway and to reverse imperialism’s centuries of world-scale environmental destruction.
We humans face our greatest challenge: a climate crisis caused by capitalism. Time is running out, and even with drastic action, vast regions of the planet will likely become uninhabitable. Meanwhile, the U.S., under President Donald Trump, and other imperialist countries foment international counterrevolution, eviscerating human rights that it once held to be self-evident and universal as they install ever more brutal authoritarian regimes worldwide. If we are to mitigate the irreversible damage already caused and salvage any aspect of the biosphere that has made our existence possible, we must fight for international socialism.
The climate crisis is the direct result of capitalist dependence on fossil fuels. Despite decades of climate conferences, the creation or dissipation of this or that bureaucracy, and the marketing of so-called “green” technology largely as luxury items, the imperialist bourgeoisie accelerates fossil fuel exploration and extraction efforts worldwide, from the South Atlantic to Alaska. This shows that capitalists will not address the climate crisis: they will continue to prioritize their economic domination over humanity and the biosphere.
Socialists Without Borders fights for the complete decarbonization of economic activity, from the initial extraction of raw materials to the manufacture of consumer goods, their distribution, and transportation.
We oppose nuclear energy as an alternative because it is neither safe, nor economical, nor clean. This industry is unable to avoid accidents and cannot control its dangerous pollution: after decades of study, there are still no viable plans for the permanent disposal of radioactive waste. In cases like the Fukushima disaster, waste ends up being thrown into the sea or stored precariously, leading to further environmental contamination.
We also demand the cancellation of existing plans and projects for the exploitation of fossil fuel resources. The net-zero pollution scheme and others like it are fraudulent and deceptive tactics, which pretend that it is possible to save the environment while destroying it. These schemes are used by capitalists to increase fossil fuel extraction and justify other destructive megaprojects.
Inevitably, workers and oppressed peoples face the greatest threat from the climate crisis. World economic activity must be reorganized to guarantee the existence and material reproduction of life on the planet and to address the manifold crises resulting from climate change.
II
Against imperialist military intervention anywhere in the world. For the disarmament of all imperialist countries–especially the U.S.–and the dismantling of the arms industry.
Socialists Without Borders opposes all wars and the industries that sustain them. From the U.S. under the Trump Administration to Palestine under the lash of Israel, the U.S.’s client state, the ruling class uses violence to exploit its subjects everywhere in the world. We oppose all military alliances that divide the world to the benefit of a handful of imperialist countries. Meanwhile, the number of countries armed with nuclear weapons continues to increase as so-called ‘regulatory bodies’ are defunded out of existence.
The deterioration of basic material conditions for most of humanity under capitalism inevitably creates conditions for major social upheavals and economic chaos, which the ruling class meets with escalating violence. In the U.S., this even takes the form of the Trump Administration ordering the National Guard and even the Marines to occupy major cities to put down dissent.
We stand for the disarmament of the United States, Russia, China, Israel, and any other imperialist country or nuclear-armed nation. We oppose bourgeois regimes in their deployment of increasingly heavily-armed military and paramilitary forces and fight for the dissolution and abolition of military alliances and the closure and dismantling of the entire armaments industry, especially nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction.
All existing resources must be directed to the organization of workers and socialist civil service brigades to aid in adapting to changes imposed by climate catastrophes, including geographical relocation.
We call on all members of existing armies to rebel against their superiors and refuse to engage in combat with other nations or to suppress the civilian population in their own countries.
III
For the inalienable right to food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education, and freedom of expression under a government of workers and the oppressed.
All over the world, the ruling class increases the cost of the necessities of life while doing all in their power to ensure that wages stagnate or decrease. Meanwhile, it is obvious to all that any notion the bourgeoisie ever promoted of a truly humanistic, egalitarian society is disappearing in the rearview mirror.
As a revolutionary Marxist organization, we seek to rebuild society from the ground up, based on the principle that our means of production of social subsistence should be commonly owned. Each person should be able to contribute according to their abilities and should unconditionally receive everything necessary to live a full and dignified life. All current material goods and cultural treasures are the collective heritage of humanity, and their administration should be directed and coordinated by the democratic organizations of workers and the oppressed.
We demand a universal minimum income for all individuals, regardless of their age or employment status. For those who are able and willing to work, we stand for full employment in jobs that are socially beneficial and ecologically responsible. We intend to build a society where household laborers and students will be recognized as workers and be paid fair wages, and all children will receive high quality healthcare and education regardless of who their parents are and what their parents do.
Our aim is for people to be provided with dignified and secure housing maintained by the public. Utility services will be free, controlled by workers, and optimized for ecologically responsible use.
We call for universal, equal access to healthcare services, to be ensured by training and employment of necessary workers and the construction of any required infrastructure. The necessities for a healthy life should be freely available to all, including nutritious, high-quality food. We call for the production and distribution of food to be controlled by workers, and for the workers who do these jobs to be paid a living wage.
The division between “basic” needs and cultural life is an artifact of the capitalist division of labor. We demand free access to education at all levels, as well as the construction of museums, sports centers, cultural centers, recreational centers, parks and other venues for social and intellectual life. Artists will receive wages as workers, and creative production will be encouraged and supported in schools and workplaces. The right of all to be educated and pursue intellectual and creative work is an essential element of what we hold should be a universal, inalienable right to freedom of expression.
IV
Against all forms of oppression and their violent manifestations.
We oppose all forms of oppression. This includes but is not limited to oppression against women, racial, and religious minorities, sexual minorities, youth and children, people with different abilities, and other minorities. The ruling class designed these oppressive systems, and the ruling class reproduces and enforces them by, through, and within the institutions they dominate. We call for the redesign of the educational system to explicitly include a comprehensive anti-patriarchal and anti-racist curriculum.
The U.S. originated as a settler colony founded on land stolen from Native Americans and built with the uncompensated forced labor of enslaved Africans. Racism against non-white people permeates nearly every aspect of life in the U.S. We demand an end of violence and discrimination because of race, especially against African Americans, and we call for reparations from slavery.
We demand full reproductive rights for all those with reproductive capacity, including but not limited to unrestricted access to abortion, an end to forced sterilization, full access to fertility treatments for anyone who chooses them, and, as noted above, free high-quality childcare and education for all children regardless of background.
While the ruling class, first and foremost, aims to dominate reproduction, all other forms of gendered oppression must be abolished. We call for the unconditional right to gender reassignment regardless of age and for the necessary psychological and medical support for anyone who chooses it. As a social structure, the patriarchal nuclear family is the primary source of gender oppression, and we call for its abolition.
As climate catastrophe and geographic inequity continue to spur mass migration, immigrants have increasingly come under attack by the ruling class and its agents. The United States is now at the point where the federal government has massively expanded its Immigration & Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), and they are invading U.S. cities to abduct, deport, and kill people. We demand full rights for immigrants, including equal status, equal access to services, and the unconditional right to work wherever they choose.
V
For the self-organizing, self-determination, and self-defense of workers and all oppressed groups and peoples.
We will not wait until the conquest of socialism to demand an end to inequality and oppression: we demand it now. At the same time, we also do not believe that oppression will automatically vanish with the triumph of socialism. We expect the fight against oppression to continue to be a daily struggle for the eradication of prejudice.
Nevertheless, we strive to establish solidarity and cooperation between all workers of the world as an absolute condition for the liberation of all peoples. We are for an end to borders, and we hold immigration to be a fundamental human right. This right will become more important as capitalist-imperialists increasingly use the climate crisis as a justification for building fortress-nations. We believe no fortress will be able to contain migrations caused by the climate crisis, and that humanity faces the danger of an era of violent civil wars and genocide. We are against the militarization of borders. As such, we are for the defunding, disarming, demobilization, and dismantling of ICE and all armed law enforcement agencies in the U.S.
We demand reparations for slavery and for genocide against all original peoples in North America and indigenous communities around the world. We are for the return of all stolen land to the stewardship of the peoples from whom it was stolen. We support all peoples’ right to live in peace in their ancestral lands, for the right to self-determination and self-defense of all peoples wherever they are, including their right to territorial separation, and the right to democratically adopt whatever independent forms of government they desire.
VI
For the principle of workers’ democracy in the liberation struggle of workers, the oppressed, the dispossessed masses, and revolutionary organizations.
As the imperialist bourgeoisie becomes more violently oppressive, we respond—not with a fantasy of returning to some imagined time when things were allegedly better—but with a vision of a truly free world. No social revolution will be possible if it does not guarantee greater democratic freedoms to its constituents. The international workers’ liberation movement has its own tradition of anti-democratic practices to address, and we intend to address it to the full extent. So, when we call for a combative workers’ movement to assume leadership in the fight against environmental destruction and the climate crisis, we are calling for an organization that can incorporate oppressed people everywhere and express their objective needs under their leadership. We must hear and amplify their voices—voices that the unions in the U.S., in their campaign of appeasement of the Trump Administration, seem ever more intent on suppressing and ignoring.
To develop this movement, we call for unionization in all workplaces as a tool to win dignified labor and wage conditions, never forgetting that any achievement gained can and will be snatched away at the first opportunity by capitalists. We call for all unionized workers to support the demands of all other workers, whether they are unionized or not. We believe that workers should oppose all imperialist military ventures and support all struggles against wars and military intervention.
To participate consciously in the class struggle, workers need to develop a political leadership accountable to themselves as a class. Only through the free exchange of ideas and information and the development of programs centered on struggle can the necessary strategies and organizational tactics be advanced. This absolute freedom to discuss all ideas must be in the service of solidarity that will allow us to act in concert. Workers’ democracy entails complete freedom of debate, with all stakeholders enjoying an equal voice in the decision-making process. While the rights of the minority to hold their positions is preserved, once decisions have been made, we act together.
We advocate for the principle of workers’ democracy as a guide to the systematic renewal of the leadership of workers’ organizations, from trade unions to political organizations. All members of workers’ organizations are agents of their construction, and this is the only guarantee of survival. The same democratic principles are necessary for every organization dedicated to struggle, including organizations of youth, students, and oppressed communities. The values of the socialist society to which we aspire, in which democratic freedoms are extended to all, must permeate the daily practice of organizations in struggle.
VII
For an end to the interference of religion and churches in public life, healthcare, and education.
As Marxists, while we recognize the right of all oppressed people to believe as they choose and to enjoy their traditional practices, we consider religious institutions in nearly every instance to be instruments of the ruling classes’ ideological control over workers and the oppressed. In the U.S., 87% of federal legislators identify as Christian, far exceeding the proportion of Christians in the U.S. population.
We have not forgotten President Donald Trump’s victorious stroll across Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square only minutes after law enforcement had violently cleared it of demonstrators against police brutality to brandish a Christian Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. This is an extreme example of how the ruling class uses religious institutions to justify violent oppression. More generally, religious institutions, in their interpretations of nature, the cosmos, and human experience as elements of an unchangeable divine creation serve to validate social inequalities, thereby becoming complicit in atrocities committed by the rulers of the world. Religious leaders promote passive submission to the established order, and despite ostensible legal separation, church and state maintain common material interests.
Too often have churches used their spiritual authority to perpetuate systems of oppression. Churches claim to be repositories of moral wisdom, and they use this authority to prescribe rules of social behavior, denying rights to groups with different sexual orientations or gender identities, while protecting priests accused of child sexual abuse and blessing repressive and dictatorial regimes. Churches, despite revolutions in the sciences, continue to uphold false and fabricated assertions about the provenance and nature of the universe, all in service of the imperialist bourgeoisie’s war on human rights.
For this reason, we absolutely oppose the participation of these religious institutions and leaders in political life, health services, and public education, and demand an end to the tax exemption of religious institutions. We advocate for a scientific and socialist education based on a dialectical materialist conception of history and human society. This does not prevent us from speaking out against any form of discrimination against individuals for religious reasons.
VIII
For the political independence of the working class.
In the United States, the current political system allows workers and the oppressed to participate in a limited way to determine the allocation of social resources by casting votes for candidates and measures put forth by one of two capitalist parties – Democrats or Republicans. These parties, however, are much more than collections of candidates that represent different points of view. They are the institutions through which the ruling class – the imperialist bourgeoisie – of the United States exerts its political control.
The Republican Party, the more overtly reactionary of the two, puts forth candidates and policies that are more obviously nationalistic and militaristic, thereby maintaining the support of more reactionary elements of U.S. society. The Democratic Party – while also a frighteningly reactionary organization – puts forth candidates and policies that pander to the working class. Despite their apparent differences, these two parties collaborate to administer the interests of the U.S. bourgeoisie, locally, nationally, and internationally.
Clearly, if we are to revolutionize society, we workers must organize ourselves independently of all capitalist parties and never place the slightest trust in any bourgeois leader or organizer. In the final analysis, our interests as workers and oppressed people are diametrically opposed to the interests of the bourgeoisie. We do not believe in well intended bosses or good or “socially responsible” capitalists.
This is why we stand for the political independence of the U.S. working class from the two parties of the US imperialist ruling class, Democrats and Republicans. One or the other of these parties might, at times, appear closer to the working class, but this is only a ruse designed to deceive workers. In the end, both Democrats and Republicans guard the imperialist way of life. Both support military actions against other nations, police enforcement within the country, and ultimately offer nothing to the working class and the oppressed.
We will, on occasion, support independent working-class organizations and coalitions offering a political alternative to the parties of the ruling class. We do not believe, however, that it is possible to transform society through elections, nor is it sufficient to have working-class candidates and politicians. Electoral politics can’t change the underlying economic structures of society or the class nature of the state.
IX
For the abolition of the police, immigration enforcement, and all repressive state apparatuses.
The intensification of repression under recent U.S. administrations exemplifies the trajectory of capitalist decay. Under the Trump Administration, we see the systemic use of ICE not only to detain and deport undocumented immigrants, but to silence political dissent: targeting activists, separating families, and operating secret detention centers with impunity. Perhaps most chillingly, plans for concentration-style detention camps, such as those proposed in the Florida Everglades—marked a new stage in the criminalization of migration. The Trump administration also wants to revoke birthright citizenship, undermining a legal protection long used to pacify working-class discontent.
These developments are not deviations or personal aberrations: they are the logical outcome of a decaying capitalist-imperialist system that can no longer guarantee democratic norms or human rights. Only a mass international movement of workers and the oppressed can dismantle this machinery of terror and replace it with institutions rooted in justice and solidarity.
We call for the dissolution of the US army, the repurposing of all weapons manufacturing capabilities, the closure of all detention centers and prison facilities, the dismantling of local and state police forces, and the reallocation of public funds away from this repressive apparatus and toward providing social services in and out of the U.S.
We further call for the demilitarization of schools and for an end to the recruitment of youth to the armed forces through programs like ROTC.
We further call for the establishment of autonomous arbitration boards of workers and involved communities to settle disagreements and conflicts between individuals, families, groups and communities.
In this way, we aim challenges the dominance of state institutions through the development of democratic community agencies in all aspects of society from local to global issues.
X
For a socialist, ecologically sustainable, and egalitarian society.
For generations, revolutionary Marxists have said that we only need to change the capitalist ruling class with a ruling class composed of workers and the oppressed to build socialism, believing that the material conditions established under capitalism had already provided the economic and social basis for building socialism. We said this, and believed it, because too many of us were projecting the conditions of advanced capitalist countries to everywhere in the world.
We did not understand the damage that was being inflicted on the environment by capitalism’s emphasis on endlessly increasing industrial production, a trend that revolutionary Marxists intended to continue under socialism to improve the living standards of the international working class. We now understand that is not the way forward. We now seek to organize ourselves so that we can live in harmony with nature and with each other as equals.
Human society emerged from nature and can be viable only under social and material conditions that guarantee sustainability. The capitalist economy is focused exclusively on economic growth, consumption, and profit maximization at the expense of the natural world. The blind inertia of this mode of production has led to the imminent collapse of global ecology.
We understand that it won’t be sufficient to build socialism within the current capitalist infrastructure. Certainly, all the ruling class’s wealth and resources can and should be expropriated, and workers and oppressed people should be in control of the construction of a society that supports the survival of all living species on the planet. Socialism, however, is no longer limited to the distribution of the accumulated wealth of capitalists. Socialism today means the coordination of our survival and of our resistance to social regression. The environment will not be restored to its pristine, pre-capitalist conditions. The damage is too deep.
Socialism is our best opportunity to save the greatest number of people and species, as well as the shared treasure of human knowledge and experience. Socialism for us is finding the best possible way to look after each other and to plan for the best possible outcome for all. In this program, we call for the abolition of private property, for the expropriation of all capitalist wealth, for the immediate cessation of all contaminating industries, for the dismantling of the arms industry, for the abolition of all repressive forces, for the provision of housing, food, and healthcare to all, for the access to education, culture, science and recreation for all, for massive campaigns against misogyny, patriarchy and racism, and for the creation of local bodies to organize communities in coordination with larger democratically-run organisms. At the same time, we call for all scientific knowledge, technology and infrastructure, as well as the intellectual power of all specialists, to be placed at the service of planning the response and actions to address our devastating environmental crisis.
The capitalist ruling class is the obstacle to making resources available for the struggle against the extinction of life on the planet. The capitalist ruling class is extremely well-resourced and well-organized. To defeat them, we must build an organization as well-resourced and well-organized, and as committed to liberation, as the capitalists are committed to oppression.
We aim to build a mass revolutionary international organization composed of workers and oppressed people mobilized in their struggle for liberation. We want to build an organization led by those most affected by the global climate crisis. We commit to actively resisting the abusive and undemocratic legacy that has characterized so many revolutionary socialist organizations throughout the history of our movement. We will do all of this in service of the liberation of the working class and the building of a socialist and ecologically sustainable society. We are eager to collaborate with other revolutionary organizations that share our objectives.
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