In thinking about the present clashes between Chinese security forces and protesting Chinese people, it is useful to remember that at the time of the Soviet implosion and since then, China’s President Xi Jinping has insisted that the cardinal mistake of then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was his promotion of glasnost and encourgement of popular democracy. In contrast, Xi, drawing from his study of Soviet experience, drew the opposite lesson, that is, the main political imperative of the CPC is to consolidate the party’s supremacy and control over every area of life.

Needless to say, this mindset and policy has lead to the constriction of democracy, democratic rights, and public discussion, as we are seeing once again in the streets of Shanghai and other cities in China.

China can claim many successes, some historic in nature, but the development of socialist democracy – broad scale participation in every aspect of life and determination of public policy, not least in the workplace – isn’t one of them. And without that, socialism becomes hollow and a caricature of itself.

What we are seeing – and the election results bear it out – is a reenergized Democratic Party at the grassroots and leadership levels as well as affiliated organizations. It’s uneven as these sort of things are and requires further extension and consolidation – politically and organizationally -, but it strikes me as undeniable. This development should be welcomed by the many strands of the anti-MAGA coalition, including the left.

We tend to see mass upsurges and rebellions from below as occurring outside the framework of elections. At the point of production, in the workplace, in the streets. But isn’t that too restrictive and limited? I would make a case that what we saw on Election Day was a mass popular upsurge – organized and spontaneous – of remarkable breath and depth against the MAGA movement. The marching of tens of millions to cast their vote for democracy, democratic governance, and democratic rights was, moreover, every bit as authentic as street and strike actions, took place on a scale that makes it unique, and possesses positive consequences in the near and longer term that few other actions can claim.

My point here isn’t to diminish the latter – street and strike actions -, but only to recast how we see the struggle in the electoral arena in our political imagination and practice.

The claim that the naked aggression of the Putin regime against Ukraine is simply reactive and defensive – nothing more than a proxy war – persists among some on the left. That Putin might have his own imperialist, aggrandizing, empire building ambitions, that Ukraine has a right to independence and peaceful development never enters their calculus, trapped as they in old frames of understanding. Nor do they even hint that Russian withdrawal from Ukraine is at the core of any meaningful negotiations and settlement.

I can’t add much to the obituary, other than to say what Richard possessed in abundance was uncommon courage. He was unusually modest and soft spoken, but had no hesitation to speak truth to power. In that – and others ways as well – he set a good example for the rest of us as we carry on in life.