Drag thinks the precise opposite. That the parties Lenin discussed weren’t electoral parties. The meaning of the word party back then isn’t the same as now. Nowadays parties compete in electoralism. Organisations like Extinction Rebellion or the Proud Boys, which operate outside the electoral system, are not what we would call parties today. And yet Lenin’s “parties” are more similar to XR than to the Greens. Drag thinks you’ve been misled by a bad translation from the English of a century ago to the English of today.

Drag 100% agrees with the strategy of creating socialist organisations outside of the government. Creating socialist organisations inside the government is more complicated. It’s good in most places, but not in America. And it isn’t what Lenin told you to do.