Revolution, actually: Mamdani's election is a class victory in a class war [kkf longread]

Egor Kotkin makes a provocative claim that cuts through the usual noise of election cycles: Zohran Mamdani's victory in New York isn't just a policy win, but a genuine, materialist revolution that the left has failed to recognize because it doesn't look like the revolutions of the past. In an era where the left has spent fifty years reacting defensively to conservative shifts, Kotkin argues that this specific campaign broke the script by introducing the masses to politics as a direct struggle for power, rather than a recruitment drive for elite champions. This is essential listening for anyone trying to understand why the current political moment feels so volatile and why traditional labels are failing to capture the energy on the ground.

The Theory of Change Gap

Kotkin opens by diagnosing a deep intellectual paralysis within the Western left. He argues that since the 1970s, the left has been "constantly on the back foot," ceding ground to a conservative movement that successfully pushed the Overton window backward while the left merely reacted. "Since the 1970s the left has been continuously ceding the ground to the advancing conservatism," Kotkin writes, noting that this has led to a situation where "economic conditions of the 1920s also returned the politics of the 1920s." The core of his argument is that the left's failure isn't due to a lack of effort, but a collapse of theory. The ideas that worked in the 19th and early 20th centuries no longer fit the material conditions of the 21st.

He suggests that the left is stuck in denial, clinging to outdated frameworks. "The theory, the bulk of which originated in the XIX century, did work in practice up until the middle of the XX century," he observes, "and allowed for change to humanity on a civilizational scale." But by succeeding, it rendered itself inadequate for the new world it helped create. Kotkin's framing here is sharp: he posits that any successful left politics today must, by necessity, be done "in defiance of the theory" because the theory itself is a relic. This creates a paradox where orthodox revolutionaries reject new victories because they don't match historical blueprints, while the actual activists are too timid to claim the magnitude of what they've achieved.

"Practice is the criterion of truth."

This quote serves as the anchor for Kotkin's critique of dogma. He argues that the left has forgotten that a "right idea" is not one that sounds correct in a textbook, but one that works in the current circumstance. The failure to update the theory has left the movement blind to its own successes, particularly the way Mamdani's campaign bypassed traditional power structures.

A Class Victory, Not a Personality Cult

The piece pivots to the specific mechanics of the New York victory, framing it as a rare historical anomaly. Kotkin argues that the fundamental principle of the class system is that politics is the prerogative of the ruling class, and any attempt by the masses to enter the struggle directly is usually crushed or co-opted. "From Caesar to Trump, a 'champion of the people' should either come from the ruling class or... be coopted," he writes. The danger, he notes, is that when the base empowers a leader from the elite, "the more power the base wins for Trump, the stronger Trump gets and the less control over him the base has left."

In contrast, Kotkin identifies the Mamdani campaign as a true exception. It was led by activists, funded entirely by small donors, and crucially, lacked the Democratic Party establishment's endorsement. "The Democratic Party establishment's refusal to endorse Mamdani's candidacy... turned out to be an accidental gift to the campaign," he explains, freeing the movement from the usual cross-class dependencies that compromise revolutionary potential. This bottom-up nature, organized around shared material interests like affordability, allowed the movement to maintain its class integrity. Kotkin describes this as the transformation of a "class in itself" into a "class for itself," a classic Marxist concept realized in a modern urban setting.

He draws a striking parallel to historical precedents to ground this analysis. "New York 2025 is Paris Commune meets the 1917," he asserts, suggesting that while the tactics differ, the fundamental shift in power dynamics mirrors those pivotal moments. The victory wasn't about seizing the state in a violent coup, but about a political awakening that dethroned the ruling class on a city scale. "The revolutionary XXI century will not be like anything that we know from the past," Kotkin argues, because the historical circumstances that created past revolutions have changed. To demand a repeat of the 20th century is to be like "generals preparing for the last war."

Critics might note that equating a mayoral election in New York with the Paris Commune or the Russian Revolution risks inflating a local political win into a global paradigm shift, potentially setting the movement up for disillusionment if structural power remains elusive. However, Kotkin's point is less about the scale of the victory and more about the nature of the power: for the first time in decades, the movement was not dependent on elite patronage.

"We need to separate revolutionary aesthetics from revolutionary (material) dynamics."

This distinction is crucial. Kotkin warns against getting hung up on the "aesthetics" of revolution—the uniforms, the barricades, the rhetoric of the past—when the real work is in the "material dynamics" of how power is organized and funded. The left's obsession with how a revolution looks has blinded it to how a revolution actually works today.

The Trap of Leaderism

The final section of Kotkin's argument tackles the psychological and linguistic habits that distort left-wing politics: the tendency to personalize collective movements. He argues that human language is biased toward anthropomorphism, making it easier to talk about "Bernie" or "Zohran" than about the complex machinery of a movement. This "leaderism" is a residue of the 20th century, whether from post-Soviet communist traditions or the reality-show nature of modern bourgeois democracy.

Kotkin uses the example of Bernie Sanders to illustrate the danger. When Sanders lost in 2020, the discourse shifted instantly from a movement analysis to a personal one. "'Bernie lost' becomes 'the movement lost,'" he writes, noting that this perspective switch turns criticism of a candidate into "anti-movement criticism." This personalization makes the left vulnerable to narratives that a candidate "overpromised but underdelivered," obscuring the fact that the movement itself may have grown stronger even if the individual lost. He contrasts this with the Mamdani campaign, where the focus on the individual leader threatens to repeat the same error.

He is particularly critical of the post-Soviet Marxist-Leninist tendency to dismiss modern leaders as inevitable traitors. "MLs by default hate every contemporary left politician, seeing in them only traitors in the making," Kotkin writes, suggesting this is a rationalization for their inability to engage with the present. They are waiting for "Lenin, so young, leading them," rather than recognizing the new forms of leadership emerging from the grassroots. The solution, he argues, is to adopt a "movement perspective" that sees the campaign as a continuation of the work built over years, rather than a singular event defined by one person.

Bottom Line

Kotkin's strongest contribution is his insistence that the left must stop judging current events by the aesthetic standards of the past and start analyzing the material conditions of the present. His argument that the New York victory represents a genuine shift in class power dynamics is compelling, even if the comparison to the Paris Commune feels hyperbolic to some. The piece's biggest vulnerability lies in its optimism about the durability of a movement that remains localized; without a clear path to scaling this model, the risk of co-optation remains high. Readers should watch for whether the Mamdani administration can maintain its financial independence and grassroots accountability once the initial momentum of the election fades.

"The revolutionary XXI century has finally begun."

This declaration serves as both a challenge and a call to action: the old theories are dead, and the new revolution is already here, whether the left is ready to recognize it or not.