Class struggle doesn’t depend on the left, because the people with a stake in workers revolution go far beyond the “left”

Class struggle isn’t synonymous with the left; throughout the history of the proletarian struggle, there’s been a fundamental separation between the left and the parts of the communist movement that are effective. Lenin applied the description of “infantile disorder” to what he called “left-wing communism” because communism is distinct from the ideological dichotomies within bourgeois politics. Its goal was never merely to advance whatever is considered to be the most “leftist,” its purpose is instead to advance civilization to the next developmental stage; which is a task that’s impeded when communists stray from their true mission, and compete over who’s most to the “left.”

In the era of the rising multipolar world; where the PRC is building a prosperous and equitable global economy in place of the decaying neo-colonial order; these ostensibly communist elements that remain ideologically dependent on the left are needing to adapt. They have make their stance appear defensible amid historical developments which fundamentally prove this stance wrong. The type of “socialism” they represent conflicts with that of the Communist Party of China, which has only been able to carry out its Belt and Road Initiative due to being guided by a philosophy of revolutionary optimism; a philosophy which many of the same western Marxists who claim to support China don’t share. 

China’s communists came to power by operating with a sense of faith in the people, which incentivized them not to abandon the backward elements of the masses but rather bring them into the struggle. That’s something the predominant elements of modern American Marxism are unwilling to do, which reveals the hidden conflict between their goals and the anti-imperialist cause.

I say this conflict is hidden because among many of the American Marxists who do things like characterize their society’s people as fundamentally reactionary; reject anti-imperialist alliances with anyone outside the “left” niche; or portray the white workers as fundamentally in conflict with the colonized workers; there’s an attitude of admiration for what China and its geopolitical partners are doing. This attitude seems paradoxical, because the global development projects of U.S. hegemony’s challengers are based within thinking that’s profoundly in conflict with the pessimistic dogmatism of these leftists. But the fact that plenty of these leftists have claimed allegiance to these multipolar efforts shows how such political actors are unconsciously trying to compensate for the flaws in their worldview. 

Like the Russian social-chauvinists who came to call themselves “Marxists” in the early 20th century, after it became apparent that Marxism was the thing which would save their society, these pessimistic leftists are trying to make their ideology look compatible with today’s primary global progressive developments.

There are dogmatic opportunists who portray China as imperialist, but they can’t gain as much influence within socialist spaces as the ones who promote dogmatic opportunism while claiming to support China. There’s a reason why Ben Norton and the PSL, which try to act like they’re pro-China, are far larger in their presence than any of the anti-China Maoists: Norton and PSL are better able to appear to be on the right side of history, which makes them much more effective types of controlled opposition. Where they reveal their anti-revolutionary character, though, is in how they act like the class struggle is dependent on the “left”; like the Americans which are the most socially progressive are the ones Marxists should be trying hardest to appeal to. From this idea comes a fundamental conflict between the optimistic, practical multipolar projects which these leftists say they’re on the side of; and the pessimistic, impractical program which they think should define the class struggle in the imperial center.

When a leftist acts like anyone outside the most socially enlightened parts of the people is an enemy who’s not worth building a relationship with, they’ve shown themselves to be willing to condemn the class struggle to failure. They’re denying the reality that the majority of Americans have a primary material interest in the defeat of U.S. imperialism; which works to prevent the American people from becoming connected to the anti-imperialist movement, and to the class struggle more broadly. If you gatekeep what types of workers are defined as compatible with the proletarian struggle, then you’ll give no more than a niche minority of the workers a chance at asserting their material interests.

This need to recognize just how many of the people in our society have extremely good reasons for aiding in the revolution doesn’t just apply to the proletarian majority; it also applies to the elements of the lower levels of capital (such as the ones in the Libertarian Party) which are willing to aid the anti-imperialist cause. There’s huge precedent for workers revolutions incorporating these types of capitalist elements into their efforts; namely in China, which defined the four classes of its post-revolutionary era as the proletariat, the peasants, the petty-bourgeoisie, and the “patriotic capitalists.” 

Even many within the capitalist class were welcomed into the new China, with the only stipulation being that these capitalists use their wealth to contribute to society’s development rather than hold it back. Anyone of any social class can act as a force for progress, so long as they choose to be on the right side of history; which we’re seeing now with the Libertarian Party’s contributions to the struggle against U.S. hegemony.

If the USA were to undergo a socialist revolution, its newfound connection to the Chinese global economic network would in itself represent a spectacular gain for essentially every element of American society; the only ones who would lose are the monopoly capitalists, their terroristic allies in the intelligence centers whose job is to sabotage anti-imperialist projects, and the corporate media pundits whose job is to vilify projects like the BRI. As The Diplomat’s Dingding Chen has written about why joining the BRI would be beneficial to the USA: 

U.S. firms can find some good opportunities in Belt and Road projects, which include infrastructure, financing, environmental, and even energy initiatives. The United States is a leading power in energy and financial services, so U.S. firms should have advantages in Belt and Road projects so long as these projects are open, transparent, and give equal access to all foreign firms. At a time when the U.S. economy is slowly recovering and suffers from a lack of domestic demand, a “going abroad” strategy would provide more stimulus to the sustainable growth of the U.S. economy. Moreover, U.S. domestic infrastructure projects can be improved by embracing Chinese firms and capital, provided they follow U.S. domestic investment and environmental rules.

Under workers democracy, these U.S. firms would likely come under state control, as would most of the rest of the economy; and many of the petty-bourgeois elements which have supported the anti-imperialist cause would object to this, but debates and contradictions are inherent to class struggle. After Americans have defeated their common enemies within the highest levels of capital, they’ll have new questions to confront. Class struggle is a process of change and reinvention, where once you’ve rectified what used to be the primary contradiction, new contradictions take on that predominant role. We shouldn’t fear engaging in this process, we should embrace every task that we encounter throughout it. That’s the only way we can bring about progress of any kind.

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With Zionism losing the narrative war, ruling elites seek to isolate all authentic sources of anti-imperialism

What can the U.S. empire’s narrative managers do when none of the pro-Israel arguments are truly working? When nothing they say or do can prevent millions from demonstrating for Palestine worldwide, or stop young people from abandoning the old Zionist dogmas? Ideally, the Israel narrative would be able to act as a replacement for the Ukraine narrative, letting the empire use a new story after the old one loses its usefulness. That’s what the empire has always done with its routine of rotating villains and heroes; but it can’t do that now, because this proxy war against Gaza wasn’t planned. It was started in reaction to an anti-colonial revolt whose effects the empire can only hope to mitigate. The ability of the empire to influence the popular consciousness has gone down; partly because of the people’s growing disillusionment over Ukraine, and partly because of U.S. hegemony’s decline in both hard and soft power.

When it’s impossible to sufficiently contain the initial backlash towards this proxy war, the best option of the elites is to prevent the people’s spontaneous outrage from bringing about a serious growth in the influence of the authentically revolutionary organizations. Our rulers hope that a sufficient number of the people remain divided, distracted, and detached from the genuine forces of anti-imperialism. Then the war machine will be allowed to continue, starting a war with Mexico if it doesn’t start World War II. The process of austerity will be allowed to keep accelerating, driving even more Americans into poverty. And should the plans of our intelligence centers be realized, the national security state will successfully hunt down anybody who tries to challenge the power structure.

Even though this war, austerity, and repression is going to happen to some extent, we have the ability to reduce the extent to which these evils occur, especially the wars. How much effect we’ll have depends on how well we manage to stop the state from fulfilling its goal to make all authentic dissent irrelevant. We can keep the operations of our orgs going amid the intensifying crackdown, and build a base of mass power which lets us continue to have such momentum. To reach this status of being unbeatable, the most important thing for us to do in the present stage is influence the activist discourse towards favoring serious anti-imperialist practice. 

The state’s controlled opposition groups are trying to gatekeep the pro-Palestine struggle, and discredit all anti-imperialists who aren’t controlled by the Democratic Party. Their goal is to prevent the people from seeing these anti-imperialists as worth building a relationship with, and keep these truly transgressive parts of the movement marginal. We can stop ourselves from being isolated in such a way by not just arguing against the ideas of the compatible left, but expanding beyond it; by establishing a perpetually growing base of mass support that’s not invested in the “left” niche, and therefore isn’t susceptible to the narratives which the gatekeepers put forth about us. 

This is what the African People’s Socialist Party is doing by recruiting from the Black working class, while building all the necessary anti-imperialist alliances. Due to its transgressiveness, the APSP has come under covert attack from the PSL, the most effective source of controlled opposition within Marxist spaces. Amid PSL’s scheduling its Palestine rally at the same time and place as Uhuru’s November 4 DC march, APSP’s publication has observed about the underhanded ways PSL is dividing the anti-colonial cause:

In the past fifteen years, ANSWER has never accepted the Black is Back Coalition’s call to organize their base to participate in the anti-colonial Black People’s March on the White House. This, in and of itself, is a statement of how the PSL/ANSWER has measured the significance of the anti-colonial struggle of black people. It also contextualizes their ability to undermine our anti-colonial struggle with this contending November 4 mobilization…A genuine solidarity with the anti-colonial struggle of African people should have driven PSL/ANSWER to raise in their meetings with other organizations that a Black-led March on the White House, which has taken place on the first Saturday of November for the past 15 years, was scheduled to happen on that same date, with urgent political and practical objectives to defeat a dangerous assault on free speech with implications for the whole anti-colonial struggle.

This bad-faith way of operating that’s default within the modern “left” is why I’ve had to recognize that the types of anti-imperialists who’ve undergone the particular journey which I have; where I started out as a pro-PSL leftist, then learned that’s not the right path; aren’t the primary demographic we need to be reaching. My experience is not one shared by the vast majority of people, as the leftist circles I encountered represent only one little subculture. The primary demographic we need to be appealing to are the types of Americans who otherwise would never get involved in anything political, unless they encounter a movement like ours which offers them a viable way to assert their interests as workers. 

PSL claims it’s doing that, but in practice it’s only reaching people who either are already involved in the activism scene, or are liberals that will only accept the truncated version of “socialism” which PSL represents. To truly get out of the movement and into the masses, we must reject the standard modern U.S. leftist practice of reselling the rhetoric and aesthetics of the Democratic Party. We must appeal to the people not by acting like most of them are liberals whose central concern is stopping Trump, but by connecting with them on what the majority of them are truly concerned with. That being their perpetually declining living standards, which can only be improved if we defeat the U.S. empire and build a workers state. 

That’s the idea idea the Center for Political Innovation and its coalition partners are working to bring to the people with their December 2nd convention in Portland. CPI and those adjacent to it understand that the most revolutionary-compatible elements of the people are not the ones who will be receptive to a “socialist” platform designed to imitate that of the Democrats; if we’re serious about communism, we’re going to put forth a program and image that’s fundamentally distinct from liberal idpol.

The efforts of the PSL and its defenders to isolate Uhuru; and to do the same to Uhuru organizing partners such as CPI; are part of the effort to keep authentic opposition hidden. While the media purposefully ignores the Uhuru case, the gatekeepers within the left work to make Uhuru get as little exposure as possible while attacking its allies. We can beat these narrative control tactics by refusing to be intimidated by the threats from these gatekeepers to “cancel” us; what does it mean to be canceled when all the people who’ve joined in on the campaign against you are part of a niche, one that’s not capable of making most people join in on their efforts? The majority of Americans, especially the workers, lack the social proximity to these political spaces which would make them able to be influenced by the narratives against anti-imperialists. 

The anti-solidarity psyops that the state and its counter-gangs are putting forth can’t be effective if these Americans get brought into the struggle. That’s why my focus is increasingly on making events like the Portland conference, and the upcoming Rage Against the War Machine rallies, succeed at reaching Americans who’ve been alienated from bourgeois politics. It’s among these Americans where we’ll ultimately find most of our friends.

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The state sees those who practice solidarity with both Palestine & Uhuru as the biggest threats

The media is carrying out a blackout of the Uhuru case, so the average person can’t be blamed for not knowing about it. That almost no Americans are at present aware of their government’s attempt to prosecute an African revolutionary organization on fabricated “Russian interference” charges is by the design of the imperialist narrative managers. And if the majority of Americans were to be given access to the information about the case, as anti-imperialists are working to do for them, almost all of them would take Uhuru’s side; we know this because even Tucker Carlson, one of the most right-wing mainstream commentators, has gotten his audience to be outraged at the DOJ’s indictments of Uhuru. Within leftist spaces, though; and even moreso within Marxist spaces; whether someone supports Uhuru should be considered a litmus test. A litmus test for whether we should take them seriously not just as allies to the domestic anti-colonial struggle, but to the Palestinian cause and the other parts of anti-imperialism.

That it’s still an open debate within these spaces as to whether the African People’s Socialist Party deserves respect shows just because the American left has been able to unify behind Palestine, doesn’t mean most of its elements have suddenly given up their unprincipled stances on anti-imperialism. When Ukraine was the main point of discourse instead of Palestine, even the parts of the left that recognized NATO provoked the conflict were arguing that Russia’s fight against Ukrainian fascism and U.S. hegemony shouldn’t be supported. APSP (also called Uhuru) is one of the few U.S. orgs that’s had the integrity to recognize the correctness of Russia’s decision; which is part of why so many leftists have been ignoring the Uhuru case, and repeating the scandal-mongering narratives about Uhuru whenever someone starts talking about it. 

Despite how much the American left proclaimed solidarity with the Black liberation cause in 2020, the events of the last couple years have shown how conditional this solidarity is. Since then, the anti-imperialist struggle has escalated with the Ukraine conflict; and when an African org has acted in the best interests of the anti-colonial cause by taking the right stance on this conflict, most of the left has forsaken that org. Uhuru’s consistency in backing anti-imperialist efforts; and willingness to build the necessary anti-NATO alliances by working with Caleb Maupin’s CPI; are seen by the opportunistic left-liberal actors as reasons to scorn Uhuru. 

That’s why if we manage to start making the case more widely discussed, we can expect backlash and gatekeeping attempts from the figures who most loudly claim to support racial justice. They see Uhuru and its organizing partners as threats to their project at monopolizing organizing spaces, so if Uhuru gets enough narrative power, they’ll join the media in trying to discredit it.

The bigger reason for the left’s apathy about Uhuru, though, is simply that the case isn’t trendy enough. There’s nothing to be gained in terms of fundraising or social media attention from extensively focusing on Uhuru, like there is for Palestine; therefore, the most prominent socialist groups and commentators have seen no reason to put more than a little bit of effort into supporting it. This is why we can only trust the socialist ideological leaders who are consistently promoting solidarity both with Palestine, and with Uhuru; if someone is aware of Uhuru, and still never talks about it (or even worse acts to sabotage it), then they’re not a reliable ally for Palestine either. They only “support” Palestine because they believe the Palestinian cause is able to be co-opted and exploited; we’ve seen this in how ANSWER’s leadership has used Palestine to harm Uhuru, scheduling a Palestine march at the same time and place that the Uhuru march will take place.

Whether someone sides with Uhuru or PSL in the conflict that’s appeared between the two orgs is a new boundary of demarcation in the class struggle; an issue with long-term significance. In many cases, where someone has placed themselves in this conflict is going to decide whether or not they’ll support the next events of the strategically crucial Rage Against the War Machine coalition. And, ultimately, whether or not they’ll make the right decisions when the struggle has reached its most intense stage; the stage where the prime question we’ll be facing is whether to side with a direct effort at overthrowing the state.

The consistent theme within this series of decisions is loyalty; loyalty towards what best advances the interests of the struggle. At this stage, where the fight against U.S. hegemony is the most impactful part of the struggle, the elements that show themselves to prioritize this fight are the ones the state sees as the biggest threats. (Which is why I consider RAWM, with its project to unify different kinds of anti-imperialists, to be so important.) The only reason why everyone in the RAWM coalition hasn’t so far been targeted to the extent that Uhuru has is because Uhuru most prominently represents the anti-colonial struggle, and is therefore judged to be the most urgently in need of suppression. 

Uhuru’s persecution is intended to act as the prerequisite for when the state carries out its purge of all the other groups and individuals which it sees as a threat. And by “purge,” I don’t only mean more indictments; we could come to a point where the state gets rid of the courts—and the constitution by extension—so that it can wantonly take the lives of those labeled as enemy combatants. If such open barbarity from our own government sounds implausible, think of all the times our government has extrajudicially executed people with drones abroad.

When we see the opportunists disregarding the struggle of the Donbass people against U.S.-backed Ukrainian fascism, or disregarding the struggle of the African liberation movement, it’s a predictor of how they’ll lead the people during that coming moment of peril. By assisting with the media’s effort to keep the Uhuru case lacking in widespread exposure, the Menshevik wing of today’s American left is committing itself to a role as a concealer of our government’s future attacks upon the people. That these elements feel comfortable doing so indicates an intention by the ruling class to let them be safe from the coming great wave of repression, so long as they continue to act as diversions from the genuine vehicles for revolt. 

This is a key part of a larger strategy of concealment, in which the corporate media has been purposefully avoiding coverage of the millions who are marching for Gaza worldwide. If our ruling institutions can minimize awareness both of how big the anti-colonial movement is, and of the principled anti-colonial orgs such as Uhuru, then this movement (and the broader class struggle) has less chance of succeeding.

If you’re a U.S. inhabitant who’s come to know about the work that Uhuru and its adjacent orgs are doing; and feels obligated to assist in this work; then my foremost advice is that you prepare for the long-term situations you’re going to encounter due to having chosen this path. The situations where you, your organizing partners, and your community are being confronted by an imperial state that will do anything to stop you. Get ready to have to start organizing underground; build the local connections needed to ensure your cadre isn’t isolated when it needs allies most; go beyond the occasional gun range training, and put together a daily fitness routine to make your preparations constant. (That’s only a tiny component of the training we’ll realistically need to do.) 

The more of a serious organizational structure we’ve built by the time the big moment of escalation comes, the more of a chance we’ll have for not just living through the turmoil; but making the state into the one that has to fight for its existence. We’ve already assumed a role that entails a particular set of challenges; if we embrace these challenges, we’ll prevail.

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If you appreciate my work, I hope you become a one-time or regular donor to my Patreon account. Like most of us, I’m feeling the economic pressures amid late-stage capitalism, and I need money to keep fighting for a new system that works for all of us. Go to my Patreon here. 

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PSL misleads its own organizing partners, manipulates Palestinian groups into helping with attack on Uhuru

PSL and ANSWER are notorious for co-opting organically created mass struggles; they routinely insert themselves into events related to the fights of oppressed peoples, and make their brand excessively visible so that they can gain in fundraising and recruitment. This is an observation I’ve heard from former PSL members who’ve become disillusioned with the org’s lack of willingness to do anything more than what’s necessary for maintaining its own business model; as has become the default for mainstream leftist orgs in the USA, PSL and its leader Brian Becker seek to organize for its own sake. Which amounts to a practice of opportunism. 

This model has worked well so far, but what about when this opportunism’s potential for causing harm towards the struggles of oppressed peoples becomes apparent in a more widespread way? When both the domestic and global parts of the fight against colonial subjugation have reached a critical point, and ANSWER again tries to carry out its usual routine of co-optation? What could happen now that we’ve reached this point is an irrecoverable drop in the org’s reputation.

When PSL’s leadership was asked to join Black freedom fighters in this November 4th DC march against the Uhuru indictments; then Becker responded by scheduling a Palestine demonstration at the same time and place as Uhuru’s march; these leaders didn’t just do wrong towards Uhuru. They also did wrong towards the Palestinian groups which are organizing with ANSWER. This was obvious from the start, as using the Palestinian cause in a way which harms the Pan-African cause hurts the interests of both; what’s become apparent in the last few days is that ANSWER has done so by actively misleading its Palestinian partners. 

As the Black is Back Coalition has concluded in a statement from this week—which was made in response to PSL’s attempt at defending itself—PSL’s leaders were aware that the Uhuru march would take place on the 4th, but omitted this fact while communicating with the Palestinian groups. These groups were trusting ANSWER to give them the proper guidance on when and where to hold this event, then ANSWER led them into unwittingly helping damage the African liberation struggle; and, by extension, the Palestinian struggle too. 

The Black is Back Coalition (whose statement is featured in Uhuru’s newsletter) has found this to be true because Becker and the others had prior knowledge that this African freedom march is an annual affair. The Coalition has invited ANSWER to assist in the march many times over the years, and ANSWER has disregarded all of these requests. So Becker was well aware that the march would happen, then scheduled his own event at the worst possible time for Uhuru.

That’s why it was so dishonest of ANSWER to have tried to defend itself by arguing that it’s only one group among a larger coalition that mainly consists of Palestinians; the context this argument leaves out is that ANSWER has deceived these Palestinians into contributing to an action which undermines African liberation. As Black is Back observes about the blame-shifting nature of ANSWER’s statement:

ANSWER, Becker and PSL are attempting to hide their treacherous, interventionist role in splitting the Palestinian and African liberation struggles by blaming the contradiction on Palestinians. We are clear that our contradiction is not with the Palestinians, with whom the African Liberation Movement has always stood shoulder-to-shoulder in deep anti-colonial unity. Our contradiction is with the opportunist white left, which continues to demonstrate their willingness to isolate the Palestinian people and struggle by separating it from other anti-colonial struggles, including Africans in the United States. On more than one occasion we have heard from Palestinian organizers who are involved in the March on Washington that the PSL and ANSWER insisted on the date of November 4, telling them that no earlier date was available because of “previously scheduled events.” This gives lie to the statement by Becker and PSL/ANSWER that it was the urgency of the war on the Palestinians that made it necessary for PSL/ANSWER to attack the struggle of Black people with this contending mobilization.

For Becker—and for the people adjacent to him who are committed to defending his project—these decisions are justified from the perspective of building what they view as the optimal type of left-wing organization. As is apparent from studying the theories of PSL’s ideological predecessor Sam Marcy; and from seeing how Marcy’s modern adherents have interpreted these theories as justification for liberal tailism; this organization they seek to build is one which holds the maximum amount of mainstream influence which self-described socialists can have within bourgeois “democracy.” The foremost priority of Becker’s clique is to get as much electoral relevance as possible; which can seem like a sound goal, unless you consider which sorts of actions you’ll be incentivized to engage in if you view electoralism as more important than anything else.

If you believe this, you can rationalize actions exactly like this one; you can justify sabotaging groups that don’t deserve it, like Uhuru, for the sake of getting more donations and exposure in anticipation of the next election. It’s a way of thinking that encourages selfishness, making you view the movement not as a joint effort among different revolutionary groups which requires mutual respect; but rather as a competition for who can get the most money and media attention.

This is the corporate type of organizing practice that’s conducive towards the survival of a socialist group which isn’t willing to take on the costs of doing what genuinely threatens the state. Uhuru, and the country’s other pro-Russian orgs, have committed to being far greater state targets than they would be if they were to compromise; if they were to join with the mainstream American left in disavowing Russia’s act of defiance against the hegemon. For orgs like these ones, the rational thing to do is to work towards maximizing their potential for winning in a direct confrontation with the state. Which requires both building a relationship with the broad masses of people who exist outside the “leftist” niche; and privately training their cadres for the moment when they’ll have to defeat the state by any means necessary, or else be crushed. Neither of which are things that PSL is doing, precisely because it’s not interested in bringing the struggle towards a stage where such victories are possible. PSL and its defenders are comfortable with keeping the American socialist movement stagnant, as it’s been for decades.

Should we sufficiently work to expose PSL’s anti-solidarity activities in regard to the African liberation movement—and to the Palestinian cause by proxy—then PSL will become ineffective at fulfilling its role as the prime controlled opposition within Marxist circles. At this stage in the class conflict, PSL is also the most important source of controlled opposition in general; because it’s the org that’s most effective at diverting the communists who could have otherwise become members of a vanguard towards ineffectual reformism. 

This exceptional amount of potency that it holds in advancing this task is due to how well it’s designed to resemble a trustworthy source of communist leadership; how unlike CPUSA, DSA, or FRSO, it repudiates the idea that Washington’s challengers are imperialist powers. That’s what got me to trust PSL for years, up until PSL disavowed Russia’s anti-fascist action and then attacked the Rage Against the War Machine coalition. This latest incident has only confirmed I made the right choice by deciding to no longer work with PSL.

At this point in the decline of the U.S. empire’s narrative control; where the Zionists are unable to prevent a sufficient global backlash towards their crimes, and the White House is scrambling for a new way to sell the failed Ukraine narrative; the empire’s best hope is to portray its controlled opposition groups as the sole sources of hope. A growing amount of Americans are desperate for a way to help save the people of Gaza from extermination, and this mass radicalism can be neutralized simply by diverting them towards helping the PSL. That’s why the media is carrying out a blackout of the Uhuru case: as long as the average person remains unaware of what the state is trying to do to Uhuru, the persecution campaign and the controlled opposition “socialists” who enable it are going to keep succeeding. We can avoid this by raising awareness of the Uhuru trial, and of how Becker’s actions have made Uhuru less able to defend itself.

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If you appreciate my work, I hope you become a one-time or regular donor to my Patreon account. Like most of us, I’m feeling the economic pressures amid late-stage capitalism, and I need money to keep fighting for a new system that works for all of us. Go to my Patreon here. 

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Expanding our reach beyond the “left” niche is how we can overcome pessimism, adventurism, & movement stagnation

What happens when a circle of people who desire social change have conditioned themselves to view the people as fundamentally reactionary? When they act like the potential for change to happen is far less substantial than it actually is, because they in effect act like anyone who deviates from the orthodoxy of their exclusive club is incompatible with revolutionary politics? If they don’t become apolitical, and convinced that the destructive process of capitalism is impossible to stop, then they invest themselves in “solutions” which go against what can actually provide hope for workers victory. 

This is why among many of my fellow pro-China American communists, there’s an attitude that hope exclusively exists within either one of the major “left” orgs, or a practice of fetishizing armed struggle. These types of communists are aware that great working examples of socialism exist today, so they’re not able to be brought towards the false solution of anarchism or the nihilistic attitude of total hopelessness about any revolutionary prospects. Yet because they’re still invested in the notion that left-liberals are the only ones we should ever be working with; and that therefore the majority of Americans aren’t worth trying to reach until after socialists have won state power; they expect our task to be vastly harder than it has to be.

They grasp the reality that socialist projects continue to exist, and this gives them more optimism than most other western leftists have, but they haven’t recognized the other big truth which Marxists in the core must recognize: that the people have much more revolutionary potential than someone with the pessimistic mindset would assume. Their view of our society makes them only willing to trust the others within their own subculture, which isn’t a healthy way to think for a socialist—nor for anyone else.

By rejecting the strategy of building a true coalition against monopoly and U.S. hegemony; by forsaking most of the allies they have the potential to gain within the struggle against imperialism; they’ve willfully handicapped their ability to be effective agents within the struggle. Which has naturally led to them embracing an ideology which is akin to the one of a counter-gang; that being a controlled opposition group which the capitalist ruling class cultivates in order to manage popular discontent, diverting the people towards reactionary endeavors.

The thinking of a counter-gang is oriented not around what’s best for the class struggle, but around what advances the group’s momentary interests and conflicts. And when a developing radical who’s being guided by such a non-strategic, insular mentality becomes aware of the physical requirements within our revolutionary task; when they find out how great the violent powers of the state and its gangs are; they can be led towards injecting an adventurist component into their ultra-left practice. This is the error I was engaging in during my first years as a Marxist; not because I was advocating for people to pursue any militant activities which aren’t strategically necessary, but because I was advocating for turning cadres into armies while not understanding the steps which will be necessary for bringing the struggle towards its most militant stage. 

I was being mentored by Democratic Party tailists who think that PSL and its left opportunist practice represent the solution. As a consequence, whenever I promoted militancy training, I was seeking to prepare us for an eventual stage within the struggle which would never come as long as people followed the model of my former mentors. As long as we isolate ourselves from the people; and try to build influence within a niche subculture, rather than seriously reaching into a broader demographic; we’re not going to get to the point where we can defeat the state. 

That the liberal tailists are invested in the insular activism model makes them feel like the needless hardships this model creates are inevitable; they’ve resigned themselves to a scenario where they’re trapped within a perilously tumultuous near-future America, without the allies and popular momentum they would need in order to gain an advantage. The problem they have is self-fulfilling, with their pessimistic attitude being guaranteed to put them in a bad situation that will then seem to vindicate their bleak expectations.

The radicals who stay within this state of perpetually preparing for the most intense moments of the struggle; while working to hold the struggle back from ever progressing towards those moments; inevitably take on the same role which members of a counter-gang have. They find themselves aggressively pursuing dire struggle, while operating within an environment that keeps failing to become favorable towards their goals. 

Many of them respond to this by retreating into Menshevist thinking, and prioritizing electoralism above all else in the hope that this will one day make their insular model effective. But if they go in an even more foolish direction, they start turning their militant mentality towards attacking their ideological rivals within organizing spaces. If these attacks don’t consist of vandalism or assault, they consist of denunciations, based within “criticisms” that lack principles or rigorous factual investigations behind them. The tragedy of such sectarian conflict scenarios is that the targets of the ultra-lefts could offer these adventurists the strategic solutions required for them to actually become effective historical agents, if they would only listen.

Adventurism is what a radical often resorts to when they discard the wisdom from Mao that “As for people who are politically backward, Communists should not slight or despise them, but should befriend them, unite with them, convince them and encourage them to go forward.” As well as this wisdom from Lenin, which follows that same reasoning regarding the need to not discard the forces we depend on: “a certain ‘reactionism’ in the trade unions is inevitable under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Not to understand this means a complete failure to understand the fundamental conditions of the transition from capitalism to socialism. It would be egregious folly to fear this ‘reactionism’ or to try to evade or leap over it, for it would mean fearing that function of the proletarian vanguard which consists in training, educating, enlightening and drawing into the new life the most backward strata and masses of the working class and the peasantry. On the other hand, it would be a still graver error to postpone the achievement of the dictatorship of the proletariat until a time when there will not be a single worker with a narrow-minded craft outlook, or with craft and craft-union prejudices.” 

Because the anti-imperialist movement in today’s USA is as important for the class struggle as the trade unions were in Lenin’s Russia, within our context we can substitute “the antiwar orgs” for “the trade unions.” It’s only when we’ve understood this reality about how important the anti-imperialist struggle is; and how this importance it holds creates a mandate for us to leave our activism “comfort zones”; that we can do any kind of revolutionary preparation in a serious way. Because unless you’re using the present moment to build towards workers victory; rather than staying invested in an activism model which keeps the class struggle stagnant; whatever physical training you do can at best protect you from the reactionary backlash. You’re not going to be given the opportunity to use this training in a proactive way, as opposed to the reactive way where you’re simply defending yourself. 

If American Marxists remain isolated from all the other counter-hegemonic forces; and thereby isolated from the majority of the people; then our movement is going to remain too weak to have hope for challenging state power, and reactiveness is going to be the only thing we’ll ever engage in. Should we stay willfully impotent, the reactionaries are going to be able to keep us purely on the defensive, and without hope for victory. We must choose to do what’s necessary for winning.

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The forces of illiberalism are imperialism’s primary challengers. To win, they’re having to unify.

Above: Palestinians in Hebron

What anti-imperialists in America need to learn from the events of the last couple years; wherein anti-colonial forces from Burkina Faso to the DPRK to Palestine have sided with Russia against the hegemon; is not just that we should also support all countries which resist imperialism. It’s also that we should unite with all the anti-liberal elements within our own society which are compatible with us, forming a united front against the liberal order that we make as big as possible. Within the American left’s spaces of dogmatic opportunism, there are Marxists who reject both of these lessons; as well as ones who recognize the need for supporting all anti-imperialist forces globally, yet still reject the idea of an illiberal coalition. 

We can’t convince every one of these leftists, but another important lesson in effective revolutionary practice is that we don’t need to; the class struggle isn’t dependent on the “left” spaces, and there are tens of millions of Americans outside these spaces who have potential to be brought into our resistance effort.

The idea we need to communicate to these masses of disillusioned workers (so they don’t get deceived by the arguments of the insular left orgs) is that when you look at our situation strategically; when you search for which elements of our society share an interest in defeating the imperial state; you find that revolution isn’t going to come from the “left.” Leftists who decide to defy the dogmas of their social circles can be part of it, but the force that overcomes our ruling institutions is going to have to come from a broader range of places than one ideological element. 

To win, this force is going to need to draw power from many of the same people who the Democrats and their lackeys say we should blankedly reject. Not everyone from the MAGA and libertarian crowds are people we can expect to get on our side, as there are elements among them that are obstinately Zionist or obsessively anti-communist. The types we should be looking for, regardless of how they label themselves, are the ones who show themselves to be willing to centrally prioritize what’s most strategically important for advancing the class struggle; which at the present stage is the fight against U.S. hegemony. 

If we recognize that what someone calls themselves is secondary to whether they seek to rectify the world’s primary contradiction, that being the domination by a genocidal imperialist parasite state, then we’ll empower ourselves to gain a much greater strategic advantage. And the fight against U.S. hegemony isn’t the sole thing we can unite with these kinds of non-left elements on; they also support the fight to abolish the three-letter agencies, the fight against big tech, the fight to end the war on whistleblowers, and the fight against big pharma. That reactionary demagogues seek to exploit these issues doesn’t negate the potential for the Americans who’ve gained the beginnings of revolutionary consciousness; who’ve already learned enough to reject the key narratives of the liberal order; to contribute to the struggle.

This is why the communists who’ve decided to expand their outreach beyond the left now find themselves on the side of those who are helping Uhuru’s efforts to resist state persecution, rather than those who are harming these efforts out of opportunism. The Marxists who’ve embraced an alternative to the insular activist model have come to a place where they can see actual progress.

The parallel to this that we can find within the anti-imperialist struggles of the peripheries is the phenomenon where resistors of colonialism across the globe; who naturally include many communists and social progressives; have sided with Russia even though the country’s present government is neither communist nor socially progressive. These anti-imperialists have backed Russia for the same reasons Karl Marx sided with Lincoln and the Union in its conflict with the Confederacy; these reasons being not only that the victory of the Union would obviously bring a better outcome, but also that the political element Lincoln represented was one which had revolutionary potential. And this potential needed to be nurtured by socialists, so that more people could be brought towards aiding in the class struggle.

That Lincoln’s supporters were primarily white settlers didn’t make them unable to partner with the emancipated Black southerners in bringing about one of the biggest advancements for racial equality in the country’s history. There was a distinction between them and the whites on the reactionary side, who vilified northern white Republicans as “carpetbaggers” that supposedly were only helping Black southerners out of opportunism. What modern ultra-lefts do when they dismiss the reality of Marx’ pro-Lincoln sentiments is in effect conflate the whites who were on the right side of history; with the whites who formed the Ku Klux Klan and worked to undo the progress made by the interracial alliance. 

The socialists supporting Lincoln at the time weren’t uncritically endorsing everything about him; they were finding the revolutionary elements of his policies, and also of the social base that backed those policies. The equivalent is the case when we see anti-colonial demonstrators displaying pictures of Putin, or flying the Russian flag. Not only are Putin’s policies having an overall positive effect on the global anti-imperialist movement; but more importantly, his supporters represent a massive part of the worldwide social base behind the resistance against the hegemon. That’s why it’s not even accurate to consider Operation Z “Putin’s war;” he’s only the one who happened to be in charge when the majority of the Russian people mandated that action be taken against U.S.-backed Ukrainian fascism. He’s merely a symbol of something that’s almost infinitely bigger than him, something that’s accelerating the transition away from U.S. hegemony.

There are illiberal elements that communists shouldn’t ever be willing to unify with, such as actual racial supremacist fascists. If we act like every illiberal element that’s to our right may as well be Nazism, though, we ironically undermine our ability to defeat the Nazis (which these days predominantly exist as pro-Ukrainian liberal tools anyhow). It’s our job to identify the progressive ideas within the illiberal elements which aren’t “leftist”; to build a movement which brings in those among these elements who are willing to take these ideas to their logical conclusions. Many of the libertarians and conservatives who’ve opposed aid to Ukraine can come to the conclusion that to be consistent with this anti-imperialist stance they’ve taken, they’re going to need to also oppose aid to Israel, as well as reject the right-wing fixation on fighting communism. 

That there are self-described libertarians and conservatives in antiwar activist spaces who’ve come to these conclusions shows the power of the anti-imperialist cause to unify illiberal minds. And like is the case for the leftists who aren’t going to give up their investment in dogmatic opportunism, we don’t need to convince the kinds of conservatives who will never stop prioritizing the culture war over anti-imperialism. We only need to find unity with the people who have the integrity to commit to the struggle against the hegemon; which is the struggle that’s going to need to succeed if we want victory against all the domestic evils that these Americans seek to defeat. When we defeat the hegemon, it won’t be the end of all debates and contradictions, including within the American movement that helped end U.S. hegemony; that doesn’t mean this movement isn’t worth aiding. If we win this fight, the possibility will appear for us to win all the other fights within the class struggle.

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If you appreciate my work, I hope you become a one-time or regular donor to my Patreon account. Like most of us, I’m feeling the economic pressures amid late-stage capitalism, and I need money to keep fighting for a new system that works for all of us. Go to my Patreon here. 

To keep this platform effective amid the censorship against dissenting voices, join my Telegram channel.