For the first time in generations, communists in the United States are at a point where our organizational strength is on track to catch up with that of the strongest communist movements abroad. The Center for Political Innovation is leveraging its growing membership towards increased focus on mass work, and it’s made alliances with many influential forces within the anti-imperialist movement (including ones that are likely to soon get governmental positions). Other communist forces that share the CPI’s vision for leaving behind petty-bourgeois radicalism have launched their own organization (called the American Communist Party), creating new potential for party-building.
The organized left’s investment in liberal identity politics has long kept what we call “Marxism” in America isolated, and separated from the class struggle. But the communists who refuse to embrace this dead-end mode of practice now have the momentum required for rebuilding what the USA’s workers struggle has lost. If things keep going as they are now, we’re going to have a comparable amount of numbers and institutional power to that of communists in places like Russia. As Christopher Helali said amid his participation in ACP’s launch: “We have lots of work, but it’s okay. Work is good, struggle is good. Some of us will last long in the struggle, and some of us will not. Some of us will be persecuted, others might not. Whatever happens, united forwards, backwards never.”
We will prevail, if we can overcome the counterinsurgency that’s being waged by our class enemies. The most powerful wing of our ruling class, the monopoly finance wing, increasingly has a reason to target us. It’s seeing our rise, and it’s no doubt hoping more than ever that it can set the precedents needed to purge dissent. It wants to get away with convicting the Uhuru 3 for “Russian interference,” and thereby criminalize all international anti-imperialist solidarity work. At this moment, we absolutely need to focus on campaigning against the persecution of Uhuru. Even if the September 3 trial does bring that massive blow to our liberties, though, our capitalist dictatorship will have created new risks for itself. Risks that Lenin described:
When the French bourgeoisie makes Bolshevism the central issue in the elections, and accuses the comparatively moderate or vacillating socialists of being Bolsheviks; when the American bourgeoisie, which has completely lost its head, seizes thousands and thousands of people on suspicion of Bolshevism, creates an atmosphere of panic, and broadcasts stories of Bolshevik plots; when, despite all its wisdom and experience, the British bourgeoisie—the most “solid” in the world—makes incredible blunders, founds richly endowed “anti-Bolshevik societies”, creates a special literature on Bolshevism, and recruits an extra number of scientists, agitators and clergymen to combat it, we must salute and thank the capitalists. They are working for us. They are helping us to get the masses interested in the essence and significance of Bolshevism, and they cannot do otherwise, for they have already failed to ignore Bolshevism and stifle it.
We can make the state’s provocations backfire, if we respond correctly. Our key moves within this fight are 1) take advantage of the growing conflicts within the ruling class, and 2) prepare to defend ourselves from whatever violence the state’s counter-gangs try to bring upon us.
As with past succesful revolutions, a crucial element within the power structure that communists need to focus on is the military personnel. And due to how fanatical our ruling class is in pushing for cold war escalations, this task of winning over the armed service leaders (as well as the regular members) is easier than one might think. There’s a disconnect between the mentality that monopoly finance capital has on geopolitics, where China and Russia must be subdued by any means necessary, and the mentality that many within the military have. The military is an illiberal institution in spirit, as it’s based around a collectivist regimented lifestyle and is based around strong belief in a shared idea (that being patriotism). That places it in conflict with the ideology that’s come to dominate within our ruling class, which is philosophical irrationalism. This is the belief that no objective truth or morality exists, and that every person is out for themselves.
It’s this ideological force of destruction and nihilism that’s been desecrating the libertarian, collectivist values which are associated with U.S. patriotism. And it’s for this reason that certain ideological leaders who’ve been in the military, like the retired colonel Douglas MacGregor, have been denouncing what the U.S. empire is doing. They’re against the new cold war, they don’t like how the intelligence agencies have been taking away our constitutional liberties, and they’re looking for a way to get the monopolists behind these things out of power. This shows that the workers can make the disillusioned military elements into our allies; to form a coalition against the war which capital’s highest levels are waging against both other countries, and this country’s own people.
As we build connections with the unions, the most conscious workers, and the broader masses, we must account for these additional types of inroads we’ll have to make. We need to ally with the more illiberal elements of the ruling class, the ones that could go rogue as liberalism expands its effort to purge dissent. As our shared enemy escalates its war against us, we can come to recognize that our mutual interest is in teaming up to fight this enemy. We must unite against these efforts to crush all who challenge liberal fascism. This goes both for the state repression that monopoly finance capital will target us with, and the proxy attacks that this counterinsurgency is also going to involve.
The liberal order has cultivated counter-gangs that share the philosophical irrationalist mindset; that also seek to crush communism, but from a leftist angle. Parenti decried these groups; they’re the types of radical liberals, mainly anarchists, that set themselves up against every serious effort at progressing history to the next stage. Now, with the new cold war and its related psyops, the left anti-communists have been coming to an increasingly radical position in their hostility towards Marxists. As the U.S. State Department spreads narratives about Washington’s geopolitical challengers being “fascist,” they’re applying this label to the communist formations which hold consistent anti-imperialist positions. And the forces of petty-bourgeois radicalism within Marxist circles are repeating these smears; as the ACP’s founding statement says, the liberals within CPUSA have labeled as “fascist” all who go against their opportunistic mode of practice.
The state is going to try to use the groups which share these left anti-communist beliefs for counter-gang attacks. These groups are more favored tools for the ruling class than the right-wing militias, or the official armed forces; they have the cover of claiming to be “anti-fascist,” and of supposedly being aligned with communists. They can’t overcome us, though, because we are ideologically equipped to truly advance the proletariat’s interests. To reject these ultra-left deviations, train our cadres for whatever attacks the counter-gangs direct towards us, and outmaneuver the monopolists. As the state’s proxies intensify their antagonism towards communists, we’ll defend ourselves, and keep building up our strength. As our class enemies turn to repression and state violence, we’ll make our case to the armed service members, and win all within this structure who are willing to defect.
If we take advantage of the opportunities before us, we’ll overcome the counterinsurgency. The key is to recognize just how much revolutionary potential exists among the people, the armed service members, and the parts of the bourgeoisie that have illiberal tendencies. The leftists we’ve broken from don’t understand this, which is why they remain in their cycle of self-imposed defeat. We’re here to free the class struggle from this cycle, and bring the workers to victory.
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