Above: members of the American Communist Party provide aid to the people of Los Angeles during the city’s unprecedented fires; images shared by ACP California
Our ruling class is engineering the collapse of society. It wants the destruction of entire communities to increasingly be a normal event, which is consistent with how it’s facilitated the demolition of Gaza. Amid the destabilization of the climate, and the looming prospect of ecological crisis, the monopoly finance capitalists do not view the masses as worth saving. They intend to sacrifice us, because for capitalism to carry on, there needs to be a degrowth; the economy, and ultimately the population, must be shrunk. This is the broader agenda behind the California government’s fire response failures, which are the system working as it’s supposed to work.
The super-rich have an interest in letting these catastrophes tear apart our society, which is why they continue to fund foreign wars instead of rescuing the USA’s own people. But there are certain people who’ve already gained the means to go against this project, and pool their resources so that the disaster victims get enough aid. And these people are among the ones who our government desires to repress the most.
The American Communist Party is following the practice of the Black Panther Party, which carried out community aid specifically with the goal of exposing the system’s inadequacies. Communist organizations like these ones give people the services that the capitalist state refuses to provide, showing the masses who their friends are. And today, as the state neglects a population that’s suffering through ever-worse traumas, groups like them have an ever-larger role to fill. The more our government officials purposefully fail the people who are experiencing displacement, the loss of their possessions, and even the deaths of their loved ones, the closer these officials bring our society’s revolutionary moment.
They’re not just exposing the system’s brokenness (which is already obvious to the average person anyhow), but also creating situations where the system’s enemies can prove themselves to the masses. In dark times like these, where more and more of the masses feel helpless because of their government’s betrayals, those who come to their aid will be recognized as heroes. The families and communities they helped during the crucial moments will remember them, then help them in turn.
So what happens when the state comes for the communists behind these aid efforts, and for all who fight on the same side as them? Will the state succeed in taking away one of the people’s only reliable sources of help, and making the collapse even more hellish? Not if the ones who are fighting for the masses prepare to resist, and work with the masses in building up a counter-force against the repressive machine. Not if the revolutionaries fulfill their duty to master secret work, and create structures designed to survive a crackdown. Not if we follow the examples of the historic dissenting groups which have successfully gone underground, and continued the struggle within that clandestine framework.
Revolutionaries will not have to be alone in these efforts at defying tyranny; if they put in the work to win the masses, they’ll have millions of supporters to lean onto. These recent communist aid efforts have shown how easy it can be to build that kind of popular support; when you demonstrate yourself to be someone people can rely on, they’ll come to respect you. Just because U.S. communists haven’t yet gained the respect of millions, doesn’t mean they aren’t on the trajectory towards achieving this. And the more people they win over, the better they’ll be able to navigate a scenario in which dissidents need to operate below-the-surface.
We still must do all we can to try to prevent such a scenario. The longer we have our most basic liberties, the better we’ll be able to equip ourselves for the revolutionary moment, and we do have the ability to obstruct these repressive efforts. The African People’s Socialist Party has shown this with its successful fight against the Justice Department’s false Russian conspiracy charges. And it’s notable that besides ACP, APSP is the only other major U.S. communist org which has carried out a serious campaign of community aid; moreover, APSP has had the time to do this for many decades, which is part of why it could rally as much support as it did amid the state’s attacks.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela and his party have physically changed disadvantaged neighborhoods for the better, with the party bringing in business, building a basketball court, converting a condemned building into a community center, and constructing housing for those leaving the prison system. They’ve established regular farmers markets, as well as public gardens. That the party proved itself to the masses this well put it in a much better place to resist repression. If the state were to come for any of this country’s nominally “communist” parties which lack such seriousness, and have spent their time chasing NGO funding rather than committing to community aid, then the repression would have been easier.
The state’s attempted purge began with APSP because this was an org that had successfully brought in a substantial proletarian presence, and therefore could put its pan-African ideas into practice. Omali and his project represent a genuine threat to capitalism, so they became the prime targets; now that they’ve won against the persecution campaign, the state feels all the more desperate to make its counterinsurgency succeed. And so far, the tactic it’s using is to go after activists who are especially vulnerable, whether due to their immigrant status or their lack of institutional support. The state has been charging anti-Cop City protesters with corruption, labeling the Samidoun Palestinian solidarity network a terrorist org, and making bipartisan plans to deport student Gaza protesters. We must mobilize in solidarity with these friends of ours, while preparing to defend against whatever future attacks may come upon ACP, APSP, and the other forces which are building workers' power.
Should the state manage to momentarily defeat the civil liberties movement, and set a precedent for prosecuting all dissident orgs, then the fight won’t be over; not if we’ve had the foresight to form clandestine structures, and to create front groups through orgs like the unions. However, we won’t be able to execute that backup plan if we haven’t already done everything possible to advance the first plan; that being to massively mobilize against every attempt at criminalizing dissent. If this plan fails, then the struggle will be able to continue in a different form; but only if we’ve already been fighting with every bit of our strength to disrupt the repressive operations.
Only through consistent unity, principles, and action can we overcome the enemy’s assaults, and provide the people with the means to overthrow their capitalist dictatorship. The people are waiting for a movement like ours; they see that they have no future under the present system. They’ll embrace us, and assist us in our darkest moments, if we keep helping them through this crisis.
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