To George Jackson, it was obvious that the USA had already been a fascist state, and that this state would revert to open terror as soon as a threat to capital appeared. This was the reality that he and his partners in the struggle lived through when the FBI systematically killed off the Black Panther Party’s leadership, and turned numerous surviving Black revolutionaries into political prisoners. Jackson’s prescription for how to fight back against fascism was drastic, so much that I won’t directly quote all of what Jackson said about this. He advocated for resistance in an extremely blunt way that I imagine many would agree with, but would be risky to repeat in our current political climate. This shows how much the First Amendment has been eroded. However, we can still study his ideas, and incorporate them into a synthesis on how to fight back against what our government is doing.
Fascism, said Jackson, comes in different dimensions. There’s the idealistic, infantile movement that was created by finance capitalist tools like Hitler and Mussolini. There’s the openly terroristic dictatorship that fascism imposes when it comes to power. Then there’s the fascism that’s become solidified enough for it to disguise itself as democracy, which is how Jackson viewed the conditions of the United States.
About the open terroristic form, Jackson wrote: “The second dimension would come after they’ve seized power, but were yet insecure. That’s the spectacular stage that we see on T.V., that we see in the movies, where doors are kicked down and people are being machined-gunned, herded off to camps– like here in this country, put in jails– the Communist Party banned, and forced to write into their constitution a statement that went like this, ‘Anyone who advocates the violent overthrow of the United States is subject to expulsion from the Party.’” Jackson described how this “spectacular” type of fascism became visible when
a real opposition party did come into existence. The BPP, Black Panther Party. What happened?…They reverted back to the second stage, back to the second dimension. They were kicking doors in and killing people. It’s pretty obvious, it's pretty obvious that mature fascism exists in this country and it exists in disguise…You’ve heard of Ho Chi Minh’s line, I think he wrote it while he was in prison, it goes something like this, in part: “When the prison gates blow open, the real dragon will fly out.” You’ve heard that. Panther was a counter-terror. The first act of terror was committed against us. I understand, I’ve read all the arguments about violence being immature, and violence being non-scientific; but of course, I disagree.
Again, I won’t quote the things he said that were more upfront than this, but the essence of his message is apparent: when the oppressors attack you, it is right to do whatever you need in order to defend yourself. The practice of the BPP reflected this philosophy, and the BPP made sure that everyone saw this practice. Maybe the most iconic photograph of the Panthers is them holding rifles in front of the California capitol. They put forth images and rhetoric designed to show that they were ready for a fight. And this had benefits in certain areas, as it helped gain them attention and recruits. Yet it also meant sacrificing their opportunities for tactical secrecy. This is the biggest problem with a practice of openly advertising your armed activities, moreso than the issue of provoking faster repression; when you show the enemy your greatest strengths, you’ve given them a clear idea of what they’re up against.
This is where the need for a synthesis comes in, because just because the BPP engaged in these errors, doesn’t mean Jackson’s ideas about resistance are wrong. Jackson takes the same position on self-defense that’s advanced by the Palestinian armed resistance, and all the other national liberation struggles which serious revolutionaries act in solidarity with. The Panthers applied this defensive principle in a way that was flawed, but the principle itself is something we need to adhere to. And it’s by examining the BPP’s mistakes that we can figure out how to take example from the party’s successes.
To apply Jackson’s advice for fighting fascism, we must understand that there are different types of state violence and control being advanced simultaneously. We’re definitely seeing a rise in the blunt, spectacular types of ruling-class violence. Yet the American imperial state continues to maintain the kind of normalcy that gives it an inherent advantage over any openly militant revolutionary project. So even though the present conditions make serious militancy appropriate, even moreso than they’ve been in the “normal” eras of capitalism, to brazenly display such militancy would tactically backfire. This was true in the time of the Panthers, and it’s even truer now, when surveillance technology has advanced exponentially compared to just a few decades ago.
It’s necessary to emphasize this need for caution in what we do, and in what we show, because at the moment there is a risk that organizing spaces will soon come to be majorly infected with adventurism. Adventurism of a particularly dangerous kind, where ultra-leftist forces are able to exploit the fears of a crackdown and rally organizers towards above-ground illegal actions. This is the role of “antifa” as it actually exists: to get activists to walk into the traps that the state’s counterinsurgency has set for them. We need to fight against any efforts at making organizing “lumpenized,” where a political project takes on the reckless, wanton, and undisciplined traits of criminals who aren’t rooted in the working class.
We absolutely must respond to the state’s escalating violence by becoming much stronger ourselves, and much better able to defend. With every measure that we take as part of this project, though, we must also build up our discipline and our operational security. To get a sense for what kinds of networks are going to be able to carry our organizations through the next phases, we need to look to the Communist Party of South Africa, and the other revolutionary institutions that have survived repressive regimes by mastering secret work. The guides to clandestine operations which these organizations have left us need to be a big part of what we’re studying right now; when we grasp the art of evading detection, and the self-controlled mindset that this task requires, we’ll be able to adapt these past operational models to our current situation.
This is the other part of the synthesis I’m talking about, where we take the spirit of what George Jackson said and apply it to our situation in a practical way. That spirit is important, because it’s what can rescue us from the complacent, stagnant reformism which leaves the movement vulnerable. The essential aspect is that as we embody this spirit, our efforts take on a form which can let us outmaneuver the enemy.
Part of why the enemy has come to use these spectacular types of violence is that it wants us to react with brazenness of our own, and thereby give away what our capacities are in this fight. A serious tactician would never do such a thing. When it comes to defense, this country’s professional revolutionaries are going to diligently hide their true power, treating this mission with military-level discipline. This is the only way that we can carry forth our duty to protect the masses, and make it so that the enemy is the one which has surrendered too much tactical information about itself.
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