When we recognize that every ruling system contains the seeds for its own demise, we can gain clarity on how to defeat the present financial menace. A critical part of how we are going to carry the class struggle forward, and overcome the obstacles which our enemies have put in place, is by mastering our understanding about how history’s contradictions work. About how for every historical force that exists, even if it’s as powerful as finance, there exists a counter-force to it; which means that nothing can ever be static, and history is a constant process of struggle between opposing influences. This is the insight that can keep us on the correct path, and enable us to defeat finance, even as finance engineers the unraveling of our society. If we grasp the science of dialectics, and apply that science to our efforts at fighting back, we will win the next part of the confrontation that’s taking place.
As American civilization unravels, and its people are thrust into circumstances that they never asked for, this collective loss of control causes countless different reactions. And because the contradictions we’re experiencing haven’t yet been sufficiently reckoned with, most of these reactions are counterproductive—at least initially. We’re seeing a rise in Hitlerite thinking, especially among the men who’ve found themselves trapped in involuntary celibacy; within the petty-bourgeois youth layer that’s feeling the effects of our economic collapse, there’s a rise in ultra-left adventurist thinking; among the most socially isolated, there’s a growing susceptibility to manipulation by Satanic cults, and to the ultraviolent ideas that they foster. These are the kinds of destructive social phenomena that emerge when society is falling apart, and the masses lack access to the tools for asserting control. But these tools are there, and we can bring them to the people.
In terms of agitation propaganda, something highly effective that we can do to connect the people with dialectics is show how dialectical thinking brought China so far. Our ruling class has done its best to get Americans to hate China, but many Americans have been coming to admire China’s achievements regardless. And the fact that U.S. propaganda recognizes China as such a rival itself has the effect of drawing attention towards the PRC’s strengths. So we will find a receptive audience by emphasizing the dialectical method through which China became so successful.
As Lenin pointed out, the workers tend to seek out reading materials of a higher intellectual level; we must not hesitate to discuss the deeper parts of class struggle because this would supposedly be “too intellectual” for the “average worker.” And Mao Zedong Thought is something that these curious working-class people would find great use in. They absolutely can internalize the laws of contradictions, and apply them to our present struggle against financial monopoly power.
What Mao wrote about how contradictions get resolved in stages is something that can provide particular clarity for those who are struggling to see a way out of today’s bleak conditions. Explained Mao:
The fundamental contradiction in the process of development of a thing and the essence of the process determined by this fundamental contradiction will not disappear until the process is completed; but in a lengthy process the conditions usually differ at each stage. The reason is that, although the nature of the fundamental contradiction in the process of development of a thing and the essence of the process remain unchanged, the fundamental contradiction becomes more and more intensified as it passes from one stage to another in the lengthy process. In addition, among the numerous major and minor contradictions which are determined or influenced by the fundamental contradiction, some become intensified, some are temporarily or partially resolved or mitigated, and some new ones emerge; hence the process is marked by stages. If people do not pay attention to the stages in the process of development of a thing, they cannot deal with its contradictions properly.
This insight is so useful for our present situation because it gives perspective on all of the problems we face in our personal lives, showing where they exist in relation to the macro-level struggle that’s taking place. Viewing all of the contradictions that one encounters as necessarily being the most important ones, just because they hold outsize relevance to one’s own experience, is how somebody comes to ultra-leftism. It’s also how they come to Hitlerism, or Satanic ultraviolence, or any of the other trends which our ruling class has cultivated specifically to lead alienated people down a destructive path. These ways of thinking relate to the world in a myopic way, and prioritize only the things that are particular to one’s own life. Hitlerism is the epitome of this, because its entire basis is “my struggle”; it’s infantile in nature, viewing the self as the universe’s central player that can triumph through sheer force of will.
To truly gain control over one’s fate, and over the fate of the American nation, we must give up all such idealistic thinking, where it’s assumed that you can make something true just by wishing it to be. Hitlerism is one manifestation of the flailing anarchist reactions towards history’s contradictions; it came from how Hitler sought out targets for his infantile anger, and then gravitated towards the “Jewish question.” Where Hitlerism looks for scapegoats, Marxism investigates which factors are objectively behind the contradictions that we see. It is rigorous and unflinching in its commitment to this truth-seeking mission; to be dialectical, you need to forsake all ideological biases that interfere with one’s understanding. And it’s from this scientific dedication that Marxism gets an unmatched strength as a revolutionary project.
Marxism is so uniquely effective at advancing revolution because it lacks grandiose idealism; because Marxism doesn’t mean an effort to get rid of existing society, but a way of revealing where society’s preexisting evolutionary path is headed. “Communism does not replace society,” clarifies the American Communist Party’s chairman Haz Al-Din. “It only gives expression to that development which within society is truly and concretely general, truly universal, truly in common. That is the ontological supremacy represented by the proletariat: the true common destiny of mankind…Communist development does not eliminate the laws of civilization, the mores, sensibilities and culture of a people. At best, it may reveal changes that were already latent within them, according to the tasks of a new era. The only real measure of progress, is what takes root organically, and in a manner consistent, or at least compatible with the whole of a people, civilization and history.”
Through this analytical framework, Marxism reveals a secret about finance: that finance, due to its being a completely retrograde force that’s opposed to our civilization’s latent changes, has already created the prerequisites for its own downfall. When we truly grasp why this is the case, and how the defeat of our enemies is inevitable due to the material nature of history, then all metaphysical explanations for our situation no longer make sense. With a dialectical materialist understanding, everything is capable of becoming clear, and all of the ways that history has personally impacted us make sense. The experiences of the individual fit into an infinitely larger framework, one that gives us direction in how we can respond to these experiences.
This is the scientific, investigative power which gives Marxism real credibility, beyond being just another one of the political ideologies that’s trending right now. In practical terms, becoming a communist involves worker organizing, party building, and other aspects of class struggle. According to the individualistic and idealistic ideologies that are being propagated right now, especially the “rightist” ones, class struggle is meaningless; supposedly the path forward is to reject class struggle, in favor of a vague “nationalist” struggle. Yet it’s because of class that the American nation is being destroyed, as finance is the core driving factor behind the destruction (which is something that many on the far right themselves recognize). Therefore it’s only through workers struggle that we can save the American nation. This is a realization that far more are going to come to as they grapple with our contradictions, and communists need to be ready to provide them with the proper leadership.
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