Ideology

[blindpig]

Revolution in Our Lifetime
October 11, 2024


New Planet, 1921 by Konstantin Yuon. Photo: State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

By Liath – Oct 6, 2024

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make the apple fall.

It is possible to win and it is possible to win in our lifetime.1 This is a necessary starting point for any socialist revolution, anywhere, including in North America. Only when we begin with this proposition can we map a path to the seizure of state power. Any other starting point is defeatist. We are not here to equivocate, revise, or delay. We are here to bring about a total revolution in social relations.

It is shocking, then, to see professed revolutionaries in North America repudiate this principle. For example, when arguing for the support of international struggles, advocates will deftly expose the evils of imperialism and rightly insist upon solidarity in response, but what further direction do they give to those they win over? They direct us into elections, lobbying politicians, academic debate, and symbolic protest. In effect, the people with the closest proximity to the enemy are told they must act only as cheerleaders for resistance movements catching U.S. bombs abroad. Overthrowing our ruling class isn’t on the agenda, despite the benefit to international struggles that would come if we could tie down even a fraction of the U.S.’s ability to project violence across the world. The failure to consider this possibility cuts off all thought of accumulating the forces needed to make a rupture within the United States. And because accumulating forces through developing deep ties to the masses is the most stable base from which to escalate confrontation, dismissing this path also dismisses effective and sustained tactical escalations, such as coordinated direct action or sabotage.

The consequences of such failures are immediate and dire, as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has repeatedly highlighted. Even while vocal support for Palestinian national liberation skyrockets in the U.S., meaningful disruption of the U.S. empire’s heavy involvement in the genocide remains rare despite being an obvious strategic opportunity. To quote a statement by the PFLP on October 28, one of many similar calls to action:

“This aggressive alliance will not be dismantled by timid positions or half-hearted stances, but requires an escalation of serious revolutionary action against all these forces, primarily the United States and the other forces of the aggression alliance.”2

In other words, purveyors of the line being critiqued here perceive international solidarity too narrowly. They separate our struggle from the global struggle for liberation, and they maintain or widen the divide between revolutionary classes and nations, between the core and the periphery. And yet, if we take the recurring advice of the most advanced decolonial movements and their leaders, it is that we should learn to fight alongside them and push to be as combative and militant as they are; that the further we are able to push in that direction as a movement, the greater our contribution to their struggles against U.S. imperialism. In the words of Adolfo Gilly from his Introduction to Fanon’s A Dying Colonialism,

“Instead of pitying us and being horrified by the atrocities of imperialism, better fight against it in your own country as we do in ours… That is the best way to help us and put an end to the atrocities.”

Some dismiss this advice based on a conscious belief that revolution in the United States is not possible. For others, impossibility remains an uninterrogated assumption. But this is the tricky thing about scientific socialism and the political mode: whether or not a revolution is truly possible cannot be known in advance. It is a thesis, an axiomatic starting point. The actual possibility can only be resolved in the experiment and synthesis, in political practice. This starting point is as much required for proving the revolution as it is for proving its impossibility. It is the starting point towards either building the mass movement and party necessary to win, or, even in losing a revolution in the imperial core, having concretely supported the international struggle.

Organizing for international solidarity is far from the only place where this tendency to side-step the question of revolution appears. This tendency is rife within all manner of issue-specific organizing and self-described activism in the U.S. In the sphere of nonprofit organizing, where promising revolutionary rhetoric sometimes appears, systematic thinking about how to realize a revolutionary seizure of power and any consideration of how their own programmatic work may or may not relate to that is completely off the agenda. Mention it aloud and you will find yourself either the subject of patronizing smiles or hushed into silence as though the very thought is forbidden.

The overriding directive from leadership in these spaces is that any possible revolution is, at best, so far into the future that speaking about it is a distraction from the work of harm mitigation and legal reform. Push too hard on the matter and force them to address it publicly and they will misrepresent what it means to take the question of revolution seriously, dismissing the discussion as an ultra-left call to immediately move into armed struggle, as if there aren’t obvious steps to be taken between a reformist starting point and the ultimate destination of a seizure of power. So, on the one hand, they will give lip service to revolution, name-dropping and quoting revolutionaries from past struggles, but, at the same time, they will energetically marginalize and silence anyone who would call on them to live up to those quotes because it disrupts their foundation funded programming and pulls the horizon of revolution too close for comfort.

This orientation to revolution as something perpetually on the horizon is unfortunately very common, even among those forces who are explicit about their belief that a revolution is possible. Such organizations have developed programs around accumulating forces to win a revolution, when the time is right, but their methods and practices make clear that they don’t really believe in achieving victory any time soon, certainly not in our lifetime.

To the extent that there is a strategic orientation around accumulating forces, it is typically framed around two often overlapping projects: contesting elections and party building. For example, the hegemonic program within the DSA of electing minority legislative delegations and losing presidential elections presumes the only path forward is to gain a foothold within the government itself and, from there, mitigate the harms of capitalism. You can even see some adherents of this path dismissing other trends on the basis that their electoral faction is serious about governance, as if a handful of legislators who can’t consistently coordinate around policy and messaging in a body with over 500 members has anything to do with governing. But they promise that, at some point in the distant future, they will accumulate a majority position in government, albeit working alongside the oppressor and at the ultimate pleasure of a relatively unmolested ruling class — that’s “democracy,” after all. The possibility of actually winning the world we want is so thoroughly dismissed by these social democratic tendencies that it is simply not discussed, or perhaps it’s the case that the vision of the world they want is so stunted that it’s not all that different from what we already have.

But what of party building as a revolutionary project? The most basic understanding of political history makes clear that to seize state power we must have a revolutionary party. The question then is whether any of the party building projects in the U.S. take the possibility of victory seriously. They do not.

Consider the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), for which party building is not only their end goal, but evidently the limit of their entire program. Methodologically, PSL’s party building centers around the accumulation of members, a process built out of a constant churning of almost exclusively petit-bourgeois recruits.3 Similar to the DSA, it is presumed that, at some point, enough will be accumulated that the organization will be able to play power politics with the ruling class.

Important strategic considerations are completely neglected; for instance, how to develop deep and durable roots among the masses, or how to protect party networks from repression. Further confusion is created by intervening in electoral politics solely for the purpose of gaining even more members. The PSL’s allergic reaction in the Palestine mobilizations to anything tactically beyond marching in circles is similarly self-defeating.

The failure to escalate the Palestine protests, indeed the active deescalation coming from PSL, is illuminating, as both a massive strategic blunder and a betrayal of this moment. PSL has significant access to the networks that have been mobilized and a robust communications infrastructure, such that it could lead hundreds or thousands of people to block a port, or a military base, or to occupy weapons manufacturers. They also have the logistical capacity, proved by their contribution to the massive November 4th protests, to maintain those blockades and occupation for days or weeks, or at least until they were forcibly dispersed by the police. If they stepped forward other organizations would contribute as well.4 So, why don’t they?

At this point, they can’t blame the unwillingness of a movement whose members are being driven to martyrdom for lack of an avenue to end the most brutal genocide humanity has ever witnessed. The answer, it seems, is that they are not interested in confronting the ruling class, even when the people are demanding it. Rather, they are interested in riding this wave of mass protest while recruiting as many new members as possible, and then pushing them into the PSL’s presidential campaign, which has as its only practical purpose the recruitment of yet more members. But then what? At what point is party building complete enough that you can use the organization to actually fight? And is the size of the party the only determinant of when it’s time to fight? What if fighting back is the greatest recruitment tool you could ever hope for?

The answer, it seems, is that they are not interested in confronting the ruling class, even when the people are demanding it.

This is where the magnitude of PSL’s strategic blunder can be seen. There is no surer or faster way to build a party than by winning over the millions of people currently activated by the heroic resistance in Palestine. The most obvious path in this direction would be to lead the masses where they want to go, which is into direct, forceful confrontation with the people and institutions prosecuting this genocide. Actively avoiding and deflecting the pressure for more militant action fully demonstrates that, despite their stated program, PSL is not building a party that can contest for power.

If PSL were to instead facilitate the increasing militancy of the movement, it would expose itself to strong state repression, and its leaders would face very serious personal risks. Yet, this is an organization that lionizes the experiences of communist revolutions and national liberation struggles throughout history — struggles in which key leaders took risks that landed them in prison, exile, or worse, and they still won. Pointedly, these are the kinds of risks that the leadership of the Palestinian Resistance have been making for decades. Why not us? What greater honor than to face repression for unleashing the combativeness of the masses to stop a genocide and support the Palestinian’s national liberation struggle?

The great shame of the PSL is that there is no other formation with the avowed intention of making a revolution, the broad network of members and relationships with adjacent organizations, the media apparatus to point the masses at strategic targets, and the logistical capacity to sustain such protests. As it stands, the most confrontational our movement can get is to engage in episodic and symbolic protests, perhaps shut down a bridge, a tunnel, or a highway for a few hours. At the more militant end, the best we can do is for small groups to engage in civil disobedience or direct actions that harass the enemy. These are the limits that PSL and others are actively defending at the national and local level. Unless something gives, they will keep calling toothless “Shut It Down” protests with their partners until the movement demobilizes, but not before many thousands more Palestinians have died, and not before they’ve pulled thousands of people into their campaign to not elect Claudia and Karina.

Imagine having the capacity and opportunity to unleash the masses and move with them in fighting the ruling class, even with the foreseeable result of being beaten back by the agents of state violence, and not taking it. Now, imagine refusing that opportunity at a moment when millions of people are positioned for mobilization and feeling the kind of emotional intensity that would drive a person like Aaron Bushnell to self-immolate. It’s frankly outrageous. And it’s not just a lost opportunity for the PSL, but for all of us.

What we see here is that the PSL’s specific methodology of accumulating membership is self-evidently not going to build a party with durable roots amongst the masses, or even a broad level of respect. They are determined to not grasp the once in a generation opportunity to gain the broad respect that would create a basis for quickly sinking roots among the masses. Deep support among the masses being the only basis for defending a party against a fascist crackdown, their inability and lack of interest in developing that support means they will not be able to weather the kind of repression we will see with a second Trump presidency. Worse, their list of members is completely transparent to the forces of state repression, as they generally have people sign up with an internet form.5 So, not only do they not have a basis for defending themselves, they have inadvertently created a door-knocking list for a fascist roundup. You wouldn’t do this if you believed that a revolution, win or lose, was possible within the next 10-20 years. It is quite clear that, although PSL has a program that presumes winning is possible, they have no serious expectation of ever accomplishing it in our lifetime. Once again, actually winning a revolution is perpetually on the horizon.6

Moving past false party building projects, if we start from the position that overthrowing the ruling class and seizing state power for a socialist project is possible in our lifetime, and we take the development of this potential seriously, some important realizations arise. Chief among these realizations is that organized force is necessary to overthrow the ruling class of the United States. If that’s the case, a revolutionary movement must build the infrastructure, both ideological and material, needed to project that force and to survive the reaction. To put it in simple terms, on the ideological side we need broad exposure to our ideas and political program and we need a strong partisanship to that program among significant sections of the classes that would form a revolutionary coalition. Within that network, now bound together ideologically, we will find the material elements of the infrastructure of resistance. The preeminent material element is the movement partisan or party cadre who form the nodes in this network, tying individuals and communities together in struggle, spreading propaganda, and securing resources to protect and support the movement. The end goal is an above-ground network that distributes information and resources, with an underground (the capacity for self defense, hiding and being hidden) embedded within it. You’ll know you’re there when the masses are willing to harbor revolutionaries from state violence, even at great personal cost.



So, where do we begin? We have the starting point: that a revolution is possible in our lifetime. We have a bare-bones idea of what’s required to accomplish that. Beyond that is a gaping chasm of unknowns. The most critical question being who are the people that are the base of a revolutionary movement in the United States? Almost unanimously, the answer would be the working class. But that obscures almost as much as it illuminates. What working class? Where? What about elements of the proletariat and semi-proletariat forced into the labor reserve? What about any remaining vestiges of peasantry, or immigrants with peasant backgrounds? What role can the petit bourgeoisie play, or even class traitors among the big bourgeoisie? And how do national and other identities running through these classes and subclasses crystallize into identifiable revolutionary subjects? When communists are faced with these questions, the most basic questions of our craft, we don’t wave them away and rely on stale doctrine, dusty traditions, and hoary assumptions. We investigate.

When communists are faced with these questions, the most basic questions of our craft, we don’t wave them away and rely on stale doctrine, dusty traditions, and hoary assumptions. We investigate.

We understand based on historical experience that winning will require organized political violence with mass support, so we understand that building that mass support is a prerequisite to victory. Our immediate question is both with whom to build that mass support and how exactly to do it. In essence, we need to identify who the revolutionary masses are, who their enemies are, and who forms the vacillating middle forces between them. This has to be a specific and concrete analysis of actual class dynamics in situ. The “method” handed down through the communist movement in the United States of simply presuming a class structure based on schematics derived from doctrine developed over 100 years ago must be abandoned. That’s not to say the schematic is unsound, but it is not politically actionable. It doesn’t tell you concretely with whom to organize or how.

In terms of how to undertake this investigation, what methods to use, and how to train ourselves to do it well, I can only point to examples and suggest potential models, while also sharing a sense of what we should not do. First, a thorough class analysis that creates a basis for actual political engagement with class elements of an incipient revolutionary movement is not something that can be found hiding in a library. What can be found in books are instances of similar investigations, usually partial and outside of our current context, which can suggest methods of investigation. Additionally, “book” research is a source of broader information about the social formations in North America and how they link to the periphery, which can help identify promising targets for further investigation. However, the main element of the investigation is actually talking to people face to face. In other words, this is the type of investigation which would require methods that look more like journalism or ethnography than parsing through reams of economic statistics.

An example of this method and its output would be Mao Zedong’s Report on an Investigation into the Peasant Movement in Hunan. Another example can be found in the practice of Amilcar Cabral and the PAIGC, which is described in Basil Davidson’s The Liberation of Guiné: Aspect of an African Revolution. Investigations that model a more formal structure would be W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Philadelphia Negro, which used systematic survey methods. The methods of Mao and Cabral are processes for developing actionable political analysis and, at the same time, they are themselves elegant political interventions. In addition to training ourselves in methods of communist political practice, the process of speaking with people directly about their class existence, their hardships, grievances, and systems of support, is one of introducing our movement to them. If done right, this introduction begins the process of winning them to the revolutionary movement, and winning them to this movement is the essence of building the infrastructure of resistance, including a revolutionary party.

Do not misunderstand: this investigation doesn’t happen while setting aside current struggles for a later time. It must be done at the same time that other struggles are advancing, and it must be done from within these struggles. Critically, this is not a prescription for stepping away from the movement for Palestinian liberation. Rather, that struggle must be escalated strategically and tactically. On the strategic side, our slogans need to move from demanding a ceasefire, to demanding total liberation for the Palestinian people, and they must connect the realization of that demand with a goal of overthrowing the U.S. ruling class that is the driving force behind israel and its genocide of the Palestinian people. On the tactical side, small groups engaged in civil disobedience need to escalate to direct action. Those doing direct action should consider escalating to sabotage. At the mass scale, those organizing marches of hundreds or thousands need to be pointing those mobilizations at more strategic targets, and working towards more sustained interruptions of operations at these targets. And, across the board, leadership sitting at the gateways to this movement need to stop deescalation, while explicitly endorsing escalation in both word and deed.

In the last five months, the struggle for Palestinian liberation has radicalized millions of people in North America and has shifted the political center of gravity. This shift has contributed to a whole train of prior fractures in the global system of capitalism-imperialism presided over by the United States and its imperial bloc. Where the temporary shutdown of capitalism in response to the COVID pandemic shot cracks through the system, in the United States this was followed by the George Floyd Rebellion, further weakening the structure. At the same time, an objective increase in the conflict between capital and labor ensued, including the attempted recuperation of capital’s position prior to the pandemic, most painfully through the unleashing of price inflation across the necessities of life. Internationally, the Global South has embarked on an inexorable process of asserting its sovereignty, decisively marking the zenith of U.S. hegemony. As these fractures have developed, a wave of fascist political advances has washed over the collective West. And overarching all of these stresses have been catastrophic changes to the global climate system, the very cradle of life on the planet. This was our reality on October 6, 2023, and it was in this context that the Palestinian Resistance broke through, shattering the system of global domination that is the source of ruling class power in North America. It may not look as if the system has fundamentally come apart, but that is only because the broken pieces are falling in slow motion and have yet to land. All of these conditions have decisively pulled the horizon of revolution into our lifetime.

So, let us begin…

1 This intervention is intended to be non-antagonistic and to engage politically conscious people in thinking through these questions. To paraphrase Mao Zedong, my intention is to struggle against incorrect views for the sake of building unity and getting the work of revolution done properly. If the language is sharp or totalizing and without caveat, this is due to the need for clarity in political interventions, as compared to the obscurity of academic and scholastic interventions. An unequivocal position in favor of one end of the contradiction is necessary to point out a course correction. It is not a full dismissal of the validity of the other side of the contradiction or the complexity of our reality.

2 For the full English text of this PFLP statement, beginning with “[t]he duty of the nation and supporters of Palestine is to escalate the struggle against the forces of aggression,” reference Resistance News Network or the Red Clarion’s archive.

3 This method of “building the party” is replicated in almost every communist/socialist party in the United States.

4 It should be noted that it is not only the PSL that is failing in their responsibility to help the masses identify impactful targets and facilitate actions against them. Every major organization involved in the broader movement for Palestine in the U.S. has either failed to identify strategic bottle-necks in the war machine, or has interfered against the use of appropriate protest tactics for disrupting them in a sustained way.

5 It is a fact, established through Edward Snowden’s leaks, that the NSA literally makes a copy of all electronic communications in the United States, with years of traffic stored in databases to be “google” searched by a whole bevy of federal law enforcement agencies. The absolute minimum in security for a communist organization in this context is to keep your membership sign ups off the internet.

6 It is theoretically possible for the PSL to shift away from their opportunistic program and practice, and I hope they do, but we can’t wait around for it.

https://orinocotribune.com/revolution-in-our-lifetime/

[blindpig]

From the Classics: Lenin on Participation in Bourgeois Elections
Posted by MLT Editors | Oct 20, 2024



EDITOR’S NOTE: in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution as new Communist Parties were being formed, many took sectarian positions and, for example, advocated for abstention from elections. Lenin criticized such sectarianism as an “infantile disorder.”

Should We Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?


It is with the utmost contempt—and the utmost levity—that the German “Left” Communists reply to this question in the negative. Their arguments? In the passage quoted above we read:

“. . . All reversion to parliamentary forms of struggle, which have become historically and politically obsolete, must be emphatically rejected. . . .”

This is said with ridiculous pretentiousness, and is patently wrong. “Reversion” to parliamentarianism, forsooth! Perhaps there is already a Soviet republic in Germany? It does not look like it! How, then, can one speak of “reversion”? Is this not an empty phrase?

Parliamentarianism has become “historically obsolete”. That is true in the propaganda sense. However, everybody knows that this is still a far cry from overcoming it in practice. Capitalism could have been declared—and with full justice—to be “historically obsolete” many decades ago, but that does not at all remove the need for a very long and very persistent struggle on the basis of capitalism. Parliamentarianism is “historically obsolete” from the standpoint of world history, i.e., the era of bourgeois parliamentarianism is over, and the era of the proletarian dictatorship has begun. That is incontestable. But world history is counted in decades. Ten or twenty years earlier or later makes no difference when measured with the yardstick of world history; from the standpoint of world history it is a trifle that cannot be considered even approximately. But for that very reason, it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics.

Is parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”? That is quite a different matter. If that were true, the position of the “Lefts” would be a strong one. But it has to be proved by a most searching analysis, and the “Lefts” do not even know how to approach the matter. In the “Theses on Parliamentarianism”, published in the Bulletin of the Provisional Bureau in Amsterdam of the Communist International No. 1, February 1920, and obviously expressing the Dutch-Left or Left-Dutch strivings, the analysis, as we shall see, is also hopelessly poor.

In the first place, contrary to the opinion of such outstanding political leaders as Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the German “Lefts”, as we know, considered parliamentarianism “politically obsolete” even in January 1919. We know that the “Lefts” were mistaken. This fact alone utterly destroys, at a single stroke, the proposition that parliamentarianism is “politically obsolete”. It is for the “Lefts” to prove why their error, indisputable at that time, is no longer an error. They do not and cannot produce even a shred of proof. A political party’s attitude towards its own mistakes is one of the most important and surest ways of judging how earnest the party is and how it fulfils in practice its obligations towards its class and the working people. Frankly acknowledging a mistake, ascertaining the reasons for it, analysing the conditions that have led up to it, and thrashing out the means of its rectification—that is the hallmark of a serious party; that is how it should perform its duties, and how it should educate and train its class, and then the masses. By failing to fulfil this duty and give the utmost attention and consideration to the study of their patent error, the “Lefts” in Germany (and in Holland) have proved that they are not a party of a class, but a circle, not a party of the masses, but a group of intellectualists and of a few workers who ape the worst features of intellectualism.

Second, in the same pamphlet of the Frankfurt group of “Lefts”, which we have already cited in detail, we read:

“. . . The millions of workers who still follow the policy of the Centre [the Catholic ‘Centre’ Party] are counter-revolutionary. The rural proletarians provide the legions of counter-revolutionary troops.” (Page 3 of the pamphlet.)

Everything goes to show that this statement is far too sweeping and exaggerated. But the basic fact set forth here is incontrovertible, and its acknowledgment by the “Lefts” is particularly clear evidence of their mistake. How can one say that “parliamentarianism is politically obsolete”, when “millions” and “legions” of proletarians are not only still in favour of parliamentarianism in general, but are downright “counter-revolutionary”!? It is obvious that parliamentarianism in Germany is not yet politically obsolete. It is obvious that the “Lefts” in Germany have mistaken their desire, their politico-ideological attitude, for objective reality. That is a most dangerous mistake for revolutionaries to make. In Russia—where, over a particularly long period and in particularly varied forms, the most brutal and savage yoke of tsarism produced revolutionaries of diverse shades, revolutionaries who displayed amazing devotion, enthusiasm, heroism and will power—in Russia we have observed this mistake of the revolutionaries at very close quarters; we have studied it very attentively and have a first-hand knowledge of it; that is why we can also see it especially clearly in others.

Parliamentarianism is of course “politically obsolete” to the Communists in Germany; but—and that is the whole point—we must not regard what is obsolete to us as something obsolete to a class, to the masses. Here again we find that the “Lefts” do not know how to reason, do not know how to act as the party of a class, as the party of the masses. You must not sink to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. That is incontestable. You must tell them the bitter truth. You are in duty bound to call their bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices what they are—prejudices. But at the same time you must soberly follow the actual state of the class-consciousness and preparedness of the entire class (not only of its communist vanguard), and of all the working people (not only of their advanced elements).

Even if only a fairly large minority of the industrial workers, and not “millions” and “legions”, follow the lead of the Catholic clergy—and a similar minority of rural workers follow the landowners and kulaks (Grossbauern)—it undoubtedly signifies that parliamentarianism in Germany has not yet politically outlived itself, that participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat specifically for the purpose of educating the backward strata of its own class, and for the purpose of awakening and enlightening the undeveloped, downtrodden and ignorant rural masses. Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags.

Third, the “Left” Communists have a great deal to say in praise of us Bolsheviks. One sometimes feels like telling them to praise us less and to try to get a better knowledge of the Bolsheviks’ tactics. We took part in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Russian bourgeois parliament in September–November 1917. Were our tactics correct or not? If not, then this should be clearly stated and proved, for it is necessary in evolving the correct tactics for international communism. If they were correct, then certain conclusions must be drawn. Of course, there can be no question of placing conditions in Russia on a par with conditions in Western Europe. But as regards the particular question of the meaning of the concept that “parliamentarianism has become politically obsolete”, due account should be taken of our experience, for unless concrete experience is taken into account such concepts very easily turn into empty phrases.

In September–November 1917, did we, the Russian Bolsheviks, not have more right than any Western Communists to consider that parliamentarianism was politically obsolete in Russia? Of course we did, for the point is not whether bourgeois parliaments have existed for a long time or a short time, but how far the masses of the working people are prepared (ideologically, politically and practically) to accept the Soviet system and to dissolve the bourgeois-democratic parliament (or allow it to be dissolved). It is an absolutely incontestable and fully established historical fact that, in September–November 1917, the urban working class and the soldiers and peasants of Russia were, because of a number of special conditions, exceptionally well prepared to accept the Soviet system and to disband the most democratic of bourgeois parliaments. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks did not boycott the Constituent Assembly, but took part in the elections both before and after the proletariat conquered political power. That these elections yielded exceedingly valuable (and to the proletariat, highly useful) political results has, I make bold to hope, been proved by me in the above-mentioned article, which analyses in detail the returns of the elections to the Constituent Assembly in Russia.

The conclusion which follows from this is absolutely incontrovertible: it has been proved that, far from causing harm to the revolutionary proletariat, participation in a bourgeois-democratic parliament, even a few weeks before the victory of a Soviet republic and even after such a victory, actually helps that proletariat to prove to the backward masses why such parliaments deserve to be done away with; it facilitates their successful dissolution, and helps to make bourgeois parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”. To ignore this experience, while at the same time claiming affiliation to the Communist International, which must work out its tactics internationally (not as narrow or exclusively national tactics, but as international tactics), means committing a gross error and actually abandoning internationalism in deed, while recognising it in word.

Now let us examine the “Dutch-Left” arguments in favour of non-participation in parliaments. The following is the text of Thesis No. 4, the most important of the above-mentioned “Dutch” theses:

“When the capitalist system of production has broken down, and society is in a state of revolution, parliamentary action gradually loses importance as compared with the action of the masses themselves. When, in these conditions, parliament becomes the centre and organ of the counter-revolution, whilst, on the other hand, the labouring class builds up the instruments of its power in the Soviets, it may even prove necessary to abstain from all and any participation in parliamentary action.”

The first sentence is obviously wrong, since action by the masses, a big strike, for instance, is more important than parliamentary activity at all times, and not only during a revolution or in a revolutionary situation. This obviously untenable and historically and politically incorrect argument merely shows very clearly that the authors completely ignore both the general European experience (the French experience before the revolutions of 1848 and 1870; the German experience of 1878–90, etc.) and the Russian experience (see above) of the importance of combining legal and illegal struggle. This question is of immense importance both in general and in particular, because in all civilised and advanced countries the time is rapidly approaching when such a combination will more and more become—and has already partly become—mandatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat, inasmuch as civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is maturing and is imminent, and because of savage persecution of the Communists by republican governments and bourgeois governments generally, which resort to any violation of legality (the example of America is edifying enough), etc. The Dutch, and the Lefts in general, have utterly failed to understand this highly important question.

The second sentence is, in the first place, historically wrong. We Bolsheviks participated in the most counterrevolutionary parliaments, and experience has shown that this participation was not only useful but indispensable to the party of the revolutionary proletariat, after the first bourgeois revolution in Russia (1905), so as to pave the way for the second bourgeois revolution (February 1917), and then for the socialist revolution (October 1917). In the second place, this sentence is amazingly illogical. If a parliament becomes an organ and a “centre” (in reality it never has been and never can be a “centre”, but that is by the way) of counter-revolution, while the workers are building up the instruments of their power in the form of the Soviets, then it follows that the workers must prepare—ideologically, politically and technically—for the struggle of the Soviets against parliament, for the dispersal of parliament by the Soviets. But it does not at all follow that this dispersal is hindered, or is not facilitated, by the presence of a Soviet opposition within the counter-revolutionary parliament. In the course of our victorious struggle against Denikin and Kolchak, we never found that the existence of a Soviet and proletarian opposition in their camp was immaterial to our victories. We know perfectly well that the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly on January 5, 1918 was not hampered but was actually facilitated by the fact that, within the counter-revolutionary Constituent Assembly which was about to be dispersed, there was a consistent Bolshevik, as well as an inconsistent, Left Socialist-Revolutionary Soviet opposition.

The authors of the theses are engaged in muddled thinking; they have forgotten the experience of many, if not all, revolutions, which shows the great usefulness, during a revolution, of a combination of mass action outside a reactionary parliament with an opposition sympathetic to (or, better still, directly supporting) the revolution within it. The Dutch, and the “Lefts” in general, argue in this respect like doctrinaires of the revolution, who have never taken part in a real revolution, have never given thought to the history of revolutions, or have naïvely mistaken subjective “rejection” of a reactionary institution for its actual destruction by the combined operation of a number of objective factors. The surest way of discrediting and damaging a new political (and not only political) idea is to reduce it to absurdity on the plea of defending it. For any truth, if “overdone” (as Dietzgen Senior put it), if exaggerated, or if carried beyond the limits of its actual applicability, can be reduced to an absurdity, and is even bound to become an absurdity under these conditions. That is just the kind of disservice the Dutch and German Lefts are rendering to the new truth of the Soviet form of government being superior to bourgeois-democratic parliaments. Of course, anyone would be in error who voiced the outmoded viewpoint or in general considered it impermissible, in all and any circumstances, to reject participation in bourgeois parliaments.

I cannot attempt here to formulate the conditions under which a boycott is useful, since the object of this pamphlet is far more modest, namely, to study Russian experience in connection with certain topical questions of international communist tactics. Russian experience has provided us with one successful and correct instance (1905), and another that was incorrect (1906), of the use of a boycott by the Bolsheviks. Analysing the first case, we, see that we succeeded in preventing a reactionary government from convening a reactionary parliament in a situation in which extra-parliamentary revolutionary mass action (strikes in particular) was developing at great speed, when not a single section of the proletariat and the peasantry could support the reactionary government in any way, and when the revolutionary proletariat was gaining influence over the backward masses through the strike struggle and through the agrarian movement. It is quite obvious that this experience is not applicable to present-day European conditions. It is likewise quite obvious—and the foregoing arguments bear this out—that the advocacy, even if with reservations, by the Dutch and the other “Lefts” of refusal to participate in parliaments is fundamentally wrong and detrimental to the cause of the revolutionary proletariat.

In Western Europe and America, parliament has become most odious to the revolutionary vanguard of the working class. That cannot be denied. It can readily be understood, for it is difficult to imagine anything more infamous, vile or treacherous than the behaviour of the vast majority of socialist and Social-Democratic parliamentary deputies during and after the war. It would, however, be not only unreasonable but actually criminal to yield to this mood when deciding how this generally recognised evil should be fought. In many countries of Western Europe, the revolutionary mood, we might say, is at present a “novelty”, or a “rarity”, which has all too long been vainly and impatiently awaited; perhaps that is why people so easily yield to that mood. Certainly, without a revolutionary mood among the masses, and without conditions facilitating the growth of this mood, revolutionary tactics will never develop into action. In Russia, however, lengthy, painful and sanguinary experience has taught us the truth that revolutionary tactics cannot be built on a revolutionary mood alone. Tactics must be based on a sober and strictly objective appraisal of all the class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it, and of all states the world over) as well as of the experience of revolutionary movements. It is very easy to show one’s “revolutionary” temper merely by hurling abuse at parliamentary opportunism, or merely by repudiating participation in parliaments; its very ease, however, cannot turn this into a solution of a difficult, a very difficult, problem. It is far more difficult to create a really revolutionary parliamentary group in a European parliament than it was in Russia. That stands to reason. But it is only a particular expression of the general truth that it was easy for Russia, in the specific and historically unique situation of 1917, to start the socialist revolution, but it will be more difficult for Russia than for the European countries to continue the revolution and bring it to its consummation.

I had occasion to point this out already at the beginning of 1918, and our experience of the past two years has entirely confirmed the correctness of this view. Certain specific conditions, viz., (1) the possibility of linking up the Soviet revolution with the ending, as a consequence of this revolution, of the imperialist war, which had exhausted the workers and peasants to an incredible degree; (2) the possibility of taking temporary advantage of the mortal conflict between the world’s two most powerful groups of imperialist robbers, who were unable to unite against their Soviet enemy; (3) the possibility of enduring a comparatively lengthy civil war, partly owing to the enormous size of the country and to the poor means of communication; (4) the existence of such a profound bourgeois-democratic revolutionary movement among the peasantry that the party of the proletariat was able to adopt the revolutionary demands of the peasant party (the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the majority of whose members were definitely hostile to Bolshevism) and realise them at once, thanks to the conquest of political power by the proletariat—all these specific conditions do not at present exist in Western Europe, and a repetition of such or similar conditions will not occur so easily. Incidentally, apart from a number of other causes, that is why it is more difficult for Western Europe to start a socialist revolution than it was for us. To attempt to “circumvent” this difficulty by “skipping” the arduous job of utilising reactionary parliaments for revolutionary purposes is absolutely childish. You want to create a new society, yet you fear the difficulties involved in forming a good parliamentary group made up of convinced, devoted and heroic Communists, in a reactionary parliament! Is that not childish? If Karl Liebknecht in Germany and Z. Höglund in Sweden were able, even without mass support from below, to set examples of the truly revolutionary utilisation of reactionary parliaments, why should a rapidly growing revolutionary mass party, in the midst of the post-war disillusionment and embitterment of the masses, be unable to forge a communist group in the worst of parliaments? It is because, in Western Europe, the backward masses of the workers and—to an even greater degree—of the small peasants are much more imbued with bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices than they were in Russia because of that, it is only from within such institutions as bourgeois parliaments that Communists can (and must) wage a long and persistent struggle, undaunted by any difficulties, to expose, dispel and overcome these prejudices.


The German “Lefts” complain of bad “leaders” in their party, give way to despair, and even arrive at a ridiculous “negation” of “leaders”. But in conditions in which it is often necessary to hide “leaders” underground, the evolution of good “leaders”, reliable, tested and authoritative, is a very difficult matter; these difficulties cannot be successfully overcome without combining legal and illegal work, and without testing the “leaders”, among other ways, in parliaments. Criticism—the most keen, ruthless and uncompromising criticism—should be directed, not against parliamentarianism or parliamentary activities, but against those leaders who are unable—and still more against those who are unwilling—to utilise parliamentary elections and the parliamentary rostrum in a revolutionary and communist manner. Only such criticism—combined, of course, with the dismissal of incapable leaders and their replacement by capable ones—will constitute useful and fruitful revolutionary work that will simultaneously train the “leaders” to be worthy of the working class and of all working people, and train the masses to be able properly to understand the political situation and the often very complicated and intricate tasks that spring from that situation. [*5]

Footnotes

[*5] I have had too little opportunity to acquaint myself with “Left-wing” communism in Italy. Comrade Bordiga and his faction of Abstentionist Communists (Comunista astensionista) are certainly wrong in advocating non-participation in parliament. But on one point, it seems to me, Comrade Bordiga is right—as far as can be judged from two issues of his paper, Il Soviet (Nos. 3 and 4, January 18 and February 1, 1920), from four issues of Comrade Serrati’s excellent periodical, Comunismo (Nos. 1–4, October l–November 30, 1919), and from separate issues of Italian bourgeois papers which I have seen. Comrade Bordiga and his group are right in attacking Turati and his partisans, who remain in a party which has recognised Soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and yet continue their former pernicious and opportunist policy as members of parliament. Of course, in tolerating this, Comrade Serrati and the entire Italian Socialist Party [28] are making a mistake which threatens to do as much harm and give rise to the same dangers as it did in Hungary, where the Hungarian Turatis sabotaged both the party and the Soviet government [29] from within. Such a mistaken, inconsistent, or spineless attitude towards the opportunist parliamentarians gives rise to “Left-wing” communism, on the one hand, and to a certain extent justifies its existence, on the other. Comrade Serrati is obviously wrong when he accuses Deputy Turati of being “inconsistent” (Comunismo No. 3), for it is the Italian Socialist Party itself that is inconsistent in tolerating such opportunist parliamentarians as Turati and Co.


[28] From its foundation in 1892, the Italian Socialist Party saw a bitter ideological struggle between the opportunist and the revolutionary trends within it. At the Reggio Emilia Congress of 1912, the most outspoken reformists who supported the war and collaboration with the government and the bourgeoisie (Ivanoe Bonomi, Leonida Bissolati and others) were expelled from the party under pressure from the Left wing. After the outbreak of the First World War and prior to Italy’s entry into it, the I.S.P. came out against the war and advanced the slogan: “Against war, for neutrality!” In December 1914, a group of renegades including Benito Mussolini, who advocated the bourgeoisie’s imperialist policy and supported the war, were expelled from the party. When Italy entered the war on the Entente’s side (May 1915), three distinct trends emerged in the Italian Socialist Party: 1) the Right wing, which aided the bourgeoisie in the conduct of the war; 2) the Centre, which united most of party members and came out under the slogan: “No part in the war, and no sabotage of the war” and 3) the Left wing, which took a firmer anti-war stand, but could not organise a consistent struggle against the war. The Left wing did not realise the necessity of converting the imperialist war into a civil war, and of a decisive break with the reformists.

After the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, the Left wing of the I.S.P. grew stronger, and the 16th Party Congress held on October 5–8, 1919, in Bologna, adopted a resolution on affiliation to the Third International. I.S.P. representatives took part in the work of the Second Congress of the Comintern. After the Congress Centrist Serrati, head of the delegation, declared against a break with the reformists. At the 17th Party Congress in Leghorn in January 1921, the Centrists, who were in the majority, refused to break with the reformists and to accept all the terms of admission into the Comintern. On January 21, 1921, the Left-wing delegates walked out of the Congress and founded the Communist Party of Italy.


[29] Soviet rule was established in Hungary on March 21, 1919. The socialist revolution in Hungary was a peaceful one, the Hungarian bourgeoisie being unable to resist the people. Incapable of overcoming its internal and external difficulties, it decided to hand over power for a while to the Right-wing Social-Democrats so as to prevent the development of the revolution. However, the Hungarian Communist Party’s prestige had grown so great, and the demands of rank-and-file Social-Democrats for unity with the Communists had become so insistent that the leaders of the Social-Democratic Party proposed to the arrested Communist leaders the formation of a joint government. The Social-Democratic leaders were obliged to accept the terms advanced by the Communists during the negotiations, i.e., the formation of a Soviet government, disarmament of the bourgeoisie, the creation of a Red Army and people’s militia, confiscation of the landed estates, the nationalisation of industry, an alliance with Soviet Russia, etc.

An agreement was simultaneously signed on the merging of the two parties to form the Hungarian Socialist Party. While the two parties were being merged, errors were made which later became clear. The merger was carried out mechanically, without isolation of the reformist elements.

At its first meeting, the Revolutionary Governmental Council adopted a resolution on the formation of the Red Army. On March 26, the Soviet Government of Hungary issued decrees on the nationalisation of industrial enterprises, transport, and the banks; on April 2, a decree was published on the monopoly of foreign trade. Workers’ wages were increased by an average of 25 per cent, and an 8-hour working day was introduced. On April 3, land-reform law was issued, by which all estates exceeding 57 hectares in area were confiscated. The confiscated land, however, was not distributed among the land-starved and landless peasants, but was turned over to agricultural producers’ cooperatives and state farms organised after the reform. The poor peasants, who had hoped to get land, were disappointed. This prevented the establishment of a firm alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry, and weakened Soviet power in Hungary.

The Entente imperialists instituted an economic blockade of the Soviet Republic. Armed intervention against the Hungarian Soviet Republic was organised, the advance of interventionist troops stirring up the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries. The treachery of the Right-wing Social-Democrats, who entered into an alliance with international imperialism, was one of the causes of the Hungarian Soviet Republic’s downfall.

The unfavourable international situation in the summer of 1919, when Soviet Russia was encircled by enemies and therefore could not help the Hungarian Soviet Republic, also played a definite role. On August 1, 1919, as a result of joint actions by the foreign imperialist interventionists and the domestic counterrevolutionaries, Soviet power in Hungary was overthrown.

https://mltoday.com/from-the-classics-l ... elections/

And that's why I voted for Claudia De la Cruz. No chance in hell, but the PSL platform is a shot across the bow, however currently unrealistic and however 'iffy' PSL is.

[blindpig]

Beyond Empathy

Ekaterina Cabylis
Oct 30, 2024

* The original title has been updated to better reflect the energy activists expend in engaging with those resistant to truth.

No amount of dialogue, debate, or tolerance can instill empathy in someone unwilling to examine their own worldview. This is why creating healthy boundaries within activist spaces is crucial for our collective well-being.

There is a thin line between helping someone learn and encouraging weaponized incompetence, which is a type of deliberate passivity in which someone acts as though they don't "get it" in order to escape responsibility. It can be equally difficult to find this line when it is your own friends and family.

Friendships fracture during social upheaval because these changes can bring underlying differences in values or beliefs to the surface. In stable times, people may overlook or downplay the systemic problems of the world, but upheaval forces people to confront where they truly stand on issues that affect their lives directly. This creates friction, especially if friends find themselves on opposite sides of controversial topics, or if one person feels misunderstood or dismissed by someone they once trusted.

Upheaval triggers intense emotions like fear, anger, or the urge to advocate for change, people with strong core beliefs and opinions polarize those without them. Sometimes, people change in response to the upheaval itself, re-evaluating what matters most to them. If friends can’t evolve together or support each other’s growth, the friendship might no longer feel as fulfilling. And if there’s a lack of open communication, small misunderstandings or differences can fester and lead to a larger rupture. In essence, upheaval puts stress on friendships, and if the foundation isn't strong enough, these differences can cause fractures that are difficult to mend.

It is important to take the time to grieve fractured relationships during times of social upheaval, it’s equally vital to invest time and energy in cultivating new relationships with people whose values and goals align with your own. This process is at the heart of building solidarity, as real change requires networks of people who not only understand each other but are willing to grow, learn, and support one another.

These new connections are essential to movement-building. When we surround ourselves with people who share similar principles, we create spaces where mutual respect and accountability can flourish. It becomes easier to have the hard conversations and do the personal work that genuine activism demands—self-reflection, and collective growth when you have support. In turn, this fortifies the foundation for meaningful solidarity.

The paradox of tolerance is a philosophy by Karl Popper, in which he explains that if a society accepts everything, even harmful or hateful ideas, it risks destroying itself. If people are free to spread harmful beliefs without limits, they may eventually take over and silence others. To keep a fair and open society, there have to be some boundaries against ideas or actions that try to harm or silence others. This isn’t about being closed-minded; it’s about protecting fairness and safety for everyone.

Under capitalism, self-centeredness is so ingrained that it becomes the baseline. Social and political egoism encourage people to prioritize their individual perspectives, even in spaces meant for collective liberation. In these cases, we’re not up against a lack of information but rather a lack of humility and openness—the core qualities needed for solidarity.

Boundaries Are Essential

Activists are not obligated to endlessly educate or to bear the emotional labour of explaining basic ethics and empathy to those who refuse to listen. Boundaries are not acts of intolerance; they are safeguards that allow us to protect our energy for those genuinely interested in collective liberation.

Investing time in individuals who are closed off to growth not only drains our resources but detracts from those who are already willing to learn, listen, and act. Our energy is better spent cultivating a community of people open to unlearning harmful norms, committed to solidarity, and capable of empathy. Solidarity, cannot be forced upon those who resist it; it is a mutual commitment rooted in shared values and humility.

Lenin believed that principled activism requires a clear commitment to revolutionary goals, not compromising or diluting one’s values to accommodate opposing views. He argued that activists should not negotiate with forces that perpetuate oppression or exploitation, as doing so only strengthens harmful systems and weakens the movement. Instead, he called for a disciplined and unwavering approach, where activists focus on educating and organizing those already receptive to change, rather than wasting energy on those committed to upholding the status quo.

Lenin saw the need for activists to understand the line between constructive engagement and enabling destructive ideas. Principled activism means having the courage to reject alliances with those whose interests who do not align with the movement's core goals, even if that meant standing against popular opinion. The priority is always to advance the cause of the working class, which requires dedication to truth and accountability, not a concession to appease intolerant or reactionary forces.

When people choose not to take a stand, they’re allowing the oppressor to keep causing harm without any resistance, which supports the abuse by creating a silence around it. Neutrality is a form of enabling that shields the abuser from accountability.

The "lesser of two evils" argument collapses when the evil in question is actively happening, it is an illogical fallacy. There’s no real distinction between "lesser" and "greater" evil—both cause harm. Choosing one over the other justifies continued suffering, and when the harm is currently happening, framing it as "less bad" than some hypothetical alternative doesn’t change the reality of the abuse happening right now.

Whataboutism is another way to dodge accountability—it shifts the conversation to other issues, making it seem like everything is equally bad. This way, the real problem is downplayed, and we ignore the people suffering right now. All of these approaches—neutrality, the "lesser evil," and whataboutism—are ways to avoid the harder, more necessary stance: taking a firm stand against oppression and, especially, opposing genocide.

Ultimately, solidarity is about growing together with others who are also committed to self-reflection and systemic change. To find solidarity with individuals who refuse to grow is to undermine the integrity of our collective work. We must remain committed to those who share a sincere openness to learning and evolving. To do otherwise is to waste precious energy that could go toward those willing to stand beside us in our shared struggle.

Towing the mass line is a way for activists to connect their work with the needs and feelings of the people they aim to help. It means understanding the thoughts and experiences of the community and adapting strategies based on what they truly need.

Activists are not leaders or educators; they are part of a collective struggle. Our job is to understand the masses while also being shaped by that struggle. This mutual understanding is what creates a deeper sense of solidarity and shared purpose.

However, towing the mass line also means recognizing when certain ideas or actions are harmful or counterproductive. While it’s crucial to engage with the masses, it’s equally important not to compromise on core principles.

Rosa Luxemburg distinguished between reformism and revolutionary socialism, arguing that reforms within the capitalist system often serve to maintain the status quo rather than bring about real change. She believed that while reforms can provide temporary improvements for workers, they do not address the fundamental issues of capitalism and may even reinforce existing power structures.

Liberal democracies prioritize maintaining the status quo, when capitalism collapses liberalism creates openings for authoritarianism to grow unchecked. Fascist movements have historically exploited these weaknesses within liberal societies, capitalizing on social unrest and discontent.

As a result, democratic values erode, allowing for the rise of oppressive regimes. By prioritizing solidarity with those open to learning and embracing principled activism, we can create a more effective, sustainable and resilient movement.

https://agonas.substack.com/p/empathy-cant-be-taught

[blindpig]

The dead weight of old slogans: how Trotskyists justify their sell-out

The Euro-American fake left are hiding behind 19th-century slogans that have no relevance to anti-imperialist struggles.


We would do well to remember the words of Josef Stalin a century ago: ‘The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is waging for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchist views of the Emir and his associates, for it weakens, disintegrates and undermines imperialism.’
Proletarian writers

Thursday 31 October 2024

This article is reproduced from Marx Engels Lenin Institute with thanks.

*****
“The most dangerous of all in this respect are those who do not wish to understand that the fight against imperialism is a sham and humbug unless it is inseparably bound up with the fight against opportunism.” (Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, 1916, Chapter 10)

When it comes to the question of support for national-liberation movements the Trotskyites routinely mislead their followers. The cases of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine Ansarullah in Yemen and the Iranian revolution have all caught them out and revealed the Trotskyites’ pro-imperialist nature.

The common complaint from the Trotskyites when it comes to movements that are rooted in religious traditions is that these are “backward” or inherently reactionary and that Marxists cannot possibly support them. Currently, British Trots are wailing about how no one should support Hezbollah because they are a group inspired by the ideals of shia Islam. The Trots proclaim that it should be secular Arab nationalists leading this struggle not those inspired by Islam.

That’s a rather funny statement when you know the history of Trotskyism, because 50 years ago, when Arab nationalism was still a real force, the Trots denounced its leaders as “Stalinists”. Even as late as 2011, British Trots took an objectively pro-war position when it came to the war on Libya, calling for the overthrow of Gadaffi and echoing every single imperialist lie about the Libyan government.

The Trots are laughable, but their deceptions point to a far bigger problem in the imperialist countries, which is the total inability of sp many so-called ‘Marxists’ to analyse imperialism in a serious way. They also lack any tactical awareness when it comes to prioritising which contradictions are primary.

The question of religion is one that always catches the Euro-American left out because they take the European leftist tradition and impose it on other areas of the world with no real understanding of how national-liberation struggles alter the religions of these countries.

In Europe, the established Church hierarchy backed up the feudal remnants and then stood solidly behind the capitalist order, frequently collaborating with fascism as well. In colonised and oppressed nations, the religious question is more complex. In some cases, the religious hierarchies stood with the landlords, capitalists and reactionaries against communist parties in the last century.

But the defeat of communist and nationalist forces in the middle east has produced something of a change. The demand for national liberation in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Yemen remained even after the Arab left collapsed. The demand was so urgent that it entered into the mosques and produced nationalist movements that use Islam as their inspiration. The struggle for national liberation thus produces versions of Islam that are totally at odds with the ultra-reactionary, pro-imperialist variants propagated by the allies of US imperialism in the Gulf states.

It is crucial to understand the Iranian revolution primarily as an anti-imperialist event, with Khomeinism even containing some anti-capitalist elements. Hezbollah, too, is principally an independence force which arose from the poverty-stricken shia areas of Lebanon and which has come to play the vanguard role in the struggle for Lebanese independence.

The failure of the Euro-American left to understand any of this stems from the fact that they don’t actually understand that in nations like Palestine and Lebanon the primary contradiction is imperialism. Until they are freed from occupation and neo-colonial control then the class struggle cannot be fully realised.

Both VI Lenin and Josef Stalin both understood this very well. This is why Stalin said in 1925 that the communists of the oppressed nations should unite with all forces opposing imperialism. Mao Zedong also understood this, which is why the Communist Party of China (CPC) prioritised the defeat of Japanese imperialism over and above everything else. Mao understood that until the Japanese were defeated and ejected from the country, nothing else could be achieved.

Hezbollah is the force leading the resistance to US imperialism in Lebanon right now. In Palestine it is Hamas playing the lead role, while in Yemen it is Ansarullah. And the Islamic Republic of Iran is playing a crucial in supporting all of these. It is this Axis of Resisance that is waging the struggle for national liberation across west Asia right now.

Theirs are the fighters who are in the firing line, battling the brutal and murderous forces of US imperialism. Until US imperialism and its criminal allies are defeated, there can be no progress, in the east or the west.

Those struggling against US imperialism are our natural allies, because we have a shared interest in the defeat of the imperialist system. As Ayatollah Khamenei’s recent sermon emphasised, there is a firm anti-imperialist understanding amongst many in Iran, and this is shared in Palestine and Lebanon. In fact, they have a far better understanding of the situation than the delusional Euro-American ‘leftists’.

The failure of the Euro-American left is a reflection of its complete inability to comprehend imperialism as a system. They do not see it is the primary contradiction because they have failed to adequately analyse it and are unable to see how it is the enemy of workers domestically as well as of the nations it oppresses internationally.

These self-identifying leftists endlessly repeat slogans from the European anti-clerical struggles, when the clergy were firmly on the side of the landlords and capitalists, and try to apply them to nations in which religion has been mobilised in support of the struggles of the oppressed.

This is how slogans that were revolutionary in 19th century Europe have become utterly reactionary, not facilitating our shared struggle but instead forming a barrier between workers in the west and those who are physically fighting imperialism in the here and now.

https://thecommunists.org/2024/10/31/ne ... -sell-out/

[blindpig]

How to Conduct Communism Propaganda
No. 11/99.XI.2024

The answer of the Great Stalin: “ Plow the soil deeply and seriously enlighten people’s minds! ”

So put on the back burner those grand plans for comics, cartoons, memes and anything else that doesn't meet the criteria of seriousness.

Someone might object: under Stalin, agitprop was conducted on a broad front - from songs, poems, cartoons, musical films, pictures in the primer and on postcards to the publication of works by materialist scientists, classics of Marxism and the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. And this is true. However, even this fact shows that a steady increase in competent communists was ensured only by serious education, primarily by the theory of Marxism-Leninism. The rest sank into oblivion.

We are the ideological heirs not of the best examples of artistic creativity of the Stalin era, but of Stalin's works on Leninism, the "Short Course", "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR" and the works of Lenin, Engels, Marx . And all the rest of the Soviet agitprop, even from the Stalin period, touches people infinitely far from Marxism.

So, let's get to the topic and in order.

From the point of view of political science (bourgeois pseudoscience), propaganda is the formation and manipulation of public opinion. Political scientists are not interested in the truth, especially regarding the essence of social processes. Political scientists serve specific classes and develop means and methods to solve specific tasks of employers. Naturally, they develop general principles of influencing people's consciousness to force them to think in one way or another, to act or not to act in certain situations.

Propaganda is a type of social relations. Their content is the process of disseminating ideas, which among bourgeois figures is entirely subordinated to intent.

The word "propaganda" has acquired a negative connotation because propaganda information intentionally narrows the view of those it is directed at, presenting the situation only from the side that is advantageous to the customer. Therefore, counter-propaganda is often built not on counter-arguments or exposure of propaganda, but on familiarization with various, alternative points of view. The counter-propagandist does not necessarily have to convince, it is enough to sow the seed of doubt or confuse, thereby reducing or leveling the effect of propaganda.

The content of bourgeois propaganda is directly related to the order of its implementation. In other words, WHAT is said depends on HOW it is said, and vice versa. Therefore, blindly copying certain elements, means, and methods of bourgeois propaganda is not the smartest move. It may turn out bright, attractive, advertising, and even popular, but without results.

It is important to understand that the essence of bourgeois propaganda and counter-propaganda is to force someone to do or not to do something (in reality, this is not even propaganda, but agitation). Therefore, the means and methods of propaganda are often absurd and immoral (rumors, fakes, shocking, speculation, exaggeration, distortion).

If the customers of bourgeois propaganda had the ability to force their will to be carried out, then no propaganda would exist in principle.

There is, of course, bourgeois propaganda, which cannot be called agitation. For example, in science, education, journalism, and the like. But political science does not actually classify it as propaganda.

Unlike bourgeois propaganda, the propaganda of communism is first and foremost enlightenment, education, that is, the dissemination of scientific views. The inculcation of a scientific worldview and the development of conscience form a supporter of communism, and then, in the course of the struggle, the personality of a communist . This is the first thing that should be understood about propaganda.

What is the difference between propaganda and agitation?

“Both are the introduction of consciousness into the proletariat, that is, the introduction of scientific truths into the worldview of people.

Propaganda mainly presents theory and theoretical positions, helps to understand the essence of certain phenomena based on a scientific understanding of the laws of social development. Propaganda usually takes a specific social phenomenon as an object and reveals its essence through the theoretical exposition of Marxism.

Agitation is a truncated and simplified version of propaganda aimed at the assimilation of one or several theoretical positions. Agitation usually takes as an object a specific fact encountered by the agitated persons, and in the most accessible way proves or points out its social cause. In other words, the agitator, starting from the fact, directs the thought of the reader, viewer or listener to the theoretical position of Marxism on this or that law of development of society or the essence of a phenomenon. In addition, the agitator tries to influence not only the knowledge of the agitated, but also by special means on their mood, causing a desire to side with the forces of progress and to ensure their active support. Agitation has a greater emotional coloring, and the skills of the agitator are associated with the power of his charisma and eloquence. More detailed means - a magazine, newspaper, book, brochure, report - are generally used in propaganda, and a leaflet, speech, declaration, conversation, poster, caricature, video clip and the like - in agitation. Agitation, by its basic properties, is capable of influencing a wider circle of people than propaganda."

Today, propaganda is coming to the forefront, and this distinguishes our situation from the beginning of the 20th century.

The second thing that should be understood is that the propagandist, like the agitator, must become significantly more educated in the field of Marxist theory than his reader . That is, it is unacceptable for the propagandist to be guided by the principle of “the main thing is to start, and then we will figure it out together…”.

Or, in other words, a propagandist should take on a task only when he has thoroughly understood it himself. He must be responsible. A responsible approach to the task and straightforwardness are the accompaniment to gaining authority .

It follows that normal propaganda is incompatible with turning publishing activities into a discussion platform, a showdown, a polemic, a place for squabbles or personal opinions. First, you need to understand the theory, come to a consensus, and then present your position to the public and try to attract people to you.

We, the breakthroughs, have such a position, so we suggest that our supporters study it carefully and independently, voluntarily and conscientiously come to it. If there are doubts or disagreements, then either they need to be overcome independently, or we are not on the same path.

Thirdly , the propaganda of communism is based on the developed and developing theory of communism . Not emotional participation, not a heightened sense of justice, not class instinct, not a desire to return Soviet power, but a scientific worldview: from the fundamental truths of dialectical materialism to a far-sighted vision of the communist future of all mankind.

To generalize, one might think that only a deeply ploughed theoretician can become a real propagandist. This is both true and not true.

Ideally, a propagandist should be a theorist. Moreover, propaganda is often a means of developing the theory itself. But nothing is ideal in life, so everything must be considered in the process of formation.

In the activity of Marxist propaganda there is an element that plays a decisive role in self-education - the central link in the development of the personality of a Marxist, in his transformation into a communist. This is a repetition of what is already known in his own words.

Sometimes they tell me: "Give me a topic for an article." And when I give them a topic for an article, they respond with disappointment that there is already such-and-such an article about it in a newspaper and such-and-such an article in a magazine. And they complain that they still won't be able to write better than their senior colleagues have already written.

The point here is that propaganda works exactly like this - the same idea, the same theoretical position is repeated dozens of times in different words, using different examples from life, using "fresh historical material". There is no ideal in this sense. Otherwise, why would anyone repeat anything after Marx? You can't beat him anyway, he is a genius.

Moreover, repetition can be seen in the masters of bourgeois propaganda. Replication of the same thing is the basis of any propaganda, because that is how the human psyche works.

And it's not so much about maintaining attention and concentration. It has been said more than once that most people are forced to have a frivolous attitude towards intellectual work. To achieve mastery in any "manual" task, you need to repeat the operations tens of thousands of times, to hone the movements to automatism. But to understand the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, it is supposedly enough to read them once. That's not how it works.

The same goes for the propaganda of communism. In order to convey some theoretical position, it is necessary to express it in many different articles, to cite dozens of arguments, to try different historical leads and to connect it in different ways with the entire system of Marxist truths. It is not enough for the reader to read it once, he needs to read it many times and preferably in different formulations. Only in this way will the reader learn to think.

Repeated repetition of the same thing is the basis of every result. Nothing is done well the first time, including the assimilation of material. There is a skill of thinking, there is a skill of political orientation, there is a habit of inquisitiveness and the ability to look at the root - all this should be taught by the propaganda of communism, the repeated presentation of Marxist truths.

Moreover, in order to correctly understand and assimilate well what you have read about the theory, you need to think it through. And there is no better way to think through what you are assimilating than to retell it, preferably to another person with the purpose of convincing him.

Therefore, it is necessary to conduct propaganda of communism, maximally replicating our position in a variety of formulations, on various materials, in a variety of presentation styles, and so on. While uncompromisingly preserving the scientific content!

Of course, the propaganda of Marxist theory is not limited to just repeating the known, it is associated with the development of the theory itself, its enrichment on the basis of practice. And this is the business of theoreticians.

But theorists are not born. You need to start writing high-quality essays. And this is an important part of propaganda, which many beginning writers do not recognize.

The main thing is not to forget Stalin’s “ deeply plow the soil and seriously enlighten heads .”

A. Redin

https://prorivists.org/99_prop/

Google Translator

[blindpig]

Defining socialism
By Prabhat Patnaik (Posted Nov 30, 2024)

Originally published: Peoples Democracy on December 1, 2024 (more by Peoples Democracy) |

HEARING a petition on November 22 to remove the term “socialism” from the Preamble of the Indian Constitution, the Chief Justice of India made two significant observations: first, the term “socialism” in the Preamble of the Constitution is used not in any doctrinaire sense but refers rather to a welfare state that ensures equality of opportunity for all citizens; and second, “socialism” in this sense is part of the basic structure of the Constitution; it is not just an add-on to the Preamble but rather something that permeates the very essence of what we want the Indian republic to be.

The CJI refrained from giving “socialism” an institutional character. All over the world the term “socialism” has been taken to mean social ownership of the means of production, at least of the key means of production; but the CJI, defining “socialism” in terms of outcome rather than the institution of ownership suggested that private enterprise was not incompatible with “socialism”; what really mattered was the creation of a welfare state ensuring equality of opportunity for all citizens.

The institutional definition of socialism, in terms of the ownership of the means of production, is pervasively used because social ownership is considered a necessary condition for ensuring a welfare state with equality of opportunity. The CJI however suggested that this outcome could be obtained even without the institution of social ownership. To be sure, socialism is not concerned only with creating a welfare state with equality of opportunity; its objective is more far-reaching, namely to create a new community by transcending the state of fragmentation into atomised individuals that capitalism brings to a society. But the new community must also be characterised by a welfare state with equality of opportunity; the point is whether such a welfare state with equality of opportunity can be achieved even without social ownership of the means of production.

We believe that it cannot; but we shall not, apart from citing some obvious instances of contradiction between private enterprise and equality of opportunity, enter into this debate here. Rather, we would urge the Supreme Court to adhere to the CJI’s commitment to equality of opportunity and examine what a society characterised by equality of opportunity would have to look like. This becomes important because nobody can possibly argue that the current Indian society, with its increasing concentration of wealth on the one hand, and growing unemployment and nutritional poverty on the other, is moving in the direction of ensuring equality of opportunity; but then the question arises: what are the markers of such a move towards equality of opportunity?

Clearly there can be no equality of opportunity in a world where there is unemployment, or what Marx had called a reserve army of labour. The incomes of the unemployed are much lower than those of the employed, even if the former get an unemployed allowance; the children of the unemployed therefore would suffer from deprivations of various kinds that would make equality of opportunity between them and the children of others an impossibility.

Quite apart from the economic inequality arising from unemployment, there is also the stigma of unemployment, the loss of self-worth on the part of the unemployed, which necessarily makes for a traumatised childhood for the progeny of the unemployed. Such trauma can be eliminated, which is a must for equality of opportunity, only if unemployment itself is eliminated.

One way of overcoming the economic deprivation arising from unemployment would be to have the unemployed earning the same wage rate as the employed, that is, making the unemployment allowance equal to the wage -rate; but this is not possible in an economy with private enterprise. The existence of unemployment acts as a disciplining device on the workers, not just under capitalism, but in any economy where there is a significant private sector; because of this, the unemployed earning the same wage as the employed, or, put differently, the unemployment allowance being the same as the wage rate, would be unacceptable in such an economy, for it would then remove this disciplining device. The “sack” would lose all its punitive force, as would be the case too if there is actual full employment.

The first contradiction between equality of opportunity on the one hand and private enterprise on the other arises therefore on the question of unemployment. But whether the CJI would agree with it or not, he must recognise at least that the existence of unemployment is a barrier to equality of opportunity.

The second obvious requirement of equality of opportunity is the total elimination of, or at least a very substantial reduction in, the scope for inheriting wealth. A billionaire’s son and a worker’s son can hardly be said to have equality of opportunity if the former inherits his father’s billions. In fact even bourgeois economics which attributes capitalists’ profits, and hence wealth, to their having some special quality that others lack, cannot defend inheritance, for it goes against this very argument of “wealth-because-of-some-special-quality”. This is why most capitalist countries have high inheritance taxation, the rate in Japan being 55 per cent, and in other major countries around 40 per cent. In India amazingly there is no inheritance taxation, which flies in the face of equality of opportunity.

The third requirement of equality of opportunity is that, quite apart from inheritance being proscribed, wealth differences themselves should be minimised. Wealth brings power, including political and social power, and a society where power is unevenly distributed, can hardly be said to provide equal opportunity to all. Hence quite apart from the fact that wealth should not be allowed to get passed on to children, the effects of wealth in the form of providing an undue advantage to children during the parent’s life-time, must be prevented, for which wealth differences must be minimised. And exactly the same holds for income differences, which should also be minimised if equality of opportunity is to be ensured.

The fourth obvious requirement is that economic inequality must not be allowed to impinge on the educational qualification or the level of skill acquisition of the progeny. This in turn requires that the access to education and skill acquisition must be equalised for all, through a public education system that provides training of the highest quality, either free or at an extremely nominal price affordable by all. Far from the privatisation that has been occurring in the sphere of education in our country and elsewhere under neoliberalism, which makes a mockery of equality of opportunity by excluding vast numbers of students from its ambit, there should be a universalisation of high-quality and fully-affordable public education. In fact, even when there is such a public education system, as long as expensive private institutions exist there may be a false prestige associated with them that subverts equality of opportunity by favouring recruitment from such institutions; this has to be countered by ensuring that private institutions, if they exist, charge no higher fees than public ones. They can in short only be charitable institutions.

The fifth requirement relates to healthcare, where exactly the same considerations apply. The provision of universal high-quality healthcare, through a National Health Service under the aegis of the government, that is entirely free or demands a nominal price affordable by all, is an essential condition for equality of opportunity.

These are some absolutely obvious and yet minimal requirements for ensuring equality of opportunity. The fact that post-war social democracy which bult up a welfare state in the advanced capitalist countries, and used Keynesian demand management to keep unemployment down to a minimum (around 2 per cent in Britain in the early 1960s), neither succeeded in achieving genuine equality of opportunity, nor could prove to be a durable achievement (it collapsed because of the inflationary crisis of the late sixties and the early seventies) is significant: it shows the impossibility of achieving equality of opportunity in a society that continues to be divided along class lines.

The inflationary crisis that consumed the welfare state was a result of the high employment rate and also of the loss of that complete control over primary commodity producers in distant lands which had been provided earlier under colonialism to the metropolis; these developments intensified class conflict and inflation was the result. It is only in a society where class antagonisms do not exist because the means of production are socially owned, that there can be genuine equality of opportunity.

But let us not argue on this issue. Let the Supreme Court remain committed to the provision of a welfare state with equality of opportunity. Any steps in that direction, even though short of socialism, should be welcome to all socialists.

https://mronline.org/2024/11/30/defining-socialism/

[blindpig]

Book: Trotsky(ism): Tool of Imperialism by Harpal Brar

Unless the pernicious influence of this Trojan horse is rooted out, our movement will succeed neither in stopping imperialist war nor in overthrowing imperialist rule.
Harpal Brar

Tuesday 10 December 2024


In Britain today, the Trotskyites’ practical programme amounts to support for the imperialist Labour party, support for imperialist wars, and implacable hostility toward genuine revolutionaries.

Download a digital copy of this pamphlet. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3.c ... ialism.pdf

Buy a copy from our shop.

*****

Today’s Trotskyites claim to be the ‘true inheritors’ of VI Lenin, faithful upholders of revolutionary Leninist ideology and of the Bolshevik organising tradition which brought us the world’s first socialist state in 1917. But in reality their organisations and leaders play the role of agent provocateur in the working-class movement, just as Leon Trotsky himself did throughout his lifetime.

By consistently denigrating and opposing the forces that actually fight imperialism, whether at home or abroad, Trotskyism works to mislead potential revolutionaries and prevent them from making any meaningful contribution to the struggle for socialism. Despite their constant calls for strikes and uprisings ‘now’, no Trotskyist group has ever led a successful movement against capitalism in over a century of revolutionary posturing.

More than that: Trotskyism has actively impeded all such struggles. By re-packaging imperialist lies in ‘Leninist’ phrases, Trotskyists promote ‘analyses’ and slogans that mislead and confuse rather than educating, and they engage in activities that are designed to prevent any advance of the working class.

In Britain today, their practical programme amounts to support for the imperialist Labour party, support for imperialist wars, and implacable hostility toward genuine revolutionaries. A plethora of Trotskyist organisations are funded by the British state and promoted by British corporate media: one of many strategies used by the capitalist class to sabotage the efforts of the workers to fulfil their historic mission of rising to the position of ruling class and building a bright socialist future.

This pamphlet contains an essential overview of Trotsky’s political activities and his warped ideology, which was first published as the preface to Harpal Brar’s seminal Trotskyism or Leninism? in 1993.

Alongside this is our party’s analysis of the newly-branded Trotskyite Trojan horse, the so-called ‘Revolutionary Communist Party’ (RCP), an exposure of the Trotskyite myths contained in Ken Loach’s Orwellian Land and Freedom movie, and Josef Stalin’s brilliant ideological demolition of Trotskyism. There are also some useful recommendations for further reading on the topic and a small selection of letters and quotations from the provocateur-in-chief himself.

Watching the role of Trotskyism in demobilising some of the most motivated of our workers and students, misdirecting their energies and ultimately imbuing them with passivity and cynicism, it is of primary importance that real socialists learn to understand just what it is that makes this ideology so dangerous, how we can recognise it in all its various guises, and why and how we can combat its influence in our movement.

https://thecommunists.org/2024/12/10/ne ... rpal-brar/

******

What is ideology?
No. 12/100.XII.2024

Ideology is an element of the superstructure of all unscientific and anti-scientific formations, it is formed as a result of an incorrect reflection of reality and is firmly dependent on the base, first of all on the dominant form of social relations in a specific historical era. At different levels of development of society, various anti-scientific idealistic and vulgar-materialistic concepts appeared in the person of ideology, entire superstructure institutions were formed to promote such ideology, for example, in the era of the feudal formation, such an institution was the church, which to this day keeps the masses in total ignorance, to which nationalism and democracy have now also joined. The task of ideology, therefore, is to preserve the current dominant relations in favor of the exploiters by all effective means. The dominant form of reflection of reality becomes the philosophical and methodological error, characteristic of a given historical era. In turn, liberalism dominates capitalism with its "sacred right" of private property, with the exaltation of individualism, market competition and other forms of cannibalism. Bourgeois ideologists impose on the masses the absolute normality, legality and infallibility of capitalist production relations. The concept of the "American dream" is quite indicative in this regard. To sum up, we can say this: the word "ideology" is accepted in Marxism to denote unscientific and anti-scientific concepts in social science, i.e. mystical, religious, idealistic, vulgar-materialistic, racial, nationalistic dogmas, teachings, theories. Marxism, in turn, is a science built on historical-factual material and a logically impeccable methodology, therefore it cannot be an ideology. Marxism is the method that should guide humanity on the path to endless progress, to a world society of happiness, in accordance with the objective laws of development of society and the surrounding world.

Until a certain time, it was also customary to speak of communist, Marxist ideology. If in the classical Marxist understanding, ideology is a form of delusion, instilled by various appendages, institutions, and lackeys of exploitative formations based on private property relations, in order to slow down the development of society and preserve the dying dominant relations, then Lenin, speaking of "Marxist ideology", had in mind nothing other than a scientific worldview, which had to be instilled by party members, the so-called ideologists, among the masses. However, regardless of whether or not Lenin has the phrase "scientific ideology", taking into account the bitter lessons of history in the form of the degeneration of the CPSU and the processes of decay in the left environment, in particular in parties with communist names, where there are so-called "ideological departments", among which, as practice has shown, there is not a single bearer of a scientific worldview, it makes sense to apply the word " science " to Marxism, everywhere and always, and not "ideology". Humanity is moving from an era when its social existence was organized exclusively by ideology, primarily religious and racist, to an era when social existence will be built solely on the basis of the conclusions of science, when each member of society will proceed from these conclusions. In approximately the same way that Lenin and Stalin eventually abandoned the use of the expression "dictatorship of the proletariat" in favor of "dictatorship of the working class", the same should be done with the word "ideology".

In addition to what has been written, I would like to quote :

"'Communist society', if we briefly formulate the meaning of this phrase, means a society organized in strict accordance with the requirements of the objective laws of development. Therefore, when we say 'communist worldview', we mean, first of all, a scientific understanding of the world, and when we say 'scientific understanding of the world', we mean only the communist worldview, but in no way an ideology constructed 'out of thin air', similar to numerous religious, nationalistic and racial ideologies. The communist worldview is not an ideology in its original sense, although this is precisely the word that has taken root in both the 'KPSS' and democratic literature."

In turn, the expression "scientific centralism" is only a resuscitation of the Leninist term and the main principle of party building in the conditions of a changed social situation, in attempts to cleanse theory from the influence of opportunist tentacles. Real scientific training, that is, mastering all the knowledge that the classics and the progressive part of humanity have developed, is the main criterion for co-opting an individual into the governing bodies. At the same time, it is enough for the primary bodies to have, first of all, an iron discipline based on diligence and recognition of the scientific authority of the governing body - the Central Organ. The formation of conscious discipline is carried out through a stable desire to learn Marxism, developing in oneself an unbending conviction in the power of a scientific worldview, and not a blind faith in some "idea". Then everything will be decided due to the quality of self-education of local leaders, the most assiduous and capable. For a start, those who have mastered at least the entire "Capital" and "Science of Logic" and demonstrate their theoretical knowledge in practice, primarily in running a printed (electronic) publication. Science is the only true method for reflecting reality, for explaining the state of affairs and the future prospects for the development of society. The minimum guarantor of successful, as historical practice has shown, construction of communism is at least one leader with the highest scientific training and competence of an organizer at the head of the party, but the task of the PNC is mastering the scientific method of cognition by all party members, where an important factor is conscience = dialectical, creative thinking, guaranteeing maximum protection from the penetration of opportunism and the successful advancement of humanity to its real history. In the future, each member of communist society will master the scientific, dialectical method of reflecting and transforming reality.

M. Matvienko
10/12/2024

https://prorivists.org/100_ideology/

I understand the purpose of this re-defining but find it 'persnickety'. Like Anax said in the OP, without ideology you don't have squat. Ideology does not necessarily infer blind belief though it often is that.

I have always been a tad uncomfortable with the use of the word 'science' in Marxist literature but suppose it beats the wordy "dialectical method of reflecting and transforming reality."

[blindpig]

Some Clarity on Imperialism Today

Imperialism is not the creation of any one or of any group of states. It is the product of a particular stage of ripeness in the world development of capital, an innately international condition, an indivisible whole, that is recognizable only in all its relations, and from which no nation can hold aloof at will… Rosa Luxemburg, The Crisis of German Social Democracy (1916)


The arguments embroiling the left on the nature of imperialism, over whether Peoples’ China or Russia is capitalist or imperialist, whether the pink tide in Latin America is a socialist trend, whether the BRICS development is an anti-imperialist movement, and so forth, are becoming more and more heated as they proceed further and further into the academic weeds.


There is a host of issues and positions entangled in these debates, as well as numerous vested interests: deeply felt, long held theories, research platforms, and networks of intellectual allies.


Moreover, these arguments are decidedly one-sided: long on academic opinion, short on working-class or activist participation.


That said, they are important and deserve discussion.


A recent interview of Steve Ellner by Federico Fuentes in LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal is a place to begin to unravel some of these disputes. Now Steve Ellner is neither a surrogate in nor a straw man for this discussion. Ellner is a thoughtful, analytical academic with a long-committed history in the Latin American solidarity movement and with a background on the left. He is more likely to say “X may mean…” rather than “X must mean…” than many of his academic colleagues. That is to say, he is no enemy of nuance.


Ellner begins with Lenin, as he should, and asserts that Lenin’s theory is both “political-military” and “economic.” This, of course, is correct. In Chapter seven of Imperialism, Lenin specifies five characteristics of the imperialist system. Four are economic: the decisive role of monopoly capital, the merging of financial and industrial capital, the export of capital, and the internationalization of monopoly capital. One is political-military: the division of the world between the greatest capitalist powers.


Lenin gives no weight to these characteristics because they are together necessary and sufficient for defining imperialism as a system emerging in the late nineteenth century. Imperialism, for Lenin, is a stage and not a club.


Following John Bellamy Foster, the editor of Monthly Review, Ellner posits that there are two interpretations of imperialism that some believe follow from the two aspects of imperialism. Indeed, there may well be two interpretations, but given Lenin’s unitary interpretation of imperialism in Chapter seven, they are misinterpretations of Lenin’s thought. Recognizing that Lenin explicitly says that he offers a definition “that will embrace the following five essential features…,” there is, perhaps to the dismay of some, only one valid interpretation-- an interpretation that combines the economic with the political-military.


That said, Foster and Ellner are correct in critically appraising those who do misinterpret imperialism as solely political-military (contestation of territories among great powers) or as solely economic (capitalist exploitation). Truly, most of the misunderstandings about imperialism since Lenin’s time come from advocating one misinterpretation rather than the other, while failing to perceive imperialism as a system.


Ellner gently rejects one political-military interpretation that he associates with Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin: equating “imperialism with the political domination of the US empire, backed of course by military power…” Ellner rejects that thesis, “given declining US prestige and global economic instability.” An interpretation that separates and privileges the political-military from the economic necessarily decouples imperialism from capitalism-- something that Lenin explicitly denies. Accordingly, it follows that modern-day imperialism-- including US imperialism-- would be akin to the adventures of Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan, leaving exploitation as, at best, a contingent feature.


A solely political-military explanation of imperialism is a step removed from the more robust Leninist explanation.


Ellner considers the economic interpretation: “At the other extreme are those left theorists who focus on the dominance of global capital and minimize the importance of the nation-state.” Ellner has in mind as his immediate target the position staked out by William I Robinson, Jerry Harris, and others in the late 1990s, a position that rides the then-dramatic wave of globalization to posit a supremely powerful Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC) that overshadows, even renders obsolete, the nation-state.


At the time, others pointed out that the substantial quantitative changes in trade and investment and their global sweep had been seen before and were simply a repeat of the past, most telling in the decades before the first world war. Were these changes not a continuation of the qualitative changes addressed in Lenin’s Imperialism?


Like many speculations that overshoot the evidence, the projected decline or death of the nation-state was made irrelevant by the march of history. The many endless and expanding wars of the twenty-first century underscored the vitality of the nation-state as an historical actor. And the intense economic nationalism spawned by the economic crises of recent decades signals the demise of globalization-- a phenomenon that proved to be a phase and not a new stage of capitalism. Sanctions and tariffs are the mark of robust, aggressive nation-states.


The tempest in an academic teapot stirred by the artificial separation of the economic and the political-military in Lenin’s theory of imperialism is enabled by lack of clarity about the nature of the state. Left thinkers, especially in the Anglophone world, have neglected or derided the Leninist concept of State-Monopoly Capitalism-- the process of fusion between the state and the influence and interests of monopoly capitalism-- which explains exactly how and why the nation-state functions today in the energy wars between Russia and the US and the technology wars between Peoples’ China (e.g., Huawei) and the US. Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran’s casual dismissal of the concept of State-Monopoly Capitalism in Monopoly Capital (1966) is representative of the utter contempt shown for Communist research projects by many so-called “Western Marxists.” While the theory of State-Monopoly Capitalism gets no hearing among Marxist academics, the slippery, but ominous-sounding concept of “deep state” has achieved wide-spread acceptance, while not taxing the comfort of Western intellectuals.


Nonetheless, Robinson’s stress on the political economy of imperialism cannot easily be dismissed. His reliance on the key concepts of class and exploitation are certainly essential to Lenin’s theory.


In fact, the greatest challenge to the political-military aspect of Lenin’s theory was not the alleged decline of the nation-state, but the demise of the colonial system, especially with the wide-spread independence movements after World War II. The crude and totalizing domination of weaker nations favored by the Spanish, French, Portuguese, and British Empires-- the division of the world into administered colonies-- was, with nominal independence, replaced by a system of more benign economic domination. Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian revolutionary, designated this system “neo-colonialism” in his book, Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. Nkrumah’s elaboration of Lenin’s theory preserved the integrity of Lenin’s “political-military” aspect by reconstituting the colonial division of the world by the great powers into a neo-colonial division of the world into spheres of interest and of prevailing economic influence.


Since Ellner correctly acknowledges that Lenin’s economic and political-military aspects are essential to his theory of imperialism, he must contend with an awkward, vexing question that continually divides the left: how does the People’s Republic of China (PRC) fit into the world imperialist system? What does its deep and broad participation in the global market mean?


Ellner appeals to the facts that the PRC does not have bases throughout the world, does not use sanctions (not true!), and does not exploit the excuse of human rights to intervene in the affairs of other countries.


But surely this side steps Nkrumah’s powerful thesis that imperialism in the post-World War II era is not simply the vulgar exercise of administrative and military power and the exhibition of national chauvinism. It is, rather, the division of the world into spheres of interest that both benefit the great powers through exploitation and the competition with other great powers for shares of the bounty.


Certainly, the PRC does not avow a policy of imperial predation, but neither does the US or any other great power from the past. Indeed, imperialism has always been presented-- sincerely or not-- as beneficial to all parties, whether it is a civilizing function, a paternalistic boost, or protection from other powers. The Chinese leadership may well truthfully believe that their trade, investment, and partnership with other countries is a victory for all-- a “win-win” as some like to say.


But that is always the answer that great powers give that are using their capital, their know-how, and their trade to profit their corporations. Perhaps, the most notorious of these “win-win” projects was the Marshall Plan. Sold to Europe as a “win-win” based on Europe’s impoverishment and the US’s generosity, billions were allocated for loans, grants, and investments in Europe. History shows that billions in new business for US corporations were thus created, Cold War political dependency and loyalty were achieved, and the US retained new markets for decades. The big winners, of course, were US corporations and their capital-starved European counterparts.


Other US investment and “aid” projects, like The Alliance for Progress, were more blatantly guided by US interests and even less a “win” for their targets.


This was the era of the development theories of W. W. Rostow that offered a blueprint and a justification for the investment of capital in and the corporate penetration of poorer countries. It was, in fact, a justification for neo-colonialism. Yet Rostow’s stage theory of lifting countries from poverty can appear surprisingly consonant with the logic of the PRC’s foreign investment strategies.


It is hard to resist the temptation to ask: How is this different from the PRC Belt and Road Initiative? How is the BRI different from the Marshall Plan? Or, to use an example from Lenin’s time, the Berlin-Baghdad railroad project?


It is beyond dispute that Peoples’ China-- whatever the goals of its ruling Communist Party-- has a massive capitalist sector, with many corporations arguably of monopoly concentration rivaling their US and European counterparts, that similarly seek investment opportunities for their accumulated capital. That is, after all, the motion of capitalism.


What is baffling and frustrating for those sympathetic to the Communist Party of China is the failure for the CPC’s leaders to frame their economic policies towards other states in the language of class or employ the concept of exploitation. In Comrade Xi’s recent speeches at the Kazan meeting of BRICS+, there are many references to “multilateralism,” “equitable global development,” “security,” “cooperation,” “advancing global governance reform,” “innovation,” “green development,” “harmonious coexistence,” “common prosperity,” and “modernization,” -- all ideas that would resonate with the audience of the G7. How would these values change the class relations of the BRICS+ nations? What does this thinking do to alleviate the exploitation of capitalist corporations?


These are the questions Ellner and others should be asking of the PRC’s leaders and the advocates of BRICS+. These are the questions that probe how today’s nation-states participate in the imperialist system and how that participation affects working people.


The problem is that many on the left would like to believe that there is a form of anti-imperialism that is not anti-capitalist. They find in the BRI and BRICS+ a model that competes with United States imperialism and could be said to be therefore anti-US imperialist, but leaves capitalism intact. Of course, it is impossible to embrace this view and retain Lenin’s theory of imperialism. Every page in the pamphlet, Imperialism, affirms the intimate relation between imperialism and capitalism. The very subtitle-- The Final Stage of Capitalism-- is testimony to that connection.


Ellner suggests that a political case can be made in the US for singling out US imperialism over imperialism, in general. He wants us to believe, through an example of Bernie Sanders’ strategic thinking, that criticizing US foreign policy is far more threatening to the ruling class than Sanders’ “socialism.” That may be true of Sanders’ tepid social democratic posture, but not of any serious “socialist” stance against capitalism and its international face.


We get a taste of Ellner’s vision of the role of BRICS-style anti-imperialism when he conjectures that “Anti-imperialism is one effective way to drive a wedge between the Democratic Party machine and large sectors of the party who are progressive but vote for Democratic candidates as a lesser of two evils.” Rather than take the failed “lesser-of-two-evils” policy head on, rather than contesting the idea of always voting for candidates who are bad, but maybe not as bad as an opponent, the left might instead wean Democrats away from slavish support for the Democratic Party agenda by standing against US foreign policy (which is largely bipartisan!). If trickery and parlor games count as a left strategy within the Democratic Party orbit, maybe it's time to leave that orbit and look to building a third party.


Ellner’s interrogator, Federico Fuentes, correctly questions how making US imperialism the immediate target of the Western left might possibly overshadow or even conflict with the class struggle, the fight for socialism. He opines: “There can be a problem when prioritising US imperialism leads to a kind of ‘lesser evil’ politics in which genuine democratic and worker struggles are not just underrated, but directly opposed on the basis that they weaken the struggle against US imperialism…”


Fuentes and Ellner, in this regard, are fully aware of the recent dispute between the Maduro government and the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) over the direction of the Bolivarian process, a dispute that resulted in an attempt to eviscerate the PCV on the part of Maduro’s governing party. Because the PCV was opposing the Maduro party in the July, 2024 election, Maduro maneuvered to have the PCV stripped of its identity, securing an endorsement from a bogus PCV constructed of whole cloth by Venezuelan courts.


From the PCV’s perspective, the Maduro government had abandoned the struggle for socialism in deed, if not word, and turned on the working class, compromising Chavismo in order to hold on to power. As a Leninist party, PCV held fast to the view that there is no anti-imperialism without anti-capitalism. Thus, the government’s reversal of many working-class gains had lost working-class support and, therefore, the support of the PCV.


Some Western leftists uncritically support the Maduro government and deny or ignore the facts of the matter. They are delusional. The facts are indisputable. Ellner is not among those denying them.


Still others argue that defense of the Bolivarian process against the machinations of US imperialism should be an unconditional obligation of all progressive Venezuelans, including the Communists. Therefore, the Communists were wrong to not support the government.


But surely this thinking calls for Venezuelan workers to set aside their interests to serve some bourgeois notion of national sovereignty. It is one thing to defend the interests of the workers against the enslavement or exploitation of a foreign power. It is quite another to defend the bourgeois state and its own exploiters without taking exception.


This was the question that workers and their political parties faced on many occasions in the twentieth century: whether they would rally around a flag of national sovereignty when they essentially had little to gain but a fleeting national pride.


As Lenin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, and their contemporaries argued during the brutal bloodletting of the First World War, workers should refuse to participate in the “anti-imperialism” of national chauvinism, the clash of capitalist states.


The road to defeating imperial aggression-- US or any other-- is to win the working class to the fight, with a class-oriented program that attacks the roots of imperialism: capitalism. Unity around the goal of defeating the imperialist enemy-- in Russia, China, Vietnam, or anywhere else-- was won by siding with workers against capital, not accommodating or compromising with it. That was the message that the Communist Party tried to deliver to the Maduro government.


Restraining, containing, or deflecting US imperialism will not defeat the system of imperialism, anymore than restraining, containing, deflecting, or even overwhelming British imperialism, as occurred in the past, defeated imperialism. Only replacing capitalism with socialism will end imperialism.


That in no way diminishes the day-to-day struggle against US domination. It does, however, mean that the countries participating in the global capitalist market will reinforce the existing imperialist system until they exit capitalism. While there can be an anti-US imperialist coalition among capitalist-based countries, there can be no anti-imperialist coalition made up of countries committed to the capitalist road.


The left must be clear: a multipolar capitalist world has no more chance of escaping the ravages of imperialism than a unipolar capitalist world. If anything, multipolarity multiples and intensifies inter-imperialist rivalry.


Greg Godels

zzsblogml@gmail.com

http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2024/12/som ... today.html

I agree that Maduro was out of line messing with the PCV. I also think that PCV, while correct in theory, is not taking into account Venezuela's precarious situation; sitting on Uncle Satan's back door and having mass quantities oil. That situation makes the likelihood of serious military intervention a much greater possibility than most places. Full on expropriation, as much as I'd like to see it, would probably trigger that. Preserving sovereignty is paramount, you can't do jack without it. I am reminded of our doubts and confusion about China 15-20 years ago, not that I would compare those countries, only our doubts. Maduro could let us down mightily in the end, but I think this might be the only feasible scenario. At least until the US is forced to give up on hegemony.

As per China sovereignty has also been the paramount issue for the same reason stated above. Adoption of a strong capitalist sector serves multiple priorities: rapid economic expansion, modernization, especially the military, and often overlooked I think, by giving US capitalists a stake in China, dangling the wet dream of China's political conversion, provided a shield against America's 'China Hawks'. That last function is about played out, but it's purpose has been completed. And now having attained economic might China is exerting it's political influence around the world. Which would have been crushed with nukes had China gone with exporting revolution directly. It's a tricky business and there's no guarantee that China will be able it dismount the capitalist tiger successfully, but again it was probably the only game in town with a chance of success.

[blindpig]

Different leftists
No. 12/100.XII.2024

If we generalize and summarize the leftist, pro-Marxist propaganda, we get approximately the following picture. Everything is bad, the proletariat lives poorly, suffers and fights in the trenches with no prospect of improving the situation of its class, the bourgeois government is no good, the oligarchy is living in luxury.

What should more or less conscious workers, engineers, and employees with leftist views do?

1. Left: economists (tailism)
Some suggest not to waste attention and energy on clarifying political issues (it's all clear anyway, capitalism!) and to concentrate on the everyday. Such leftists are convinced that the proletariat in fact does not care about anything except the struggle for its rights and economic interests: "You can't get workers with Marxism!"

Moreover, such leftists do not reject the very idea of ​​revolution. How does its achievement look in their logic? This: they unite with the workers' movement, fan the workers' struggle, unite the proletariat, becoming its leaders. And then, having led the iron battalions of the proletariat, they take power by reviving the Soviets - organs of power primarily of industrial workers.

This plan is based on an unfounded assumption. That the construction of communism meets the natural interests, demands and needs of factory workers. Such leftists have a vulgar understanding of the history of the Great October Revolution and Bolshevism. It seems to them that Marxism and communism arose within the labor movement as its ideology. Whereas in reality, the ideology organically inherent in the labor movement is wage bargaining (trade unionism) or, at best, anarcho-syndicalism.

The Bolsheviks relied on the industrial proletariat because they found in it a social force for the revolutionary transformation of society, sufficient not only to accomplish the revolution, but also to build a classless society. The "social base" of communism is formed objectively by capitalism itself, which has transformed a significant part of the population into sufficiently educated and fully organized workers, who, among other things, have found themselves torn away from the land and concentrated in the cities. Thus, capitalism hourly creates its gravedigger - the proletariat. But this does not mean that the proletariat will automatically destroy capitalism simply because it exists and is constantly replenished. The historical role of the proletariat must be correctly understood, taking into account the relationship between the objective (spontaneous) and the subjective (conscious).

Marxism itself , as a theory and practice of building communism, arose outside the labor movement, initially as a science, and then became a revolutionary teaching and a holistic worldview, essentially, of the people of the future. Communists are the people who know the future, for communism is, first of all, the future of humanity. And as we all know very well, in the future there will be neither a proletariat, nor a working class, nor even a state in a strictly scientific sense .

Although all leftists recognize that the key to revolution lies in the formula of the union of Marxism and the workers' movement, every opportunist interprets it incorrectly in practice.

Some Soviet books wrote that Marxism-Leninism is the worldview of the working class. If this were so, then capitalism would already be studied as the last chapter in a textbook on anthropogenesis. As soon as Marxism-Leninism becomes the worldview of workers, all adults on Earth, it will be possible to celebrate the victory of scientific thinking and the construction of mature communism.

2. The Left: Liberal doormats
Other leftists, on the contrary, focus their attention and energy on the political struggle. True, this struggle is purely bourgeois. They say: "Down with the Putin regime!", replenishing the ranks of grant-eaters, agents of European and American imperialism. In words, even such leftists do not reject the revolution, although they often understand it vulgarly, as a democratic revolution.

What is the logic of these "friends of the people"? We will attack with the whole world and sweep away the regime, a large-scale national crisis will occur, the system of power will be democratized, the proletariat will stir up and... First of all, of course, the leaders of such leftists dream of getting into some kind of coalition government and a government of national salvation. But they can even dream of creating parallel Soviet organs of power. Fantasies can be different, but the essence is clear.

These leftists don’t even have an independent plan as such; they take as their basis the plan of the liberal opposition, that is, the plan of the bourgeois struggle, in which the powerful, dominant US imperialism on the world stage (+ its allied imperialism of the EU) seeks to destroy its competitor – the imperialism of the Russian Federation.

The idea of ​​"fighting the Putin regime" uses an incorrect historical analogy of fighting autocracy. They say that Putin is a tyrant like the Tsar, the regime is either fascist, or semi-fascist, or even feudal, etc., like the Tsar's, and these leftists are Bolsheviks, ready to ally with progressive liberals for the sake of... a bourgeois-democratic revolution.

There are no unfounded assumptions here, but rather a banal revision of Marxism and a cover-up of the intra-class and inter-class bourgeois struggle with leftist rhetoric.

Generally speaking, the struggle for power is carried out when you have an organization capable of taking this power and at least potentially holding on to it . We can recall Lenin's famous remark: "There is such a party!"

If the disparate leftists with their microscopic circles and clubs persuade the most pliable young supporters to jump on the Maidan against Putin and Lukashenko, then we must clearly understand who will wrest power from the hands of the "overthrown tyrants." Khodorkovskys, Volkovs, Navalnayas will come to Russia from emigration and, with Western money, will destroy the country, plunging it into yet another chaos of property redistribution. Will this bring the establishment of the dictatorship of the working class closer?

This is not to mention the fact that the bourgeois, imperialist Russian Federation, with all its conservatism, in the international arena is 1) a friendly force to socialist China, Cuba, Vietnam and the socialist-oriented governments of Venezuela and Nicaragua; 2) an ally of socialist North Korea; 3) a counterweight to the neocolonial policy of Western imperialism in Africa and even the Middle East.

It is easy to imagine how the communists in power in other countries feel about the pro-liberal-oppositional anti-Putin struggle of such leftists and whether they consider them leftists at all... That is why, by the way, the majority of such leftist fighters are certified Trotskyists who deny the real class nature of the PRC, DPRK, SRV, Cuba, LPDR and the progressiveness of the leftist governments of the Chavistas, Sandinistas and other anti-imperialist, national liberation, but non-Marxist parties and figures.

3. Left: the waiters
There are also those on the left who are taking a sort of wait-and-see position. They believe that the difficult times of the third world war will form a revolutionary working class led by a communist party. And they usually expect that this will happen through the growth of the labor movement in the form of strike activity, from which a party will miraculously crystallize.

In the meantime, they sit above the events that are taking place, conducting superficial propaganda consisting of a critical and accusatory retelling of the news.

Indeed, the aggravation of international contradictions politicizes the proletariat in all countries. The rapidly changing situation, conflicts, wars, and militarization of all countries evoke a response in the proletarian masses. People are trying to get their bearings and understand where and what the truth is. Some of them are thinking about how society is structured in general, its economic base and political superstructure. However, it would be the height of naivety to expect that the people, under the blows of crises and hardships, will take the path of struggle for communism. There is only a growing demand for change, to which, by the way, bourgeois politicians are adapting quite quickly and skillfully.

Marxism attributes the issues of party building and organizing the proletariat into a revolutionary class around the party exclusively to the subjective side of the movement. No spontaneous, objective factors can form a communist party by definition.

However, the waiters easily turn into liberal doormats, as they are often swayed towards the fight against the regime.

4. Left: Patriots
But for obvious reasons, the greatest activity of late has been shown by the leftists who have chosen patriotism as their central principle. For them, communism is an infinitely distant ideal that they keep in mind. They usually do not use the word "communism", contenting themselves with the popular name of its first phase - the term "socialism". Such leftist patriots are entirely focused on two things: 1) the fight against the external threat, the defense of the bourgeois fatherland and 2) creating pressure on the government from the left.

In essence, this position differs little from the idea of ​​a revolution from above, Putin’s left turn.

Usually, this is the way of thinking of quite decent people who have little understanding of Marxism. The leaders of left-patriotic organizations, circles and get-togethers are, as a rule, pragmatists and careerists. For them, Marxist and near-Marxist rhetoric is a means and method of winning sympathy, personal advancement, for example, to the State Duma.

*
Can any of the leftists be considered friends or even fellow travelers? Does any of their activity in any way bring communism closer, or in any way organize the proletariat into a working (laboring) class?

The organizational forms developed in the course of the economic resistance of the proletariat (the highest is the inter-industry trade union) are absolutely unsuitable for political struggle. Trade unions and strike committees are organizations without ideas, adapted only to the process of servicing the sale of labor power and improving working conditions.

The practice and organizational forms of the liberal opposition Maidan fuss have no relation at all to the prospects of the communist revolution, nor to the order and factors of its implementation.

Conducting accusatory propaganda for the widest circle may have some positive effect on the most general ideas of its audience, but it is essentially revolutionary Manilovism. The uselessness of such a position is unequivocal, and the harm consists mainly in the implantation of pessimism and the lack of training of personnel. Pessimism is vitally important for such propagandists, because accusatory speech is spread the better, the more vividly the horrors of the present and especially the future are painted.

Left patriots, unlike other groups, do not have their own independent position and their own organizational practice. They support the bourgeois government because it is strong and is the lesser of two evils compared to compradors, Westerners, and liberals. That is, they are also useless for the cause of communism.

Propaganda and information activity of all leftist groups in general can be useful from the point of view that someone will outgrow them with their own mind and reach our normal and mature position. But this is least likely, of course, with the Trotskyists from the pro-liberal camp. In general, the hysteria of the permanent struggle with the regime in our conditions is partly something mental, not particularly connected with the intellect, so it is almost unrealistic for Marxism to break through there.

So the main types of leftists, if they are fellow travelers, then only at the level of the most general fascination of people with something similar to Marxism. The conventional proletarian will listen to some regular left propagandist on Puchkov's channel, then, perhaps, will start reading the works of the classics and move on to studying the modern theoretical literature of the breakthroughs. One in a hundred. With the same success, bourgeois professors of leftist views can be listed as fellow travelers.

However, one way or another, the rank and file leftists are the main source of supporters and communist cadres. And the rank and file leftists, as a rule, start with a fascination with someone popular in the left movement.

*
Scientific centralists prefer Marxist truth, in the words of Stalin:

"It is not a question of who the larger or smaller masses follow today, but of the essence of the teaching. If the teaching expresses the truth, then it goes without saying that it will certainly make its way and gather the masses around itself. If it is untenable and built on a false foundation, it will not last long and will hang in the air."

We, unlike the eternally wavering left, cannot compromise on theory, including because our unity is cemented by the scientific nature of our worldview, the uniformity of our understanding of reality from the fundamental categories of existence to the issues of building mature communism on Earth.

The scientific nature of the links of revolutionary tactics cannot be verified by the laws of PR and marketing - "where the crowd was washed up, there is the truth". Only victories in class (political!) struggle are an indicator and criterion of truth. So popularity measurements do not have much meaning.

Few would argue that the historical demands on communists have increased significantly due to the growing intelligence of our enemy, the oligarchy, and the improvement of the imperialist system. Many people think that since imperialism is characterized by decay and the complete material preparation of the first phase of communism, it means that our work is only becoming simpler with time. In fact, the decay of capitalism is also expressed in the corruption of the average person. The longer capitalism develops and spreads in a given territory, the more difficult it is for Marxism there.

The Communist Party in our conditions must have a multi-thousand-strong active, united by the highest discipline, and dozens of leaders devoted to the cause. And the formation of the headquarters of the future class is the first and foremost task of Marxists.

“Objective conditions,” it is stated in the section on answers to frequently asked questions , “dictate the need for personnel of a certain quality, and this is feasible if, on the one hand, we are able to properly organize political and educational work, and on the other hand, we work in such a way that the attraction and recruitment of personnel is carried out, including in an already sufficiently competent and professionally developed proletarian environment, in order to facilitate the solution of the task at hand.”

True, some breakthroughs considered that although they had not yet acquired indisputable authority in the proletarian environment, they had no more strength to work methodically, so something had to be changed urgently, propaganda and agitation had to be reoriented to a wider audience. The times were supposedly coming when it was necessary to act, to “grow flesh”. Naturally, in the conditions of this false time crunch, scientific centralism had to be forgotten.

Scientific centralism requires much more profound and long-term personnel work. To implement it, it is necessary: ​​1) to abandon the principle of democratic centralism, especially when developing strategic decisions; 2) to develop decisions exclusively through scientific research, by achieving scientific unanimity, first of all, in the leading bodies of the party; 3) to accept into the party only persons who have fully proven the proper attitude to the study of Marxism-Leninism and its propaganda. To accept into the leading bodies of the party at all levels people who have proven in practice their theoretical validity (having Marxist publications with original content), who have demonstrated propaganda and organizational skills (which means abandoning the principle of recognizing the program in favor of the principle of understanding and applying the program in practice); 4) to build the party not from the bottom up, but from the top down - from an authoritative Marxist printed publication, around which the most literate, proven cadres unite; 5) to staff the Central Organ, regional and local printed organs by the method of co-optation based on the results of specific scientific and propaganda work; 6) to recognize as leadership cadres only those persons who are fully proficient in dialectical material methodology and who continuously improve their theoretical level; 7) to recognize as the internal law of the party's life the strictest discipline based on the mobilization of party conscience, on comradeship, excluding competition and careerism in any form. The norm of behavior of a party member must be initiative born of the comrade's inner conviction of his scientific maturity, competence, and readiness to bear personal responsibility for suitability for the post he holds. The main criterion for nominating a comrade for leadership work by the party collective must be his competence, confirmed by the practical results of his personal propaganda, agitation and organization; 8) to recognize the priority of the theoretical form of class struggle, at all stages of the class struggle, especially if the country at the present moment has not yet entered a period of a directly revolutionary situation; 9) put forward the slogan of continuous self-education of each party member; 10) put forward the principle of comradely dialogue, excluding competition and duplicity, instead of the traditional stimulation of discussions.

Only such people can be relied upon in the matter of building communism.

A. Redin
12/12/2024

https://prorivists.org/100_lefts/

Google Translator

[blindpig]

US Congress Revives Cold War Tactics With New Anti-Communism School Curriculum
December 16, 2024


A girl tours an exhibition dedicated to the day of new regions’ reunification with Russia at the Victory Museum on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow, Russia. Photo: Kirill Zykov/AP.

By Alan Macleod – Dec 13, 2024

Congress has just passed a new bill that will see the U.S. spend huge sums of money redesigning much of the public school system around the ideology of anti-communism. The “Crucial Communism Teaching Act” is now being read in the Senate, where it is all but certain to pass. The move comes amid growing public anger at the economic system and increased public support for socialism.

The Crucial Communism Teaching Act, in its own words, is designed to teach children that “certain political ideologies, including communism and totalitarianism…conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy that are essential to the founding of the United States.”

Although sponsored by Republicans, it enjoys widespread support from Democrats and is focused on China, Venezuela, Cuba and other targets of U.S. empire. The wording of the bill has many worried that this will be a centerpiece of a new era of anti-communist hysteria, similar to previous McCarthyist periods.

The curriculum will be designed by the controversial Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and will ensure all American high school students “understand the dangers of communism and similar political ideologies” and “learn that communism has led to the deaths of over 100,000,000 victims worldwide.” It will also develop a series titled “Portraits in Patriotism,” that will expose students to individuals who are “victims of the political ideologies” in question.

A Discredited Book
The 100 million figure originates with the notorious pseudoscience text, “The Black Book of Communism.” A collection of political essays, the book’s central claim is that 100 million people have perished as a result of the communist ideology. However, even many of its contributors and co-writers have distanced themselves from it, claiming that the lead author was “obsessed” with reaching the 100 million figure, to the point that he simply conjured millions of deaths from nowhere.

Its methodology was also universally panned, with many pointing out that the tens of millions of Soviet and Nazi losses during World War II were attributed to communist ideology. This means that both Adolf Hitler himself and many of his victims are counted towards the vastly overinflated figure. The book was condemned by Holocaust remembrance groups as whitewashing and even lionizing genocidal fascist groups as anti-communist heroes.

The principal organization promoting the 100 million figure today is the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which has shown a similar level of both anti-communist devotion and methodological rigor. The group, set up by the U.S. government in 1993, added all worldwide COVID-19 deaths to the victims of communism list, arguing that the coronavirus was a communist disease because it originated in China. It is these people who will be designing the new curriculum that will be taught in social studies, government, history, and economics classes across the country.

China Hawks
One of the central goals of the bill is also to “ensure that high school students in the United States understand that 1,500,000,000 people still suffer under communism.” This is a clear reference to China, a rapidly developing country that, in just two generations, has gone from one of the poorest on Earth to a global superpower, challenging and even surpassing the United States on many quality-of-life indicators.

The bill goes on to detail how the school curriculum will “focus on ongoing human rights abuses by such regimes, such as the treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” by the Chinese “regime” and its “aggression” towards “pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong,” and Taiwan, who it labels “a democratic friend of the United States.”

Furthermore, many of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s “Witness Project” case studies – likely the source for the “Portraits in Patriotism” series – are from China. This includes Rushan Abbas, the founder and executive director of the Campaign for Uyghurs, a pressure group funded by CIA front organization, the National Endowment for Democracy. Abbas was also previously employed as a translator at the notorious Guantánamo Bay torture camp.

The U.S. is currently engaged in a quickly-escalating Cold War against China that includes channeling money and support to separatist movements, including those in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan, as MintPress News has reported. In September, the House of Representatives passed a bill that authorized $1.6 billion to be spent on anti-Chinese messaging worldwide.

Latin America: a Model and a Target
The other major target of the bill will likely be socialist or communist-led governments in Latin America. The act’s sponsor is Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican Congressperson representing Miami. A part of Florida’s famously conservative Cuban-American community, in 2023, she introduced the FORCE Act, which attempted to block any U.S. president from normalizing relations with Cuba unless its government is overthrown. She has repeatedly condemned President Biden for easing the (illegal) U.S. sanctions on Venezuela. And in July, she denounced what she described as the “socialist curse in Central America and the Caribbean,” singling out Cuban, Venezuela, Honduras, and Nicaragua as countries requiring regime change.

She is, however, an avid supporter of the far-right President of Argentina, Javier Milei, accepting his invitation to attend his inauguration. Argentina, she said, “is going to set the course and point of reference for the rest of Latin America as to the way that a country should be governed… Free market economy, small government, individual liberties, freedom, private sector, no corruption, that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Perhaps the only foreign country she praises more than Argentina is Israel, whose actions she has supported at every step, even going so far as to denounce what she called the “one-sided pressure for a ceasefire” in Gaza.

Salazar’s bill passed easily, 327-62, with limited opposition from Democrats or Republicans, who voted for and against it in roughly equal measures. Even many members of the Progressive Caucus voted in favor, proving that anti-communism is as popular on the left as it is on the right.



A New McCarthyism?
The imminent passing of the Crucial Communism Teaching Act harkens back to earlier anti-communist periods in American history, namely the Red Scare of the 1910s and the McCarthyist era of the 1940s and 1950s. During those times, organized labor movements were ruthlessly attacked, workers from all professions, including professors, government officials, and teachers, were fired en masse, and some of America’s brightest minds had their careers derailed due to their political leanings. This included singer Paul Robeson, actors like Charlie Chaplain and Marilyn Monroe, playwright Arthur Miller and scientist Albert Einstein.

The point of these operations was to break any opposition to the power of the state and big business and ensure the United States maintained its capitalist course. Today, however, fewer Americans than ever are happy with the current political and economic system. A recent Gallup study found that only 22% of the public are satisfied with how things are going, with a majority responding that they are “very dissatisfied.” Living standards have been stagnating or dropping for decades, and alternative economic systems are becoming more desirable. A 2019 poll from Axios found that 48% of adults under 35 prefer socialism to capitalism, including 57% of female respondents.

There are some signs that Washington is slowly moving towards a new McCarthyist era. President Trump, for example, has promised to carry out mass deportations of leftists once he becomes president, stating:

I will order my government to deny entry to all communists and all Marxists. Those who come to join our country must love our country. We don’t want them if they want to destroy our country… So we’re going to be keeping foreign Christian-hating communists, socialists, and Marxists out of America.”

“At the end of the day, either the communists destroy America, or we destroy the communists,” he explained. But he also stated that American citizens espousing anti-capitalist views would be purged. “My question is, what are we going to do with the ones that are already here, that grew up here? I think we have to pass a new law for them,” he said.

That Trump would actually deport millions of American citizens en masse appears like too drastic a step right now, but it is clear that both Democrats and Republicans are serious in their anti-communist convictions. Therefore, the Crucial Communism Teaching Act will likely only be the start of this campaign.

MintPress News

https://orinocotribune.com/congress-rev ... urriculum/